Square Enix & Obsidian Making Dungeon Siege 3

[DoctorFinger]

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4009/4679811102_5da64c62e1.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/colonyofgamers/sets/72157624225332472/show/)
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Square Enix has announced that Obsidian Entertainment is currently developing Dungeon Siege 3.

Original creator Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games will be supervising development. The new Dungeon Siege will stick to the series' dungeon crawling RPG roots, but with the addition of 4-player co-op. The developers also promise a world "where every decision you make has a consequence." It will also be the series' first foray onto consoles.

Obsidian is also currently developing Fallout: New Vegas and a game based on the Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels.

Source - CVG (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=249815?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-News-RSS).

[Update] - Concept art added.

[Gorvi]

Yes please! More games like this. :)

[BigJonno]

The potential of this gets me all giddy with excitement, (co-op console dungeon crawler with Obsidian writing and Square-Enix muscle? Yes please!) but then reality sets in and I realise that I'll probably be disappointed.

[Widgetcraft]

Dungeon Siege + Consoles + Obsidian = Failboat.

Seriously, this is going to be garbage. Obsidian has yet to make a single good game, they have more shit on their plate than they've ever had before, the Dungeon Siege games were never very good, and translating these games to consoles is going to be a mess...

[violent]

So long as this gets us closer to Dungeon Siege 1 and 2 on Steam, I support it.

[Shrinn]

I enjoyed 2 a lot, more than enough to keep my eye on this.

[Shjinta]

Well..there goes my beloved Dungeon Siege. Fuck you Obsidian.

[Grifter]

How is it that people keep trusting Obsidian with their properties? This company has managed to fuck every game they have worked on and that's when doing one at a time and now they have four games on their plate. This is going to be a mess.

[Exodus]

How is it that people keep trusting Obsidian with their properties? This company has managed to fuck every game they have worked on and that's when doing one at a time and now they have four games on their plait. This is going to be a mess.

They low balled. Those fuckers.

[violent]

How is it that people keep trusting Obsidian with their properties? This company has managed to fuck every game they have worked on and that's when doing one at a time and now they have four games on their plait. This is going to be a mess.

Two words: retard strength.

[Philonious]

I've put several hours in Alpha Protocol and I like it just fine: And I'm usually first to hate on Obsidian. But I still find it kind of strange that people keep going to them... but at least it isn't anything of consequence.

[Deadend]

I've put several hours in Alpha Protocol and I like it just fine: And I'm usually first to hate on Obsidian. But I still find it kind of strange that people keep going to them... but at least it isn't anything of consequence.

Obsidian is full of people with great ideas, writing talent, level design, game systems and so on. Sadly it's also full of people who are unable to make a technically sound game using the Unreal engine and several years time.
As until now, all their games have been a bit rushed to market.

Except Alpha Protocol. Which would be a great game except for the graphics, the shitty controls reactions (the layout is fine.. but sometimes buttons do not work) and basically everything technical. Good ideas and the RPG system would have been great in a game that didn't suck.

[Narradisall]

I read it as

"Dungeon Keeper"

Thanks a fucking lot for getting my hopes up (not that I'd want either of those companies to touch DK)

[Deimos]

I read it as

"Dungeon Keeper"

Thanks a fucking lot for getting my hopes up (not that I'd want either of those companies to touch DK)

Well shit! Until I got down to your post I was still thinking it was Dungeon Keeper! I'd be up for another Dungeon Seige but man it sounds like they've got too much on their plates. All games I'd potentially want to play too!

[[Jez]]

Didn't like the first two so for me this is a good thing, not sure where all this Obsidian hate is coming from I have more faith in them than in Bioware or Bethesda.

How is it that people keep trusting Obsidian with their properties? This company has managed to fuck every game they have worked on and that's when doing one at a time and now they have four games on their plate. This is going to be a mess.
1: Fallout: NV - due in a few months
2: Wheel of Time - getting designed by them with the coding farmed out to another studio
3: ???
4: Dungeon Seige 3 - Just announced so sill in the early stages
Did someone at Obsidian kill your dog or something?

[Grifter]

;577678']Didn't like the first two so for me this is a good thing, not sure where all this Obsidian hate is coming from I have more faith in them than in Bioware or Bethesda.


1: Fallout: NV - due in a few months
2: Wheel of Time - getting designed by them with the coding farmed out to another studio
3: Alpha Protocol
4: Dungeon Seige 3 - Just announced so sill in the early stages
Did someone at Obsidian kill your dog or something?

