Lord Elvewyn

Definitely older, not sure about harder. He's lost the babyfaced killer look - A positive to my mind but then my vote probably doesn't count, I'm not keen on where the game design's gone.

Serious Googling required! X-Box Live Arcade? Something cheap and quick to play? Might need a wee bit of elucidation

from the original of: Looks like no info at all, oh well. True, nothing really new but as I'd stumbled over it I thought I'd mention it. I'd disagree about the interpretation. Not simply in this context means in addition to. For context here's the rest of the paragraph: With the touch of a button or two we can peel back the curtain to discover a game replete with stat screens, ability lists and item collection. Ability choices, the importance of base statistics and equipment selection all mould the characters in very personal ways. So the 'bonus' content is the traditional\expected DS for PC content. Why mention button mashing though if it's not a button masher? It'd be like saying oh a Rolls Royce Phantom's not simply a car it's an experience and meaning it's not a car but solely an experience. As an aside it's interesting to see that this thread looks to be pure Southern Hemisphere posting at present And skimming the Internode preview, cherry picking as I go of course ... "this is not Dungeon Siege as we know it ... there are few things to identify the game as part of the franchise" Players choose one of four characters, Lucas, a swordsman who wields a sword and shield or enormous greatsword, Katarina, a gun-witch armed with a magical rifle and two pistols, Anjali, a fire elemental who either wields a spear as a human or manipulates fire in her elemental form, and Reinhart, a scholar and wizard who can manipulate the powers of kinetic energy and entropy. "... there are no potions in the game ... only instant heals come from ... slain enemies ... can no longer just sit back and regenerate health, or spam potions ..."

Spotted this by accident while glancing through the paper - http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/49...ngeon-Siege-III A few highlights from the review: Odo, or whatever the old soldier is called, is viewed as a 2nd Obi Wan. DS3 is Square Enix's first western RPG - Not sure I'd agree seems a bit more Eastern as I understand it. Action's been significantly streamlined - Not sure what that means. More monsters exploding when hit instead of a slugfest? The game's a new console-friendly button mashing entry into a classic PC RPG experience - Shudder! Okay technically they say not simply but still ... Sounds like skills might fork e.g. would you prefer your Shield Slam did more damage or was a more reliable and enduring form of crowd control? Could be the original article's already been referenced here. It looks it may be a 'reprint' off Gameplanet.co.nz but while I remember being unable to access one preview I don't know if that's the one.

I'm (slightly) over 21 if that's what you mean by mature gamer, though I think my 'unique' personality is leading you to think grey hair & walker or something I did get one of the Fable games but returned it after discovering it had content I wasn't interested in. No I didn't play Force Unleashed, I watched my brother play a terrible console port for a short period of time - he gave up on it - too awful though he persevered longer than I thought he would have.

Oh I've no problem losing the dress Melee is probably a little like the cestus, but I never meleed as a mafe in DS2. I used it purely for the perks provided e.g. better combat magic damage. It's also a very monkish fighting style. For myself no problem with a staff, it's a cool weapon - Think Gandalf - Lord of the Rings, except DS has the option of making it graphically really cool. Again though it's a matter of equipment perks rather than direct usage. I think in DS2 I went primarily combat mage, but may have looked at picking up a few melee survivability skills. Basically a caster though.

Interesting in gameplay or story? They seem interesting enough to play as, but I was never expecting a super deep story with deep characters for this game. This is more about killing everything that moves, grab loot and kill some more to get even better loot. So were DS1 & DS2 at the core of it, but they were more tactical. This seems more like oh Streets of Rage (Yes very old!!!) or something. The focus isn't so much on the killing as button mashing to smash whatever's around your character and all the action's at point blank\near point blank range. I was hoping Reinhart would be the traditional mage - nature because combat magic skills have already been hybridised. Looks like an epic fail though. Judging by the video I just saw he's a hybrid monk\rogue with nature mage skills. So the only class that's been carried from DS1\DS2 is in fact melee aka Luke the babyfaced killer. I'll keep watching\reading but I have to say I'm intensely disappointed in what I've seen of the game. The graphics are great, but that's to be expected of any modern game. Everything else is pretty disappointing. Maybe it'll prove a hit with other sections of the gaming community\the console gamers.

