Lord Elvewyn

Surely it'd pertain only to the Co-Op game? If not you could start an easy Co-Op game max out your inventory gold etc then cart the trash & treasure back to a hard-core campaign. Isn't that borderline cheating or something? Okay persistent characters would work if we could get high level characters, DS1's Level 150 or DS2's 60 (I think) but DS3 is only going up to 20 or 30 right? How much persistence is required? Worst case scenario you max out the character in 2 play throughs.

That's an interesting suggestion. I zoomed in and had a look, here's a copy. I see what you mean by swirling energy. By itself it'd be extremely interesting and suggestive but the problem is the bronze tube above it and leaning off at an angle. I don't think it's the sleeve of the 'Alchemist's' robe. Given how little we know of course there's very little fact to support an awful lot of speculation. A mad scientist would actually be pretty cool to play. In fact I'd have no problem with such a character being incorporated as long as Obsidian gave me my ##### mage! Maybe add the character\class as a free DLC\mod for the game? Science seems to be making inroads into Ehb but I don't think it should push magic aside. And if technology is pushing the old ways aside, why do we still have some guy swinging a sword and wearing medieval armour? Furthermore why not apply magic scientifcally e.g. Repeating Crossbows or magic flame throwers as mentioned in such places as David Weber's Hell's Gate series? Maybe this Alchemist speculation should spin off into it's own thread? We know the 3rd character is a female gunslinger but the fourth character is pretty much a total mystery. I'm guessing male for balance but it could be a Droog for all I know.

But probably RSI intensive?

I did see that actually... It looked like some kind of flaming wolf or something. Maybe the hinted nature mage/healer that hasn't been revealed yet will get a summon too hopefully... I love me my summons. =) I've nicknamed him the Alchemist because of glass tube\container in his hand. There's no guarantees he's a nature mage, and there has been talk it's actually um steam punk or something. Maybe it's another 'modern' unit like the gun girl. Some sort of mad inventor. Stink bombs and hand grenades? It'd be in line with the techno-transition that seems to have crept into the game. Maybe DS1's goblins have had a major impact on Ehb over the past centuries? Definitely no mules and no pets alas Summons might exist, they did in the other two but they were time based. Maybe there's permanent summons like TQ and others?

First thing first, let's check the date at which it was posted. March 10, it's new! I hope this means we will get Gamebanshee's preview soon too! Wasn't there yesterday. Must've gone up early this morning - I haven't checked it 'til now. My impression is they don't think much of the game "... made the whole thing worthwhile. Or something. ... it turns out, we were just being jerks on that one. You can be a jerk too, if you want, in Dungeon Siege III for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on May 31. " Okay fair bit of snippage but it sounds down on the game to me. Oh, there's also the bit "For the most part, it was just a lot of tapping the attack button and watching the numbers fly. " Sounds boring, and consolish! Is that a word? Anyhow it's another review, but not a good one to my mind.

I played DS1 multiplayer offline a fair bit. It'll be interesting to see what this offers if anything. I know there's the whole Co-Op thing happening but that's only good if you've got a friend or three to play this with who don't mind what sort of character they play. Personally I'm hoping there's a multiplayer option reminisicent of DS1 - Create your character (even if they're based on the character 'classes'), and explore a huge multiplayer specific map. No word yet on this being an option of course so I won't hold my breath. No freeplay would reduce the life expectancy of the game.

Alas you've got to be able to find a girl that likes playing computer games, worse, specifically RPG's to be able to take advantage of that feature. Odds of that are in the realm of flying pigs, evolution and winning lotto every week. Okay maybe slightly better, maybe

I don't know if you're allowed to comment on this, but I'll ask anyway: How long did it take you to finish the game, and wich character did you use? Crap, can't answer either. Sorry. Meaning if you answer someone's going to kill you or you've failed to complete it and can't remember if you were a girl or not?

Yay no sleeze, mush or other reason to bash my head against the wall moaning as I do - See the final line at http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/1018...-siege-iii.html Game +2 today. After day's of moaning and whinging about it things are improving today

i would have hoped that it has satisfying gore like Dragon Age 2... Let's hope it has at least our fair share of corny sex cutscenes! We need 'em! I thought it'd just been said this was intended to be suitable for kids?!?!? On a slightly different note with something like skeletons in the game it'd be possible to have some pretty extreme non-gory violence. Heads smacked off the screen, bodies hopping around on one leg etc. It's not graphic violence\gore but comedy. Oh, we've got that. Skeletons break apart and go flying all over the place. Family friendly violence. That's a + back in favour of the game

Uh you probably want to qualify that. Posting on the developers website that you downloaded their game, unless qualified by the claim that you have purchased the disk, is probably going to be frowned on

They do. I think recuperative may be defensive? DS2 had 3 specialisations and while you could use all three styles for a class you couldn't really max them out, at least not without working the system e.g. +2 to all class skill rings.

i would have hoped that it has satisfying gore like Dragon Age 2... Let's hope it has at least our fair share of corny sex cutscenes! We need 'em! I thought it'd just been said this was intended to be suitable for kids?!?!? On a slightly different note with something like skeletons in the game it'd be possible to have some pretty extreme non-gory violence. Heads smacked off the screen, bodies hopping around on one leg etc. It's not graphic violence\gore but comedy.

