Dungeon Siege

aka: Di Lao Wei Gong
Moby ID: 6088
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Located in the corner of the Aranna continent, the Kingdom of Ehb has recently gained independence following a prolonged war. One day, a small farming community is attacked by a band of wild creatures known as Krug. One of the farmers has to venture to the neighboring town of Stonebridge to seek help. During his travels he finds out that an even greater peril is threatening the land, and must find a way to stop it.

Dungeon Siege is a role-playing game sharing many similarities with Diablo. It is heavily combat-oriented and emphasizes item-gathering and gradual building up of the protagonist for purely battle-related purposes. The game's linear progression is determined by quests that send the protagonist to newer areas. Combat is handled in a point-and-click fashion; when the player character fights alone, it resembles the action-based fights of Diablo. However, other characters may join the party as well, at which point combat flows in real time, somewhat similarly to the semi-automated party battles of Ultima VII. It is possible to build formations and assign basic tactics to the party as well. When a character's health drops to zero, it becomes unconscious, and if left alone it will regenerate back to life. Other party members can speed up the healing process with spells. On the other hand if the enemies keep attacking the character will eventually die, and only resurrection spells can bring it back from the dead.

Unlike other role-playing games, there are no classes, but characters can improve up to four skills: melee, ranged, nature magic and combat magic. Advancing in a skill is done by simply using it. The characters become better at melee attacks if they fight with melee weapons, they can master nature magic if they cast nature spells, and so on. Using a skill will automatically improve one of three attributes: strength (necessary for melee), dexterity (ranged) or intelligence (magic).

Spellings

  • 地牢围攻 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 末日危城 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

220 People (179 developers, 41 thanks) · View all

Designer and Project Leader
Producer and Designer
Technical Lead
Art Director
Engineering
Network Admin. and Assistant Producer
Concept Artist
Terrain and World Modelling
Animation, Modelling and Texturing
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 52 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 111 ratings with 11 reviews)

It could've been better....

The Good
Well where to start? The environments are beautiful and colorful. When you walk into a town you actually feel like your in this town. And the armor and weapons are in one word,wonderful. Awesome design and texture and cool names. The ability to gain followers is awesome and the sure fact it supports multiplayer is amazing. Play online and just show how much you rock. And the most fun I had was buying a donkey and overloading him.

The Bad
The things I thought could be better are that the shops sell armor so expensive that you have to kill for hours just to get armor to learn you can't even wear it. And sometimes they put high leveled enemies for when your only low level.

The Bottom Line
An overall awesome gaming experience. All fans of these kind of RPGs should definitely try it. Though I found it a little time consuming and not fun enough.

Windows · by Lord Dayin (9) · 2007

Streamlined RPG-lite desperately needs more death at higher levels

The Good
Great graphics, seamless loading, various automations such as gather loot, follow leader, formations, etc., plenty of graphical touches such as varied swings, lots of enemies

The Bad
Only one type of damage means there's no "resistance" at all, impossible to grow characters beyond a certain level without cheating, no persistent savegame in MP

The Bottom Line
Dungeon Siege can be described as a streamlined version of Diablo with various improvements. Instead of controlling a single person, you control a party. Instead of grabbing loot manually you now can carry almost infinite gold as well as automatically collect gold and loot. There's no poison to worry about, and potion can be sipped instead of drank whole. The graphics have also been improved to truly gorgeous 3D. It's almost someone read the "wishlist" for Diablo series.

However, such things come at a cost. Diablo had multiple types of damage, fire / ice / magic / physical. In DS there's only one type: damage. That takes a lot of decisions out player's hands. Also, the weapons "top out" after a certain point, making growth beyond a certain point EXTREMELY slow. Also, the game mechanics are not quite the same in MP vs. SP. In MP you are limited to a single character, and the world state is not saved, just personal state. Thus can be very confusing.

The fan community has released variety of new content, from simple new weapons to full campaigns with their own stories and such. Still, longevity of the game may be a problem as the game simply ceases to be fun after a certain level. While you can replay the game as different classes and specialize in different areas and such, starting over may not be for everyone.

Overall, this one is a 7 / 10. It gets most things right, but has some faults that prevents it from being "great".

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2003

Doesn't quite live up to potential.

The Good
The graphics are pretty, not quite as good as I would have hoped, but still nice. The gameplay has that nice "familiar" feel to it so you never really are at a loss of what to do. The Hack 'n Slash, get reward formula is alive and well.

The Bad
Very bland if almost non existent plot. Character development is absolutely uninvolving. The character/NPC's have no personality at all. The gameplay gets dull way too quickly. That same "familiar" feel that makes the gameplay comfortable initially is also a negative because it offers nothing new to the game.

The Bottom Line
I hate to make the reference, but it's Diabloesque gaming to a somewhat enjoyable degree.

Windows · by gilgamex (120) · 2002

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Dungeon Siege appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2002 – Tech W'd Like To See More Of Award (for its missing loading times)

Online servers

The game's online servers (which were hosted on MSN Gaming Zone) were shut down on 19 June 2006 in the wake of MSN Games' shift from "CD-ROM matchmaking service" to casual online games.

For unknown reasons, the Steam and GOG.com releases of the game has the multiplayer menu entirely disabled, despite LAN functionality not being affected. Running the game with the zonematch=true command-line argument bypasses this.

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  • MobyGames ID: 6088
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by phlux.

Macintosh added by Corn Popper.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Apogee IV, Dave Mednick, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added March 31, 2002. Last modified March 6, 2024.