Diablo 3

Honestly, Diablo III doesn't interest me in the slightest.

I really enjoyed Diablo II - not just for it's quality Hack 'N Slash gameplay, but also for the story and world that it created. A mix between Crusader and Gothic worlds worked well with the horror aspects, and it came together into a package that was more than the sum of it's parts.

Truth be told, there have been better Hack 'N Slashes out since Diablo II - Torchlight is better in terms of sheer polish and mechanics - but the world of Diablo II really elevated it above what anyone else had managed to do. It's story was actually entertaining, well told, and strangely cathartic - and the end of Lord of Destruction left the world in a nicely ambiguous state.

Diablo III, however, looks to basically ignore everything that made Diablo II so beloved to me.
While I'm sure the mechanics are well developed, at least judging from the various Beta Footage available, the solid Gothic atmosphere is largely removed and the Crusader aspect is absent entirely, giving Diablo III more of an Undead Warcraft vibe, as opposed to the honest horror atmosphere Diablo II swam in.
And the continuation of the story appears to be an even larger retcon-feast than Starcraft II turned into. Starcraft II ruined Starcraft's story, lore, world and characters; I'd rather have Diablo II left alone, than suffer the pain of watching Blizzard burn another series.

And don't even get me started on the Pay-2-Win aspects. No one is going to play the game for fun once the story's finished.

I'll wait for Torchlight 2 and Grim Dawn.

The art direction of Torchlight was really unappealing to me. The gameplay is different story. Wasn't it developed by some guys who worked on the Diablos? The "colorful" direction of Diablo 3 may lead to a broader appeal but I'm in your corner, ZehDon. Comparing the original screenshots with the Gothic, morbid direction I'm left wanting when I see the Undead direction they took.

I wonder about the real money auction house. Will it really be pay-2-win? I think it's a way around gold farmers.

I can sympathize with anyone left cold by a drastic change in story (I'm looking your way The Office) although I was never tuned into the history/story of Diablos. It's the camaraderie that always appealed to me. Running through the dungeon with a couple of friends.

High hopes for Diablo 3 replacing Titan Quest as my "go to."

Played diablo2 until my ass was rotting. Diablo 3 is my most anticipated game of 2012.

Quoting Othello,

reply 2

I wonder about the real money auction house. Will it really be pay-2-win? I think it's a way around gold farmers.

Actually.. its just a way for blizzard to make a cut from the gold farmers. Rather than fighting them it looks to profit from them. If it ends up working for or against players is the big question. Worst case scenario it allows gold farmers to pretty much control the entire economy without breaking the rules.

Personally I'll give it time to see how it pans out before I even think about buying it. No way I'm gonna preorder or rush out to buy a game that may be completely ruined for players by the company trying to embrace and profit from gold farming rather than fighting it.

I was really excited about Diablo 3, still am, but not as much after I played the beta. The way they remade the Skill Rune system, into a simple skill tree that only unlocks to it's fullest near the highest level, is very disappointing. It doesn't seem all that different from Diablo 2, albeit, with 30 extra levels of unlocking skills. I've got nothing against the concept, since I've been playing Diablo 2 for ages, but what attracted me most to Diablo 3 was the novelty it brought. Having the ability to find runes and trade them with other players would help so much in creating truly unique characters. Now, until you unlock everything, you're just as shoehorned into a few builds like in D2.

Haven't pre-ordered the game, the price in Europe is a bit insane, like over 30% of my current income, regardless of it's digital or boxed. I've seen Collector's Editions that cost less. And since it's an Activision game, the price won't drop in the slightest for a year, and two years later it would still be more expensive than new games from other publishers.

No interest in D3 in the slightest. Removal of LAN capabilities was bad enough, but combined with a reliance on their servers, neutering basic character development aspects, real money being all over the place, arena focus, and pre-order exclusive bonuses, they've manage to completely ruin it for me.

It's a MMO light. I hope it tanks as bad as Hellgate did.

Heavenfall- Ha so true for Diablo 2 (For me it was Barbs, Barbs and more BARBS all the WAY!)

I'm glad I get some time to play Diablo 3 before Gods & Kings is out and all my summer classes start in June.

Quoting unacomn,

reply 5

I was really excited about Diablo 3, still am, but not as much after I played the beta. The way they remade the Skill Rune system, into a simple skill tree that only unlocks to it's fullest near the highest level, is very disappointing.

aw... I hope I like when all is said and done. That's a bit disheartening.

