I am so on the fence with this game..

[Hellmeat]

My friend bought me this game on Steam for my birthday, pre-ordered, actually. We knew that the first two games in the series that you got with the pre-order would be single player, which seemed a little weird but ok .. I personally played the (for lack of a better term for it) half-assed demo and took it with a grain of salt after coming to the forums here and reading that it was crippled (on purpose). Ok, I get it. Obsidian was polishing the game, etc, and released a half-baked demo.

 

Let me preface this by saying the following: I think Obsidian is a bad developer. I thought Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol were bug-ridden piles of loose dog crap that should never have been released until a majority of the bugs were fixed. It is my opinion that whatever cash-grabbing, two bit grubbing stooge that kicks these incomplete games out the door should have his **** repeatedly smashed with a hammer until they learn a lesson. Sadly, I am not Ruler of the Planet, and can only vote with my wallet.

 

My friend decided to buy this for me for a birthday gift. I was skeptical to say the least. On the magical day when the game unlocked, I started it up and he joined my game. Several hours later I was left with a positive feeling overshadowed with many "Why the F*** did they DO that?" questions while my friend was less than impressed, mainly due to the same "I just don't understand this design decision..." feelings.

 

The main difference? I was using a wired Xbox 360 controller, which actually made the game very easy to play. I was having a great time while my friend had to constantly try and figure out what the keys were, tried to find where the key bindings were (ha ha! This was priceless...), and in general developed an instant love / hate relationship with the game.

 

Skip ahead a couple days, now three of us are all playing the game I hosted. Again, I am having a pretty good time, but you know why? I think a major part of it is that I DIDN'T DROP $50 ON THE GAME. If I did, all the little weird idiosyncrasies would mean a lot more to me, I think. For Example:

 

* The documentation in the game is utter butt.

 

* No key remapping at launch? Someone should be fired and blackballed from working on games again, forever.

 

* The whole saved game thing, Ok, I understand that you don't want a max level guy jumping in a new Co-Op game and steamrolling through the what .. 7 hours of play? I get this. It's still not a popular decision.

 

* The merchant / store interface is probably the absolute worst I have ever seen. Did someone's 8 year old kid design this? And the whole shared loot, while I understand it ties into the terrible Co-Op design, sucks so much raw chicken ass I don't even know where to start..

 

* The camera, mixed in with the ultra bright AoE effects on the floor, make large battles a painful clusterf*** of tears. It's like someone vomited a bellyfull of half-digested Skittles onto my screen while I am looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope, making it hard to see what the F I am even doing much of the time.

 

* We use Vent, much like a huge population of gamers who game with friends use their own brand of Chat. Why the CRAP can we not turn off the in game chat ... IN GAME? I was able to puzzle through and find out how to turn off Voice for all of steam ... but for F***ks sake, didn't ANY QA go on at all during development? How could something as simple as this issue NOT come up from a Tester?

 

To me, and this is my opinion ... I am having fun, but I also didn't drop $50 on the game and treat it as a console game. So saying, I would probably not have bought this game on PSN or Xbox Live unless it was like $10-$15 ... for $50? No way.

 

At least my expectations of future Obsidian games have not been shattered. Obsidian is where great game ideas go to be murdered and raped =/

[MonkeyLungs]

You make so many of the same points many others make. Albeit with much vitriol. I don't mind the tone of your post but the ODS is going to have a field day with it. The funny part or not so funny part is that people will be so angry with you they won't realise or admit that your sentiments are shared by tons of gamers and are valid criticisms. People are very sensitve here.

 

I think the game is half baked and lacks in features. The tethered camera is a serious technical limitation that renders the software defective in my opinion. PSP ARPG's have way more robust gameplay elements and features than this title, incuding MP over the interwebs without tethering players to the same camera.

[Hellmeat]

You make so many of the same points many others make. Albeit with much vitriol. I don't mind the tone of your post but the ODS is going to have a field day with it. The funny part or not so funny part is that people will be so angry with you they won't realise or admit that your sentiments are shared by tons of gamers and are valid criticisms. People are very sensitve here.

 

I think the game is half baked and lacks in features. The tethered camera is a serious technical limitation that renders the software defective in my opinion. PSP ARPG's have way more robust gameplay elements and features than this title, incuding MP over the interwebs without tethering players to the same camera.

