Bakercompany86

I like the different type of mage that Reinhart is. I stare at his belts colors a lot zoomed in, its trippy.

Those are all RPG's, but they're not dungeon crawlers which I view differently. Skyrim is single player which to me places it in an entirely different category. Much like Shadows of the Damned of which looks extremely strange, and i'm about to play as we speak. Provided Dungeon Siege III gains decent DLC, I know I'll at least keep playing it. Blizzard games really shouldn't even be counted in their respected genres, as each one is at the top of its class i'm pretty sure (being Starcraft, WoW, Diablo). Either way, this game won't be the most popular ARPG of all time. But it will still go down as a good one and as I said I know i'll keep playing it. When I say keep playing it, it is just like any other xbox game that isn't a competitive shooter. And by that I mean once i've attained the achievements I care about, played through everything as much as I feel like, i'll put it down and pick it back up when the DLC is released, or a buddy wants to play. That goes for every xbox game. I play them, put them down until a DLC comes out worth playing, and then pick it back up. No i'm not going to play DS3 every day for the next 2 years. It's not that kind of game, where as say Battlefield 3 is. You'll most likely find me in Gears 3, Battlefield 3, and RE: Raccoon City after the holidays. Skyrim will get a playthrough or two, and then be put down until DLC arrives. Rage will get a playthrough and thats probably about it. I'm saddened ID decided to go with a mostly Single Player experience and ditched the other MP stuff. So Rage will be rented. Gears of War 3 I already know is a masterpiece, and i'll be playing it campaign and competitively along side BF3. I'm pretty sick of CoD and MW3 most likely won't be an immediate buy for me.

Well I said practically zero...anyways in comparison to other arpg's yeah the replay just isn't there for me. I could see myself playing once more through...maybe. Perhaps replayability would be greater if there was more exploring involved, if not all the terrain was corridor-like. Some people even complained about the ultra-efficient quest system(press R), similar to how people very angrily complained about the yellow highlighting in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, things like that eliminate exploration. I don't mind the yellow bread trail to help me find quest objectives, nobody likes to be lost for 20-30 minutes trying to find a door they keep walking by or something like that. How do you get lost ...corridor maps brah ... you cannot get lost, let alone for 20 minutes. Also I am against all forms of quest compass and magical GPS tracking systems in games where it does not fit with the game lore. And, I hate mini maps. Wasn't necessarily referring to DS3 when I mentioned getting lost. But either way its nice for pacing to just follow a trail. Just about every RPG out there has some sort of help to lead you to the next quest, even a massive game like Oblivion and Fallout.

I don't think there is another game of this specific genre coming for the rest of the year. We get Skyrim, but its SP only. Are there any other Action RPG/Dungeon Crawlers that are Multi-player coming this year? So far the end of the year line up is very shooter and action heavy. We're getting loads of those, but only a couple RPG type games that I can think of. I'm going over the release calendar at work in my head trying to remember. If they patch up DS3 a bit it will have plenty of staying power, much more than some of the releases so far this year. DS3 is a game i'd play along side of the shooters at the end of this year. Considering most people who come to forums come for negative reasons. Most of the happy people are playing the game, I just happen to like being a part of the games community and offering suggestions on how to improve on an already great formula.

I probably wouldn't buy a just item only DLC. I meant if they tacked on more items in any DLC i'm always happy to accept that

Agreed. I certainly wasn't unhappy with the campaign of DS3, it was wonderful. Would I have liked more? Of course, who wouldn't? I think from pretty much any good game that comes out, *more* is a general thing that everyone wants. Nobody wants a great experience to end.

I actually focused on Armor and Block and was NEVER one shotted the entire game. Don't know if that's because I'm an artful dodger...or lucky, or a combination fo both, or if it really was because the Armor and Block made a big difference. I played as Lucas. What I mean by one shotted was actually many bolts hitting at once as many of the bosses have multi projectile attacks that track you. Such as during the fight, I was getting Anjali up and it was just out of my screen enough where I didn't see it launch them. Thus before I could dodge, all 5 projectiles hit me at once, boom death. This also happened during the final boss, and the fight with . On hardcore if any multi-projectile shot hits you, you're dead regardless of stats.

