Tigranes

I think the combat design is the real highlight, the stance system is very fun in practice - with buddy co-op & hardcore difficulty the resurrection mechanic will also make it even more tense. It's a pity this isn't backed up by enemies that have more 'punch' to them (i.e. look like they're running on solid ground instead of floating, though few games manage this), but the animations are nice to look at, too. Quests / story is still unknown really, since most of the demo was the tutorial area. Game also looks quite good for the most part, with a couple of problems (character models).

I don't know how you can even check for level scaling in the demo, unless you sit and count the hit points of a single enemy (and even then, that's assuming all lescanzi bandits with the same texture, for instance, will always have the same HP unless level scaled). So I remain skeptical unless proof is given.

OK, played through the demo with Anjali: Gameplay I played on Hardcore and it was way too easy the first 10 minutes, but after that I was dying plenty of times. Enemies look really stupid if you're fighting mob critters 1v1, since they seem to take 5 seconds to take a single swing, but when they're in a group they really can be deadly, and you quickly learn to take out the gunners with their low rate of fire but high damage, not get in melee with the heavily armoured dudes, etc. The stances are also a great idea - it's very clearly differentiated with Anjali at least and combat gets very frenetic. I do think that in the full game you'd be wanting a bit more customisation and a bit more abilities - maybe 4 per stance instead of 3, just to mix it up more. Or at least make the proficiencies and talents a bit more interesting, as they looked pretty dull to me. We'll see how this holds up in the full game, or whether it gets a bit boring. But so far the combat is very fun and that's what ARPGs are about. Level design is also important - here it was mostly corridor stuff with mobs running at you, for now, no better or worse than 99% of ARPGs out there. It'd be nice to see some creative stuff in the full game, though. Story I think pretty much every Obsidian game suffers from a boring intro and DS3 is no exception - the delivery in the Estate is awful, at least it only lasts 5 minutes. An ambush setting but there's no sense of danger and you never need to hurry. The story never really gets going before the demo is over, though, so it's hard to tell whether it will get a lot more interesting once it gets going, as most Obsidian games do, or it'll stay that way. Right now dialogue and writing is just mediocre - ho hum fantasy stuff. This isn't helped by the fact that the one town you get to visit in the demo is really dead. You can't go into any houses, there's one shop you access by clicking on the stall, 3 people with giant exclamation marks giving you ho hum quests (kill this, get that), then a few villagers with one-liners. It's meant to be a fast-paced ARPG where you don't sit there exploring and talking all day, so I don't mind, but jury's still out on just how much focus story is getting in DS3 and how well it will work. The demo just feels like a normal ARPG. Graphics The game looks really nice, the shadows, lighting, the vistas, etc. Not a fan of character models, though - while I can forgive them being low-poly due to the number of critters, they all look cartoony, and this isn't helped by the bloom (which I better be able to turn off in the main game). They seem to use high poly versions for dialogues, but everyone has glassy eyes and the design again isn't great. Still, for the most part you're looking at combat effects and the landscape, which look great. Controls, Camera, UI Definitely the weakest part of the game - I think the game as a whole stands up really well except for controls in particular. It's not terrible - it's playable, and once you get used to it you can do everything, but it's certainly not crisp and comfortable. You use your mouse cursor to 'aim' your rolls, facing, attacks nad abilities, use up or down to choose front or back, then the left/right keys just turn the camera. So for instance, you can't roll sideways, you have to hit A to turn left, and as you're doing so, hit up & space for forward roll. Ungainly. The good part is that using your abilities & stances is easy, and stance shift is almost instant as well. Camera wasn't a huge deal for me, you choose from 2 options, then if you toggle autoadjust, it works fine, doesn't get stuck much, etc. Not sure why you can't freely adjust the height & angle in single player, but for me the standard view never gave trouble. Similarly, not much wrong with UI - certainly it snaps in very fast (unlike Alpha Protocol), all the information is there, and nothing is particularly ugly or unusable. Definitely should have given PC users an option to scale fonts though, they are massive. Polish / Misc It's only a demo so who knows, but definitely deserves props for delivering on polish - at medium settings game runs smooth, things are responsive, no bugs or crashes, even on my laptop which technically straddles the minimum requirements. Can't comment on multiplayer as the demo only offers local options and I haven't even tried that. Will see if game is easier with a gamepad. In short, very fun combat, mostly good looking, polished, and should be a blast to play on buddy co-op. Main weakness is bad PC controls, then a few issues such as camera/UI that may or may not bug you, depending on the player - and finally, we'll need to wait for full game to see how the story and online co-op is.

They didn't scrap those things for story - they just created a very different game from the get go. It's hard for me to directly compare DS1/2 & 3 and say they added this and removed this, though, because I really thought the games were rubbish. I'm not interested in persuading anyone of that, though, esp. if you enjoyed your time with them. I wonder how things would have turned out if Obsidian said "we'll create a DS3 that is very similar to DS1/2", but several things; (a) Chris Taylor has said GPG themselves would probably have gone down a single-hero route; (b) if we were talking about full multiplayer, Obsidian usually doesn't work on projects with full online MP, so who knows how it would have gone; © setting aside the question of whether DS1/2 were good or bad games, it was never a big franchise with tens of thousands of loyal followers like various other franchises that are being rebooted now - DS1 was, in fact, a derivative game made to capitalise on the tactical RPG boom at the time, and one used to get GPG, then a new company, off the ground. This doesn't make it a bad game, but it means there really weren't that many compelling reasons to make a direct sequel DS3 (which, of course, is bad news for those of you who did love DS1/2).

