OT: Diablo III open beta this weekend

[Hellshade 110]

For those interested in a fantasy RPG "click fest" Blizzard has an open beta from April 20th - April 23rd. That's this weekend. As far as I know you just need a Battle.net account but no active subscriptions.

 

http://pc.ign.com/articles/122/1223407p1.html

 

Hellshade

[Hellshade 110]

Well I fired it up and I must say I am seriously underwhelmed by Diablo III.

 

Obviously I didn't play long enough to make a bunch of levels or anything, but right away the gameplay just seemed very 'flat' to me. The graphics were mediocre at best. Frankly the Diablo series is supposed to be known for it's dark atmosphere, but Diablo III looks like they tried to cross it with World of Warcraft in terms of art style. Too cartoony for the series in my personal opinion. I'm sure it will sell like hotcakes, but I won't be throwing any money it's way. I'll save for OFF 2 and perhaps Guild Wars 2.

 

If you like the "click fest" fantasy action RPGs, I would recommend trying Path of Exile. It is currently in open beta and will be free to play once it goes live. The atmosphere is much darker and grim. Plus the skill trees are so large, people actually call them the "skill forest" for good reason. I've spent a few hours in the beta and it seems to be well put together. Try them both, of course. But considering PoE is going to be free to play and Diablo III will most certainly be $59.99, I think PoE is definately worth a long look, especially for any purely casual players.

 

http://www.pathofexile.com/

 

Hellshade

Edited April 21, 2012 by Hellshade

[Von Paulus 8]

Or go for this one, instead: :)

I've pledge it.

These are the guys who have made Titan Quest, but now without the imbecile restrains of the publishers, the game will be less bland.

It will have a more Victorian ambiance (no Steam punk) it has guns as well.

This is the feature list:

 

• Combine any of five distinct skill classes each with multiple skill trees in which to specialize. Advance your class mastery up to 75 levels to unlock dozens of powerful skills and synergistic modifiers. New classes will be periodically released through downloadable content.
• Destructible environments give evidence of your massive battles while collapsing stonework and flying shards of furniture can be used tactically to cause further injury to your foes.
• Dynamic Weather brings the world to life with region-specific climates and a variety of weather effects. A sunny day can cloud over with mild rainshowers that builds into a booming thunderstorm. Variable wind gusts blow grass and affect objects like windmills and window shutters.
• Gameplay systems designed to expand for 200 levels of character progression, equipment, and enemies to fight makes for ridiculous amounts of replay value.
• Connect with old friends or make new allies in glorious multiplayer. Specially balanced multiplayer encounters will put your teamwork to the ultimate challenge.
• Collect blueprints that allow you to combine salvaged components into unique crafted items and then, later, use those basic crafted items with higher-tiered recipes to complete items of unprecedented badassness.
• Camera rotation enhances the three-dimensionality of the world and gameplay while levels are still designed so that players are not forced to rotate the camera.
• Refined loot system drops less junk items and ensures more consistent rewards from hero and boss monsters.
• Satisfying enemy damage and death effects with an option to enable blood and gore.
• New quest and conversation system will allow players to choose quest paths and rewards, interact with NPCs in more interesting ways, and an intuitive quest creation wizard will make life a lot easier for modders.
• An NPC faction system lets the player improve their relations with different NPC groups to earn rewards as their favor increases such as merchant discounts, new items, and additional quest lines. However, aiding one faction could turn a rival faction into your enemy. Choose which side you will support!
• The ability to spend money to reclaim skill and attribute points alleviates the fear and frustration of having to make early, uninformed decisions that could permanently nerf a character.
• More features are in the works and will be announced as Grim Dawn nears release.

 

What you've said about Diablo III, fits perfectly what I've already heard from other players saying.

[FenrisWlf 6]

Or go for this one, instead: :)

I've pledge it.

 

Thanks for posting this; I too have pledged.

[redpiano 6]

Well I fired it up and I must say I am seriously underwhelmed by Diablo III.

 

Obviously I didn't play long enough to make a bunch of levels or anything, but right away the gameplay just seemed very 'flat' to me. The graphics were mediocre at best. Frankly the Diablo series is supposed to be known for it's dark atmosphere, but Diablo III looks like they tried to cross it with World of Warcraft in terms of art style. Too cartoony for the series in my personal opinion. I'm sure it will sell like hotcakes, but I won't be throwing any money it's way. I'll save for OFF 2 and perhaps Guild Wars 2.

