Dungeon Seige.

[Dyntheos]

Well it's been out for 2 weeks now in the states at least, I know that a few of the IRC crowd have finished it and are on to MP, yet I'd like for those that have the game and have played it to offer some comments about the game.

I find that reviews tend to be more objective after a game has been played for a bit, and patched. I am considering getting it this weekend (it's released here on Saturday) and alot of the reviews I have read have given the game a less than rosy report.

I am an avid D2 fan and still play that regularly, so I think the gameplay would appeal.

Also I have talked to a few ppl about their system specs for the game, and the fps they get. If you could (or would be bothered) it would be handy to know your specs and fps, as well as general play issues you have hardware wise with the game, if any.

Lastly, Hyp on IRC said that the SP was lesser in "power" in regards to items and characters, than MP. Anyone whos been playing online and can share their thoughts would be good.

[Dawn Falcon]

I have DS. I like DS. I doubt I'll bother playing D2 again.

Is it real deep? No.
Does the skill system work? Mostly.
Is the lack of a way to travel quickly between past towns annoying? Yes.
And packmules useful? Early on, yeah.

It IS a good game.

And given some of the siegelets in production for it, it's DEFINATELY worth getting IMO.

Edit:

FPS are ~15, using a Celeron 450 (300A@450), 256MB RAM GF2MX at 800*600*16. Before I switched to simple shadows/bilenar filtering I was getting ~5FPS, but that switch cost me VERY little visual quality.

[ÜberJumper]

I like it better than D2... the multiplayer needs work though, it's REALLY laggy from what I've seen. Also, there's no way aside from honor to really prevent people from beefing up a character then taking it into a MP game.

That's one thing I really liked about the closed battlenet (even though i wasn't on there much). The characters had a sense of uniqueness.

With my system:

AMD 1.2 Tbird
256MB SDRAM
GeForce 2 GTS 64MB
SB Live!
Ultra ATA 100 HDD
WinXP Pro

I get about 15 FPS (or less) at 800x600x32 bilinear/trillinear simple shadows. GPG has acknowledged the framerate problems though, so hopefully there will be a patch out for them soon.

I like DS Better than D2 overall.

[GuaRRand]

K...here goes.

1. Its a real Hack/slash no nonsense game...like diablo.
2. Graphics are AWESOME!!!
3. Storyline sucks, but hey..who cares
4. Framerate r ok when u have a 1GHz / Gforce 2 and up. (which i dont ,but its tsill very playable!!)
5. Experience/levels are gained by the ammount of time u use a particulair feat (more use of magic, makes u better at magic..etc..)
6. 150 Levels to be gained per character (which u won't get in SP...in SP u will reach the end with a level 50-60 character..so the rest is up to MP!!!
7. Toolkit is on the way, so u can make ur own maps.
8. No real bugs in SP (havent played MP that much yet)
9. Enuff characters to " take with you" but i also read that someone finished SP with only one character (and a mule)
10. AWESOME GRAPHICS!!!

Enuff??

[Clint]

My thoughts on Dungeon Siege:

hack and slash, with a non-existant story line (doesn't bother me in the least)

graphics are amazing. I get 22-25fps with a PIII600, 256 megs ram, GForce 3.

IMO, its Diablo, with the ability to handle multiple players that act somewhat intelligent. I have a couple issues with my archers always wanting to tank. formations need a little work

Mules are cool - but i find them really annoying. hehe they always seem to either want to pull - or tank.

I think the editor will have a huge impact on the MP games - providing its a fairly robust tool that allows a wide level of modification to the core game...

Overall i think its a fantastic game with alot of great ideas and improvements in the dungeon crawl genre..

clint

[Arioch]

I finished the single-player campaign and have played a little multiplayer.

The engine is excellent and the controls are very good for controlling an entire party. This means that the development and control of indivdual characters are simplified (compared with DiabloII), but you can competently control 7 or 8 characters, which is fun. I love the pack mule (who does a very good job staying out of trouble, most of the time). Being able to pause and issue commands is nice. The environments are very well done, easily the most impressive part of the game. DS has the first digital forests that really feel like forests.