Obsidian's games look great on paper yet, like almost every other post in this thread has pointed out, they always end up a buggy technical mess. What makes them worse than other shitty studios is the fact that they tend to get contracts for games based on IPs that the gaming community holds close. Obsidian just doesn't have the technical skill to release a stable, solid title and to say they are better than Bioware or even Bethesda is a joke.

Show me someone who says otherwise and I'll show you a liar or some one who has never played a video game before.

[BigJonno]

Obsidian are at least as good as Bioware and certainly better than just about everyone else when it comes to the elements that make a RPG good. Technically, they're bloody terrible and I have no idea why they can't attract better staff for that stuff. I don't know if it's just the way my mind works, but if I was a skilled programmer (for example) with an interest in RPGs, I'd love to work there, because I'd know that I could make the difference between their next game being a bug-tastic mess and top-quality title.

As an aside, I was reading the comments thread for this at RPS and one of the first replies was someone hoping that they weren't going to dumb it down for consoles. Is it just me, or is that taking knee-jerk console-bashing too far. How the fuck can you simplify Dungeon Siege?

[Philonious]

How the fuck can you simplify Dungeon Siege?

Wasn't the original usually compared to a screensaver?

[[Jez]]

You seem to be confusing personal opinion with fact, I said I have more faith in them not that they are the greatest in the universe ever..... :|
"Show me someone who says otherwise and I'll show you a liar or some one who has never played a video game before. "
Again same problem but this time its your opinion your confusing

"Obsidian's games look great on paper yet, like almost every other post in this thread has pointed out, they always end up a buggy technical mess. What makes them worse than other shitty studios is the fact that they tend to get contracts for games based on IPs that the gaming community holds close. Obsidian just doesn't have the technical skill to release a stable, solid title"
I agree with most of this, they sound good on paper, have bugs and are usually squeals to another devs game.
"and to say they are better than Bioware or even Bethesda is a joke."
Why? I couldn't play Dragon Age until the third patch or even load Mass Effect 2 with out the first patch and the most annoying bug in Fallout 3 wouldn't let me into one of the dlc thingys because I couldn't loot a corpse.

[Xerxes]

Hell yeah... Love me some Obsidian. :)

[MosBen]

Never played Neverwinter Nights 2, but I love KOTOR 2, warts and all. The only thing that sucked with KOTOR 2 was the ending, which, yeah, doesn't really exist. Even with that, however, I enjoyed it significantly more than KOTOR 1, which I loved. I just don't get all the hate. I'd much rather have a game with some technical problems that will either get patched or which I might have to struggle with a bit, but which is a fascinating game with great writing, than a bland but stable game. You can patch a technical problem. You can't patch a game with no imagination.

[Panthera]

I found KOTOR2 and NWN2 both significantly better than their predecessors.

[ClannerDelta]

Show me someone who says otherwise and I'll show you a liar or some one who has never played a video game before.

I'm confused, when is the last time you played a Bethesda game? Oblivion and Fallout 3 are not shining examples of games that work the way they are supposed to. Quite the opposite. I think Bethesda and Obsidian are quite similar. Making games people wish to enjoy in spite of the obvious technical flaws.

[Grifter]

;577736']You seem to be confusing personal opinion with fact, I said I have more faith in them not that they are the greatest in the universe ever..... :|
"Show me someone who says otherwise and I'll show you a liar or some one who has never played a video game before. "
Again same problem but this time its your opinion your confusing

"Obsidian's games look great on paper yet, like almost every other post in this thread has pointed out, they always end up a buggy technical mess. What makes them worse than other shitty studios is the fact that they tend to get contracts for games based on IPs that the gaming community holds close. Obsidian just doesn't have the technical skill to release a stable, solid title"
I agree with most of this, they sound good on paper, have bugs and are usually squeals to another devs game.
"and to say they are better than Bioware or even Bethesda is a joke."
Why? I couldn't play Dragon Age until the third patch or even load Mass Effect 2 with out the first patch and the most annoying bug in Fallout 3 wouldn't let me into one of the dlc thingys because I couldn't loot a corpse.

Obsidians games (like your above post) being a technical mess is in no way an opinion. Their PC games are a mess for almost every one who plays them. Every game has bugs, we all know this, but most bugs are only experienced by a small hand full of people or are fixed within a couple days of release where as Obsidians games are the other way around, only a small hand full of people can play the game without experiencing any serious bugs and they are rarely ever fixed by Obsidian. Most good developers manage to fix any serious bugs in their games within the first few weeks of release Obsidian on the other hand can't keep funding around long enough to fix all the technical problems with their games. This is not an opinion. I still can't play Alpha Protocol because of the jerky camera issue and I seem to be the norm.