 

If you like the "click fest" fantasy action RPGs, I would recommend trying Path of Exile. It is currently in open beta and will be free to play once it goes live. The atmosphere is much darker and grim. Plus the skill trees are so large, people actually call them the "skill forest" for good reason. I've spent a few hours in the beta and it seems to be well put together. Try them both, of course. But considering PoE is going to be free to play and Diablo III will most certainly be $59.99, I think PoE is definately worth a long look, especially for any purely casual players.

 

http://www.pathofexile.com/

 

Hellshade

 

 

I've played at least 20 hours of the beta personally, before it was open and after mind you.

 

I've also played many other Diablo clones like titan quest, Drakensang and various other diablo clones.

 

First of all, the art style is not cartoony, the actual textures and such do have a similar look to World of warcraft, but that's because world of warcraft looks like Warcraft 3 because that's when they started using that art style, why? Because it looks great but it still playable on a wide range of computers without issue. This is one key place where Blizzard shines at making games, Diablo will sell like hot cakes because it's an awesome game, well balanced and interesting but also because nearly everyone can run it, just like Diablo 1, just like Diablo 2, just like every other game Blizzard has made; this is one thing they're known for. But Diablo still retains a very distinct, unique but realistic look, it is also still quite grim, going into dungeons you see people speared to the wall with blood splattered everywhere, or the unburied who are giant grotesque horrors with two faces and spikes everywhere, or the big blue fat guys that are all stiched together and explode into a dozen worms when you kill them or even just the fact that every encounter ends with blood and juice splattered all over the place. It is plenty grim, it is plenty violent.

 

You played how long in the 'beta' that made you decide the gameplay was flat? What class did you play? How far did you get? Did you unlock any abilities or runes?

 

The gameplay is the same great gameplay from Diablo 2 except they have streamlined it in very good ways, they've gotten rid of the skill tree or "skill forest" because that is a very boring and idiotic way to do RPG elements, do you ever get sick and tired of wasting points into skills that you don't want or won't use just to get to the skill you DO want? Or realizing that the ability you just spent points in actually sucks so now you have to go re-specialize your character? Diablo 3 fixes this but without removing the customization of having a skill tree by allowing you to unlock runes at various levels alongside your abilities, passives and so on. For example, Plague of toads by default you throw out three green toads that hop around and explode dealing damage to enemies, one of the runes for this ability changes it so that instead of three small exploding toads you throw out a giant toad that devours your enemies, or another rune that turns the toads into flaming explosives. Or the fire bats ability, by default it's essentially a flame thrower, one of the first runes you get in the current beta build gives you instead of a flame thrower you throw out a single large flaming bat that travels further and deals more damage but in a smaller path, very useful for clearing out a bridge crowded with enemies. You can also switch out these abilities at any time so instead of having to pay or cheat to respec when you choose something you don't like.

 

The other nice thing about Diablo 3, and blizzard games in general is balance and attention to detail, Diablo 3 has undergone a very significant number of changes since it's announcement in 2008, one of which is the runes, in their first form they were loot that you picked up, there were hundreds of runes that you got from drops all of which buffed and altered abilities for various characters, blizzard saw this as an issue because they essentially became just something that people would farm and then sell for loads on the auction house, so they changed it to give you more reward for leveling, now you unlock runes with levels and they have far more drastic effects on your skills, as I said above like the giant toad or dire bats. But not only that, simple enemy difficulty, in Titan Quest you get to a point where you're more powerful than any of the enemies in the game so that even the boss fights just become one big boring grind to the end.

 

 

D3 also has all the great addicting loot than Diablo is known for, amazing levels of randomness in the dungeons, world and enemies, one playthrough you'll find a unique quest, the next you may find a different unique quest, see that hole in the ground? Maybe this playthrough enemies will crawl out where as the next playthrough it'll be a dungeon entrance.

 

I hope all naysayers will actually take the time to play through the beta a few times before you judge it. If you're going to play the beta and would like a coop partner I'd be happy to play with you, send me a PM with your battlenet and I'll add you.

 

EDIT also regards to the art style, technically the game has the same type of texture work and "painterly" look to it as the ARPG Torchlight, the difference is diablo 3 is realistically styled where as torchlight is cartoony. See the difference?

 

 

Edited April 21, 2012 by redpiano

[Von Paulus 8]

How does it work that real money auction houses?

And will I have to be always online even to play a single player campaign?

