Technical paper on how the continuous world Dungeon Siege works

Firstly, happy Thanksgiving to all VTOR readers and visitors.

This will probably be of most interest to multiplayer game developer readers, but I found a lot of the information interesting and wished every MMO worked like Dungeon Siege with no pauses or loading screens. The phrase continuous play is defined in the paper as:

All map-specific game content, such as geometry, scripts, and textures, is loaded on demand in the background as the game plays out, and not preloaded all at once at the start of the map … Designers can create rich and dramatic worlds with a high density and variety of placed objects, huge vertical distances, spiral staircases, lots of fat textures packed tight. The density of textures and objects is a critical part of the “look” of Dungeon Siege … Multiple players can simultaneously move through any part of the world, playing together, in bands, or solo, joining and leaving the game on the fly, in a client-server setup … It must be possible to teleport from one part of the map to another in a “continuous” way, i.e. without stopping gameplay. This was an unexpected and scary (but critical) feature that we hacked in at the last minute.

No loading screens? Let’s say that again: no loading screens! I’ve seen Dungeon Siege at the store a few times and thought about buying. The website rather annoyingly prompts you to verify your age twice before you get to the screen shown above. I was expecting nude pictures or something more graphic than a map after that much blocking.

When I looked at Dungeon Siege RPG at Amazon (affiliate) I found the following description:

Take away inventory wrangling, lame shopkeepers, limited storage space, hunting for dropped loot, and loading screens, and what’s left? Pure RPG goodness. Relieved of the baggage found in most RPGs, the player can focus on exploring, fighting, working with party members, character advancement, and experiencing the classic tale of a farm kid’s quest for glory. –Mike Fehlauer

Now here I am wanting to try this game out on Thanksgiving. Is it available to buy online and download, or do you have to go the retailer route? The company behind Dungeon Siege, Gas Powered Games, offers a free download demo. Downloading!

Any VTOR readers fans of Dungeon Siege?