Obsidian Gonna Mess up Dungeon Siege!

I have read several articles about the impression of the Square demo of Dungeon Siege 3 at E3 2010 expo several days ago.

From reading several articles, I can fairly says that Dungeon Siege will not remains as hack and slash anymore. In fact, I didn’t bother to call it ARPG anymore.

Among the changes that really frustrated me is:

1. Combat will not be mindless hack and slash anymore but instead, Obsidian will implement tactical combination of key in combat to produce variation of attack.
   – This so like the Witcher. I’ve played Witcher before and I can totally said that it is not my type at all. This is because the combat is too slow pace and involve specific and precise reaction to the time combat.
2. There are two type of attack, first is one handed attack which is faster slashing attack and the other one is two-handed attack which more powerful and can slash many opponent at a time.
   – Now this is also sound like The Witcher. You should just call it The Witcher 1.5.
3. The camera is over the shoulder type. While overview camera is still available, making the over the shoulder type as the main view also mean that the game is designed with that view in check.

Now now, I can totally expected that people who read this will say,

“What wrong with making it like RPG or the Witcher?”

or

“I couldn’t understand what’s wrong with all the new feature you complaining?”

Yes, no one saying it is wrong. But Dungeon Siege should remain as Dungeon Siege. It should remain true to what the old fan like about it. Now they trying to turn it into a whole new experience for classic RPG lovers.

It is not wrong, in fact RPG might have better and larger audience and it is very appealing in marketing view. But they should made a totally new game/franchise, not changing something as successful as Dungeon Siege into other genre. It is just not fair to their fans.

If you could be honest with yourself, you maybe could answer this question:

• What if Diablo is made into RPG like Baldur’s Gate?
• Neverwinter Night is made into hack and slash?
• Starcraft is made into turn based strategy?
• Civilization is made into real time strategy?
• Command and Conquer series will be using system like Starcraft or Age of Empire?

And this question only can be answer by the respective game’s fans. I for sure will like if Neverwinter Night is made into hack and slash but Diablo as RPG is just plain sucks to me.

Chris Taylor will be supervised the development to keep it on check with the fan based? Sounds like lot of crap to me.

Finish Torchlight Last Night [TORCHLIGHT]

Torchlight is over last night but there still some more additional content to explore. This post gonna be quite a spoiler so just click away is you don’t want to spoil your game.

Torchlight ends at level 35 where you fight the last boss which is Odrak. Quite tough boss. Bummer though, it is not much challenging. Odrak is a huge monster, a dragon, and he summoning bunch of dragonkins. The dragonkin is the only part where it get hard cause I could died is they spray fire in group. Other than that, Odrak is nothing. Just click and slash him and keep your health and mana steady, than it is just a matter of time when he’s dead.

Compared to Diablo act boss, Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo and Baal. All of them are quite tough to remember. Worst if you don’t have resistance to their attack type like poison for Andariel, cold for Duriel, lightning for Mephisto, fire for Diablo and.. I can’t remember Baal attack type;p

Well Odrak should thank me. At least I remember his name.

After killing Odrak, that means completing the main quest. Sylr comes to the dungeon telling about our killing and victory. She tell Odrak soul still dwell in the mine vein. So we can still explore level beneath the mountain. That mean to continue the play grinding for item and exp.

There is still other end option other than to keep playing. At the shared stash a new NPC appear. She said that we can keep playing or we can choose one item to give to a new character and play again. At the moment, I still not trying this.

There is also some more side quests like The Quest for Glory and Through the Portal quests. I’m not sure though whether this quest will be infinite or not.

Other than quest at the town, there are new two quest at the graveyard. Two NPC appear that are not there before. Both of them give a quest in a new dungeon of the crypt there. I’m not trying this yet.

So, thats Torchlight. Quite refreshing and not much of bummer. Overall it is quite good. Character is powerful and that’s make the game too easy. Maybe should try at least hard difficulty. Level area size is not much big. All is ok for me since I only want to finish it quickly.

If I should compare Torchlight to Diablo, it is Diablo 1 that’s the closest. Torchlight is not anywhere near Diablo 2, forget Diablo 3. Torchlight is just too small of ARPG. For the small price, it is not too bad. Diablo 1 have 16 levels and Torchlight have 35 level. But the fast gameplay make it just smaller than Diablo 1. In Diablo 1, I need to play it slower because, in Diablo 1, I usually cannot just face a lot of monsters at a time. That’s could mean instant. Usually most of us use the door tactic to make monster come one by one.

In Torchlight, my destroyer could just slash through the monster using ultimate skill in Might tree, the Devastate. With crit almost 5k, each monster only need 1 hit. That’s why it is so easy. I can even count the total time I died. And that not even because of monster strengh, but because I was careless.

Diablo 1 seems longer than Torchlight. That’s some memories.

Although I knew it is Matt Uelman that composing all the Torchlight sound and music, it’s bg music is too much like Diablo 1 or 2. You could say there’s Tristram living there. Well, at least that’s could, if not cure, lessen our diablo 3’s craving.