For me streamline is usually connected with a dumb down version, usually connected with a console release.

Will we expect a console version, to justify this dumbing down?

[redpiano 6]

How does it work that real money auction houses?

And will I have to be always online even to play a single player campaign?

For me streamline is usually connected with a dumb down version, usually connected with a console release.

Will we expect a console version, to justify this dumbing down?

 

How does the real money auction house work? Not sure I haven't spent time with it, I think it's simple though players choose the price for their items, you can basically put money on your battlenet account and use that to buy items in the real money AH, or use gold from the standard Auction house. I think that's how that works.

 

Why do you have to be online to play? Mostly because of the real money auction house, because if people were able to play offline and then put the items on the real money auction house what would stop them from using a character editor to just give themselves the rarest of items possible just to make money from the Auctions? I don't really like this either but how often do you end up with your internet down wanting to play a game? It's happened once or twice a year for me so unless you're someone who does a lot of traveling or you play in public on a laptop I don't see the issue, you can play single player and you can still pause the game as long as you aren't in coop, you can also block people from joining your game so this isn't really bad it just let's Blizzard make sure that people aren't exploiting the system both for PVP and the real money auction house. Also Blizzard's games have been like this for a while, Starcraft 2 requires you to be online as well.

 

Streamlined can mean any number of things, for those unaware Diablo 1 was on PS1 as well as PC, so was Starcraft which came out on the N64. Streamlining gameplay can sometimes be a negative, other times, like this case IMO it can be a great benefit.

 

Like I said in my previous post, the things they're doing are simply to get rid of annoying, typical RPG features, here's some things they've changed and streamlined.

 

Mana regenerates quickly now, no more mana potions to worry about. In Diablo 2 mana and health potions were so common it was almost completely pointless for them to even be in the game. But each character uses a different version of mana now as well so having mana potions would be pointless anyways. The Wizard uses Arcane power, the demon hunter uses hatred and mana I believe, the witch doctor uses mana, the monk uses stamina I think and the barbarian I believe uses rage or stamina.

 

No more class tree. Like I said, they did away with the class tree, one thing most people criticize about western RPG's are class trees, you always end up going down a path in the tree that you regret or you feel like you've wasted points and you want to respec your character, this doesn't happen in Diablo 3, y ou unlock skills and runes as you level up. Each of these new skills are attributed to a slot, you have left and right click skills which are more fast paced quick casting skills or normal strikes, then you have your hot bar skills that are more like buffs, summons, AOE skills and big resource using abilities. You can only have one skill selected per slot, so you'll unlock multiple abilities for each slot but you can only use one at a time and when you switch them out they get a cool down to prevent you from simply switching them out in the middle of a boss fight to take advantage of every skill you have. Nice thing about this is now when you're about to go into a boss fight or a new area and you know "okay I need AOE for this area" instead of going back and paying to clear your skill tree and then spending the time to put your points into the skills you want you can just quickly swap them out on the fly, wait a few seconds and go into the boss fight or whatever, then when you leave you can quickly swap them out to whatever else you need.

 

Health orbs and health potions. Now there are health orbs that on lower difficulty will drop to give you a little health in the heat of battle, these are helpful in that they heal your entire party including summoned creatures and mercenaries, but they only give a slight amount of health at a time and like I said only drop on the low difficult setting.

 

There's lots of other streamlined features like gold picks up when you walk over it so no more pixel hunting to pickup every little pile of gold at the end of a fight. There's also the good old ARPG "alt" key that shows all the dropped items on the ground, in D3 you can change it so that it does one of three things, hold alt to display items, tap to display for 15 seconds or display at all times. Just simple things they made better that don't deteriorate from the experience in any way. The game is still difficult, just like Diablo 2 boss fights can kill you and more difficulty levels will unlock when you complete the game, also like Diablo 2.

 

I encourage you to give it a try and play through it a few times before you judge, one of the best parts to me is the random encounters and you'll only see that on multiple playthroughs.

 

EDIT Also there's some new stuff in the game as well like crafting, you can now turn rare items (blue and above) into crafting material to craft your own weapons and armor, this may also have something to do with the online requirement but it adds a nice layer of depth, gives you a reason to keep all those blue items you pickup that aren't for your character and also adds purpose to the gold in the game because you pay to train the blacksmith so you can create better and rarer items that give you random stat bonuses.

 

You can also hire mercenaries like in Diablo of old, but now they have their own level, they level up and you can then choose what skills and gear they use unlike in previous Diablo games.