I'm confused, when is the last time you played a Bethesda game? Oblivion and Fallout 3 are not shining examples of games that work the way they are supposed to. Quite the opposite. I think Bethesda and Obsidian are quite similar. Making games people wish to enjoy in spite of the obvious technical flaws.

Considering the scope of Bethesda's games I can understand how things are missed and with Bethesda the actual bugs (not stupid design decisions) are fixed in a fairly timely manner. Bethesda's games, for most people are playable from beginning to end out of the box. Like I said earlier Obsidians games on paper are some of the best around, if they actually had beta testers and the ability to clean their games up before release I believe they would be in the top 5 of greatest PC developers.

[RandoM51]

Boggles my mind that there ever was a dungeon siege 2, much less a space siege. Have to wonder why they keep paying Chris Taylor to make these snooze-fests.

[RandoM51]

Show me someone who says otherwise and I'll show you a liar or some one who has never played a video game before.

Eh, Mask of the Betrayer is probably the best CRPG to come out in the past 10 years. Now sure, it is an expansion for NWN2, which was a buggy mess at release. By the time MotB came out though, NWN2 was cleaned up and MotB didn't make it any worse.

NWN2 itself had a much, much better campaign than NWN, but I suppose that isn't saying much.

I'd rather have the people from Black Isle making games, even if they're usually bugfests at release than not making games at all.

Heck, maybe they'll manage to develop the first Dungeon Siege game worth playing.

[Panthera]

I'll take a well-written, creative and fun game with a lot of bugs over the typical well-polished AAA one any day.

[Grifter]

Eh, Mask of the Betrayer is probably the best CRPG to come out in the past 10 years. Now sure, it is an expansion for NWN2, which was a buggy mess at release. By the time MotB came out though, NWN2 was cleaned up and MotB didn't make it any worse.

I'd rather have the people from Black Isle making games, even if they're usually bugfests at release than not making games at all.

Heck, maybe they'll manage to develop the first Dungeon Siege game worth playing.

I'll take a well-written, creative and fun game with a lot of bugs over the typical well-polished AAA one any day.

I never said they make bad games people, I said their games are a technical mess. Far more so than your average developer. If you have a problem with that take it up with Obsidian, not me.

Most people find it hard to enjoy a game when it's constantly crashing, the controls wont work or it doesn't run above 20fps no matter what hardware it's running on.

[Xerxes]

I'll take a well-written, creative and fun game with a lot of bugs over the typical well-polished AAA one any day.

Sad thing is if they probably had a better technical director, we'd have both.

[MagGnome]

Yes please! More games like this. :)

Have you played any of the previous titles? The first was one of the most boring Diablo clones I've played. It was technically impressive at the time, but the actual gameplay was dull. I had to push myself to finish it, especially through the endless swamp area. The game practically played itself, and I think it's somewhat overrated.

The sequel may have been better. After paying full price for the first one I decided not to bother with the follow up.

[MagGnome]

I read it as

"Dungeon Keeper"

Thanks a fucking lot for getting my hopes up (not that I'd want either of those companies to touch DK)

If Square Enix or Obsidian touched Dungeon Keeper I would go nuclear. Don't even joke about such a thing. :mad:

Count me in the camp that is curious as to how Obsidian can possibly be developing four games at once when they have yet to release a single product that isn't plagued with issues.

I'm also curious as to what Gas Powered Games is working on if they "passed" on this?

[tacitus]

Boggles my mind that there ever was a dungeon siege 2, much less a space siege. Have to wonder why they keep paying Chris Taylor to make these snooze-fests.
Never played spaceseige, but did play dungeon seige 1 and 2. 2 committed the cardinal sin of save game corruption 2/3 of the way through and not being fun enough to replay from the beginning.

[MagGnome]

As an aside, I was reading the comments thread for this at RPS and one of the first replies was someone hoping that they weren't going to dumb it down for consoles. Is it just me, or is that taking knee-jerk console-bashing too far. How the fuck can you simplify Dungeon Siege?

I love a good console ribbing from time to time (who doesn't? :p), but that is definitely absurd. You'd be hard pressed to develop a simpler game than Dungeon Siege.


Wasn't the original usually compared to a screensaver?

Most of the time, yes. It was all too easy for the game to just play itself, with the characters doing nearly everything themselves.


I'm confused, when is the last time you played a Bethesda game? Oblivion and Fallout 3 are not shining examples of games that work the way they are supposed to. Quite the opposite. I think Bethesda and Obsidian are quite similar. Making games people wish to enjoy in spite of the obvious technical flaws.

That's a good point. Bethesda has a well-earned reputation for buggy game releases.

