Torchlight is hardly a successor to d2, it's basically a remake of d1 with some d2 elements thrown in to modernize it.
I was going to make a snarky comment along the lines of "Diablo 2.5? More like Diablo 1.1! Amirite!?"
I never could understand the fascination with the original Torchlight. It played nearly exactly like Diablo 1, sans multiplayer, only it was about 15 years late to the party. I struggled to make it through the first playthrough, let alone multiple runs (and not due to difficulty). More than anything, I think it showed how starved this genre is. Not for lack of imitation - but just lack of halfway quality products.
Re: The streamlining & 'modernization':
Seems like we just had this conversation, only replace "Diablo" with "The Elder Scrolls" and "Mass Effect". Can't say if Blizzard's system is going to work out or not, but this process can be and has been done very successfully.
To give some people who are confused about character customization in D3 some info/reading material, this is an updated version of an old post that seems to fairly thoroughly break down the differences in customization between D2 and D3.
Edit: looks like the skill point entry might be slightly out of date, as it mentions buying runes on the AH.
Edit 2: fun fact; according to Steam stats, only 20% of players who own Torchlight on that platform have beaten the game on easy or normal. Though to be fair, only 88% have even played a few minutes of the game at all.
Forar - Steam stats aren't that useful - there's a large number (myself included) that don't keep the Steam client running in active mode, thus no updates for achievements.
[In my case, since the wife and I both use the same Steam account - she's generally got it logged on]
I'm aware of that, my girlfriend does the same thing, meaning her Portal achievements are wonky as hell, depending on when she played and remembered to log out or not.
However, given the gamer stereotype of achievement chasing, I have a hard time believing those people make up a terribly skewing portion of the playerbase. Hell, even if you assume EVERYONE who falls under the 12% that own the game but never even got the 'players first achievement', that's only 1/3 of the playerbase who have finished it, and we both know that's not the case. I'd split the difference and say that maybe 1/4 finished it, and even that's probably being generous.
Edit: Of course, a portion of those players are likely also people who bought it while it was on a $5 sale. I know I've got a sizable backlog on my account, made up heavily of games bought during sales for $5-10 because they were 50-80% off and I wanted to have access to them some day with it being likely that even years from now, they'd be around that price after a decrease, or not much cheaper even on sale.
Nod, just I'd expect the "bootup" achievement is especially skewed - I'd imagine most of the "beat it" people are correct. (like 10-15% off for "simple" achievements, 1-2% off for lengthy ones)
But with the "played the game for 30 min" achievements, those should all be 95%+, maybe 5% would leave a game on backlog any length of time without giving it a few minutes to try and/or have a gifted copy they've not started playing from a friend.
I just read this whole thread, and I must say I am so surprised it took until page 7 for the Diablo 3 vs. Torchlight discussions to start popping up!
On a serious side though, the Diablo series is what hooked me hardcore into PC gaming back in 90s. I played Diablo for hours in Battle.net, and played Diablo 2 for more way more hours than I should admit. I have played through the beta, and I must say that whether this is my nostalgia talking or whatever but this game did not seem like Diablo. It felt more like an Action RPG with a World of Warcraft spin on it. Please keep in mind that I am not saying that it was not fun, but it just did not feel like the Diablo I loved back in the day.
Personally (and this is my opinion only) I have not been happy in the direction Blizzard has been going in the past few years, and some of the decisions that have been made with Diablo 3 grate on me. It is for those reasons I will not be buying Diablo 3 on release.
I will be purchasing Torchlight 2 on the release day though. I have had a chance to play a small portion of Torchlight 2, and man is that game a blast! The combat is so much faster and more visceral feeling in comparison. And the open world aspect with multiplayer just seemed to blow the "smallness" of Torchlight wide open. I was able to play with 3 others in the same game, and it was a rush on Elite difficulty (the game's hardest difficulty level). Also, I cannot be certain but from what I observed the itemization in Torchlight 2 is far superior than the first game.
It's not a huge financial burden to buy Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2.
I mean you can play all 3 of the new Diablo style games for 80-90 bucks.
Since Path of Exile is free except for vanity items and other nifty things to have.
Torchlight 2 will cost 20-30 bucks at most.
Diablo 3 confirmed at 59.99 for base game.
So 80-90 bucks, definitely not a huge financial deal to own all of them.
I can only see having to choose between them for most consumers if you have a limited amount of time to play video games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sCdbdsFgNGI
- Preview of Lineage Eternal. It looks like so much fun. Diablo-ish MMORPG made by NCsoft, release 2012-2013
- This game has some neat features. All cutscenes transition directly into gameplay, so if you see the Battle of Helms deeps and thousands of orcs... thats what you fight against. Its done really well.
- The fighter feels hefty. Really reminds me of Gutz. I never play warriors but damn I want to play this one.
Just check out the warrior and mage. They are so awesome. I wish Diablo3 had new concepts like this. This game just looks fun.
@Rathmaker, out of curiosity, what would make D3 "more diablo like"?
