Lord Elvewyn

Bettlefield's the obvious. I'd say FPS generally though - Team Fortress 2 etc Freelancer? I think I saw a server with 200 spots available. I thought there was a 64 player limit on the game but maybe not? I'd have to check what I've got. Of late it's been Total War and Mass Effect, neither of which are multiplayer focused

The only interface type of change I've heard about is that mouse and keyboard needs to be added,

Agreed. That could be the major problem. This is supposed to be the third in the DS series, and it's making radical changes, and not for the better. Maybe it's not a design fail but a marketing fail? If they marketed it as say Dungeon Siege: Restoration of the King (okay a nod to the movie which everyone loved ) the latest and greatest console game there'd be no issues. But it's being marketed as the latest Dungeon Siege game for PC and it's headed for an epic FAIL. I loved DS1. I'd rate it as one of the greatest games ever. Gamespot 'only' rate it 8+/10 so still pretty good. Yes very much casual play and limited storyline but still brilliant and open to character development. Not sure how many people made SiegeMaster. It's something I'd like to try again myself. DS2 wasn't as good to my mind, more depressing storyline, but there were enough positive changes to offset the negatives, with the exception that I wasn't so keen on the story\expansion requirement. For me what DS3's not doing is largely what puts me off. What it does do, set characters, Co-Op, character world interaction etc I'm of mixed sentiments about. I'm not keen on the three characters revealed so far though maybe the last one, the Alchemist, will do the trick for me. Co-Op's not bad but it's not a necessity. World interactions are interesting, sounds a bit like the ME->ME2->ME3 world changes. The graphics that I've seen seem fairly good but then DS is 9 years old now, so they should be. Um offhand I can't really think of anything new that really sells it, though plenty of issues. Maybe there'll be some positive previews in the next few weeks?

...Wasn't this known since the very beginning? Were you expecting, say, easter egg skeletons or something? I suppose that'd be cool but they'd get boring in about 3 seconds. Extremely hard and time consuming, and if done by devs, extremely time and money consuming since they've taken care to craft 4 unique classes that defy typical classes, integrate them into story, balance game, build item designs, etc. Big scale's relative but I think DS1 permitted at least 8 players, and a lot of modern games allow for 64 players. Server focused games can allow for even more, a couple hundred say. I realise we aren't talking MMO here but still, 4 players?!?!? That's Sega Mega drive console multiplayer limits or the like! 4 characters? Yes we knew early that there were only 4 characters. What we didn't know was that there wouldn't be any multiplayer\expanded mode where we could use classes\uber power our avatars ala DS1's SiegeMaster avatars. It's basically offering a singleplayer experience with the option of drop ins if you can convince anyone else to play it. If this wasn't DS maybe there'd be less of an issue, I don't complain about the ME2 class setup for example, but this just seems way (way, way ... ) too restrictive for DS. There seems to be no post-campaign (re)playability. I know console games are promoted as play and trade but PC owners don't trade in games. They buy to keep, and probably for replay value - character, I should probably say avatar in this context though, development, world exploration etc. IF I'm to buy this game, and it's been on pre-order since practically last year, I need to be convinced it's good, and while I do hear occasional good\interesting points, I'm concerned, and growing increasingly disappointed. Okay maybe I'm being the voice of negativity here but if I'm to buy the game I want to make sure it's a game I think good and that I will enjoy. If it seems too bad I guess I can always cancel the order next month, play the demo, if any, sometime i feel like it, then pick it up when\if it makes it to the bargain bin. I wasn't serious about the enhancements. I'd kinda worked out for myself that it might be a major effort hence the DS4 reference.