 

A couple other streamlined features, there is no more town portal and identify scrolls, you now simply have the ability to use town portal at all times, I think it has a cooldown though, you can also identify items at any time, I don't really like this one I would rather they require you to have an NPC identify them but eh, it works and it doesn't bother me at all. It just means there won't be a bunch of stupid scrolls taking up inventory space anymore.

 

You also have a shared stash box now, so you can share items across multiple characters, except for hardcore characters.

 

LASTLY! People worried the game is too easy or too simple, normal difficulty is just a simple casual farming difficulty, Blizzard has addressed these concerns both in a panel at Blizzcon and in videos like this.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2012 by redpiano

[Hellshade 110]

Red,

As I stated in my post, I'm sure it will sell like hot cakes. My opinion is just mine. There are plenty of Skyrim "haters" even though Bethesda shipped 10,000,000 copies and it is the fastest selling game in the history of steam. But you can still go on forums and read people who hate every aspect of it. That's fine. It doesn't stop me from enjoying the game. There's always going to be a minority who simply don't like a game for one reason or another. They don't stop it's success in the commercial market.

 

Yes, Torchlight is cartoony compared to Diablo III. But Diablo III looks cartoony to me compared to Path of Exile or Grim Dawn. I fully understand why Blizzard, one of my favorite game making companies, went with a lower polygon count in order to run on the maximum number of machines. It's a smart choice to cast the widest possible net in order to get the most sales. I just don't happen to care for the choice. I don't happen to have a low end machine so I like games where I can crank up the detail and make things look as real as possible in most cases. (WoW, a Blizzard game, happens to have been one of the exceptions for years for me though I'm finally completely over it) In terms of click fest style games, Path of Exile and Grim Dawn fall closer to that mark of realistic looks for me than Diablo III does. I feel pretty confident though that Blizzard will survive without my personal support on this one.

 

I'm glad you love Diablo III. I genuinely hope you get years and years of enjoyment out of it. I have no doubt that millions of people will. That's why it'll sell like hot cakes. I just won't happen to be one of those millions. Fortunately for all of us there seems to be multiple developers going about creating fantasy action RPGs in different ways. Different sword strokes for different RPG folks, eh?

 

Hellshade

Edited April 21, 2012 by Hellshade

[redpiano 6]

Yeah your opinion is yours to keep hellshade, I just wanted to make a case against yours to encourage people to try the game themselves and form their own opinion.

 

My personal problem with games like path of exile and grim dawn, titan quest, any number of other diablo style games is they have no personal flare. If you put a screenshot of grim dawn, path of exile, drakensang and any number of other diablo like ARPG's together the only way you'll know the difference is the interface, but you look at an image of Diablo 3 and you'll know yep that's Diablo 3. Grim Dawn in particular, really just looks like titan quest minus the greek setting. But I am interested, I signed up on path of exile's site that you linked and I'll throw 18$ into the Grim dawn thing, even though I don't give any credit to that developer because Titan quest was such a train wreck of a game.

 

Also I'm curious if Path of exile is free to play how do they make money?

[Hellshade 110]

Yeah your opinion is yours to keep hellshade, I just wanted to make a case against yours to encourage people to try the game themselves and form their own opinion.

 

 

Also I'm curious if Path of exile is free to play how do they make money?

 

Indeed it was only my opinion. That's why I included the words "in my personal opinion", sir.

 

Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure that it was me who posted the link to let people know that the Diablo III beta was available this weekend. For a person trying to discourage people from playing a beta, I'm doing a really lousy job by letting them know when, where and how to sign up for it. Wouldn't you say? In fact, I always encourage people to try betas and demos. The best time to find out if you like something is when you have the chance to try it for free. That's when they get to form their own opinion. I expressed my opinion. I doubt very seriously that my personal opinion holds so much weight that anyone around here is going to not try a free beta or demo just because I didn't happen to enjoy it. If it turns out I do have that much sway over people's ability to decide things for themselves, it'll be news to me sir. In all the time I've been here, I've never read the words "Well Hellshade didn't like it so I'm not even going to bother to try it."

 

But since I put the words "Try them both, of course." into my opinion, even if they did follow me blindly, they'd be trying Diablo III anyway.

