Interface

With the release of the expansion pack Legends of Aranna, the interface of Dungeon Siege has become even easier to use. There are plenty of new functions to keep you from ripping your hair out in frustration over your character as he runs ahead straight into the Shadowjumper without any potions. The interface of the original game still works as it always has, and here we will bring up the news.

The Stance / Formation Panel

Panel to adjust formations and stance of your characters

This panel has been updated with two new buttons to make the everyday life of a mage easier. Along with the new transform spells, that let mages turn themselves into animals and attack by melee, there’s a button to turn the mage in question back into a human prematurely. The second new button is to unsummon a summoned creature, once again, before the game does so automatically.

Button to untransform a mageUntransform
Button to unsummon a summoned creatureUnsummon creature

The Status Bar

The status bar, by default placed at the bottom of the window, has also been awarded with a few new icons to help you. Here listed with their default hotkeys.

Redistribute potionsRedistribute potions (R)
Show/hide the world mapShow/hide the world map (SHIFT+TAB)

Redistribute potions is most likely the new feature of Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna that you will use the most. It moves your potions around between your characters so that the characters in need of mana potions, that is, mages, get mana potions and the pure melee fighters don’t. Instead, the melee fighters get a lot more life potions than mages, something they can definitely use. The world map is a map showing the entire world (well, duh!), with the locations you have yet to visit clouded. It’s a great way to get to understand how far you’ve actually traveled, not to mention that it looks very nice. This icon will flash every time there’s an update, just as the journal does.

No good loot?

Finding no good new items? Just want to get rid of everything in your inventory? In that case you will definitely enjoy the new Sell All button in the shop interface. With one click sell all in your inventory, all in your inventory except potions and unique spells, or one of the other possible options. What I usually do is to move everything I want sold to my packmule, then using sell all from there.

Control Groups

Legends of Aranna introduces the great new feature of advanced control groups. Not only are the selected slots (1-4) saved, but also the selected spells for slots 3 and 4. This makes it a great deal easier to be a mage since it’s not actually possible to use more than two spells without pausing the game all the time. I usually have attack spells on one, healing spells on another, orbs on a third, then summons, etc. Casting has never been so easy!