On the negative side, the story in the single-player game is extremely weak, and the voice-acting is terrible. This isn't critical, but it certainly is a negative point. The single-player campaign just... ends. The characters -- your character, the npc's, and the monsters -- are all very generic. It's hard at times to even tell your own characters apart. There aren't any elves, but that would be the only fantasy cliche missing. Still, this isn't critical to the hack-and-slash gameplay, and I must say I throrughly enjoyed the 37 hours or so it took to play through the campaign.

Although the unit AI for player characters (and the packmule) is decent, the monster AI is pretty dumb; monsters stand around in plain sight waiting for you to arrive, and charge headlong at you as soon as you reach a certain detection range. A very few enemies will try to retreat when they're almost dead, and some will make an effort to get at your packmule or spellcasters, but mainly they're very stupid. Creeping up just enough to set off one or two enemies and pulling back as they chase you to clobber them without setting off the rest (who just stand around) is an effective tactic. Not unusual AI for an RPG, but I mention this because GPG had been talking a lot pre-release about how the monster AI was supposed to be something special. There are some cool bits where unseen monsters burst from the bushes to attack you, but this has more to do with scripting and monster placement than AI.

Multiplayer so far is not quite as strong. The world seems to be a bigger version of the single-player map. You can only control one character, so the simplicity that was a godsend controlling a party of 8 becomes a real limitation with a party of 1. If you're playing with friends, you can have your character follow your pal and auto-engage enemies, and the game literally plays itself; you can play for literally 30 minutes or so without ever touching the keyboard (except perhaps to chat). Lag is pretty bad. I'll definitely play some more, but so far it's not lighting my hair on fire. I didn't play any single-player co-op, but that would probably be pretty fun.

Speed-wise, DS was a bit slow on my machine (a P3-866 with a GeForce2), with noticeable slowdowns in some areas, especially with the camera zoomed out all the way. However, since this is an RPG and not a FPS, this was not a serious detriment to gameplay, and I found it quite acceptable.

The most exciting thing to me about Dungeon Siege is its inherent editability; there its generic-ness becomes a strength instead of a liability. I look forward to user-created campaigns that will probably be much more interesting than the fairly tepid one that comes with the game.

[Stripe7]

Finished the SP this weekend and started up a brand new character in MP. Trying to take him thru all the quests in MP. Got up to the third stone and got to Meren and on the quest for the 4th stone.

[IgnusDei]

Er, does anyone know how to DISMISS characters in SP?

[molo]

I mention this because GPG had been talking a lot pre-release about how the monster AI was supposed to be something special.

This is an interesting and somewhat depressing point, Arioch ... I playtested the game at Microsoft several months back, probably six, and they had testers playing what was basically their e³ demo. Monster AI was basically nonexistant - a response circle and a direct straight-line attack is not what I consider AI. After testing DS I decided to wait for reviews - and it seems that my fears have been confirmed: they didn't change anything important.

[Arioch]

Ignus: took me a while to figure out how to dismiss people too. The Dismiss button is in the formation palette (at the lower right corner of the screen); it's the topmost right button, with an arrow pointing away from the group of circles. Intuitive, no?

There seem to be a lot of undocumented or poorly documented features in DS. For example, I played most of the way through before someone told me that you can use number keys with Ctrl to set weapon/spell groups (sort of like unit groups in RTS games). It's nowhere in the manual or readme file that I can find.

Molotov: Yes, agreed. Chalk it up to yet more ambitious ideas that "didn't make it into the game." Here's the quote from Chris Taylor that was talking about his plans for the AI:

I know everyone likes to say they have incredible AI, but this is one area we are really pushing on. For example, if you are fighting a mob of monsters and one of the characters in your party drops dead, one of the monsters might grab a weapon they were carrying and run off and hide somewhere. Now you have to go on a monster hunt to get that cool sword back. This is a simple example, but it demonstrates that not all monster AI is about the way they attack. One of our goals has been to make the monsters seem like they actually have a purpose in the world… and that they belong in each of the environments where you encounter them.

I played a little more multiplayer over the last few days. There are two multiplayer maps: one is a copy of the single player map, and the other is a larger, new map (although it has a very similar feel to the single player map). The new map does have a very interesting portal system where you can move rapidly between regions; you get on a platform and press a button, and you're whisked off to a netherworld where you can choose from platforms that lead to the various towns. Riding the platform down to the town is pretty cool, as you can look down and see the ground approach from far below.

