After more than a year's worth of delays, Gas Powered Games and Microsoft are finally ready to toss players into the fantasy RPG Dungeon Siege II. According to members of the development team, some of this delay was due to the fact that they want this game to be free from certain flaws that hindered the original.

From the looks of things, there seems to be an increase in general action. Whereas players started in the roles of farmers in the first Dungeon Siege, they will now take on roles of royal mercenaries. From there, Gas Powered Games is taking measures to enhance the diversity between classes and deeper interaction with the party, making for more varied gameplay and greater longevity. Said diversity is achieved with deeper skill sets. A rather common complaint from players of the first Dungeon Siege was that characters within the same general category were played no differently than each other, despite differences in class. This problem is expected to be resolved, as there are now reported to be greater differences form one mage to the next, from one melee fighter to another, and so on. Using that first example, a Nature Mage (curative) and Combat Mage (attack magic) are still the only two types of mage, but there is now far fewer overlapping charcteristics between the two, and both have a greater number of abilities, adding greater strategy to their use. The same is true with the other example of melee characters; there are now broader paths to take with such party members, meaning one could be the damage magnet while another has a bigger focus on hurting bad guys. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.