redpiano

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?

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.

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?

I hope this comes around soon, I think I've finally had my last straw with rise of flight.

That looks fantastic I must say.

Okay, well thanks for the reply.

Hey

Are there float planes in P3? Or any squads that do combat at sea, attacking ships or subs? Are there Torpedoes in OFF?

Also is the Dolphin in the game? I saw someone else mention some sort of third party download I guess it was, how does that work and can I fly campaigns in the dolphin?

Semi related question, so then what does the "average altitude" setting actually do.

In ROF the wind sound dies and the planes starts to shake, I suspect that would be the best way.

It adds a layer of authenticity, maybe, it doesn't change that it sounds like it was a cut and paste from a youtube video. I don't know where I'm not "looking" in order to enjoy the hodge podge of sound in this game, I've spoken to other people about OFF and they think the same things I think about it; the lot of you are the only ones I've seen try to shoot down some of these criticisms.

The problem with OFF's sound is it all sounds as though it came from a youtube video, I can even link you a video or two that I think they got the sound from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5mvfK-J1KE -OFF's se5a

http://www.youtube.c...4AXnjNM-y_c -the video is sounds exactly like (skip to 1:00)

You might say "oh well of course it sounds the same, it's the same engine, it's supposed to. Yes that's a good point, but OFF's sound, sounds like it's directly cut from a youtube video and that sucks to me, it totally takes me out of the experience. Besides that, just the..."soundscape?" of the whole game doesn't match specifically because each different engine sounds like it came from a different youtube video recorded with a different microphone, so nearly every sound in the game sounds unnatural.

There are some I don't mind, like the N11's engine sounds alright.

Yes and I think that's where the problem lies, seems most of you maybe migrated to OFF from an older game, where as I played ROF, Cliffs of dover, IL2 and various other games before I bothered to try this one. It does a lot of cool stuff, I love the claims system and just the huge amount of content for single player; it's not doubt a great game.

I feel like you guys are playing a different game than me sometimes, either that or your rose colored glasses are far more effective than mine.

P3 offers the single player that rise of flight never will, that's what I like about it. That just doesn't change that this is built around CFS3. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, but I've been running into so many problems and janky things in game that it makes me very jaded towards towards the game and I can't help that.

Regardless, I appreciate the help.

I enjoy it well enough, I still plan to purchase P4; I'm only hoping that the many issues in P3 are remedied.

sound editing is tough even for an expert. I've heard professional games with much poorer sound quality and obvious looping, said games have still won awards for best sound.

Anywho, several things you can try, headphones no matter the quality are a poor way to listen to sound, they prevent natural decay and over expose everything. try limiting or expanding the dynamic range in your system audio settings, and lower the overall sound volume. Play around with the treble, and bass settings to compress the sound a little.

 

From experience, engines are especially difficult to record and edit. Each engine produces its own series of clicks and clunks and the pitch varies widely at any level. Usually recorded outdoors or in sheds and hangars, far away from the pure and deadened environment of a studio. I've found that you need a long section of audio, and then have to smooth it out and perform different passes to filter out some of the variations. Even still with pitch set to throttle speed, an inaudible rumble at idle, can become a high pitch click at speed. it's a tough one. Normally in films they only show short sections at mid-level, and looped sounds get shoved to the back as much as possible.

Playing dozen other flight sims and a couple hundred other unrelated games, I've never heard the kind of bad looping that P3 has.

Baur the engine sound in the game isn't natural sound, it's not the sound of a real life engine in front of you, it's the sound of a youtube video of a camel or whatever. So not only do all the sounds in the game sound like they're from an external view, but they also have digital oddities left over and when they're looped over and over it causes a really annoying problem, and in this case it's a clang or a click or maybe just a tone repeating, like the Albatros has this raise in tone near the end of the sound loop and it sounds awful when it's loud. I also use a headset so keep that in mind.

Oh and the spitfire sounding SE5a's...please get rid of them.

Yes! Thank you sir, nobody bothered mentioning this last time I had the problem. That fixes it though. Much appreciated.

This is the third time this has happened, this is ridiculous. How do I fix it without reinstalling because I'm done reinstalling all this crap.

Well I'm sorry if Awful was too harsh a word, but they're simply too repetitive and all over the place. I've played around a lot with the sound levels and the only way I can play the game is with engine way down which then makes every other sound in the game extremely loud. And there seems to be no....I don't know what the term would be, distance fading? on the sounds, so if I've got someone buzzing around me it doesn't matter if they're a thousand yards or a hundred yards it sounds like they're right on my tail.

True, I don't play well with others.

Anywho, the sound isn't up to par with 'any' flight sim I've played so far. I've also noticed every engine sound in the game has a real loud and annoying sound underneath the actual propeller buzz, like the SE5 has sort of a clunk that repeats throughout the flight. I hope those go away. Last time I played I just turned engine sound all the way down cause it's just bad.

Because it's really quite awful in P3.

Personally I quite like the following

Black hawk down

Saving private ryan

The Pacific and to a lesser extent Band of brothers

Just watched Inglorious B______ds.

 

What a pile of kack.

 

I value life too highly to have wasted two and half hours of it watching this. Sadly, I may have to try just to be sure it wasn't a surreal bad dream and it really was that bad.

It was quite good I thought.

Lol, borderlands 2 and Diablo 3 aren't on the list therefore this list is inaccurate.

This year is coming out rather lackluster it seems, only a few games I'm looking forward to. Hopefully this just means that the next generation of consoles are being worked on furiously.

I got rid of the regular AI weight mod and installed the combined FM mod and it's working now.