stubbie

Yep gogo, I finished my first play through using Katrina. I didn't specialise on any build simply because I had no idea what to expect from the various builds. Though I did find that in 80% of her battles I would tend to use the two handed rifle. The single handed pistols required the enemies to be too close for my liking to use her effectively as a ranged toon. I only mastered Heartseekingg Shot and Charm of Eternal Life. The empowered version of Heartseekingg Shot does devastating damage. Belated edit: As much as I do like the game this review is pretty much about right.

Thank you, thank you.....a game that gives a satisfying ending. So many games, and movies for that matter, forget that a good ending is very important to how you feel about it. My final amount of gameplay was 19 hours. I was level 29 and I did every possible side quest I could find. I was very happy with the ending in Dungeon Siege 3. The final boss was an impressive struggle but the following epilogue, though simplistic in its delivery, was very satisfying. It immediately makes me want to play the game again with a different character and this time make different decisions regarding the storyline. While the game certainly has it faults: no area map, clunky interface, unresponsive keys, terrible auto camera zoom at times, it basically is a very good fun game.

A couple of months ago we had a bit of a resurgance of interest over at Clan DA in Spellforce 1&2. The threads are here and here. There is some discussion about bugs with quest progression with the Dragon Storm expansion as well as some talk about running under win7 and widescreen support, etc. You might find something interesting there Steve. Personally I love the games. They do a great job of combining the rpg and strategy genres imho. The first is more strategy based while the second has more rpg aspects. After I finish playing Dungeon Siege 3, the Spellforce games are among the list of games I want to return to again.

Thanks for posting your experience with trying to get the game to work mrjigsaw. The game was not designed to work under win7 so any information from people like yourself that have success is appreciated. Hopefully this will give hope to others who have tried all the other "fixes" and were unsuccessful.

Warning. Warning! You will encounter a boss fight that is totally insane with action and you WILL die. Hint: be on the look out for daffy OLD GENTlemen.

I must be suffering from sinus problems... ...like gogo I don't smell the same nasty stink like others are.

No not yet. I will finish the single player campaign first and then I will try multiplayer. From what I have seen this might be a good game to play on a LAN with a mate, but I don't think the online side will be much fun, due to the restrictive nature of the co-op online play. Perhaps a patch will change that.

Even though I posted a rather negative review on the DS3 demo I still kept an eye on what reviewers (including YouTube reviews) and the gaming community were saying about the game. I ended up getting the full game for the pc because some of those reviews were positive so long as you can accept that the game is designed for a console and it doesnt resemble the previous two games in the series. As I wasnt a great fan of the first two I thought I would give it a go. Expecially as I had just recently bought the Witcher 2 and it runs like a dog on my 3yr old pc so I needed a new game. My feelings on DS3 are now much more favorable. Note however even though I am playing the pc version I went and bought a XBox 360 gamepad for the pc to play the game. The pc default keys (not changable) are horrid imho. This game plays so much better with a gamepad. Some points after progressing in the game and after 5 hours of playing with one character: # The lack of health and mana (focus) potions is not the problem that I thought at first. Health and focus orbs are dropped often by slain enemies and also in destroyable crates and boxes. You can also tweak your abilities to gain health and focus when killing enemies. I actually now like the absence of potions as it makes battles just that bit more strategic. # Camera control is awkward with a mouse and keyboard. The camera control with a gamepad is great. It soon becomes very natural to use. # The inability to directly control your companions is not a problem. The AI is excellent in controlling them. In fact your companion will be the one thing that will save you from losing a tough battle against a boss. # You can only save at designated save points but they are very, very numerous. So far also there has been a save point before every major battle. I normally hate with a passion designated save points but it really is not an issue in this game. # The skill system is a lot more involved than it first appears. I have easily spent 10 minutes on a level up weighing up the pro and cons of what ability to take. Very satisfying. # There is a heck of a lot of great loot to pick up in the game. In the time I have been playing I have not needed or even felt the need to purchase any items from a merchant. # The quest system is excellent. You will never get lost. I would have loved to have seen an area map but it is not a necessity. The automap and "breadcrumb trail" makes questing very easy. # I suggest when you first play this game you play the ranged female toon. This has been the easiest character to play so far for me. Strangely the normal newb warrior melee character seems very weak and I found the playstyle boring. The ranged character is far more enjoyable to play, but that is a personal preference I guess. # The enemy AI and difficulty are quite good. The game can be very hard in the very early stages until you get a companion. But at no time did I think that a battle was impossible. I died a couple of times but when I tried a different tactic the next time I was able to beat the enemies. # There is quite a lot of spoken dialogue in the game. It ranges from good to embarrassing, but most of the time it is acceptable. Unfortunately this is no Dragon Age or Mass Effect in that department. # Unfortunately the game doesn't support a standard pc 1680x1050 resolution properly. While you can choose this setting in the game menu it will display at a 16:9 ratio (rather than 16:10), another reminder that this is primarily a console game. You have black bars across the top and bottom of your screen. This can be somewhat corrected by a simple hack in the user.ini file so as to display the game in the whole of your screen. However doing this causes the onscreen display of the character icon/ability icons and automap to sit towards the centre of the screen more than it should. It doesn't affect gameplay at all, but it is a slight annoyance. I suspect a future patch would correct it. # My system info for reference: Windows7 64bit Intel duo E8500 3.12Ghz cpu ATI HD4870 512meg video 4gig RAM X-Fi audio and with all settings maxed I get on average 40-50fps. So now my feelings are that this is actually a good game. Don't expect a continuation of the Dragon Siege franchise and realise that it plays like a console game. If you can do that (and get a gamepad for your pc) you might just be in a pleasant surprise like me.