Surely not at every point in the game. From what I've read the early missions entail 'unlocking' i.e. rescuing the 3 unselected characters i.e. if Lucas you need to rescue Angel, Gun Girl & the Alchemist (okay nicknames may not be accurate) before they can join your party. In Co-Op people play as your allies, which you won't have to begin with. That means no Co-Op until you're partway through the game right? It is said that your friend can play any of the other 3 characters, even if they are locked for you (as a host player). Let me quote Co-optimus: Ah, my mistake. I've only read a couple of the previews so far and hadn't seen that. I'm sortof hung up on the AtomicGamer one that describes DS3 as being akin to Street Fighter, regular attacks being used to power up the ability to launch an uber attack. Oh and another one that said no regeneration. Mana's out I understand but I anticipated health regen. Apparently that's not the case. Lucas Skywalker apparently has a regen stance but whether that's common to all characters ???

Um no, no it really doesn't. Are they aiming for a PG rating or an R18 or what? If it's intended to be family friendly gore'll be out. I guess they could still include lesbian kissing though with a PG rating. Not that I'm suggesting it merely going off on a tangent - there was a bit of a controversy here a while ago. DS1 had gore settings as I recall, no blood, red blood and green blood. Nothing radical but you could enable it if you wanted to. Not sure about DS2, I'm thinking not but can't recall.

That's pretty limited list in my book. According to what I read so far, characters are customizable in terms of their functional roles but they are tagged with given backgrounds...and no magic ??? Does no mana necessarily mean no magic? D&D doesn't have SP or mana but have magic, for example, if I have to point this out at all. If you replace the resting time of D&D with the cool-down timer in modern RTS/RPGs, you will get the system. It's just adjusted to fast-paced action RPG. Also, magic and magic-like abilities seem to have been unified into the same system, which may have caused confusion to you. Communication doesn't seem to go well either with me or, probably, the designers. Reading info here doesn't seem to be so helpful to you. You may need to play the actual game in a way or another...such as visiting demos or using rental services. I was just listing some of the rule shifts. I have played other RPGs & series but don't see the need to list everything I've played. I'm aware NWN\IWD etc don't use mana. I've played them and they're very different in their approach to magic compared to DS. Magic is however treated very differently to regular hack & slash. You can select perks\skills\feats\abilities\whatever in DS3 so yes there's some technical customisation but no graphical etc options at all. Off hand I can't think of any RPG I've played that had this limited of customisation\choice. No wait I think I recall an early 90's game but it may not have been an RPG? It's possible more magic will be seen when there's more info released, there's still a month or two to go, but it seems to be missing at present and the third character to be revealed appears to be a science based ranged attack (guns) female. Where's my polymorph, or lightning bolt, or vampiric aura or spells of mass destruction? Okay I'm getting a little over the top but I want lights, colour, mass destruction not clang clang clunk as the baby faced killer finally amputates some poor guys head instead of beating on his shield. Cool down timer? Unless you mean casting duration I've no idea what you're talking about. In both NWN (non-mana) and DS (mana) based games casting a spell, swinging a sword, or any action in fact takes a certain amount of time to complete. Is that what you mean? If that's so this still allows infinite spell spamming. NWN etc limited the number of spells you could cast without sleeping to recharge your spell pool. DS required you to chug down mana potions\let time pass to restore your mana pool. Both restricted what you could do. It's possible in both to unlock high level spells but have a small spell\mana pool. Oh one complaint I do remember reading in relation to NWN is that in an overly magically based world magic becomes useless\underpowered. I definitely hope that's avoided here. Anyhow if there's only a regular action cool down spells become actions\regular attacks than selected actions of significance. And yes I'm aware TQ steps in that direction but that's TQ not DS. A demo would be brilliant!!! What are the odds of one being released though, especially before the game itself is released? It's supposed to be a DS sequel so I've pre-ordered it but want to know the good\bad news before I make my mind to cancel\wait in anticipation for it to arrive. Minor addendum: Yes I'm aware there's four characters (at present) and that they loosely relate to classes - male sword melee, female spear melee\fire something, female ranged gun wielder, unknown Alchemist. They're characters not classes and I've not taken to them\the format. Where's my nature mage or my combat mage with high strength\resilence\whatever? Oh you can add in that I don't want to play as a girl and 2\3 characters are known to be girls ... Not an issue for some I know.