 

Yeah but the funny part is I LIKE the game, I just don't understand how they can keep kicking out games that feel like they are still in early stages of Beta testing and expect people to (gasp) not be upset? I am a huge fan of these type of games ... but to be honest Baldur's Gate on the original Xbox makes this game look just ... terrible. And that came out in like what ... 2002?

 

Step the F**k up, Obsidian. Seriously.

[MonkeyLungs]

I agree. Lack of ambition and playing it safe combined with too much streamlining as well as using the Dungeon Siege name without honoring the original gameplay just seem to be strange decisions. Apparently the really admanant and 'fanboy-like' defenders of this title are in the serious minority though. The game is #50 on Amazon for both Xbox 360 and PSN games. Amazon reviews are pretty similar to the stuff people have complained about here.

 

There is a group of people on this website that seem to be icapable of understanding that I can like a game and slam it to the ground for the parts that are wtf inducing. I've tried to make it clear that I am critical of games I like and I don't really even talk about games I don't like but people don't seem to get it. I mean I love Too Human, people hate that game it doesn't bother me. Its one of my favorite Xbox 360 ARPG's and I'd still only rate it 6 - 6.5, it has serious flaws that shouldn't be overlooked even by someone who enjoys it.

 

I want games to actually advance, not just 'get prettier'. Streamlining sucks.

[Alpha]

I disagree. FNV, AP and DS3 aren't perfect but are good games IMO.

[MonkeyLungs]

F:NV = Cool

AP = Way underrated. Cool game

DS3 = OK game (worth $20 - $30)

[Renevent]

I thought NV was excellent...better than FO3 in fact. Buggy...yes...but tons of well made content made up for it.

 

NWN2 was also very good, but again, was very buggy. After a few patches though I had no issues with it.

 

Dungeon Siege III is by far (imo) the least buggy of all Obsidian's offerings, so at least they made strides there. It's also their least ambitious project to date so maybe that's why.

Edited June 27, 2011 by Renevent

[Flouride]

Dungeon Siege III is by far (imo) the least buggy of all Obsidian's offerings, so at least they made strides there. It's also their least ambitious project to date so maybe that's why.

 

Also a smaller team on the game if you compare it to Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol etc.

[RogerWilco]

I agree.

 

No continuation after beating my first play through? Was like a slap in the face to someone who has played DS and DS2 for 300hours each. You basically streamlined this game so much it has very little replay value (replay it once more, maybe).

 

The story was short, but still eventful and engaging. I enjoyed the game's story very much later on, lots of interesting moral decisions. However the impact of such choices was in the credits with a bunch of gold tone pictures. Bad. But the least of my worries in a game like this. (Keep reading)

 

Audio was below average for me, failed to deliver, reduced music volume to 50% if I recall. But the sound effects for weapons and such felt in line with previous dungeon siege games.

 

Graphics/Visuals was on par for current generation consoles/tech, stylized and felt "similar" to Dungeon Siege except for all the scantly clad women running around. So decent in this regard. Armor appearances could've been better.

 

Gameplay was linear like all dungeon siege games, anyone who complains about a linear hack n slash doesn't know the formula for success if they don't realize it will always be present for pacing reasons, to keep the action rolling. Some parts of the game looked obviously LINEAR, which annoyed me. Dungeon Siege 1 did well in areas from avoiding this, it was more of a linear pathways interconnecting large rooms of treasure and loot. But outside of dungeons DS3 looks like; follow the yellow brick road. I felt there was too much backtracking for such a linear game.

 

Loot! I love loot and this game delivers on filling your appetite of all things shiny. But... there's a cog in the wheel. I enjoyed the variety, but typically there's only a few stats people are going to be looking for, you should've narrowed it down a tiny bit more. Expanding the amount of drops, modifier range, loot tables, and scaling monsters to player level and adjusted their loot tables accordingly would've been a MASSIVE BOOST TO THIS GAME, which would've went perfect with CONTINUATION.

 

The talents, abilities, and proficiencies felt right, simple and elegant to keep the player from spending too much time tweaking like in Dungeon Siege 2. DS2 had too many talent options that meant nothing. You guys did it right in this game in terms of "feel".