I was on Amazon and saw Dungeon Siege 3: Prima Official Game Guide advertised. In the product description it says: Choose your role in the game with our comparison of the strengths and skills of all four playable heroes. AND Multiplayer section covers 4 player online coop mode, offline multiplayer, and jump in/jump out multiplayer so you don't have to defend Ehb alone! To my mind that's pretty convincing proof THERE'S NO ##### MULTIPLAYER! And further there's nothing playable outside the four characters. Okay maybe it won't be so bad. Mass Effect 2 only provides 6 classes to play as and has no inventory as such, pre-mission weapon loadout only, but that's ME not DS. I'm hoping for a revelation but I'm not going to hold my breath. How hard would it be to mod a game to add in true LAN\internet multiplayer capability and class selection\development? Yeah okay that's not modding it's DS4.

Ivy's attire is not only ridiculous, but I'm not even sure it's actually wearable. What Katarina has showed until now is realistic, as in "actually exists". And you just reminded me of Taki's jiggle physics from Soul Calibur 2. Thank you for nothing sir, as those were utterly disgusting. Yep. Pretty much. Soul Calibur got worse with every new installment and its extremly visible. Though I wouldn't call Katarinas outfit "realistic". In context. So now that was really my last post for today. Night^^. Now that the flames have cooled for the day If the image I just saw was any indication I'd have to agree. Cat's attire looked to be akin to mini Xena on the top. Anyone heard of the word modesty? Sure it has (adolosecent) sex appeal but it's not exactly wearable in cold weather. What's wrong with neck to navel attire, or something giving more protection - I'm thinking DS1 style ranged armour. Better yet how about something cold weather puritan style

Uh what?!?!?

Players may have the same character levelled up largely the same way (but only to 30 not 90 I'm sure). On present info though they can't play the same character together. There can only be 1 Luke, 1 Angel, 1 Cat and 1 Alchemist in any game. IF another mode is announced maybe something will be different but at this stage it's a moot point.

I think you're confusing geography and politics. Take America as an example. Political Americans live in the bottom half of the northern half of America\the Americas. Northern geographical Americans are Canadians. Southern Americans can be the bottom half of the political half or the bottom half of the entire geographic region. I think Aranna's the same. There may be a Kingdom of Aranna or somesuch but mostly it's a geographic reference. Ehb is part of Aranna like Cuba or Chile are part of America. Geographical America that is (I'd prefer to avoid telling Canadians they just became the 51st-63rd states of the USA ) I'd say DS2's map is actually east or even southeast of DS1's Ehb. The Tsunami hit the coast of Ehb but which coast is unclear. I too thought Ehb was partially surrounded by water. The map you link to is the one from the manual. Assuming a coastal position water could surge up via the south. Doesn't look like there's a western coast but it depends whether Arhok (picture 3) is part of Ehb or not. If it is there is a west coast they might be partially vulnerable. It's not the DS1 core region though. Gravemaker? Maybe it'll be redone differently e.g a stone statue of it with the figure of Gyan manning it - assuming I have my names correct. Ds1 references will be interesting to see but I hope it's not to 'the farmer girl'. The idea of some skinny redhead girl waving a sword and beating the Seck is ridiculous to me. Too much appeal to PC ideological\adolescent fantasy notions and not enough reality. Minor bias on my part perhaps. No idea how the multiplayer map (picture 3) connects to Ehb or the rest of Aranna.

Tsunami hitting the east coast? Sure you aren't thinking of Japan? There's not really any sea around Ehb, see http://www.microsoft.com/games/dungeonsieg...x10_desktop.jpg Okay maybe found what you're talking about - 1243PF Dungeon Siege 2. The Second Cataclysm devastates the eastern half of the continent. Greilyn Isle sinks beneath the sea, and the coast of Ehb is struck by a massive tsunami.� Lescanzi travelers report widespread chaos in the east. In the decade that follows, Ehb's borders are assailed by brigands and marauders, but the Legion stands firm, and the kingdom remains intact. So the eastern half of Aranna is devastated. A Tsunami does hit Ehb but only where there's sea access. Stonebridge and The Swamp are probably the two areas that'd be devastated. Glacern's wiped out by Jeyne's forces and the royal capital's currently Glitterdelve Mine. Oh Stonebridge must still exist, it's become an independant republic. How it could have grown big enough in 125 years I've no idea. The Spire of Azunai is built on Mt Jhereb and made Jeyne's capital (sounds like DS2) My guess is that Ehb's even further west than the small compass in your third link. Means there's a fair bit of desert\inhospitable terrain between Ehn and the inhabited parts of Aranna. Hm just a thought. Hope the games not Heroes V church. Good guys versus religion'd suck. No problem wiping out evil religions that want to declare jihad on me and mine but ... As always need more info about the game I think Greilyn's south of Aranna. Ehb's far west, probably