Quoting Luckmann,

reply 6

pre-order exclusive bonuses, they've manage to completely ruin it for me.

It's a MMO light. I hope it tanks as bad as Hellgate did.

As far as I know, besides the vestigial collectors edition stuff, there are no pre-order bonuses. I agree about it being a MMO light, it's a selling point for me.

Quoting Heavenfall,

reply 3

Played diablo2 until my ass was rotting. Diablo 3 is my most anticipated game of 2012.

I'm thinking, Clan Elemental.

Quoting Fistalis,

reply 4

Personally I'll give it time to see how it pans out before I even think about buying it. No way I'm gonna preorder or rush out to buy a game that may be completely ruined for players by the company trying to embrace and profit from gold farming rather than fighting it.

Thinking the base game will be fun. Also thinking the gold farmers will turn to item farmers, crashing the market. Maybe Blizzard has measures to put a stop to this? But I agree, it's a way for the company to get a cut of the action.

Despite my better judgement I picked up Starcraft 2, and after being monumentally dissappointed D3 is now barely on my radar. I love -not past tense- Diablo 2 and have put countless hours into it, but the path Blizzard has gone in the past few years is disheartening. They were once a bastion of amazing games, gameplay, and story telling. Now it's just a candle to the flame.

The auction house doesn't bother me, as long as it doesn't become a pay-2-win scenario. I'm sure it will be fun, but I would bet money that it will be a play and forget game, instead of "play till your ass rots" type. If it feels half as generic as SC2 felt, I'll pick it up in a few years when all of the expansions are out.

Quoting Othello,

reply 9

As far as I know, besides the vestigial collectors edition stuff, there are no pre-order bonuses.

Calling it vestigial or pointing out that they're even more restricted than pre-order doesn't exactly change the situation. If anything, it just makes it worse.

Quoting Kodiak888,

reply 10

[...]

The auction house doesn't bother me, as long as it doesn't become a pay-2-win scenario. [...]

I just don't see how it can be anything but. Games are fun in part because it's a level playing field; or at least as level as you want it to be, if you account for LAN/Modding capabilities. When there are pay-for-superiority options that either trivializes or removes underlying game mechanics - fully integrated, no less - how can it not be considered pay-2-win?

The child with his rich father's credit card will always, always have better gear than you, or at least put zero effort into acquiring comparable gear, which means more time to do other things that you cannot.

The preorder "bonus" includes a minuiature Diablo head, a thumbdrive with Diablo 2 + expansion,wings that do nothing for your character but show off, and I believe a World of Warcraft pet and avatars for your Starcraft 2 account. Nothing that boosts stats.

Ill mostly be playing with folks I know in real life. They probably won't, but if they purchase equipment, won't be grinding my gears over it.

Diablo 3 is now a MMO-light. I have no friends that will be buying Diablo 3, so the social aspects will be lost on me and therefore a large portion of the game. I am also extremely disappointed in Blizzard after purchasing and finishing StarCraft 2, and I don't wish to patronize them further, and this is after I've been a fan since I played WarCraft 2 long ago. I do however have friends that will be buying Guild Wars 2, and that will probably end up being cheaper than Diablo 3 since it won't be published by Activision. It also doesn't appear to be an MMO with the open-world features cut out.

I can agree that 200$ for the collectors is BS! Ya I like more art books for my case studies but hell no for 200$.

If the system was for certain gear you could only get by buy it I can agree with you that not fair ie pay to win. But if I can forge the item on my own, trade for it both in party or on in game currency market, and or find it its fair. All I care about is single player and coop. I won't have much time for pvp because I won't have enough time to put towards it to get good at it.

Quoting Luckmann,

reply 11

The child with his rich father's credit card will always, always have better gear than you, or at least put zero effort into acquiring comparable gear, which means more time to do other things that you cannot.

Do not get me wrong, I am against worthless DLC, even if it's disguised as auction house items, but there was, and is, a huge market for item selling in D2 and WoW (and every other MMORPG type game. Blizzard just thought up a way to make money off of it themselves..

Someone buying better gear than me doesn't bother me unless it's all PvP.I have fun playing the game, and if they spend a lot of money for digital items the only emotion I might feel is pity. I am wealthy enough to buy any of those digital items myself, I just am not unintelligent enough to do so.

I am not going to purchase D3 and am most likely done supporting anything else Blizzard puts out for the foreseeable future. Their games are no longer worth my money, for numerous reasons. I was just stating that the auction house isn't the problem with the game, since it essentially already exists and has even existed well before LoD was announced.