Thats great news, thanks for the update masteff. Since my toon reached level 20 I have given up playing due to the terrible grind needed to get experience points. As soon as these daily quests have been added I will happily return to playing the game.

The game would be perfect if it had closed hardcore servers but as far as I know the multiplayer side will be similar to Titan Quest's co-op.

I'm not sure of the details but the last update was supposed to improve the mid-range leveling. You might check on the forum. Nope, the last patch has not addressed this issue. They have promised to release another patch in an attempt to fix it, but no date yet.

Stormwing, I was also having heaps of problems starting up steam. It seems the servers are overloaded. Just keep trying and eventually you should get in. Now to this demo and my take on it: You get the feeling right from the start that this is a game intended for the console rather than the pc. #The UI is definitely more suited for a gamepad. #There are designated save points (which are disabled in the demo) #There is no overhead map, just a small automap. #The game is very linear. No roaming the countryside with this baby. #The graphics range from very ordinary to good. There was some slight graphical stuttering that I experienced, but that could just be because this is a demo.The plus is you should get good fps from a medium gaming rig. #Pathfinding is bad and you can easily get caught behind a fallen tree log. You need to manually walk your toon from behind the log to progress. #The voice acting for the demo male toon is acceptable but the female is just bad. #Key commands are not what you expect (F for inventory for example) and you fight with the LMB but have to move with the RMB. In the heat of battle you will be totally confused. #The default brightness setting is too dark. You should increase the gamma setting to 1.20. At least you can easily do that via the game menu. #The quest system seems good. You can choose what quest to track and you will get a glowing path to follow to reach it. Very much like Fable 3 has. #The village in the demo is very lifeless in so much as you cannot enter any houses. I don't know if that is a demo restriction but I suspect not. #There are no health potions. You renew your health through spheres that randomly drop from enemies or you need to have some sort of health regen ability. In the demo I ended up dying a few times because of this. #From what I saw there was no enemy respawn. Once an area was cleared that was it. Perhaps that would change in the retail version as you would be allowed to save. #From the one npc that was able to join my party it seems that you can adjust both their abilities and inventory. BUT it seems you have absolutely no control over them in battle! A very, very, bad design decision. #The game plays in an isometric view which I actually prefer in rpg games. But the zoom out level is too low. So from the demo my conclusion is that I will not be buying it yet. Like dobs I will wait for a bargain price. The game is not bad, but it is not all that good either. However if I was a console player (which I am not) I might get it sooner rather than later.