Not bad, though the graphics were considered dated even when it came out. I think it just beat NWN out which had far better graphics. You can get a legal copy at http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/icewind_dale_2 for US$9.99 if you really want one.

Heart of Fury mode or something? I don't know what that is. =( Think hardcore on steroids. Monsters hit harder, and get bonuses to health, resistances etc. Oh I think you did less damage too. As I recall you normally finished Icewind Dale II at about Level 20. You started Heart of Fury mode and it was like starting over again - monsters were tough!!! I never really played it myself just mucked around the first area. Something I should do again sometime. Anyhow there was an entire range of weapons\armour etc specific to the HoF mode to enable you to survive it. As it was you needed to min\max\borderline cheat to win e.g. maximum armour wasn't enough against most mosters so butt naked provided just as much protection. The only way to armour up was to focus on stackable armour\ability bonuses, play as a monk of a certain race etc. At most you could get 2 of your 6 characters armoured, the rest had to fight alternatively e.g. mirror images and invisibiilty so instead of being immune to attacks they never get hit. Armour's much easier! Magic resistance went up too I think. A spell to disable\slow monster in the standard campaign was ignore on HoF with monsters walking straight through it. Think of Titan Quest's unlockable harder levels or possibly DS2's harder levels.

Depends on your interpretation and RW versus DS. If you go something like say Harry Potter it's just a girl with magic. Character reveal? Not on DungeonSiege.Com that's for sure. Where're you looking? No, Elves are on the same continent, Ehb's just further west than the DS2 campaign. Humans, Droog and Goblins were the only races in DS1. No wait they did have Dwarves. No Elves as far as I can recall. Hey I like Elves! No Elf hating allowed! I missed that the cataclysm wasn't semi-global. I did see that magic was being used but I'm wondering if it's been nerfed by the cataclysm or something. DS2 post cataclysm (expansion) didn't really change magic but with a long enough time period and enough creativity Obsidian could do something e.g. The cataclysm broke the worlds natural magic potential. Over the centuries power drained out of this world. Wizards of today can only just cast fireballs whereas 100 years ago the same effort would have enabled them to summon fire from the heavens to wipe out entire cities. It's still possible but it's something that's so open to possibilities. The cast so far: Luke => Vanilla male melee character like DS1 & DS2 Angel => hybrid female melee with combat magic - new Cat => hybrid female ranged with combat magic - DS2 expansion hybrid? So we've got the classic melee, we've sorta got a ranged character but one hybridised with combat magic. We don't have a pure combat mage though we do have a second melee character with combat magic, and finally we've got the mysterious Alchemist. Mad scientist, nature made, evil overlord, who knows. Given nature magic is the only aspect not touched on either a male pure nature mage or male hybrid nature mage\ranged character seems likely. Either way it's a bit unbalanced. A character and a half focused on melee, 2 half characters focused on combat magic, half a character focused on ranged magic and the Alchemist either fully focused on nature magery (or some equivalent) or a half focus and two half characters focusing on ranged combat. We'll just have to continue to wait and see I don't see a role for a healer in this game and that was one of the nature mage functions. Nerfed spell lists means limited summons and reduced attack options. Possibly a summonable pet but not a focus. Offense seems to rule in this, and would make sense on twitch console controls as opposed to the intellectuals M&K setup which does better for strategy. Maybe disabling spells e.g. AoE frost immobility\Vine binding or for the alcoholics on the board Wine binding /nerd on Hmmm... I wasn't aware witches and satanists were the same thing. After all, in the character reveal it DOES say her mom was a witch, which explains where she gets her powers from... You know, it might be interesting if she was part elven (though I highly doubt it, since they are on a different continent, and the only traveling races it seems in this world are the humans and the utraeans)... Especially since elves were going extinct (thank god), and much time has happened since the cataclysm, so she may only be 1 of a handful of elves left. In any case I'm hoping the remaining hidden character is a nature mage too (though I doubt he will be). Dungeon Siege actually had some very interesting magic (both 1 and 2), and it would be a shame to just brush everything resembling their magic structure under the rug. =P As far as there being no magic, it still exists since you can see spells being cast by the mobs (as well as both Anjali and Katarina using it). In the expansion of DS2 magic was still around too, so It wouldn't be very consistent if they were to say that the Cataclysm wiped it out... Especially since it seems that the "Kingdom of Ehb" section of the DS3 website gives the impression that the cataclysm was mostly felt on Aranna, and that the total damage Ehb only ever got was just peripheral. /nerd off