The first thing that jumped out at me was the game feels to move at a slower pace than Diablo 2 (maybe I should have made that statement clearer as we had to WALK everywhere in Diablo lol). I like my aRPGs to be fast paced and furious. I did not get that feeling from the beta.
The next thing that caught my attention was the item descriptions in the interface. When I picked up a piece of loot I did not get that "ooh cool" feeling I normally get in aRPGs (to be fair after the first 30 or so levels in Torchlight the itemization went to hell as well). I really am not sure how to explain that in a more eloquent way other than they just did not excite me like the items in D2 did.
Another thing I noticed was that the fights just seem so much on auto pilot (I hesitate to use the word casual). There was not guerrilla style fighting like you had to do at points in Diablo 1 and 2. I was just able to rush in and blow everything up with my Wizard. I am sure the game will get much more difficult in the later parts, but I was disappointed at how I could just steam roll in the beginning.
I know that they have re-done the skill/attribute system, but I am not a fan of what we have been able to see so far in the beta. I am sure there is going to be more customization (as they have said), but it just felt so...un-exciting...when I leveled up. I guess maybe I personally like the illusion of choosing what skills I get as I progress. It ties me to my character more.
Overall I did not get the blown in the back of my chair feeling that Diablo 2 gave me when first starting out. Once again I realize that statement may be my nostalgia talking (or my gaming preferences have changed as I have gotten older). In Diablo 2 running the Blood Moors and Cold Plains, and clearing the Den of Evil was a blast the first times through. And then the fight with Blood Raven and all those zombies was a rush. I never got that in the beta. The beta also felt to be on rails much more than a typical aRPG is (maybe I should blame the Sacred games and Reckoning for that one lol).
I am definitely not saying the game was horrible. I enjoyed the beta, but it just wasn't something that made me want to keep playing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sCdbdsFgNGI
- Preview of Lineage Eternal. It looks like so much fun. Diablo-ish MMORPG made by NCsoft, release 2012-2013
- This game has some neat features. All cutscenes transition directly into gameplay, so if you see the Battle of Helms deeps and thousands of orcs... thats what you fight against. Its done really well.
- The fighter feels hefty. Really reminds me of Gutz. I never play warriors but damn I want to play this one.
Just check out the warrior and mage. They are so awesome. I wish Diablo3 had new concepts like this. This game just looks fun.
If its anything like Lineage 2 thanks but no thanks.
That game became mind numbingly boring at about 10 hours in for me.
This is a sequel to their Lineage series which brings Korean style MMO grinding which makes the "grind" in any western MMO look like a joke in comparison.
The preview looks decent but like I said Korean MMO's are notorious for having insane grind requirements to level.
Being remotely like diablo 1 or 2 in more than name and having Cain and Tyrael would help
having just played the open beta this weekend, I'm having a difficult time understanding how it was not diablo like...
The only significant difference between diablo II and Diablo III that I could see was the fact that you have access to all your skills rather than being locked in to your (potentially poor) choices early on in the game.
Rath-maker , Believeinapathy, ulfsaar and myself all came to conclusion it doesnt feel like diablo so clearly there is something there and it's a valid opinion no matter how much you argue otherwise forar.
I guess I'm kind of in his camp, but not firmly. Can you give me some discernable quality that is consistent between Diablo 1 and 2 that is lacking in Diablo III?
I played it, looked at my wife (who was also playing it) and said. Hmm, feels like they took diablo II and updated it to include the 10 years of inovation that has occured since it came out.
I really enjoy the people who are saying that d3's system allows for less customization and tree building when anyone who played d2 and did runs after runs making perfect toons knows that 1 misstep and that toon is bound for the delete bin. Same thing with meta changes. You know how annoying it was to think you understood the game only to have elite grinders tell you that your build is completely horrible because you SPENT skill points?
It remains to be seen how allowing everyone every skill will play out, but WoW does the same exact thing with respecs now and it is a much more enjoyable experience than paying 10000 gold for a respec since your druid needs to heal this raid instead of tank. Or starting all over with a new toon since the meta and optimal builds changed.
D3 is going to let you re-level that mage toon to fire from ice and back, removing the insane grind to do so. They haven't removed customization, they steamlined it. Sure, the loss of boosting your stats your self is a downgrade in customization, but really, if you ever played d2 or any other stat assignment game, there's only ever 1-2 correct ways anyway.
D3 beta was infinitely more interesting and engaging than Torchlight was. I burned through the beta on a monk with out even realizing the time i had spent. That hasn't happened in a long time, outside of Valve games. Torchlight left me thinking D1.5, not some epic new game. (its also laughable the game has zero multiplayer) I was worried Blizz wouldn't capture the magic of D1 and D2, games i have played the cover off, but they certainly did. The atmosphere and ambiance screams Diablo. I certainly went from a skeptic to a launch day buyer with the beta.
As a Diablo vet (been playing since Diablo 1), D3 is the biggest let down. Diablo 2 was awesome despite what everyone seems to say about it. Sure, some classes were OP (as with any game), but that didnt take away from the sheer epicness of the game, and why it held up for so long.