This might help.

I want one..........to put in the bathroom so I can scare my teenage daughter by saying "stop wasting water in the shower!".... from the comfort of my computer room.

Just to clarify.... If you have the original game and the expansion you will be able to start at either level 1 if you want to play the original campaign or level 45 if you want to start the expansion only campaign. All six races are available no matter what campaign you choose. I highly suggest if you get the game to make sure you do get the Earth Awakening expansion as well. It contains all the necessary patches (the game was buggy as hell on release) as well as a much improved interface, among other features. edit: Happy to report that the game with the expansion is compatible with Windows 7 64 bit as well. Though it is still a resource hog and even with a beefy pc you might need to lower the graphic settings somewhat.

Hey thanks for reminding me that I have this game and haven't played it fully yet (I've got heaps of games in that boat actually) From memory, and for the short time I played it, I think I liked it but it didn't run too well on my pc. Also I think some other game came along and took all my attention, hence why I didn't play much of it. I'm going to have to drag it out and give it a run again. Hopefully it likes Win 7.

Happy birthday schot........another year younger

Please god, let me live long enough to play Diablo 3.

gogo, I just now came home from work and downloaded wolfie's file. yayyy the one in the download called jason 2005 is just what my wife needs. Gosh it really brings back bad (but nostalgic) memories of trying to connect to the net and hearing that sound over and over and over again. I am so spoiled these days with 24/7 cable access. Thanks greatly for the help guys.

Hey guys, My wife is doing a project for her scrapbooking class and she wants to show part of it using the computer for the presentation. She needs a mp3 or a similar sound format of the old 56k modem dialup sound effect for one section of the presentation where she is showing our family using our old computer. I have tried to find something on the net but all the free ones are of very poor quality. Even the ones you have to pay for are not much better or they require you to spend lots of money to download a whole bunch of sound effects. I was wondering if anyone might have that sound on a file that they could share with me. Or perhaps know of a good site I could get it from?

I've been playing it a lot over the past week or so and quite enjoyed it. However once you hit about level 18 or so, the quests dry up which means experience gain is very slow. You are either forced to always play with a party of 5 people (the max you can have in a party) which gives you an experience gain or you have to constantly grind killing monsters which can take many hours to gain a level. I believe that once you get to level 28 a new series of quests start up, but for now I cant be bothered with the grinding to get there.

Perhaps, just perhaps, every Xmas stocking this year might have one extra little present in it.

Well I finally forced myself to finish the game. It took me 60 hours so I got my moneys worth. The production of this game is about the best I have experienced. Graphics, voice acting, cinematics, all top notch. The story was interesting but it seemed to lack any focus. I just felt I was doing a lot of quests simply because there was nothing else to do. However the final chapter was very interesting and I had some moments where I really agnognised over what decisions to make. However the combat gets a big fail from me. Originally it seemed very impressive but it soon became apparent that this was a game designed for the console and ported to the pc. All the strategy had gone that was there in Dragon Age Origins. The main fault was the inability to zoom out and strategically observe the battle field. Instead you get a much closer combat zone which in most cases just turned into a frenzy of graphical colours. I did not enjoy the combat and I ended up setting the difficulty to casual, simply to bypass it. Whereas in DAO I stepped up the difficulty to hard to enjoy the strategy involved. I might play the game again if only to try playing as a female main avatar. I would also like to try and see if I could play the game without having 3 companions all the time. It might make the combat less frantic. I give DA2 a 6/10 and a sad sigh ......it could have been so much better.

I only got to see this great thread due to your post reviving it lildozer74. For that I say many thanks. I would like to know the best place to get the highest quality download for your latest version of the map including the Ice and Blood expansion, please schot. I would like to get a high quality enlarged print of your fantastic work. I have a space in my gaming den that is just begging for it

I still don't understand what the attraction is for getting your toon to level higher and higher when your equipment has a level cap? And as far as I could see all our high level members just played over and over in one area...the marshlands. That has got to be boring after a while? I think the single player side of the game is far more "finished" than the multiplayer is.