Consolish meaning what in this instance? Limited screen cusomisation, limited shortcuts, minimal info ...? Why not aim for more usability? There's already the issue that the controls are going to be twitch based e.g. hold left on the left left joytick and press the XYZ combo to block then charge the enemy or whatever the shield block quote eons ago was all about. How that translates to M&K I've no idea.

Oh I wouldn't call her a witch - no satanism involved sorceress or something maybe. Both Cat and Angel are hybrids though - Melee with combat magic (new 'class') and guns\ranged with combat magic (DS2 expansion class). Of the 3 characters revealed, Luke is the only pure character (classic jedi melee ). And there's no nature magic shown yet either. Still hoping for a pure wizard\sorcerer but Alchemist is what I'm thinking. Then again, 'technospells' could look and work just as well as 'real' spells. There'd need to something explaining why no real magic I'd say. Maybe the cataclysm in DS2 wiped it out? Be nice if the official Dungeon Siege site updated the bio. I'm wondering if she's human or possibly got Elven blood in her. Bit hard to tell and the trailer ran badly on the computer here. Oh another thought, how easy would it be for Obsidian to add in other characters as DLC? I'm not thinking full blown storyline's more freeplay expansion characters.

Heart of Fury mode or something?

Echoed DS1's demo was what got me hooked on that game.

I believe Blizzard has a tradition of releasing a new unit\game info\other stuff on April 1st. Any likelihood of Obsidian doing something similar? A screenshot of Santa Droog perhaps, or something else actually to be found in DS3? How about a mass info release full of misinformation plus one or two truths. Okay that's probably just a nasty suggestion. We'd all be arguing over which bits are true or not

Oh by end game you meant end product. I was thinking ingame end game, which obviously we know squat about. Do we know there's separate characters for online play? My understanding is that there's 4 characters in a game. If you join a Co-Op you get to play one of the free characters. That's not separate. The instance of that character relates to that Co-Op but it's still the same characters. Separate would be if instead of Luke, Angel, Gungirl & Alchemist you play Sam the Scientist, Pete the Pirate, Bill the Butcher etc, or the class equivalents. Lobby issues have never crossed my mind. At this stage Co-Op IS the multiplayer. There's what 6 weeks 'til the game's released? IF there's real multiplayer they need to say. I quite probably won't play multiplayer for the multiplayer component but I did spend a lot of time in DS1's multiplayer world building my character\exploring the world. If 30 levels and single player\Co-Op modes are all that's offered that's not going to be possible. I'm not complaing about including a Co-op mode, that's cool, and the Serious Sam series is about the only other one off the top of my head that I can think of that offers Co-Op as distinct from multiplayer but still ... Level 30? Easy may be the wrong word but I wouldn't call doing every side mission\exploring the world to its fullest grinding. Grinding is killing respawning monsters\playing the same level over and over and over and ... again to get XP. Maybe level 30 will be just out of reach on one play through (I'm thinking vanilla Mass Effect 2 here) but you can get very close. If you had to play through the game twice or even just 1.5 time it'd be ridiculous. That'd mean you can only reach level 20 maximum on a single play through. The only way that could be justified, and I'm speculating wildly here, is if there's an unlockable "Heart of Fury" or whatever mode for high level\maxed out characters which provides a whole new tier of equipment and challenge. That might be cool but as I understand it it's one play through per character and various difficulty settings BUT no unlockable levels. At least I thought they'd been ruled out.