Save game may be correct but not the rest as I understand it. Using your example. If I host I get first choice, and choose Reinhart, which leaves 3 from MY pool for you. You choose Cat which leaves two others available from my pool if anyone else wants to play. When I save and quit, our inventory, including whatever your Cat has, gets saved to my system. If, when I continue, you don't come back you just wasted 8 hours of monster killing time, albeit hopefully had fun wasting it. If you decide to play Cat in someone else's game you have to make sure she's available in their pool. Once in you're established as per the point in the game they are. If they've half completed it with Lucas, Cat will be half levelled up, though her equipment may still be level 0 unless the host of that game has given her equipment. In short the only player to own a pool of inventory, gold, etc is the player hosting. As host I'm graciously allowing you to play in my sandbox. When it's time to leave you have to leave your toys behind! Unfortunately the information on online multiplayer seems to be hard to find (at least for me, heh)... I've only seen one useful article on it, and that was one C2B posted. You can see the interview with associate producer Nathan Davis here... http://www.destructoid.com/obsidian-explai...ns-195120.phtml What the interview says about our online multiplayer characters is that they will be different than our single player ones, and that they will persistently grow as we play them... much like Two Worlds 2 (as the interviewer explains it), or even the first two Dungeon Siege games (which aren't too different than the way the multiplayer in Two Worlds 2 works... as far as multiplayer only characters go). What isn't mentioned, however, is whether or not you will be able to export your single player characters into multiplayer ones, like you could do in the older Dungeon Siege games. As for the loot aspect, Mr. Davis himself says "Co-op players can absolutely expect to have the loot and experience they gain in multiplayer games to be saved to their multiplayer characters". So, there you have it. As lasthearth says. =) Okay that's definitely better, especially for drop in drop out stuff.

Dated & retro in what sense? The graphics look pretty good from what I can see. Interface is another matter of course but that's minor tweaking. Controls perhaps - no we've only seen console to date. Approach? Well I'm not sure I'd call characters as opposed to classes old school but I admit I can't see the reason why they they couldn't do a KotOR\ME etc style character 'class' with a backstory - yeah okay those're all BioWare examples. I could keep brainstorming possibliities but it's probably best if I simply ask retro how???

Save game may be correct but not the rest as I understand it. Using your example. If I host I get first choice, and choose Reinhart, which leaves 3 from MY pool for you. You choose Cat which leaves two others available from my pool if anyone else wants to play. When I save and quit, our inventory, including whatever your Cat has, gets saved to my system. If, when I continue, you don't come back you just wasted 8 hours of monster killing time, albeit hopefully had fun wasting it. If you decide to play Cat in someone else's game you have to make sure she's available in their pool. Once in you're established as per the point in the game they are. If they've half completed it with Lucas, Cat will be half levelled up, though her equipment may still be level 0 unless the host of that game has given her equipment. In short the only player to own a pool of inventory, gold, etc is the player hosting. As host I'm graciously allowing you to play in my sandbox. When it's time to leave you have to leave your toys behind!

No, because you can play a new character from Level 1 along with your friend as well? I don't think there's ever been a game where you can't do that. I'm not sure what has led you to think it would be otherwise? The only thing that changes in DS3 is that now, you don't have to worry about your friend being higher level than you. Just to clarify, you mean you can't play a high level character in a new game, that you have to play one of the unused level 0 characters? Games always offer the choice of starting a new character, well avatar given character has a bit of a different meaning in DS3.

From memory I think you can place down minor explosive mines to blow open containers so whatever you need to build\use those. 4 or 6 or something I think. Given you can pick up equipment to help plus add in ability scores, and use force powers, you could allocate less points than that even. Try checking out the guides on GameSpot\GameFAQ if you want. I'm sure one of those has the answer though it may take a little bit of sklimming to find the right section.

Okay now that you explain the AC yes I've heard of it. I had a look to see what AC might be before and Asheron's Call topped the list. Can't recall Arkham Asylum. I was thinking action RPG rather than action as a genre in its own right - they're very different! I'm not sure I've played anything that would be classed as action. Strategy, simulation, FPS and RPG yes, action, no. I don't think God of War even rings a bell From Wikipedia Action game"emphasizes physical challenges, including hand

No worries. Just put it down to me doing my civic duty, boredom, being in the wrong field (information) ... Found some further info if it's of interest to any Americans desperate for the Limited Edition\people looking for the cheapest Ltd Ed. You can buy it through http://www.fishpond.com.au/Games/Dungeon-S...M/5021290048010 AU$69.97 (~US$72.19) International shipping to US & Canada AU$11.68 + AU$3.86 per item OR http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Games/Dungeon-Si...M/5021290048010 NZ$114 (~US$87.71) International shipping to US & Canada NZ$14.95 + NZ$4.95 per item Amazon UK might be the cheapest option of course =>