[Stripe7]

Well I have been experimenting with differenct characters in MP and different party arrangements in SP. So my highest level character is 53. However level 54 is required to play in veteran difficulty in MP and 83 for Elite. Equivalent to the nightmare or hell levels in Diablo.

[F.A.]

Hmm... maybe its just me, but i find mages utterly useless in later game? I mean their spells do so little damage it aint funny and the only use for them is to heal tanks (not like they need any healing anyway).

btw, back to the topic - DS=Diablo on steroids=FUN!!!

[Dyntheos]

Well I did the purchase and have been at it for a while.

Arioch those commands are in the manual, they are one of the best features of the game. I have 1-4 hot keyed for specific weapon loadouts, I have 1= all melee + damage spells, 2=melee + 2 healers, 3=all range + damage spells ranged, and 4 being all ranged with one healer.

Being able to click 3 then when the monsters close to 1, then 2 when i need to heal then back to 1 is a great way of using the characters ablilties to the maximum.

So far i have enjoyed the game, yet I find the overall powerlevel of the individual characters weak at this point. More playing will hopefully open this up.

I have the camera set up to w,a,s,d keys with other hot keys setup around them for quick access to other features of the game such as groupings.

The game is packed with features and i find that the AI while mentioned above as been circle zones tends to be workable due to the amount of creatures you fight. The ranged attackers do however stay at range and the melee attackers do swarm you. The Monsters ressurect their dead and go for spell casters. With the kind of gameplay you are looking at I don't see what kind of major inovations you can make to how the monsters respond.

The use of terrain and particular creatures is well used as they are well hidden in bushes quite often and you can get surrounded easily if your not careful.

My system handles things quite nicely with no noticable slowdown. I have a 1gig athlon with 392 RAM and a GF2mx card. All settings are at max.

Graphics and sound are excellent and I think the game is well worth the money. Being used to playing Diablo I think the plot is quite ok and not that bad for a hack and slash and there are quite a few side quests.

I see the game being qute linear though, but thats ok as running backwards through areas already cleared is boring.

My only gripe I suppose is the 100 dollar price tag here in Australia, it seems that software here is on the up and up. I still see forking over the dollars as worth it tho albeit grudgingly.

I hope a patch brings some added value to things once its released.

[Shin]

It's quite fun for me.

I think of it as a better D2 considering of course that I liked D2 enough to play it for 4 hours.

The SP is weak, yes. The AI is weak, yes.

Most of the fun I have with the game are the effect of the terrain on the combat, playing around with weapon settings, the control keys for different weapon setups (I use 5), and the D2-ish feature of requiring certain levels of attributes to use the better equipment.

Major gripe is that the monsters don't respawn in SP.

I won't beat around the bush anymore, DS is really just one of the games that will help me wait for Neverwinter Nights.

[GuaRRand]

Originally posted by Shin
It's quite fun for me.

I think of it as a better D2 considering of course that I liked D2 enough to play it for 4 hours.

The SP is weak, yes. The AI is weak, yes.

Most of the fun I have with the game are the effect of the terrain on the combat, playing around with weapon settings, the control keys for different weapon setups (I use 5), and the D2-ish feature of requiring certain levels of attributes to use the better equipment.

Major gripe is that the monsters don't respawn in SP.

I won't beat around the bush anymore, DS is really just one of the games that will help me wait for Neverwinter Nights.

AND NWN is closer then u think
Reports say june 11th, while others still say june 25th..
Anyway, almost all gamesites and magazines have it for hune atleast.
Just enuff time to finish DS SP

-END-

[IgnusDei]

Note to self: don't die until June.

I really can't wait until this game comes out. Problem is, i'm gonna have to share an acount with my brother. Dang. I hope it has multi-character support per account.

[Stripe7]

Neverwinter Nights, the most anticipated game in 2000, 2001, 2002.....

Ignus, NWN's is designed primarilly for small groups of players (upto 64 I believe) to play together on a server one of the other players sets up. One person can act as the Game master and run a group of players thru a dungeon just like the old pen and paper D&D games. So you need 1 copy of the game to play you do not need accounts.