Well I said practically zero...anyways in comparison to other arpg's yeah the replay just isn't there for me. I could see myself playing once more through...maybe. Perhaps replayability would be greater if there was more exploring involved, if not all the terrain was corridor-like. Some people even complained about the ultra-efficient quest system(press R), similar to how people very angrily complained about the yellow highlighting in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, things like that eliminate exploration. I don't mind the yellow bread trail to help me find quest objectives, nobody likes to be lost for 20-30 minutes trying to find a door they keep walking by or something like that. True exploration comes into play off the beaten path. I made sure I explored every alcove, side trail, and door I could find. This game is light on the free-roam exploration, where some games offer entire areas off the map to be discovered. This game is definitely linear in that sense. You can complete things outside of the story with a little bit of freedom to do so in the order of your choosing, but ultimately this is a pretty start to finish game. Not that its a bad thing, the game was wonderful and challenging. Would love DLC to contain more open world stuff, and now that they're not focused on the main story perhaps that can be achieved.

+9000 I just went back to playing Titan Quest because unfortunately I got stuck due to a bug (yes I reported it) Then I realized how BOOOORING the combat is compared to DS3. I mean yes the game is longer, and its more "open" (well, not really, I mean, both games still have linear quests and campaings, its just that the level design in TQ/Diablo is of open worlds more so then "corriders" that DS3 is), but it just ended up getting boring. In fact I know just started a new campaign with the sword character Luckily if Obsidian can release a lot of DLC, it can turn DS3 into a true gem Agreed. The combat keeps me perfectly interested at all times. After completing a hardcore Reinhart playthrough i'm doing it now as Katarina (who has the best Standard Empowered Moves if you ask me). Yes DLC can turn DS3 into a true gem. The game itself as is, is fantastic to me. I loved the campaign and I thought it was well thought out. I liked seeing my decisions actually matter towards the end, that was neat and they didn't even really have to do that in this game. Yes its a game loaded with corridors, and very linear. But thats okay for me because the game as a whole was beautiful and fun. As its been repeated by even the haters, its some of the best combat mechanics in this game type ever. I'll take any DLC we can get. Anything that enables me to play this game more would be appreciated and purchased quickly If they could just fix the MP loot balance and the camera, this game would be perfect in my eyes.

I wish we had the opportunity to repeat the story (new game+) to give us the opportunity to hit the level cap, master all abilities, and play through on an even harder difficulty meant for a fine tuned level 30 character.

Oh God... Fable 3 and DLC... 80 points for black dye? No thanks. =P Yeah I only buy DLC related to new areas, quests, etc. Not just item garbage...

Mah bad I really think the stats of this game are fine, and they all make sense. And unless you're a brand new person to the genre, you have some understanding of what they do. Now loot diversity, I wouldn't have minded more of. Honestly in this particular game loot took a backseat to the combat, and as long as my gear was decent enough to not get me instantly slaughtered I was happy conducting my ballet of battle. I'm about 50/50 on the item looks issue. On one hand I like each piece of gear to have its own unique look. This however can become ugly, such as in the case of World of Warcraft. Several times in my many characters lives they had great stats, but the gear mismatched just looked silly. Function before form however... At the end of my game, Reinhart looked amazing and so did Anjali in her archon armor. So at least there is a difference in tiers of armor, i'm kind of glad they made them match within a tier set regardless of stats/names simply for looks. By the end your characters are looking pretty sweet, and the charater detail in this game is fantastic. Diablo 2 had the "you have on a plate-ish armor, so now you're in full plate mail!" And I liked it just fine, even though my pally looks silly with his plate armor and a leather cap on. The sets in WoW are gorgeous though, I loved Death Knight tier 10. All in all this boils down to personal preference though, not a flaw with the game necessarily. EDIT: I'm all for them going balls to the wall on DLC stuff though. New armor, stats, auras on armor, on hit effects, whatever they want i'm cool with. They seem to have a really solid design team at Obsidian. You could just throw in some random names and table based random stats and easily add hundreds of items to the game.