 

Come to think of it, I just made a post about the ability to make the colors richer and more vibrant in OFF:BH&H. I figured a lot of people would really like to have that option. Turns out most of the people who responded prefer the more 'muted' color scheme that Winder put in as default. Whatever works for them is fine by me. Just because I love it doesn't mean other people can't dislike it. I'm about giving people options and let them figure out what works best for them. You'll have to forgive me if I also express a personal opinion in the process of trying it for myself. You should prepare yourself for the fact that other people who try it for themselves are likely to do the same.

 

Path of Exile plans on selling cosmetic upgrades. Supposedly they won't sell "pay to win" type gear. Time will tell if it makes any money or not. Rest assured it won't make as much money as Blizzards title.

 

Hellshade

Edited April 22, 2012 by Hellshade

[Von Paulus 8]

@redpiano

Some of the things that you don't mind that they have streamlined, I really dislike. I just plain hate quick automatic regeneration of any sort. I know it's the current trend, but it feels refreshing when playing "Fallout: New Vegas" to feel how most of the games were.

It's true they have made Diablo fro PS1, but the times were different. It was created with the idea of being played in PC, with a mouse and a keyboard, not with six action buttons of a gamepad. The games today, when are multiplatform, they usually are made with the consoles in mind.

I'll try a demo, if it comes out. But with the permanent online requirement, the game would have to interest me a lot in order to buy it.

As for the PoE, it's online, it doesn't really interest me. Torchlight II, it's too cartoony, I agree.

So it only rests Grim Dawn. I hope that will be better that Titan Quest. It's just hope.

Anyway it's just a In defense of the devs I believe they had a lot of problem with the publisher during the development of Titan Quest.

 

Often when I talk about making the game darker, people assume I mean visually darker. What I really mean, is thematically darker. When I say "sexier" like God of War, I'm speaking figuratively and not talking about actual sexual content and I'm not advocating that it should have been like God of War. Mainly, I'm just saying that we should have been a bit bolder in our decision making and advertising of the game. There seemed to be a constant fear during the development of Titan Quest about upsetting this or that segment of the audience or someone's grandmother. I was literally told by one of the higher-ups that the game should be designed so that his grandmother would want to play it (even though his grandmother had never played a game before in her life). We were building a game with relatively complicated and hardcore gameplay systems but trying to make it thematically and visually appealing to as wide a casual audience as possible. The end result, is that the game was a little more bland and generic in some respects than it should have been and the game world didn't do much to convey a sense of danger.

 

One example of this would be the mandate that enemies not use language or build anything that would make them seem like they had more than animal intelligence. It was felt by one of the higher-ups that people might feel wrong killing enemies that displayed any obvious intelligence. I guess somehow it is wrong to fight intelligent enemies but okay to slaughter dumb animals? We also weren't originally allowed to have humans die, ever, in the game and no human corpses.

 

One area where this handicapped us was in the creation of environmental assets that visually demonstrated the enemy's war against humanity. We originally wanted to create enemy siege-works outside Athens but were told that would make the enemies seem too intelligent. It was a struggle just to monster camp assets. All of the ruins were also removed from Greece at one point because someone was afraid that players might not understand why, if the game took place in ancient times, that there would still be ruins... I had to fight for both of these things. Without them, Greece would have just been a featureless expanse of wilderness with occasional human towns that never really appeared to be in any serious danger.

 

At the same time, we were told that enemies should seem like noble adversaries, not evil or demonic creatures. It was highly controversial when the designs for the Limos and Arachnids were first presented. I had to personally fight to get those approved because they were considered too grotesque and scary looking even though they were based on actually mythology. Undead and the Spirit Mastery were also a struggle to get in the game. I was told that Spirit Mastery was too "Necromancery and evil". We managed to push a few more things like that through over the course of development but it was always frowned upon.

 

Basically, my belief is that Titan Quest never had as much style and character as it could have because we were afraid to do anything even remotely controversial. When I first designed the skill masteries, they were all based on Olympian gods, with skills modeled after the powers or attributes associated with different gods in mythology. This was rejected because it was potentially too religious and people might not want to feel like they were worshiping mythological gods to receive their powers.

 

We ended up with a game set in Greek mythology that barely contained any actual mythology other than the inspiration for some of the monsters and dialog on peripheral story-teller NPCs stuck off to the side in the towns. The first quest I put in the game, when we were prototyping it for THQ was modeled after one of the 12 labors of Heracles. The Erymanthian Board was terrorizing a town and the hunters they sent after it hadn't returned. You had to ascend mount Erymanthos, discover the wreckage of the hunter's camp, and then continue on to the snow-capped summit to battle the monstrous board. Of course, I was told we couldn't have snow on the summit because people might not realize it snowed in Greece and then later the whole quest vanished and was replaced by generic crap like retrieving a dowry ring so some chick can get married while monsters are overrunning the world.