Enough, discuss the game not the people.

Yeah, Tale, give it up already. You must have missed Matt-C's other posts, it's already been decided the game will fail.

Well.... I'm nearly done downloading.

The radiant story, as far as we've heard, isn't really all that random. It's more of a light dose of randomisation to deal with dying NPCs, etc. Perhaps we'll see some randomised generic quests (go to X and kill Y) mixed in with handcrafted quests, but I don't see it making too much a difference.

Steam rolled around and pissed all over the place as usual, taking an hour to update itself. Downloading now. I don't meet minimum requirements (again) so this should be interesting.

True, you always find idiots doing it for the sake of it. I'm thinking it's also possible that the host will not be able to change his character, if the co-op is built on top of single player (i.e. if the logic is, you're playing a SP game, imagine if your buddy can drop in and pick up a character, now he can - then it wouldn't make sense for you to randomly change your character every 3 minutes). But then, that would be a rather silly limitation for the host character, too.

Arcanum as an evil debutante equally skilled at lockpicking and crafting. Want to do a few things I never got to do, such as recruiting . Should get me through till DS3.

Looks super similar to Oblivion in just about every way, though the weather effects and character models help make it look a lot more real. The only change that might have a significant gameplay impact that you can see there is the more dynamic use of 'hands', which looks cool. - still wondering how much it'll overcome the various flaws Oblivion was dragged down by.

We don't know if that's possible, actually. That is, for the host to change characters on the fly. We do know that a lot of the loot is class/character-specific, so even if a host decided to be an idiot and was able to log in as your character, the worst he/she can do is, I don't know, sell your equipment. That kind of griefing is a worry in MMOs or MP games with a competitive / persistent element, but I don't see why anybody would bother doing that in something like DS3 where there's no PVP, that doesn't screw a character you've built for 6 months, etc.

I'm not interested in selling you anything, since it would be a rather pointless endeavour. The point is that Torchlight was not 'judged' on its lack of MP, and in fact, acts as proof that the millions of peole out there, heaven forbid, can appreciate different types of ARPGs. Whether DS3 succeeds in its own type of ARPG, of course, is a different question that mostly needs to wait for release. Certainly I have my own hopes and misgivings (i.e. savefile restriction).

Actually, this isn't confirmed, since XP gain might be different for each player when they are playing. I expect that in the above example, if your friend decides to jump in as a different character, it will be autolevelled to the host character's current level. And his previous (level 6) character will be in the void, waiting for someone to pick it up.

Funny how Torchlight was very successful. It got pretty pointless after a few hours with a lack of MP, but surprising how they were able to use it to fund their bigger projects, no?

You can make it work with a lower level cap, but ARPGs have traditionally depended on fairly fast level-ups for players in terms of how progression is built. MMOs are obviously different (though MMOs are known to put some people off precisely because you need to grind so long to level up).

I am Korean. Kimchi?

DX3 is a strange one. So many things I've seen I get positive vibes from, and the game looks very solid in video, but just am not excited about it for whatever reason. We'll see. Is it still scheduled for August release? The leaked build would probably be from an earlier period (e.g. March), but should still be a good indication.

One roll in the wrong direction = stunlock for a few hits sounds good to me. ROlling is already overpowered. If you mean stunlocked and beaten to death in an angry sandwich of doom, only happened to me a couple of times, and I found that Geralt is generally able to roll away even when he's being hit - which already makes him improbably agile. But then, I'd swear that sometimes we're all playing different games. I can see (and often make) the parry symbol even at my 8fps game, for example. Definitely agree about the stupidity of not being able to aim before you get close enough or they hit you, though.

Not much on the game, just a profile piece about the artist. Not worth translating, but says Charles Lee, Korean, is the lead (I think?) concept artist for DS3; he says that "40% of the game's background was done by me" - 'background' is unclear, landscapes is most likely but could mean loading screens, etc. Says Lee was also a concept artist for God of War 1, and Obsidian's cancelled Alien RPG. Rest of it's about the guy personally - how he moved to the US at the age of 16, etc. Also mentions that Obsidian's artwork for FNV & DS3 is on display at Anaheim's Promenade Gallery.

Yes, other people could jump in and play your character, level him up, etc., if the host allowed it - so you'd want a reliable host if you wanted to prevent 'coop adultery'. But the host can't mess with someone else's character directly - they don't 'own' your xp/loot in that sense. The host can't make your character run around, die, take your loot, spend your skill points.

Host doesn't 'get everything'. It's not like the host player keeps the loot and XP you have earnt, you just can't transfer it to other games (which would be silly in a level 30 cap game anyway). You play together and everyone gets their own XP and loot. The limitation is that that XP & loot stays in that game. (If you still don't like it, fair enough, but we might as well get it crystal clear)

Story = Voice acting? O_o

Bah, maybe I won't patch then. Clunky my arse, that will just make the combat even more of a mashfest.