[RandoM51]

Dungeon Siege as a game just has so many problems.

Too much trash loot. There was never anything really cool. You'd get upgrades that raised your DPS by .0005. To even get those you had to sift through a mountain of shit.

No character development whatsoever. Whatever attack methods you used, those would be the ones your character would develop. You'd get a hair better at those skills while everything else stagnated.

Crap backstory, crap quest lines, crap crap crap.

Uninspired environments, uninspired creature design, uninspired everything.

Basically, Dungeon Siege could be summed up as Diablo 2, minus everything that makes Diablo 2 fun and extra helpings of the annoyances that are common in this type of game.

Anybody considering playing a siege game should do themselves a favor and play Sacred 2 or Titan Quest+Iron Throne instead. It just goes to show how messed up this industry is when Chris Taylor can continue to make snoozesiege games while Iron Lore goes out of business.

[Xerxes]

Dungeon Siege as a game just has so many problems.

Too much trash loot. There was never anything really cool. You'd get upgrades that raised your DPS by .0005. To even get those you had to sift through a mountain of shit.

No character development whatsoever. Whatever attack methods you used, those would be the ones your character would develop. You'd get a hair better at those skills while everything else stagnated.

Crap backstory, crap quest lines, crap crap crap.

Uninspired environments, uninspired creature design, uninspired everything.

Basically, Dungeon Siege could be summed up as Diablo 2, minus everything that makes Diablo 2 fun and extra helpings of the annoyances that are common in this type of game.

Sounds like shit Obsidian can fix and not much to fuck up. Aside from a few bugs.

[BigJonno]

If Square Enix or Obsidian touched Dungeon Keeper I would go nuclear. Don't even joke about such a thing. :mad:

Count me in the camp that is curious as to how Obsidian can possibly be developing four games at once when they have yet to release a single product that isn't plagued with issues.

I'm also curious as to what Gas Powered Games is working on if they "passed" on this?

Unfortunately it's EA fucking that particular sacred cow up the arse. (http://kotaku.com/5552126/nope-that-dungeon-keeper-mmo-isnt-dead-yet)

[Panthera]

Have you played any of the previous titles? The first was one of the most boring Diablo clones I've played. It was technically impressive at the time, but the actual gameplay was dull. I had to push myself to finish it, especially through the endless swamp area. The game practically played itself, and I think it's somewhat overrated.

The sequel may have been better. After paying full price for the first one I decided not to bother with the follow up.

Yeah, I agree about Dungeon Siege. It was dull as hell. I stopped playing as soon as I realized you could play it from the map without missing anything.

The sequel was better though. It stole from Diablo 2 enough to be worthwhile.

[Widgetcraft]

Dungeon Siege as a game just has so many problems.

Too much trash loot. There was never anything really cool. You'd get upgrades that raised your DPS by .0005. To even get those you had to sift through a mountain of shit.

No character development whatsoever. Whatever attack methods you used, those would be the ones your character would develop. You'd get a hair better at those skills while everything else stagnated.

Crap backstory, crap quest lines, crap crap crap.

Uninspired environments, uninspired creature design, uninspired everything.

Basically, Dungeon Siege could be summed up as Diablo 2, minus everything that makes Diablo 2 fun and extra helpings of the annoyances that are common in this type of game.

Anybody considering playing a siege game should do themselves a favor and play Sacred 2 or Titan Quest+Iron Throne instead. It just goes to show how messed up this industry is when Chris Taylor can continue to make snoozesiege games while Iron Lore goes out of business.

Literally, the only good thing about the original Dungeon Siege was the impressive (for the time) environments. I remember being really wowed when I flipped a switch and a secret passage opened, and then I walked out onto this elevator thing that took me down through a dungeon. That was cool. The gameplay was not.

The entire game consisted of moving your characters forward, and occasionally using either the health or mana potions. Your characters handled combat themselves. The most challenging part of the game was sorting all of the garbage items you got and selling it in town.

As for Obsidian, I don't really think there is an argument here. If you guys don't think that releasing nothing but broken, unfinished games isn't a sure sign of a terrible developer, then I'm not going to be able to convince you otherwise. People keep pointing out that they were spawned by Black Isle, but what they forget is that most of the really talented people went to work at fucking Troika (R.I.P.), making the likes of Arcanum and the only decent Vampire game. Now it's true that these games had a fair amount of bugs in them, but they were playable, and far more ambitious than what amounts to an expansion to KOTOR and a half-assed attempt at a sequel to NWN. The few people who went to Obsidian after Troika sunk left after one project, probably because they realized that it's a retard rodeo.

[Spectre-7]

...they realized that it's a retard rodeo.

