I have Dungeon Siege 1, it got so boring so quickly I don't know if I ever want to play the series again...
I have both, but I haven't really played the first game that much. The second game is pretty good. What's your opinion of loot-based RPGs?
Diablo, you mean? I played through Diablo II and its expansion. They were alright, fun while they lasted (playing it through once in normal difficulty in single player) but I had no interest in playing it online or in multiplayer. From what I played of the multiplayer you're not really working with others much anyway, it's mostly just pointless item-trading stuff that doesn't interest me that much... and online there are no persistent maps at all, which is very frustrating because one thing I always loved doing was fully mapping out every level in the minimap, but in online play you can't do that because next time it'll be completely different. :( And then the stupid "characters get deleted if not used for three months" thing always finished me off for online play, I doubt I ever had a character that lasted over three or four months because I'd start a character and then not play them again because of lack of interest.
So yeah, good game the first time through, I remember having fun... but replay value? Eh, not that much for me. I'm not the kind of person who's going to find "get better items" to be enough of a reward to keep me playing, I like other things. Strategy (Diablo has only a limited amount, it's mostly just simplistic button mashing), exploration, something you can finish, etc...
As for Dungeon Siege... I liked it for about an hour or two, but then it started to get so, so repetitive. Click attack on edge of screen, wait for characters to fight the badguys automatically, hit potion buttons when necessary, repeat ad nauseum... it gets so boring! It had sort of RTS gameplay in an RPG, except without most of what makes either genre good. The game system (magic, weapons, etc.) is even simpler than Diablo's and has minimal depth. That's not good for long-term play, unless there's something else to catch my interest (like whatever it is I love so much about the Gauntlet games), I get bored by RPGs with simple battle systems which require no strategy or thought... this is part of why I love Guild Wars so much, it often actually does have depth.
Also the difficulty level was uneven, a little hard on normal but brain-dead easy on easy. And I HATED the lifts. Getting your party up and down elevators, moving platforms, etc, etc, was such a huge, frustrating pain, and there were a lot of them. Mix that with decent but not great graphics, no overworld map or anything beyond just the little minimap, a completely linear, dull world, an uninteresting story, and more, and yeah, I was pretty disappointed in the game. Probably shouldn't have gotten it, really. But the demo seemed fun and I had liked Diablo, so I did. Oh well. I have not played the addon or sequel. I passed on Space Siege as well, which if possible looked even worse. It's amazing that the very same studio made the first Supreme Commander, which is such an incredibly deep and complex (and brilliant) game... though of course the second one isn't as much, the first one was.
Every pretty much agrees that the second game is a lot better than first. And also that Space Siege is awful.
Anyway, it's Obsidian that's developing the bulk of the third game, not Gas Powered Games, and they seem interested in injecting more story and RPG elements to the series.
Yes, that it's Obsidian gives me hope for the story, but gameplay? There they seem to like to stick with what was in past games in the serieses they work in, so not so much...
Most of the things you complained about in the first game are fixed in the second game.
-All party members automatically board lifts when you click the level to raise or lower it
-Combat had more depth with each character having different spells and special abilities
-Normal difficulty is pretty difficult, you can't just rush into a battle and expect not to get banged around
-The game has an overworld map and a minimap
-Graphics are improved and, for the most part, it looks pretty good with varied and interesting enviroments
-The world is more open with lots of secret areas to explore
-There's a lot of different weapons and armor and other items
