Dungeon Siege II Combat Interview

RPGVault has published a three-page interview with Kevin Lambert, in which the Dungeon Siege II lead designer talks about various aspects of combat in the upcoming action RPG sequel. An excerpt, as usual:
Q: What goals did you have in mind for the game's weapons? How large and varied will the selection be, and will it include many new ones?

A: When designing Dungeon Siege II's weapons, we wanted to do more than just make a hundred cool-looking tools for slicing and dicing; we wanted to try to draw a strong connection between the weapons, the characters who made them, and the characters who use them. We've defined artistic style guides for our weapons so that they fit within the particular culture that created them. For example, Elven-crafted weapons will have a different look and feel from Dryad arms. Functionally, we've tried to offer a good balance of weapons across all the different classes and character roles.

All the cool weapons from Dungeon Siege are back, too - swords, bows, crossbows, shields, maces, axes, hammers, staves, and we've added thrown weapons for rangers, fighter staves for fighters, magical cestuses for mages, and a whole slew of armor geared toward each class. My favorite weapons in RPGs are usually the unique ones that have a story behind them, and Dungeon Siege II will have far more hand-crafted unique and set items than its predecessor or the Legends of Aranna expansion.