All is good. Good job and much gratitude to Runic for Torchlight. I hope Crate could make a decent game since they use the Titan Quest engine. And what’s the deal about Dungeon Siege 3 under development? Hey Chris, it has been over a year already and there’s still no news or hype about DS3? That’s killing your fans hope. At least release some screenshot 🙂

See ya later!

ps: Some Torchlight cook recipe here: Torchlight Transmutation Recipies

Grinding for Exp and Item Through Portal (Torchlight)

Now currently I’m at level 16. Torchlight is unexpectedly fun! They really have flow of interesting storyline. I still I don’t expect anything from the ending of the story. What could be happen?

Anyway, torchlight have some new game mech that turn out to be interesting. One of it is dungeon portal scroll. You can buy dungeon portal scroll from merchant at Torchlight town. As you can guess, this scroll open a portal to a dungeon, with different level of monster. Usually ranging from level 1-10, level 10-20, level 15-25 or many other. You can grind for item and experience there.

Other thing is, Torchlight is really easy. Not much challenging. Player skill is rather strong compared to monster. Even the boss monster. This make fighting boss monsters rather unsignificant. I don’t even remember any boss name, not even the strongest (and i don’t recall any strong boss). Playing this could be very much of smooth sailing. Stay tuned!

Torchlight Getting Steam Release on Launch

Runic Game announced today that it’s upcoming ARPG Torchlight will be available on Steam at lauched. As opposed to the previous statement that it will have 30 days wait to available at Steam, Runic CEO Max Schaefer stated that, “It’s important for us to make Torchlight as widely available as possible. Steam is an enormous outlet that many players use exclusively–we’re big fans ourselves–so we are really happy that it will be on Steam starting day one.”

Aspect of ARPG: Storyline and Lore

I want to start discussing about the aspect of ARPG I’d told you in the previous post before. Right now, these are all the main aspect of good ARPG (in other word Diablo) that I like; Storyline and Lore, Gameplay, Video and Audio. Right now I can think of only these three but I’ll add later when it’s comes to my mind.

It’s not like I sort this all things, but it just when I play crappy ARPG, thought just pop up and says ‘Yeah, that’s what this game don’t have, this is why it is crappy, this doesn’t feel right here, what a b.s. story, why doesn’t this work, why I cannot do this and that?’. It is just that kind of thought.

Storyline and Lore

Firstly, to me since after Diablo 2 and especially after Diablo 3 announcement, Diablo lore have became more and more diverse and exciting. Story needs at least a bit relevence and sense. If not, I’ll think it is just a crappy story. Of course most game story is made up, but it’s need to be acceptable in manner of sense.

Take a look at game with great storyline, Diablo, Titan Quest and Dungeon Siege.

Titan Quest Immortal Throne

In Titan Quest, the game took placed in world of mix of mythology of Greek, Egypt, Babylon and other (correct me if I mistaken) and most of it are Greek. Within the world, there are related mystical creature such as centaur, medusas, imp, lich and many others. And when you travel to different continent and places, you will faces different kind of monster relevant to the myth like jackal in Egypt and plant-monster in Babylon.

This kind of setting if important to the storyline and lore. It all blend together so well until player will feel that the world if alive. It is real and they will be sucked into the story. That’s Titan Quest world.

Dungeon Siege II Quest

Different setting we felt in Dungeon Siege 2. That’s Aranna world. The world so immerse with it many kind of lore and beast that never exists in real world like the shamanistic imp in the jungle and skath at the desert. The guy at Gas Powered Games really done their work in creating the DS universe. DS2 is one of the game the best lore I’d ever played.

And for Diablo, when we start playing Diablo 1, the world start with a small town, with dark and gothic feel. The world is town and dungeon in the monastery that change it feel every 5 levels downstairs. The world is not much bigger that any other, but where is the lore you think? Yes, the lore comes in the town when you talk to NPC, mostly from Cairn, and some from other like Pepin. That’s where the depth storyline of Diablo 1 comes. It’s not an immerse world but a universe shrouded with mystery.

When Diablo 2 comes around, that where Diablo universe emerge from the previous Diablo 1. Tristram become just a tiny part of the world. With more settings like Rogue Encampment, Lut Gholein, Kurast Dock, and Hell, and then Barbarian Highland, all the shrouded mystery before became clearer. Although some left unknown. Rescuing Cairn start the lore here. After that Cairn will explain all about the Diablo World. In Diablo 3, after the world map and timeline came, all the mystery became more clearer.

Next, we will discuss about other aspect, but I still not decide what to write yet. So soon! Please leave comment! 🙂

Good Action-RPG Criteria Discussion

I might be don’t have much time to write long blog post but I still want to try write some about the good aspect of action-rpg. In other words, what kind of criteria they have in Diablo that we love so much. And for me good action-rpg is not just Diablo, there are excellent ARPG other than Diablo such as Titan Quest (strong graphic, audio, story and gameplay), Dungeon Siege I and II (although DSII is definitely better) and some others. Older linear one like Nox is quite good. Unfortunately, I’d never try Sacred 1 and 2. Never had the chance.

So, I hope to discuss this some aspects and then later we will talk about each ARPG I mention before. Keep hang out here.