I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Yes there are vast differences but the game's not totally different. Of course there's still a lot of info to be revealed. Played Fable very briefly, not heard of AC\Batman so can't comment on them. Point & click is very common for RPG's, probably the dominant style, and I certainly don't see it as a strategy only control style. WASD in contrast is associated with FPS games. Total War games offer a FPS camera control option even though it's a strategy series P&C allows for precise control, something that is much more difficult with WASD, especially when not in a first person view. The WASD RPG's that I can think of are Elder Scrolls (FPV), KotOR and Mass Effect (~FPV), which I think is seen as having DS3 parallels. Mass Effect's technically not FPV, but it's very close. I find a disconnection in that game because I've got a character in the way, something that's really annoying when he obstruct's my view of the guy shooting at me. Actually, just a thought, is it the control style or the third person view you find disconnecting? A bird's eye view moves you back from the character which I guess could disconnect some people. Maybe you don't think you're talking about an FPS control system but you said "more of a WASD for movement, other keys to attack, block etc". Given most people only have two hands, of which only one's spare for the keyboard, there's not too many keys that would be easily accessed without shifting your eyes offscreen, not really a good idea in combat How do you mean you can't control the camera angle? DS you could control vertical and horizonal rotation. As I understand it there are two fixed ranges but rotation's not excluded. Fixed camera was something I found really annoying in TQ (Titan Quest). The range shown in the screenshots to date suggest a moderate distance camera. You'd need up close for WASD to work, e.g. Mass Effect style pseudo FPV. That would be a pretty radical departure from previous DS games/ I agree DS3 looks more twitch oriented than DS. Too consolish and it's going to lose a lot of DS fans though, myself included.

Only the US version. The English language site's still missing it.

It'd be good to clear it up true but it looks like no multiplayer outside Co-Op, at least that's how I read things. Basically DS3 is 4 solo play characters with a Co-Op option to boost (re)playability. Equipment is character based not class based so how could multiplayer work? They'd need to have a totally different multiplayer system. Assuming there was an online multiplayer mode where people could play their own characters, it wouldn't be that difficult. Just look at any other game with an active online trading community. If a warrior finds wizard robes that are extremely nice, he hangs onto them to trade to a wizard for really nice warrior armor (or someone with a wizard alt). =) The fact that class/character restrictions exist on armor doesn't bother me that much, really. Let's hope, though, that they won't allow people that can't use the armor type to pick it up if the character that can use it is playing with them... I could see the potential for some real douche-baggery from people if that was the case (for online play, at least). My impression is that there are no looting restrictions only on equipping, so douche-baggery is quite possible. But why would you play Co-Op with douche-bags? Class restrictions wouldn't be so much of a problem, DS\DS2 had ability\skill limits so Mage characters so it was hard to use 'cross-class' equipment. The issue is if equipment is character based and you're playing a class you wouldn't be the character that could wear it. Obsidian'd need an either or option i.e. character restrictions for solo\Co-Op play class restrictions for multiplayer. The difficulty in multiplayer would be if 4 friends all want to play wizards or play as their 'favourite jocks' (assuming I have the term correct) - all playing grunting male melee characters Equipment shortage? Of course it's not possible in the current Co-Op mode, heck it's not even possible for everyone to play as a guy!

What limited ed.? Europeans have access to a limited edition game that us folks in the US can't get in stores. I figure that I might be able to order it online and get it that way, but I don't know if it would be compatible with a US XBOX. Some games can be played on any XBOX system around the world, and some are only limited to 1 region. I was just wondering what region restrictions this game might have... A developer's comment might be nice. =) Oh sorry. I thought someone was saying a US version had been released. And it's not just "us folks in the the US can't get". It's also us folks that order from the US. Hm just checking the local games store ... They're now offering the limited edition but not the regular. Comes with 4 unique items: [*]Burning Brand of Scorch Ring of Fire [+6] and Strength [+2] Increases the raw damage of your attacks and gives all of your weapons a chance to set your target ablaze. [*]Bite of Arakun Ring of Poison [+12] & Withering [+2] Gives all of your weapons a chance to poison your target with lingering injury or soften their defenses, leaving them vulnerable for follow-up attacks. [*]Talisman of the Grand Mage Amulet of Retribution [+8] and Armor [+8] Reduces incoming damage on the bearer and has a chance to lash out with a mystical attack that injures close combat attackers. [*]Sacred Heart of the Legion Amulet with Warding [+2] and Stamina [+2] Increases the wearer

I'd have to disagree. Point and click works well, and is DS consistent. Using an FPS style control system would not be a good idea. Depending on the camera angles\how it (WASD style control) was implemented it might even be really old school - old school as in DOS generation side scrolling. Mouse precision's better. As for keys to block and attack, is this a console fighting game Street Fighter etc, or PC's DS?