I'll definitely play the game through all 4 times with each character. Each one is very unique and lots of fun. I just hope the first DLC is out by then =D

Plus or minus one or two things, I pretty much agree with your review. I would have loved more loot diversity, I can't tell you how many pairs of Heroic Trousers I ran through. The loot system is still good, but it could certainly use more. I'm a big fan of sets also and would have loved to see a few even if they had to be purchased entirely in stores (the game is too short otherwise to collect an entire set and get use out of it). What I enjoyed past earning all of the abilities, was perfecting my talents and also gaining all of the empowered abilities. While beautiful, this game is one long corridor. The random exploration chests you might find are in a little alcove or a slight deviation from the main road. Certainly not the open world most would have liked to see, but it was definitely still a very fun game. Perhaps future DLC might involve a bit more exploration. Replay value is perhaps the saddest part of DS3. After I beat the game on Hardcore with all 4 characters there will be little else to do but tag along in my friends adventures to increase the difficulty. That will certainly still be loads of fun, I just hope the DLC paces well enough that the original adventure won't grow stale too fast.

Oh I bet it does. Obsidian is a big fan of expansions and DLC's. I think every game they've done has them (except maybe AP?). So i'm fully expecting this game to have DLC in the future. It might not be straight from Bakercompany's wish list, but i'd put my money on the fact that they will probably release DLC for Dungeon Siege III. Plus this type of game is ripe for DLC, just like say Fable III. When the credits rolled after my first playthrough, I immediately started another game up as Katarina. She's intense =D

I think the first DLC for DS3 will probably be your run of the mill expansion. Those are plenty of fun too. I just think if you modified the characters into generic classes, and handled the loot acquisition differently such as a purchase from points system, arena could be wonders with this combat system. Again if you've never tried Dawn of War II's last stand, that's precisely what I had in mind for Dungeon Siege III. I think it would work well, and it would be neat to even have score leaderboards for it. Add a bit of competition to increase the draw. At least I think it would be cool. Would be easy to fit new characters/classes into as well. With the campaign, and your traditional add-on content, you can run through it once with each character on hardcore before it loses a lot of novelty. Some form of repeatable game mode would be nice to have something replayable forever. Baal runs are the worst thing ever, but to me its still better than the game ending.

I'm yet to focus on block even with Lucas, simply because I don't like having my will drained for any reason other than will abilities. I found that armor was nice to mix in with stamina for a generally tougher package while rolling around slinging spells, although I leaned towards stamina. Even with all that there were still moments I was one shotted, even with Reinharts shield active.

Sacred 2 is a PC game ported to the consoles. You're missing the point. The same amount of data fits onto a disk regardless. So why would features have to be removed to accommodate consoles? Are you familiar with the porting process and its limitations? EDIT: Here let me just end this. Porting isn't what you think it is. Porting is just re-writing the code to work on another system. Most games are made for Xbox, and ported to PS3, thus the quality of the game (frame rate, graphics, sound) might take a hit. But in no way does it limit the quantity of the features in a game. It's just copying the code from one platform to another and re-writing it so it functions. Porting doesn't mean they had to dumb down features, it just doesn't make sense. The data limitations for a DVD, CD, or Blu-Ray are the same regardless of system. What can fit onto a PC DVD is the same as an Xbox DVD. Consoles simply have lower graphical potential, which would be the only area affected by porting an xbox game to PC. Understand? Thanks captain obvious What you are missing is in many cases porting is more than just the nuts and bolts. There is differences in user bases. The types of audiences different consoles/pc/ect attract. Different expectations and different ideas of what constitutes a good game in a genre. Different types of game play that works well with one established control scheme, and perhaps not the other. How many war sims are there on the consoles? None or almost none? Why? Is it technically impossible to do on a console? Of course not...is the audience there for these types of games? Probably not. Based on these many variables, when one title get's ported to another system (like say, from PC to console) there different design decisions that need to be taken into account in order to satisfy the expectations of both the consumer and the content provider. Because of this, certain changes or modifications happen. For an already established game (Torchlight, Sacred 2, ect) this usually means more nut's and bolts changes. Controls, graphics, interfaces, ect. For a game like Dungeon Siege 3, since they wer no longer doing a PC exclusive all those other considerations I spoke about probably had a more of an effect on the general design of the game, rather than just porting the nuts and bolts. There's CLEARLY design decisions in DS3 that are more in line with typical console games, and not PC specific games. The influence is clear as day. You would literally have to be blind not to see it. That doesn't make it bad, mind you. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to have seen more loot diversity. And I love sockets/runes/enchantments etc. This all falls under the "more" category and I couldn't agree more. I want more of anything from DS3. What i'm not going to do is sit here and pretend like I didn't hear someone say this game was specifically dumbed down for consoles. That's absurd, and incorrect. Yes i'm defending consoles here, as it is an unnecessary attack and it's wrong. Yes DS3 has camera issues. Yes DS3 has loot issues. Yes I'd take "more" in any form from DS3. Outside of these issues however, most of what people have said they find wrong are personal preferences. The stat system is fine, how many stats does a game need? This game has 6 Primary stats, and "on hit" effects, or Chaos: Doom, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Poison, Bloodletting, Weakening, Withering, and Vampire. Not to mention other stats such as Warding, Momentum, Stagger, Retribution, as well auto calculated Sttack/Ability DPS and Crit%. So I really like the stats system in DS3. The inventory is good in my opinion as well, a factor that many critics seem to disagree with me on. Combat, really some of the best in its genre. It's hard to argue the fact when many others barely differ and in Diablo's case, clickclickclickclickclickclick. Diablo's combat is spam, and that's it. This is a very different combat scene and I love it. So yes, I would love to see more from DS3. I'll take more in any format. Dungeon Siege III was not however, dumbed down due its design process and porting it to PC's.