 

The 4 characters were varied enough to be interesting, but I think character development could've been much better. You could've made the game two characters from the start, male/female, and presented players with more options and branching paths for their archtype. Dungeon Siege was always about "you decide" what you want to be good at. The 'lore abilities' or whatever were a nice touch, adds replay value I suppose from all the decision making.

 

 

I like this game, but it seems too watered down for me. . If you had spent all that time trying to implement coop instead on the single player campaign I think you would've had a much better game to start with. Later releasing coop DLC which would've forced some people to buy the game.

 

 

I think you guys may have killed this franchise for me though. Unless you work your asses off fixing the core issues of the game and releasing them to the public as free DLC, you won't be earning anything as far as PAID DLC goes.

If you manage to fix most of these issues, I would gladly fork over $15 each time for a new 3-4 hour quest that's replayable as part of the main campaign. This game has the potential to consume many hours of people's time but it can't in its current state. So as I've said, you may have killed it.

Edited June 28, 2011 by RogerWilco

[Achilles]

Clearly you can't please all of the people all of the time.

 

*goes back to third playthough with memories of being unable to stomach a second playthough of the first game*

[Renevent]

No, but it appears the originals pleased a higher percentage of people who played them.

[LadyCrimson]

I paid $50 and I'm having a ball with the game, even on my 2nd playthru with the same player-chr choice. But then, I'm playing single-player. And while I'm not even close to being rich, I don't have to watch my pennies either, so my perspective re:price is different than some perhaps.

 

No, but it appears the originals pleased a higher percentage of people who played them.

I fail to see how you can even come close to proving that. Forums are not a good place to judge by, since the large majority of ppl who post are (usually) not the ones who are pleased with the game. Sadly.

 

Now if you want to say that based on sales (I don't know what unit sales are for any of the games), DS3 might not be as big a hit/sales machine as the first ones, that I might buy, once enough time has passed to get better sales figures. Whether that means lack of pleasing or just lack of interest overall, who knows.

 

I think a lot of people are waiting for Diablo3 and have little interest in trying ($$) something else in the meantime, especially with the D3 beta coming so soon. I also know a lot of Diablo fans who are/were not Dungeon Siege (even the originals) or Titan Quest fans etc.

[Renevent]

There's tons of sites that aggregate user reviews...the older games clearly have higher player ratings. It's not rocket science....

[LadyCrimson]

There's tons of sites that aggregate user reviews...the older games clearly have higher player ratings. It's not rocket science....

Over the many years I've loved many games. I have yet to ever go to some website and write a user review for one, positive or negative. It wouldn't surprise me if a great many purchasers are the same. I won't claim it's a majority (how would I know) but if something sells 1,000,000 copies, judging from a few hundred user reviews each from several/dozens of popular websites may not be the best indicator.

 

Note I say "may not", rather than an absolute, since I'm not a mind-reader, nor have I talked to every single soul who purchased any game. There could also be many disgruntled buyers who never use the internet to express themselves, too. Point was only that I think it's hard to prove one way or another, in most cases.

[Humodour]

You make so many of the same points many others make. Albeit with much vitriol. I don't mind the tone of your post but the ODS is going to have a field day with it. The funny part or not so funny part is that people will be so angry with you they won't realise or admit that your sentiments are shared by tons of gamers and are valid criticisms. People are very sensitve here.

 

I think the game is half baked and lacks in features. The tethered camera is a serious technical limitation that renders the software defective in my opinion. PSP ARPG's have way more robust gameplay elements and features than this title, incuding MP over the interwebs without tethering players to the same camera.

 

Yeah but the funny part is I LIKE the game, I just don't understand how they can keep kicking out games that feel like they are still in early stages of Beta testing and expect people to (gasp) not be upset? I am a huge fan of these type of games ... but to be honest Baldur's Gate on the original Xbox makes this game look just ... terrible. And that came out in like what ... 2002?

 

Step the F**k up, Obsidian. Seriously.

 

I agree. Obsidian has a lot of potential, but can't seem to break through. I don't think their vain attempts to cater to consoles are helping one bit. They're spreading themselves far too thin trying to jump on the bandwagon.

