Nostalgia
| Submitted by sol77 on Sun, 2007-09-23 14:06 | ||
I came upon this article last week and it really made me nostalgic. ^^ T'is an old interview with Chis Taylor republished, or something like that. Chris Taylor wrote: Yup, the exploration in DS1 was fantastic, but what happened to that element in DS2? Seems to me like they added the system parts to DS2 that were missing in DS1, but forgot to also bring over the "theme" from DS1, exploration and such, that made it a success. I prefer how DS2 plays but I really like the feel in DS1. A mix would be perfect I imagine.
“We were really big fans of Diablo,” explains Chris when asked to explain where the concept for Dungeon Siege came from, “We really enjoyed that. In our business, we really do build on games ideas from one to the next. So if we see a game we really like we try and work out ways to improve it. When I saw Diablo, I was like “Awesome!”. Because I didn’t even know there was a market for that kind of game. I played Wizardry back in the 80s, and I loved it. But what happens is if no-one makes a game we don’t know if anyone wants to buy it. So we sometimes think a genre is dead. When Diablo was successful it was like: “AWESOME! Let’s build an RPG game… and let’s really go after the things which we think make RPGs great.” That is, exploration. Cool loot. Fantastic spells, and all that kind of thing.” Nonetheless this article really made me remember why I appreciate the DS series. Reading the article "The Continuous World of Dungeon Siege" by Scott Bilas again also really drove home why these games are so great! I am again amazed by the potential. |
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Comments
I also love the new look of DS2/BW, and I enjoy the in-game bickering/banters that give unique characteristics to each party member. The more I play and hear the conversations/read the books/follow the character lives, the more I'm starting to enjoy the overall experience as well.
I really like the in-game conversations between party members as well; some of them are quite amusing (when the main character teases Taar about having a crush on Tehruth, for example). As for the books, I was very pleased that DS2 expanded on the idea beyond what existed in DS1. It does add more cultural depth to the game, and helps explain some of the situation that you would otherwise only have vague hints about from dialogue with "the Azunite Scholar" and Valdis himself. For example, reading the books reveals (in combination with info gleaned from dialogue) that Valdis was a Prince of the Northern Reaches, from a different branch of the family than Eva, and gives some background on his character that adds to what you get from dialogue.
It's been very well thought out..
- each campaign is well structured - in DS1, the distances and difficulties presented
on the journey, give you a real sense of achievement when you reach your destination..
- the time taken to get to the next teleport or quest completion in DS2 is also well balanced
- getting from the Azunite desert portal to Windstone Fortress is a hard trek on Mercenary level
- you have to keep your wits about you..!!
- in DS2, you also find side quests diverting you on your travels, which makes for some neat tactical play..
- it's a classic adventure game that deserves much wider attention..
- maybe a Steam-type downloadable would get it noticed a bit more..??
I'm still trying to decide if the introduction of teleporters was a good idea or not.
They allow you to get back to the shops for resupply - but a vendor at the same point would achieve the same thing, and justify a different choice of goods.
They allow quests to double back easily to locations already visited, but that encourages the level designers make a linear main path, with the only major diversions being backward. A shortcut that takes the player through a piece of new territory to open a door from the other side would achieve the same back linkage (as in a couple of places in DS1). The Utraean Peninsula map connected everywhere multiple ways without them, and is many players' favorite map.
They operate the same way as elevators, but are much more "magical". More suspension of disbelief is required. If all is needed is a slow transition to another region (lots of load/unload going on) then an elevator works just as well. The only thing a transporter contributes is that it can link more than two locations, but is that a real benefit?
Elevators can operate horizontally (the extreme example being the airships in Mageworld, but the rafts in LoH, Kaishun and Abstraction are elevators too). The player's sense of location is not interrupted by an elevator, whereas a teleport takes you to an unrelated new position, and you need to look at an overall map to see where you are, so that adds a requirement to the UI for a global map.
So far I have two transporter instances in Lara's map, but one could be changed to an elevator without spoiling the effect, and the other is not needed for transportation, just as a storyline reinforcement, and it only operates in one direction.
Personally, though I like the convenience of the teleporters in DS2 (in that, as you note, they allow linkage to multiple locations), I was also disappointed that there was no way to walk all the way from Eirulan to the Horns of Zaramoth, and that the gameplay was basically linear (as you also pointed out). Okay, Eirulan is on an island, and so some might object to walking from there to the mainland, but then again, the Eastern Island in DS1's UP map could be reached by walking, via an underground (or should that be undersea?) tunnel or from lifts in the Great Northern Forest or the Volcanic Caverns.
I guess I would like for teleporters to exist, for convenience's sake, but displacer pads and the HUB in DS1's UP map met that need, to some extent, and didn't force linear gameplay.
And yes, the UP map is my favorite, too, precisely because of the ability to tear off in a totally new direction and find another path to somewhere you've only previously arrived at from one specific path.