What is Dungeon Siege?

Dungeon Siege is an action Fantasy Role Playing Game (FRPG) that takes place in a continuous and gigantic fully 3D world. The design philosophy is to combine the immersive qualities of a FRPG model with over-the-top combat and non-stop action. Starting with a single character, the player adventures throughout the world, adding as many as 7 additional characters to their party along the journey and developing their skills in any way they see fit. The world itself extends out in all three dimensions, allowing for unique gameplay not previously possible.


How is Dungeon Siege different from other RPGs?

Dungeon Siege raises the action FRPG genre to the next level. First, the Siege Engine immerses the player in a gigantic, seamless 3D world, enabling the player to move effortlessly between interior and exterior environments without ever seeing a load screen. This provides a visual depth to the game-world never before seen in an fantasy RPG.

Next, the ability to control an entire party of 8 characters, instead of just one, elevates the excitement and challenges the player in new ways, covering the gamut of skills from fierce warrior to fearsome leader.

Lastly, Dungeon Siege is focused on delivering intense, over-the-top combat. The character creation process allows players to jump into the game almost immediately, without having to learn a complex rule set. You make your decisions about your character's abilities real-time as you play, choosing whether to specialize in melee combat, archery or magic as the situation requires. There are even party and inventory management tools so you can stay focused on the action, instead of minutia.


Where does the game take place?

The game takes place in the fantasy Kingdom of Ehb, filled with a rich, deep history. Ehb is populated with warriors, sorcerers, and all manner of strange and deadly creatures, both alive and undead. Within this world, players will battle a multitude of exotic creatures, and explore the most fantastic places imaginable.


What does the player control?

The player can build a party of up to 8 characters, like fighters, magic users, archers, and a faithful band of squires that carry supplies and weapons. The player can even buy pack mules to add to the party, to carry more equipment, and haul away more treasure.


Why a pack mule?

The pack mule came out of Chris Taylor's frustration with never having enough space to pick up that last piece of treasure when playing RPGs. Instead he'd have to stop fighting, collect up all his gear, return to town and sell. Taylor's solution was to invent the pack mule, which will follow your party around and can carry up to three times the equipment of a person. If you'd like, you can have more than one pack mule in your party. The pack mule will even get tougher as your party levels, so he can survive some of the more dangerous areas of Dungeon Siege.


What is the main goal of the game?

The main goal of the player is to take the hero and discover why hordes of monsters have suddenly started invading the surrounding local communities. As the hero battles across the world, the mystery unfolds and the larger plot begins to reveal itself. All this time, the characters are developing their fighting, magic, and archery skills. The player may strike out into the world alone or hire non-player characters (NPCs) to help.


What kind of creatures/monsters will the player encounter?

The player will encounter a diverse range of monsters that walk, crawl, fly, and hover. They are armed with a large variety of weapons and can command a wide range of the darkest magic. Each region of the world has unique monsters with special abilities that will attack, retreat, wait in hiding, and ultimately test the player's physical and strategic might.


What types of magic spells will the player be able to cast?

The player will have access to a variety of spells that cover both defensive (from healing and bless) and offensive (fireballs, chain lightning, implosion, and more) schools of magic. We call these two schools Nature and Combat, respectively. Characters can resurrect the dead or animate fallen enemies to fight alongside them. Using Siege FX — GPG's proprietary special effects scripting engine — each spell is accompanied by dazzling effects that match the intensity of the spell. Players can later create their own spells and special effects using the Siege FX system.


How will character development and skills be handled?

Character development is one of the key aspects of Dungeon Siege. Players have complete control over the evolution of their characters. They can develop their characters by choosing which weapons or spells they use in combat. Any character can use any weapon or any spell, and improve in that skill through experience. Magical weapons, armor, and items can also temporarily increase any of the characters attributes or skills.


What can the player expect from the multiplayer game?

The multiplayer game offers three modes of play. Although the fundamental gameplay is the same, each game 'plays' very differently. The first mode of play — the traditional multiplayer game — uses the same world as the single player campaign. The second mode of play — a user definable game (from a list of options) — is meant to play in a much shorter timeframe. Typically this "short-game" is set up to play in a smaller world, with goals that range from capturing a location on the map, item or NPC character, or for points in a time-limited game.

These options are all selected by the game's host and can be mixed and matched to create virtually thousands of different games. Both of these modes of play allow a group of up to 8 players.

The last mode will be an entirely new multiplayer world, which will be intended to host multiple players of potentially vastly different levels, all playing in the same world, with a central "hub" town where they can congregate, with different dungeons & challenges of differing difficulty levels surrounding this hub. Players will be able to play against each other, or team-up to take down some of the larger beasts in this world.


When did Dungeon Siege become available?

Dungeon Siege came out in the Spring of 2002.


What is the Siege Editor?

The Siege Editor is the same tool that we have used to design and build the world of Dungeon Siege. We will be making this available to the community via the web when we launch and encourage players to build their own extensions and mods to Dungeon Siege.