The AI buddy could be optional so if you're a masochist you could play hardcore solo from everything i've watched and read, I've come to the conclusion that there are no AI players running around, you control one of 4 heroes (only 2 have been announced) If someone else joins your game they join the game as one of the other heroes. If you are just playing by yourself only one hero is present in the game and the other 3 heroes are lying dormant somewhere. I'm not 100% sure about this but at least a good 95% This is not correct. There's another AI player running around with you in SP. Ok well thanks for correcting me, I swear I saw a few videos where Lucas was just playing by himself though. Maybe it was just before he met any of his buddies.

I think it's confirmed that there would be a mouse/keyboard control scheme. How it will work is anyone's guess. I thought a straight-forward 'all mouse' system woild be enough, but there aren't enough button on a mouse to replicate the for-each-button-a-power design of the pad. So keyboard keys are necessary, and that doesn't mix well with targeting and moving with the mouse. We will see I suppose. Forcing PC owners to play with a console controller would be the death knell for the game. That being the case I don't see it worth imagining that mouse\keyboard might be precluded. The real question is how it'd work given all the demos are using console controllers. Given how different they are I think there'd have to be different control approaches. Console allows constant direction\easy combos (perhaps Lucas' blocking?) whereas PC allows for precision control and mass shortcuts. Console may need target correction, PC wouldn't. Auto-attack ala DS1 would be good but that seems to be out. It'd probably take someone familar with console controllers in addition to mouse\keyboard to speculate how mapping might be possible and how much variation would be needed.

In fact I'm sure it won't be like this. Akso did we suddenly somehow establish that there is no endgame, Level 30 is easy to reach and standard co-op is the only multiplayer modus? No endgame? I think the level 30 or whatever has been implied. One play through per character and 'game over man'. Standard Co-Op is the only multiplayer mode mentioned. Hopefully there's more but there's been no hint as yet.

There probably are a number of sites that sell it legally, it's just that download is often understood as downloaded without being paid for. Think peer to peer or torrents.

Agreed. More akin to a one time watch movie. Seen it yes\no move on and forget about it. I played DS1 for ages and still have fond memories of it. I don't want a 1 day console wonder for my PC. I think this was a bad direction to take the game in my own personal opinion. You say it may disappoint those looking for a "Diablo style semi-persistant MP", but that's what Dungeon Siege (multiplayer) was about. =P Taking the characters you build and going on loot runs/exploring with friends/EXP runs... At least that's what I did. What's the point of playing a game you've beaten online with friends if the only reason to play is to rehash a story you already know the ending to? It didn't work for fable 2-3 and it wouldn't work for this game either (or at least those are my suspicions)... Developers could definitely make a different map for multiplayer that's less about story and more about the endgame multiplayer content... That's what the first game did (although they allowed you to play the singleplayer maps as well as the multiplayer maps online). When I was finished with the single player game, I would import my character to multiplayer and continue the game there. It just seems odd that a loot centric dungeon crawler wouldn't have much in the way of endgame material... In fact, I can't really think of another loot centric dungeon crawler that doesn't have endgame material off the top of my head. =P Don't get me wrong... I think this will be a great game, and I will pre-order it for sure. =) I'm just a bit disappointed with what I hear about the end-game... I'm with ya..If (and thats a big if) there is no kind of persistant multiplayer to loot and level with your friends this will be a rental for the story and i'll chalk it up to a co-op action game. I hope it's more than that though because i really want a co-op dungeon crawler to play with friends.