What limited ed.?

It'd be good to clear it up true but it looks like no multiplayer outside Co-Op, at least that's how I read things. Basically DS3 is 4 solo play characters with a Co-Op option to boost (re)playability. Equipment is character based not class based so how could multiplayer work? They'd need to have a totally different multiplayer system.

So he is a mage after all. I'm kind of relieved actually... I love my mage classes. HOORAY, joy to the world DS is saved ... Okay I'm exaggerating, I've still to decide whether DS3 is any good or not but it, finally, apparently, has a proper mage class. I will be very (!!!) interested in seeing the details for that character. Still not solving all my other gripes but it does give me a wee bit of hope. On another note, Cat's still to be revealed as a character on the official DS3 site. Actually, the site's nerfed at the moment. It shows Luke and Angel, two shadows for Cat and Reinhart's shadow's gone walkabout. Oh just a thought, this isn't an April Fools reveal is it? Are there any DS3-Reinhart links outside this e.g. lead game designer, cultural references (dragon slaying German knight) etc?

Co-op means playing co-operatively. It could be two players on the same console(or PC if possible) or being online playing co-operatively with up to 3 other human players. That help? It's PvE only, no PvP.

Have you tried anything other than searching for a solution, trying safe modes etc? A quick Google ... Try updating your graphics drivers etc and especially patching the game to the latest version. See if that helps.

Kind of curious what was so fun about DS1/2 multiplayer for the fans that you want to see again? Was there anything special about it? DS only had a 4 player limit? I confess I only tried DS1 multiplayer. Mostly I played multiplayer offline - dialup didn't work very well Had a quick check. Actually 8 player's possible though 4 player plus 4 AI players is the limit officially supported. What did I enjoy about DS? Character crafting, not simply selection of race(DS2)\features\whatever but building the character I wanted. Nature mage plus combat hybrid or ... There was a lot of freedom. Needed to be balanced against what worked of course. Boundaried world exploration. I enjoy exploring an inventive world, and DS crossed a lot of environments, snow, desert, swamp etc. Okay I didn't like the swamp BUT it was a massive contrast to the Droog desert, and the ice regions which I did enjoy. Free exploration e.g. Elder Scrolls leaves me wondering aimlessly\pointlessly. They may have great worlds too but I lose track of where I'm (supposed to be) going. A massive array of magic. I think there was something like 100 spells each for nature and combat magics. An awesome array. Post victory there's multiplayer, either the solo world of Ehb, or the multiplayer map. Maybe not infinite replayability\exploration but a lot of gameplay, especially if you're interested in making SiegeMaster, which I never did but would like to aim for one time. It probably helped that DS was probably my introduction to the world of RPG's and I think it had really sweet graphics, at least when I encountered it it did. They're a little dated these days Any game which allows a mage character to blow a path through enemies has an automatic advantage in my book. NWN, IWD etc all have mages as support characters because they can't go toe to toe with anyone. Oh it was fairly easy to play as well. You didn't have to do any paper, scissors rock thinking, or extreme tactics. It was more attack, move, run, with a bit of shopping etc. It required commitment perhaps, it was a longish game and making SiegeMaster incredibly long but ... DS2 offered races, which was a plus, and allowed class specialisation, again a plus, but did reduce your ability to multiclass, at least without mods (which I never looked for). Magic was A LOT less, but there was still variety. Six basic attack spells for each of the three combat specialisations plus summoning, cursing, enhancing etc. It added crafting which was interesting too. Storyline was probably better written though not as positive - the hero wasn't toally victorious and 'had to' play the expansion to 'win' the game. That's all off the top of my head. Given I really should be doing something else I'd better leave off here and relook at it all later. How does this compare to DS3? A character has a set class actually precrafted character (melee male, melee\combat magic female, ranged\combat magic female, unknown presumably male nature mage) and may only train up those skills. No race benefits. I imagine a boundaried world so that's equal and I imagine the graphics\world will be interesting to explore. As I understand it there's no magic spells just magic\special abilities. More akin to TQ except no scrolls for "special single cast spells" either. Equipment is character not class specific. Not sure about crafting options, has that been mentioned? Seems to me single play per character is the limit of replayability. Co-Op is the sole reason for playing more, and that's more of a casual thing, and assumes DS playing friends - Mine don't.