I just feel bad for the fools who believe they will be able to farm and make huge profits. There will of course be rare drops that I'm sure will net a few dollars, but you stand to make more working part-time and McDonalds than by anything you'll gain from D3, not including the inevitable owners of several chinese slave farming camps of course.

I have faith in Blizzard. They haven't put out duds. Doesn't mean I will be buying it on release date, but I'm confident that whatever happens it will be good. Also D2's MP supported locally-hosted games where everybody cheated anyway. D3 will probably have servers where people who want to play differently can do their thing.

Free beta access to diablo 3 this weekend - see for details: http://forums.joeuser.com/422587

Been playing for about an hour now - I am really enjoying the game. Playing through as a monk. Brings back all those good ol diablo 2 feelings.

edit - I think my 1st play through last like 2 hours or so. I highly recommend trying it out and seeing what you think... the price of free for a few days is nice, no?

If my computer was capable of handling either of the new Blizzard games, SC2 and D3, I would have probably given them a try by now.

Several things are also bugging me, like what happened to the three races in SC2, with the terrans not having firebats and medics in multiplayer, the zerg tech tree shake up that led to the loss of the lurker and the mediocrity of the hydralisk, and the protoss not having dark archons. Online only and the loss of my favorite class, the paladin, in D3, sure aren't helping convince me either.

Quoting Zeta1127,

reply 19

If my computer was capable of handling either of the new Blizzard games, SC2 and D3, I would have probably given them a try by now.

Several things are also bugging me, like what happened to the three races in SC2, with the terrans not having firebats and medics in multiplayer, the zerg tech tree shake up that led to the loss of the lurker and the mediocrity of the hydralisk, and the protoss not having dark archons. Online only and the loss of my favorite class, the paladin, in D3, sure aren't helping convince me either.

Completed the D3 play through with the Barbarian and I've got to say, outside of the graphic style (once you get indoors with stone-work in the dungeons it looks really good, though outside is 'meh') and the ... interesting choice of classes available ... the gameplay is solid. I like it though I'd like to ramp the difficulty up a bit as the standard just isn't cutting it for me, too easy.

Quoting boshimi336,

reply 20

Completed the D3 play through with the Barbarian and I've got to say, outside of the graphic style (once you get indoors with stone-work in the dungeons it looks really good, though outside is 'meh') and the ... interesting choice of classes available ... the gameplay is solid. I like it though I'd like to ramp the difficulty up a bit as the standard just isn't cutting it for me, too easy.

Agreed on all counts. I'd wager they did an excellent job on all of the character classes. I had a blast with the monk and can see how there are so many different ways to play him - figure it must be similar for all the classes. I wasn't all that impressed with the graphics (it doesn't exactly look impressive to me), it grew on me and caused nostalgia - I did like the detail on the models, though. Agree about the difficulty - normal was pretty damn easy and I had pretty much 0 situations where I would have died and had to use exactly 2 health pots the entire time. I'll be trying it at a harder difficulty, to be sure.

Quoting pacov,

reply 21

Agree about the difficulty - normal was pretty damn easy and I had pretty much 0 situations where I would have died and had to use exactly 2 health pots the entire time. I'll be trying it at a harder difficulty, to be sure.

At the Skeleton King I was going to go, "Okay, I'm just going to stand here and pound potions and beat the guy's boney face in!" and then realized that there is a countdown timer on the health potions!!! That kind of sucked as I almost died (bad strategy I guess!).

Quoting boshimi336,

reply 22

At the Skeleton King I was going to go, "Okay, I'm just going to stand here and pound potions and beat the guy's boney face in!" and then realized that there is a countdown timer on the health potions!!! That kind of sucked as I almost died (bad strategy I guess!).

haha - yeah - bad time to notice the count down timer. I can completely see how you'd have missed it (didn't need to use a damn pot until then for instance).

i did see a video post on the d3 difficulties and normal was supposed to be lowest difficulty and get poeple aquanted with the game wether hardcore players or newcomers. in anycase seasoned diablo players who got a taste of all the other difficulties said that the game will start owning you from nightmare and for them the real challenge started at Nightmare. lastly a dev commentary of the new difficulty introduced to the diablo franchise "inferno" is supposed to be a max lvl only place where you cannot out lvl any monsters as they will all start out at least 1 lvl higher than the max lvl of the game cap. anycase fyi

Thanks NS!

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