 

So, this is where I'm coming from. I don't think the game needed to be all low-light environments or contain sex mini-games. When I talk about the difference between the TQ and TQ:IT box art, I'm talking about the difference between THQ hiring an outside marketing company to generate box art out of generic assets (ever look at the quality of the temples and stuff in the background?) vs. letting our artists design our own box art. The original box art we submitted for TQ was drawn up by our concept artist, featured a hydra that looked like the one in-game, had a far more interesting composition and better use of color. I think Titan Quest just needed more artistic freedom and personality so that something more unique and exciting could have been created in-game and conveyed by our marketing materials.

 

Of course, I'm probably also looking at this from the overly critical perspective of a developer evaluating their own work.

[redpiano 6]

The beta is open and playable now, go download it and try it there will likely be no demo.

 

To the point of the regenerating mana, that is the 'only' thing that regenerates, health will not regenerate in combat, nor will any of the other "manas" in the game, the barbarian, demon hunter and monk have to regenerate their stamina or in the case of the demon hunter, hatred by using normal attacks, where as the witch doctor and wizard's mana pool regenerates automatically but their abilities have high casting costs and in large groups of enemies you run out of mana in no time.

 

It's also not a trend, it's an evolution of game mechanics. Health packs in games have been a broken part of games forever, you ever play an old shooter and you get shot up to the point where you have no health or health packs and you saved right before you have to run into a room full of enemies? that's not fun game design, back when I used to play medal of honor games and the old call of duty's, I hated that. And like I said it's not even health that regenerates and mana potions were so plentiful in Diablo 2 that it was trivial to begin with, I really don't see your point in marking it as a negative in this case.

 

As for a console version, there is one in the works, they announced last year that they're hiring people to work on a console version, whether or not a console version will come out? Who knows, my guess is yes, but who knows. The game was made for PC, which is why there is no gamepad support, they practically finished development before they even began hiring for a console version so that should put that concern to rest.

 

Can you please explain why an online requirement is bad? Is it just that you come from playing old PC games when internet still came through a phone jack? I do not understand this widespread hatred of online required in the entire flight sim community, it is such a limiting mindset, it's not like they're adding in s**tty ubisoft DRM, it's just an online sign in, this means that they can stop botting, they can prevent cheaters, they can roll out patches quick and easy without you having to download them off a website every time a new one comes out. It's their integration with battlenet which is a complete in game friend list in the same style as Steam. I just do not understand why so many people that play flight sims are so hard set on this subject.

 

RE: Titan quest, I don't think the publisher is an excuse for the game being horrible balanced and having extremely repetitive enemies.

[Von Paulus 8]

The beta is open and playable now, go download it and try it there will likely be no demo.

I can't.this weekend. Besides the servers are filled.There are a lot of people complaining they can't log in. So they can't play the beta.

 

 

I hated that. And like I said it's not even health that regenerates and mana potions were so plentiful in Diablo 2 that it was trivial to begin with, I really don't see your point in marking it as a negative in this case.

Glad to hear it's only with mana and not health.

 

 

Can you please explain why an online requirement is bad? Is it just that you come from playing old PC games when internet still came through a phone jack? I do not understand this widespread hatred of online required in the entire flight sim community, it is such a limiting mindset, it's not like they're adding in s**tty ubisoft DRM, it's just an online sign in, this means that they can stop botting, they can prevent cheaters, they can roll out patches quick and easy without you having to download them off a website every time a new one comes out. It's their integration with battlenet which is a complete in game friend list in the same style as Steam. I just do not understand why so many people that play flight sims are so hard set on this subject.

Well, depending on the place I'm playing. I play in two different houses, and in one I don't have Internet connection. So I usually avoid this kind of requirement. Other reasons is like you've said, I want to be able to play whenever I want , not depending on thirds, like is the server on, or is my Internet up or down, etc.

So or the demo will be pretty exceptional or I want buy it. If there will be no demo, I still can consider if it drops to 10€ in a sale, which I hardly think it will happen, it's Blizzard (Activision) after all.

So probably I'll pass.