Hmmm. I wonder how long I could stay on a retard's back.

[RandoM51]

Sounds like shit Obsidian can fix and not much to fuck up. Aside from a few bugs.
Oh yeah, they could make it fun. I'm not confident the licensee will let them make it fun. How stupid would Taylor look if the only fun siege game ever made was the one he wasn't lead on?

Every buggy Obsidian game I've played has eventually been fixed, at least the pc versions of said games. Just do yourself a favor and wait 6 months to a year after release. You'll be able to pick the game up for $10 and you'll have already downloaded the inevitable series of patches.

[MagGnome]

Unfortunately it's EA fucking that particular sacred cow up the arse. (http://kotaku.com/5552126/nope-that-dungeon-keeper-mmo-isnt-dead-yet)

That game doesn't exist. ;)

[Grifter]

Oh yeah, they could make it fun. I'm not confident the licensee will let them make it fun. How stupid would Taylor look if the only fun siege game ever made was the one he wasn't lead on?

Every buggy Obsidian game I've played has eventually been fixed, at least the pc versions of said games. Just do yourself a favor and wait 6 months to a year after release. You'll be able to pick the game up for $10 and you'll have already downloaded the inevitable series of patches.

Very true and this is why I think people defend Obsidian so much. The biggest problem with this is the fact that most of their games are fixed by the gamers themselves therefor a polished Obsidian game has in fact very little to do with Obsidian.

Obsidian is to function as Bethesda is to design.

Sounds like shit Obsidian can fix and not much to fuck up. Aside from a few bugs.

That's the sad part, they probably could make it very fun it just wont be stable enough to enjoy it. ;)

[J Arcane]

Mask of the Betrayer was a fucking mess, and actually made NWN2 WORSE, which is no mean feat. I never encountered anything in NWN2 as bad as I ran into within the first 10 minutes of MotB.

[RandoM51]

MoB worked perfectly for me, best CRPG in memory. Could be the MagicPC effect. Then again, I only ran into one nasty bug on my first playthrough of the NWN2 campaign, a bug I found a work around for fairly quickly. Performance was less than optimal, though. :)

[Xerxes]

That's the sad part, they probably could make it very fun it just wont be stable enough to enjoy it. ;)

Do like Random said and wait 6 months to a year. Sounds like people found the issue with one of the major bug of Alpha Protocol in a few days.

[RandoM51]

Look on the bright side, if they stay true to the series you won't have to worry about bugs because it won't be worth playing.

If, on the other hand, they manage to make a dungeon siege worth playing, there will eventually be a mostly bug-free version for you to enjoy.

Lastly, if I were going to worry about a game being developed by Obsidian, I think I would have exhausted that worry with the fallout title.

[Xerxes]

Look on the bright side, if they stay true to the series you won't have to worry about bugs because it won't be worth playing.

If, on the other hand, they manage to make a dungeon siege worth playing, there will eventually be a mostly bug-free version for you to enjoy.

Lastly, if I were going to worry about a game being developed by Obsidian, I think I would have exhausted that worry with the fallout title.

Funny thing is with Fallout: NV, you'd think how could they be any worse than the expansion games. Bethesda obviously had tools ready to just whip those up. Think Bethesda would be hard press to let something get screwed up on something that basically makes itself at this point.

[Widgetcraft]

Funny thing is with Fallout: NV, you'd think how could they be any worse than the expansion games. Bethesda obviously had tools ready to just whip those up. Think Bethesda would be hard press to let something get screwed up on something that basically makes itself at this point.

Think about how Obsidian screwed up KOTOR2. Think about how much more complex Fallout 3 was compared to KOTOR. There you go, welcome to New Vegas.

[BigJonno]

How, exactly, did Obsidian screw up KotOR? Or is it their fault that they got shafted with "You need to finish the game six months early, kthxbai!"

[kyrieee]

Obsidian's writers should either:
1. All leave
2. Revolt and fire all their engineers

They have the best writers stuck with the worst programmers

It wouldn't surprise me if New Vegas is a bigger mess than usual because Bethesdas tech is also exceptionally unreliable so they're not in a good spot to begin with.

[MagGnome]

To be fair, Fallout 3 had a number of issues even without Obsidian. Remember how buggy the DLC was? Nearly every time it came out it was completely unplayable until they patched/re-released it.

[Panthera]

Think about how Obsidian screwed up KOTOR2. Think about how much more complex Fallout 3 was compared to KOTOR. There you go, welcome to New Vegas.

Don't get my hopes up like that. ;)

[Xerxes]

Don't get my hopes up like that. ;)

I heart Panthera. :p