Diablo 3

[MachoMyers]

Re: Diablo 3

I got to Level 60 playing all the way to inferno in about 75 hours. I definitely got my monies worth.

[Valdarez]

Re: Diablo 3

First Diablo nearly cost me my college GPA, and I played the 2nd Diablo for nearly 2 years. Purchased Diablo 3 Collector's edition (what a waste!). Got each character up to level 60 and stopped playing, before they put in the patch that gave extra levels or bonuses (whatever it did), which means I played what, for a month? Just so sad what Blizzard South / Jay Wilson did to that franchise.

After playing Torchlight 2, it's clear where all the talent went. I'll never get why they disbanded Blizzard North.

[MachoMyers]

Re: Diablo 3

What could have been
http://kotaku.com/5761172/this-is-wh...long-time-ago/

Actually doesn't look that great either. I think Diablo/Diablo II just happened upon the perfect time in PC gaming. Hot off the heals of Starcraft/Half-Life/Thief it really was the time to gaming on a PC. Now with 10,000 options nothing just stands out. ARPGs in general don't have the shelf life as right after D3 everyone was saying Torchlight 2 was the real Diablo 3, then Path of Exile was the real Diablo 3. Now people talk about the next Diablo 3. Gaming has changed and Diablo 3 was never going to live up to expectations.

I'm not defending the game because some of the design choices are just bizarre but I think a lot of us have to admit that we probably won't be spending months/years on just one game for the foreseeable future and we might have been expecting a bit too much.

[ubernoob]

Actually I can see people spending a lot of time in PoE.

Everyone forgets the game isn't even complete, content wise they still have at least another act to add, iirc.

Also, at least that game does itemization properly.

Torchlight 2 would never take off simply for the same reason the first didn't - it's all about cheating when it comes to online play there.

[Valdarez]

Re: Diablo 3

Torchlight 2 would never take off simply for the same reason the first didn't - it's all about cheating when it comes to online play there.

I don't know what you mean about cheating, it's not like online is competitive in any real sense, and T2's approach to modding is awesome as it adds a ton of replayability that wouldn't be there otherwise. Though, thus far, I have only played both Torchlight 1 and 2 offline.

As for taking off, T1 sold 1 million and T2 reached 1 million in sales in 12/12, which is pretty good for a small $15 to $20 game.

http://www.destructoid.com/torchlight-reaches-one-million-sales-205455.phtml

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Torchlight-2-Sales-Top-1-Million-50916.html

[ubernoob]

I don't know what you mean about cheating, it's not like online is competitive in any real sense, and T2's approach to modding is awesome as it adds a ton of replayability that wouldn't be there otherwise. Though, thus far, I have only played both Torchlight 1 and 2 offline.

As for taking off, T1 sold 1 million and T2 reached 1 million in sales in 12/12, which is pretty good for a small $15 to $20 game.

http://www.destructoid.com/torchlight-reaches-one-million-sales-205455.phtml

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Tor...ion-50916.html

D2 lasted because of the ladders, the treasure hunting during the start of new ladders and (though I didnt partake) the PvP. All of those are rendered obsolete in Torchlight.

I enjoy t1/t2 but the game will never have the replay value d1/d2 have because in almost every online game you go to it's near impossible to run into at least one person that didn't just cheat to gear out their character.

Don't get me wrong, I still play and support t2 but realistically it will never become 1/4 of what d2 is.

[ubernoob]

Re: Diablo 3

Also of note.

Diablo III's joint in-game gold and real-money auction house has played a fairly major role in the game since its launch. Remember that one time when a guy used the real-money side of things to bank a cool $10,000? That apparently wasn't really what Blizzard foresaw when creating and implementing the auction house. According to former Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson, the auction house "really hurt the game."

Apparently, Blizzard anticipated that very few players would make use of the auction house and that item prices would limit the number of transactions going on. That, uh, wasn't the case. Nearly every one of Diablo III's roughly 3 million monthly users make use of the auction house, and item trading has "damaged" the item rewards in the game.

Without giving up any juicy details, Wilson has mentioned that the team is working on a viable solution to the current problems posed by the auction house.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/diablo-iiis-auction-house-really-hurt-the-game/

The second paragraph in that article is LOL-worthy. Blizzard anticipated that very few players would use the AH? Okay Blizzard. Let's just throw lies out there to cover up bad decisions. Completely separate sites were spawned for Diablo 2 trading, and you think an in-game auction house wouldn't get used much at all?

Just shows how out of touch they truly are.

[cake612]

Re: Diablo 3

Exactly, why would they have bothered with RMAH at all if they thought very few players would use it while obviously being pretty controversial and knowing they would get a ton of **** for it. They just wanted their share of the item trading/gold selling that had been going on for years.

What is up with developers adding new features that end up being broken and then they say "well we didn't think so many people would use it." If you add new features to a game you should stand behind it and assume a majority of users will make use of it then scale back from there. Even if 10% of diablo players consistently use the auction house thats basically a million players right there probably making multiple listings a day plus all the people that try it out a few times when they first get the game.