[Bakercompany86]

I disagree. FNV, AP and DS3 aren't perfect but are good games IMO.

 

 

I think the OP needs a re-evaluation of what a really crappy game is. Whats funny is the title of this thread indicates he's on the fence, yet the post is a raging pit of flames.

 

I won't say this is the best ARPG ever made, but its certainly not a bad game. It has some minor issues that could be addressed, but they're just that, minor. Tweak the loot, fix the MP camera, and maybe add a new game+ and this game is near flawless in my opinion (keyword there, opinion).

 

I know the keybinding issue on PC's is a big one. I was a long time PC gamer before a console guy, and controls are most important. Thankfully they've promised a fix, so now we'll just see when. It's a shame too, because the controls are a masterpiece on a 360 controller.

 

And man, going to have to completely disagree on FO:NV. I've gone through 8 playthroughs and I could play more.

[LadyCrimson]

I agree. Obsidian has a lot of potential, but can't seem to break through.

Yeah, I agree with this too. I love their writing and characters but the games often feel a bit rushed or unfinished etc. Still, the ones I've played (haven't played all of them) I've either loved to death (FNV, Kotor2) or at least liked a lot (DS3), even with the warts of bugs/glitches & gameplay mechanic choices that I personally may not always favor. Just something about the overall effect/package of their games that I end up liking. I really hope they can break through with something.

Edited June 28, 2011 by LadyCrimson

[Chasted]

I fail to see how you can even come close to proving that. Forums are not a good place to judge by, since the large majority of ppl who post are (usually) not the ones who are pleased with the game. Sadly.

 

That's more or less half true. People who enjoyed the game might be in larger numbers but people who disliked the games on these forums are the loudest; it's human nature to complain and find faults in something and not find something to complement it with. If you look at the user-reviews for metacritic the game has been shot down rather hard

Edited June 28, 2011 by Chasted

[deteego]

Considering Obsidian made their own engine for this game, and it had a somewhat short development time, its not surprising its lacking in some areas

[MonkeyLungs]

There's tons of sites that aggregate user reviews...the older games clearly have higher player ratings. It's not rocket science....

Over the many years I've loved many games. I have yet to ever go to some website and write a user review for one, positive or negative. It wouldn't surprise me if a great many purchasers are the same. I won't claim it's a majority (how would I know) but if something sells 1,000,000 copies, judging from a few hundred user reviews each from several/dozens of popular websites may not be the best indicator.

 

Note I say "may not", rather than an absolute, since I'm not a mind-reader, nor have I talked to every single soul who purchased any game. There could also be many disgruntled buyers who never use the internet to express themselves, too. Point was only that I think it's hard to prove one way or another, in most cases.

 

Do you honestly believe that every single customer has to write a review in order to give a representation of the reception of a title? I don't even think a majority of customers needs to do the reviews. A strong inidication of response can be gained from a much smaller sample size.

[Chasted]

You wouldn't use the population of users who played the game; of course. The hardest thing would be removing bias from the sample size... And also defining bias to begin with.

[Sabotin]

But for the results to be helpful the sample has to be representative of the users as a whole, not just those who feel like posting. That just isn't happening on the internet. If it were that easy every game would be successful.

[MonkeyLungs]

True true. I don't disagree with you guys. care must be taken when doing polls or your pollss are rubbish no matter how many people you ask. I can concede this.

 

So we have to go by more data focussed methods .... Sales, sales rankings, number of players playing online during week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc., Size/activity of online community.

[Chasted]

Edit: Not exactly the message I like to say so uh... Yeah, scratch this one

Edited June 28, 2011 by Chasted

[Bakercompany86]

I would like to see both sales and rental figures for this game. Sales being the most important since you can rent a game and not like it, the latter just had me curious.

 

This game also didn't seem to get a whole bunch of hype like other games. Which usually means low budget production, which I believe is the case in DSIII. Like most said it had a very short development cycle, and most likely a low budget also. Obsidian just had the advantage of writing their own game engine for it, thus much fewer bugs than say FO:NV where they weren't as familiar with Bethesda's engine (even though I still love New Vegas).

 

Given the development time and potential lack of funding, I think DSIII turned out wonderfully. Sure i'd change a minor thing or two, but nothing game breaking.