Surely not at every point in the game. From what I've read the early missions entail 'unlocking' i.e. rescuing the 3 unselected characters i.e. if Lucas you need to rescue Angel, Gun Girl & the Alchemist (okay nicknames may not be accurate) before they can join your party. In Co-Op people play as your allies, which you won't have to begin with. That means no Co-Op until you're partway through the game right?

I've played plenty of RPG's with their various rulesets and some variations between the sequels NWN->NWN2, DS1->DS2 etc. The problem here is that it seems to be elements of DS lore imported onto a whole new game. The more I read the less like DS it's sounding. If it was marketed as something other than DS3 then there wouldn't be so much of an issue. It'd be a bit like C&C Renegade (That's the C&C FPS right?). Set in the same universe (sort of) but totally different. The problem here is people are going cool it's DS looking at the product and going hang on this isn't DS at all. It's more like TQ or Mass Effect or something. No magic, no classes, no character customisation, no (purportedly) multiplayer outside the limits of Co-Op ... The graphics are sweet (assuming I can run them) but the gameplay is skewed and the depth nerfed. Okay DS was never a heavy RPG but it was a massive world with lots of magics options and this is well sounding more and more like a small world practically without any magic at all. </whinge> Oh just a thought, what do you mean action game? Is that a console genre or something?

Seems a bit tough on newbies learning the ropes. Seems to rule out unlockable difficulty settings too - Can't respec errors.

I'm sure I read here that 30 is the maximum level for your character. That being the case the 20 hours of gameplay must be all you can do with one character. No unlockable harder difficulty settings would be my guess. Plus you can't respec so if you discover you've stuffed your build it's game over. Still makes for 20 hours sword melee playing plus 20 hours of spear melee playing plus a bit of fire plus 20 hours of target practice with the gun girl plus 20 hours of the unknown character. I was thinking a mage but given magic seems to be getting shunted in favour of tech it struck me that maybe the final class is actually an alchemist - He\She\It is holding a glass container. Maybe something akin to Angel but with the focus on poison potions and the like perhaps?

I need to read the previews in depth but my glance over has me seriously concerned. It looks like no magic spells or mana. Given I play mage characters this is a major downer for me. Yes Angel can switch between spear melee and fire abilities but unlocked abilities are vastly different to a spell list. DS2 nerfed the DS1 spell listing DS3 looks to have done away with it completely. Plus instead of mana there's simply a power bar, something akin to the DS2 special powers option. When maxed out a power ability can be used but ... Okay I play TQ a bit and that doesn't have real spells either but this is supposed to be Dungeon Siege with its 101 ways of freezing, frying, shocking, poisoning, strangling, or simply draining life from foes. So far it simply looks like a matter of hitting the CONSOLE button! I'm not after a console slice and dice.

I've had DS3 pre-ordered via Amazon for a while but noticed a Limited Edition mentioned on another site, albeit not currently available. I think there was some mention of a Europe only Limited Edition but wondered if there's any more word on this or any other editions. Amazon's certainly not listing any other versions.

Since starting ME2 I'm becoming a little more comfortable with the concept of limited AI allies. Of course the fact that the PC in ME2 is presently better than I am on ultra-easy might have something to do with that impression. You'd want decent squad commands though. Still unhappy about the forced characters myself. I prefer to custom build. Choose my own class, ideally blending the best of various classes as in NWN or TQ though I'm aware KotOR, ME etc limit to solo classing where it worked well, and ideally choose\construct my own avatar. Here there's no choice. You play the melee character, the female melee\fire spell ranged character, the female gunslinger, and one other possible a mage. It looks to be set storylines with limited customisation and a focus on melee. It's DS so I'm remaining hopeful but the limited info\concerning info has me grumpy.

I was trying to say I want to be able to play DS3 without an internet connection, hence my opposiiton to Steam\online achievements. If unlocking achivements gives you something, better weapons, more damage, new powers etc, then I could appreciate them and would try and unlock them. If it's just a badge then it's pointless goal setting. => "Yay I unlocked the gold circle with the 2 green dots". "Cool how'd you get that"? " I edited a .txt file". ...

I meant online achievments. If it's offline you can ignore them, unless they actually give you bonuses in which case they're probably worthwhile pursuing. If they're online though it makes running an offline version more problematic. This clearer?