Dungeon Siege 2 Preview

AT: Word around the water cooler is that the maps are much more immersive and interactive than before. Can you give us some fresh in game examples?

Nice implementation of pixel shader effects.

Oops, sorry! Wrong dimension!

KL: Many ancient civilizations once populated the land in which the game takes place. While the ancient peoples themselves are scarcely remembered, their handiwork has survived in the form of ruins, dungeons, and structures, many of which contain secrets the player can gain access to by deciphering the clues. This type of interactivity can range anywhere from secret caverns and hidden passageways to a dungeon vault locked safeguarded by an ancient magical security system.

AT: We're itching to learn more about the Coach AI technology. Do tell!

KL: In order to make combat more dynamic and interesting, Dungeon Siege 2 will take advantage of our new Coach AI technology. The way it works is that each individual monster has a default AI behavior, be it running, jumping, guarding, etc. Layered upon those individual behaviors is the Coach AI. The Coach AI dictates the plan of action in the form of a 'play' to the monsters just as a sports coach would dictate a play to the team.

AT: Finally, about the boss creatures, we'd dearly like to hear about some post-E3 boss creature, how it looks and what it does :)

KL: A boss battle is like a climax of a story. As much as I'd like to talk about some of our cool boss encounters, I think the team here at GPG (not to mention all the gamers who are like movie fans that hate it when movie trailers reveal too much) would kill me if we spilled the beans on bosses before the game ships. What I can say is that boss encounters in DS2 should be very interesting and unique, pushing well beyond the encounters in the first Dungeon Siege.