I dont know why saying you added features and wasted time and money on stuff you didnt think people would use is better than just saying this was a terrible idea and we will fix it.

[DocHolliday]

I don't get the hate for D3. I probably put almost 70 hours into it, and it was fun getting drops or just getting stuff of the regular auction house. Plus the actually combat and gameplay was a blast. Loved playing with different weapons and special combos.

I see people that are like, "man the game sucked, once I got to inferno it was sooooo hard."

To even get to inferno you gotta put at least 30-35 hours, which is a ton of time for a game you "hate".

One of the classic "I hate it cause everyone else bashes it" games of last year.

[ubernoob]

I have already outlined why I hated it. I was at inferno within a couple days. I think 1-60 with act 1 of inferno complete took our group about 25 hours or so.

The game from 1-60 was fine. Then once you hit inferno, you learned that Blizzard doesn't understand how to do difficulty. Its the same issue they have with WoW where they think difficulty equates to larger numbers.

Then the itemization of drops is HORRENDOUS for an ARPG (which you have to play to max-ish level and at the highest difficulty to understand itemization of drops because that's when it matters.)

The game isn't hate it just because it's cool to do so. If you enjoy the game, good on you. I enjoy plenty of games that get hate. This game, overall, was the poorest execution of any arpg I've ever played. 1-60 was alright, but nobody that plays competitively in ARPGs cares about that.

[st67]

Re: Diablo 3

I don't get the hate for D3.

Because it's a mess.

The #1 problem with the game is that there is absolutely no reason for it to require an online connection. That was a mistake from the start - but people accepted it and now EA's pulling that stunt with Sim City. How long until more and more jump on board and start forcing this down our throats?

The second is that the game simple doesn't have whatever it was Diablo 2 had that made the game so damn fun. I can't pin point it, but playing Diablo 3 (when I did play it) makes me want to play Diablo 2 instead (which is generally not a good sign).

The third is the auction hall. Now I have zero problems with people buying or selling items. It doesn't make any difference to me in my game... Or wait... No, it does - because Blizzard decided to alter the drop rate on items based on the auction hall; which ties back to the whole messed up issue of always online and connected.

There's more, but those are the main reasons.

It has nothing to do with being cool (as people like to pull out of their hat to defend a game), it has to do with really, really poor design choices. The gameplay itself isn't bad - but it gets boring and it's not really that great. Somehow they failed to capture the enjoyment of its predecessor.

Blizzard made some really, really poor choices with this game and it shows.

[MachoMyers]

Re: Diablo 3

When the expansion drops and sells 4 million copies we'll see.

[Candyman5]

Re: Diablo 3

When the expansion drops and sells 4 million copies we'll see.

Only if the expansion brings back stat points and requirements and alters the unlock everything in the skill tree philosophy. That alone would get me back into the game.

[Valdarez]

Re: Diablo 3

Playing the Titan Quest expansion right now. Can't believe how great the graphics are in the game (full 3D support). So depressing seeing what they did with their game, and what Blizzard did with D3.

Noticed that Torchlight 2 still has load times (roughly 2 to 4 seconds tops), but Titan Quest has no load times for caves and such, and their way for entering/exiting is easily the best of the 3 games. Diablo is instant, but it's a big switch, where as in Titan Quest the area area around you slowly shifts and expands from the lower area to the outer, or vice versa depending on whether you are entering or exiting the cave.

After I finish Titan Quest, going to put together a list comparison of the 3 games to guage which game is better overall. Right now, I'm still saying T2 is better overall, especially with built in mod support being released today (used to be a separate download).

Interesting article on D3/TL2 (old, but good) -- http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Tor...ing,17712.html

[Valdarez]

Re: Diablo 3

D2 lasted because of the ladders, the treasure hunting during the start of new ladders and (though I didnt partake) the PvP. All of those are rendered obsolete in Torchlight.

I enjoy t1/t2 but the game will never have the replay value d1/d2 have because in almost every online game you go to it's near impossible to run into at least one person that didn't just cheat to gear out their character.

Don't get me wrong, I still play and support t2 but realistically it will never become 1/4 of what d2 is.

Believe the Ladders were added well after I stopped playing, or right at the end. I played the game with friends and not so much from the competitive/ladders. In fact, don't believe I ever had a single Ladder character. Just don't see Diablo as a 'competitive' game. Basically the guys on the Ladder = the guys with most free time on their hands or using the better / non-crashable bots (which were real & sadly worked). Anyhow, after playing RTS / Sports games at a competitive level, Diablo/RPG games (mostly) just aren't competitive in any real sense to this gamer.

Disagree on the T2 assessment. The modding gives far more replayability with all new / modded content. Just a different way to provide it, and IMHO in game content is far better (more of it right now) than what D3 provides out of the box. The way T2 did end of game is pretty darn cool with the MapWorks / Boss runs, and the random events in the game are far better/more frequent/more dynamic (meaning more of them) than Diablo 3.