[redpiano 6]

It's blizzard, not activision. Blizzard's games have always kept their price over the long term, the Diablo battle chest is still 20$ in most places.

[Von Paulus 8]

It's blizzard, not activision. Blizzard's games have always kept their price over the long term, the Diablo battle chest is still 20$ in most places.

Yes, that's why I don't believe it will be on sale.

I doubt that Blizzard is the same after the merge with Activision.

Did you know that they now promote Kung-Fu Panda? Sorry redpiano, I know it's not D3 related, but I just couldn't resist.

[Hellshade 110]

Yes, that's why I don't believe it will be on sale.

Did you know that they now promote Kung-Fu Panda? Sorry redpiano, I know it's not D3 related, but I just couldn't resist.

 

I agree it won't be "on sale" for a very long time, if ever. Blizzard titles tend to be like Toyota Corollas. They just keep their value.

 

And while yes, there are martial arts pandas in the next WoW expansion, the truth is the pandarians (or whatever they are called) were a part of Warcraft lore that was introduced way back in Warcraft III the RTS game. Kung Fu Panda - the movie - showed up long after Blizzard invented the idea. I still can't stand the idea of them in WoW, but it doesn't matter to me anymore since I quit some time ago. Popular theory has it that they are trying to grow their Chinese base of fans in WoW because the western fans are dropping like flies. That's just a rumor though. Only Blizzard knows their reasoning for certain.

 

Hellshade

[Von Paulus 8]

Only Blizzard knows their reasoning for certain.

Money related, that's for sure. You know how the corporate mentality works....

[Hellshade 110]

Money related, that's for sure. You know how the corporate mentality works....

 

The vast majority of people go to work every day simply for the money. They are entitled to do the same. It's a human mentality, really. They are just better at it than most.

 

Hellshade

[redpiano 6]

I would encourage you to look at the actual publisher of WoW, WoW Mist's of pandaria and Diablo 3.

 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Diablo_III

http://en.wikipedia....rld_of_Warcraft

http://en.wikipedia....sts_of_Pandaria

 

Blizzard

Blizzard

Blizzard

 

The merger with activision has had and will have no effect on Blizzard's development choices, why? Because Blizzard publishers Blizzard's games, they always have, and they always will. Blizzard still takes ages to make their games, their games are still top notch quality, their games are not repetitive yearly releases like Activision's Call of duty and they are not a scumbag company that makes games solely for the purpose of raking in the cash. Blizzard's development teams are all about the nerdiest people I've seen seconded only to John Carmack and the quality of their games shows it. Just look at Diablo 3's development cycle, it's gone through so many balance changes and huge core mechanics alterations it's practically a different game now than it was in 2008 when it was announced, Activision does not and would never push back their games that long for quality purposes; Blizzard does.

 

Like it or not, Diablo 3 will likely be a phenomenal game and as much as I hate WoW, it also is a phenomenal game and Blizzard is very smart when it comes to making a good game that also makes a lot of money.

Edited April 23, 2012 by redpiano

[Von Paulus 8]

The vast majority of people go to work every day simply for the money. They are entitled to do the same. It's a human mentality, really. They are just better at it than most.

 

Hellshade

You know what happens when everything resumes to money. I go for work for money, but not only for that.

 

Yes D3 will be "phenomenal" like WoW is "phenomenal". Probably not in the sense how Elite, Pacman, Tetris, Ultima, Baldur's Gate, (just to name the few) were.

Undoubtedly It will sell well, that's it.

It's filled with fanboys and haters, it would be nice to have a demo to discern well.

 

And like any other merges, yes it will affect. Will have to agree on disagree.

[redpiano 6]

Demos take time and money to develop, I would rather they focus on making the game instead of trying to please the few that remain uncertain about the game.

 

I also don't understand your comparison to those very old and very outdated games you listed. Diablo 3 isn't going to be some revolution in game design, it isn't meant to be. But if you want a good, well balanced and fun ARPG because there are almost none out there that are worth playing then Diablo 3 is something you should check out. Or wait until 2013 for Grim dawn or whenever Path of exile is planned to release, although I must say POE looks incredibly dull from the gameplay videos I watched. Grim dawn seems like it's worth checking out but I've thrown enough money at kickstarters recently, quite had enough of them already ;P

[Von Paulus 8]

Because you used the word phenomenal in describing on how will be, and that's a strong word.

Those games which I've mentioned are phenomenal, inspiring/inspired, classical. I could include Diablo 2 (haven't played D1) on that list.