What other stats does this game need? Agility Attack Stamina Will Block Chaos effects What's missing? The stat system for this game is fine and doesn't need changing. Crafting in most games is tedious and boring, this is a personal preference and I prefer it be left out of DS3. I agree with New Game+, or some sort of repeatable game mode. As far as the class design and levels I think its also perfect for this game. They can add on that as needed to accommodate DLC and future expansions. That list just says you should probably just be playing World of Warcraft.

Seriously right back at you. Little details like this greatly increase the replayability and stuff like this is in dozens of games, hell, it's even in STALKER: The Shadow of Chernobyl and some other FPS games. You should go play Fable III, its right up your alley.

Please read above. The entire purpose of this thread was stating how the game had to be lowered in features because it was ported from Xbox to PC. My above posts shows how this is incorrect.

Sacred 2 is a PC game ported to the consoles. You're missing the point. The same amount of data fits onto a disk regardless. So why would features have to be removed to accommodate consoles? Are you familiar with the porting process and its limitations? EDIT: Here let me just end this. Porting isn't what you think it is. Porting is just re-writing the code to work on another system. Most games are made for Xbox, and ported to PS3, thus the quality of the game (frame rate, graphics, sound) might take a hit. But in no way does it limit the quantity of the features in a game. It's just copying the code from one platform to another and re-writing it so it functions. Porting doesn't mean they had to dumb down features, it just doesn't make sense. The data limitations for a DVD, CD, or Blu-Ray are the same regardless of system. What can fit onto a PC DVD is the same as an Xbox DVD. Consoles simply have lower graphical potential, which would be the only area affected by porting an xbox game to PC. Understand?

So wait, wasn't Sacred 2 multi-platform? And weren't the versions identical with graphical exceptions? So in your own statement, you've proven yourself wrong. DSIII wasn't dumbed down to be on consoles. The design choices made by Obsidian were just that, their design choices. Not some limitation for putting it on console. I think you lost yourself a bit in your own post. We were talking about how DS3 is somehow reduced in every aspect to fit onto consoles. That's just wrong bud. Oblivion is the exact same game on PC as it is on PS3 and 360. So again you are incorrect. DS3 wasn't dumbed down specifically for consoles. If Obsidian wanted a more robust item system, they would have done it. And for all we know they planned on it and may have run out of time and money, an issue with every game that's not developed by Blizzard. Again, remember we're talking about features that would have been removed to fit onto consoles. And it's just not true. If they wanted all of that in DS3, they could have done it and the exact same game would have made it to PC. So all of your crafting/runes/gems/sockets/looks/fluffy bunny shoes could have been in DS3, they just chose not too.

And how is the item system dumbed down for consoles? There are more than a few slots to equip, quite a few stats (Diablo had 4, mind you), and several quality types. WoW, the #1 MMO of all time has 4 quality types (that matter). And thats considering the massive scale of an MMO. I fail to see how the item system is dumbed down for consoles. Keep in mind several of the most popular games of this type had sockets/runes/gems and such added much later via expansion pack. So its not fair to judge DS3 for not having it on launch when the item system is fine as is.

Then surely you have your own examples.