Dungeon Siege II Demo description
Dungeon Siege II offers intense party-based combat through realistic special effects.

It's time to return to the beautiful world of Aranna! Be warned that it is a place scarred by civil war. As you lead an elite battle party against the vicious Valdis, you'll notice the lines of good and evil have become blurred and you will be called upon to wield your swords and use spells to save this world from its impending destruction.

Dungeon Siege II offers intense party-based combat through realistic special effects and a new system of in-engine cinematic storytelling.

Here are some key features of "Dungeon Siege II Demo":

· An interactive world presenting players with a variety of activity at every corner.
· The new in-engine cinematic storytelling and story-driven quests that will keep you immersed in the game world instead of pulling you away from it.
· An all-new character development system featuring a branching skill tree.
· Variety of hero powers that prepare you for intense battles, but you will need to use timing and wisdom for them to work effectively.
· New AI technology making for a host of new, dangerous enemies that work together against you.
· The new art style for the game.
· A new combat system, with revised control scheme, spells and powers.
· An advanced primary/secondary quest system.
· An intricate, detailed story, tied closely to the player's progression through the gameworld


What's New in This Release:


Gameplay
· Fixed a primary blocking issue where the Azunite Scholar at the Dryad Exile Colony did not recognize task completion. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location; however, for each saved game in which you encountered this issue, you must speak to the scholar to activate the autocorrection.
· Fixed primary blocking issues where quest-giving party characters break quests when escaping from “Thanks for hiring me” conversation replies. Broken save games are now autocorrected upon reload of the game (i.e., Taar at the Great Hall, Vix at the forest cabin, and Finala at the Aman’lu bridge).
· Fixed a secondary blocking issue where Finala’s personal quest did not trigger the elevator after extended usage.
· Fixed an issue with characters not being sent to the Inn when their farewell conversation was skipped.
· Fixed a primary blocking issue where attempting activation of the Elen’Lu Prism by rapidly clicking while possessing multiple crystals did not work properly.
· Fixed a primary blocking issue where saving the game during Vai’Kesh Prophet movies didn’t work properly.
· Fixed a primary blocking issue concerning the disappearance of the Snowbrook Commander. Broken save games are now autocorrected upon reload of the game.
· Fixed a primary blocking issue with second Snowbrook dragon fight triggering. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location.
· Fixed a primary blocking issue with Agallan Trial elevators. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location.
· Fixed a primary blocking issue with save/load during the Valdis movie. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location.

Network
· Created a segmented file save system for GameSpy file size compatibility.
· Adjusted GameSpy vaulting protocols to compensate for party save files during loss of a connection.
· Corrected client query of games at a public IP regardless of the host reporting.
· Removed dpnsvr from the network configuration to fix multiplayer black screen freeze.
· Corrected the centering of icons and information in the Multiplayer screen.

Saving and Loading
· Increased Savegame backup redundancy to 5 instances.
· Adjusted extension naming from .ds2bak1 through .ds2bak5.

Mod Support
· Corrected CRC checking routines for mods.
· Adjusted mod header routine during loads.
· Fixed logging of content mismatches during game load.
· Added safety for UIPartyManager check for Null pointer.
· Fixed fc_actor code to properly identify file loading.

Performance
· Changed the ATI vendor setting of swapeffect_discard to false to support future card anti-aliasing routines.
· Corrected performance degradation when using TrueType fonts on item labels.

Other
· Fully activated GameSpy auto-patch technology for future releases.
· Added version reporting with user registration.
· Corrected offline user registration retries, and added email collection point to single-player mode