18 people found this review helpful
Recommended
43.7 hrs last two weeks / 61.6 hrs on record (61.3 hrs at review time)
Posted: 17 Dec, 2018 @ 1:15pm
Updated: 24 Nov @ 6:58pm

I've been replaying this game recently. My Time is highly inaccurate stating ive only played 30 minutes, when its more over 200 hours because Ive gotten my Original CD's to work on Windows 7. I have the Original CD's with the Legends of Arranna Expansion which was never re-released on Steam or GOG. Same with Dungeon Siege II & the Broken Sword Xpak. I've been playing with the CD version because of this, since the Legends of Arranna xpak wont recognize the Steam installed version of the vanilla game. There is a work around but it requires installing the game twice which is cumbersome. Same thing for Dungeon Siege II & Xpak.

This game is a classic and has a great story. Its a Diablo Esque title done under Microsoft with a more indepth up front storyline than Diablo. The difference is the pace of the 2 games and how skills are managed. Your character to start has no class choice, you make your class as you play and progress. The more you use specific skills the more they grow and define your characters ability to use Weapons (Melee & Ranged), Armor & Magic (Nature & Combat arts). Your Stats - Strength, Dexterity & Intelligence all grow as you level and when you use Weapons and Magic.

Melee Weapons -
Swords/Daggers (1h & 2h) + Strength + Melee Skill
Maces/Hammers + Strength + Melee Skill
Scythes + Strength + Dexterity + Melee Skill
Staves/Staffs + Intelligence + Melee Skill

Ranged Weapons -
Bows + Dexterity + Ranged Skill
Crossbows + Strength + Dexterity + Ranged Skill
Dragon Gun (Mini Gun) + Strength + Ranged Skill

Magic -
Nature + Intelligence
Combat + Intelligence

Your character has limitless combinations of how they can grow. You have an Open spell book that you can trade out spells as you please, the only requirements are level & skill rank requirements for the spells you can equip. The higher your Intelligence and Spell Level Type the stronger those abilities will be.

You can either play 100% solo, or you can have story characters join you along your quest, or you can higher Mercenaries of different class types. You may even pick up Pack Mules (travelling Pack Donkey's that follow you) to store your loot as your gain it.

So for those who want to pley at higher Resolutions, I DO NOT recommend going about 1920x1080p, the game cant seem to properly handle it, ive heard some successfully play at 1440p at most but with crashes. With 1080p you may get a random crash about 2% of the time. The game is older and runs stable with 1 error dialogue when you go above the max default resolution scale at the start of loading your game each time. You need to -

- install the game (obviously)
- Run the hardware checker and select your device driver (avoid selecting the TNL version if possible)
- run the game once, best to make a save as well
- quit
- go to your Documents Folder and look for the Folder that says Dungeon Siege or Dungeon Siege LOA if you have the xpak.
- Open the INI file there and add/edit these lines, save and make Read Only.
***Make sure your Driver Description is saying your video card type and does not include the TNL at the end

driver_description = NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti - Hardware
width = 1920
height = 1080
bpp = 32

Load up your game, and remember that when starting it will give a Video Resolution Error, just hit enter/ok and enjoy that crisper looking old school classic.

EDIT - Wanted to add that this also works with Windows 10. All resolutions above 1920x1080p will result in driver render crashes. I completed several tests trying to get 2560x1440 to work and even 1900x1200. All resulted in the same crash. See Screenshot - https://ibb.co/tctT9NH

If you want to get DS LOA to work with Steam and GOG, then what you need to do is this.

1. Install DS through Steam first and to your preferred directory.
2. Take your DS LOA discs and install that version to the same directory as the steam version.
3. Search in your browser for the "Dungeon Siege Killah Fix". This will have a bunch of general game and compatibility fixes.
4. go to the directory and in the base folder youll see 2 exe's. One for the base game and one for LOA.
5. Rename the DungeonSiege.exe to DungeonSiege.exe.bkup so it doesnt get deleted by accident.
6. Rename the DSLOA.exe to DungeonSiege.exe
7. Now you can launch Dungeon Siege through steam and it plays the base and LOA expansion.

Note, you will need the LOA disc 1 to be in your disc drive, like we used to have to do old school days. There is other means / ways of getting around this. IYKYK.
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