The things D3 did wrong was that it changed the game 100%. Back when the first game footage was released the game looked epic, the mechanics were awesome, and the overall feel of the game was "diablo". now, Blizzard is catering to casual gamers by not letting you "build" your character. You have no stat points, no point skills, etc. Nothing is different from one character to another. Everyone is the same. Sure, you might have different skills, but the fact that you can just switch them out at a moments notice with only a 15 second cool down is absurd. its no longer Diablo...its World of Diablo.
Plus they took out Mana, which was a huge let down. Sure, every class has their own type of "mana" but its not the same. Plus, even to this day, they are changing things about the game that didnt need to be changed.
Heres an example. The class i was the most excited about, the Demon Hunter. The DH was awesome in every way. A ranger mixed with an assassin. She had speed, one handed crossbows, and the whole package. Well, they took her best move, Shadow Power, and nuked its effect. It no longer gives her speed, but instead it generates life which doesnt make sense because she's a long range character and shouldnt be taking damage.
They have changed the game 100% from when it was first announced and thats what the problem is. Reguardless to what people think, we dont want Diablo 2.5, we want something that IS Diablo that has replay value, and as of right now, it doesnt have any. Runes are no longer items that drop but they are unlocked, which is a HUGE let down. The Real Money Auction House is gonna be a disaster because everyone says they will sell but not buy, which in turn makes it useless lol.
Then, they take PvP out of the game. Took it right OUT. Sure, its only for a "little while" but the designers of Diablo dont LIKE PvP and they even stated themselves they want this game to NOT be an e-sport. So that says 2 things. Diablo 3 PvP will be crap, and it wont be balanced because balancing it makes it so it can be an e-sport.
With this game they completely shunned out the old school players in many ways and they will openly say they dont care, cause its what THEY want, not what WE want. Oh well, thats Activision and Blizzard for you...care more about the quick buck than how long the game runs. Cause as we all know, if this game stops selling, D4 will be right out.
Plus, the graphics are laughable. Its to "cartoonish". It literally has the same graphics it had back in 05. Thats a 7 year delay lol. So i have offically dubbed this game "Diablo : Baulders Gate"
Overall, i canceled my pre-order and i'm playing Guild Wars 2. I'd advise anyone with a brain who wants substance to come with their game to do the same
Plus, the graphics are laughable. Its to "cartoonish". It literally has the same graphics it had back in 05. Thats a 7 year delay lol. So i have offically dubbed this game "Diablo : Baulders Gate"
Dude. Stop, breathe, take off your rose coloured glasses and go play Diablo I/II.
Overall, i canceled my pre-order and i'm playing Guild Wars 2. I'd advise anyone with a brain who wants substance to come with their game to do the same
Good Riddance.
Anyone who thought Diablo I/II had any kind of "substance" was clearly deluding themselves. The games are massive clickfest / dungeon delve/loot whoreing with minimal plot to get in the way.
Dude. Stop, breathe, take off your rose coloured glasses and go play Diablo I/II.
It's nothing like you remember it. It never was.
Good Riddance.
Anyone who thought Diablo I/II had any kind of "substance" was clearly deluding themselves. The games are massive clickfest / dungeon delve/loot whoreing with minimal plot to get in the way.
Surprisingly enough, Diablo III is the same.
uhmmm excuse me? i still play diablo 2 to this day and i even hop on diablo 1 for nostalgia and they are exactly as i remember them to be. Diablo 2 could be compared to M:TG in some ways...its been out 12 years and its still running strong as ever. New patches come out every now and again, etc. sure the graphics weren't amazing but Diablo 3 has outdated graphics by far.
and what do you mean has minimal plot? did you even PLAY the games? the story of Diablo is huge. And of course its a "click fest", its a dungeon crawler, thats the point. loot an dungeon crawling....omg do you even know what diablo IS?
I played wizard the most, got to level 9, so I never got to choose a passive, but the whole "free respecs whenever" feels alot like guild wars.
Sure, you only brought a limited number of skills with you, but that makes the difference pretty well.
Do I use the basic ranged attack with wizard and snipe or do I use the shorter range, aoe lightning attack that does much more damage, but requires I get up close. For the mana costing attack, do I want to have a reasonable damage single target beam that slows or an aoe pulse that I can't sustain indefinately, but lets me burst down waves of skelatons?
Then we get to the aoe freeze vs diamond skin, both keep damage off you, but in very different ways.
I think that the game, especially with the inability to switch skills at will, allows for greater customization than we otherwise would which is nice.
If I build my mage as sparks/orb/diamond skin in the beta I am going to run up to groups and try to AOE the **** out of them.
If I build my mage "blast"/ice beam/Frost Nova in the beta I am going to stand back, kite, and be more fleet. I only unlocked the "make the beam slow more" part, but given the number of runes I saw for some skills, it seems like there will be quite a bit of customization.
The cool thing, is that if I want to try out a different way to play, I can just... do it. I don't have to grind forever so I can have 3 different level 80+ sorcs like I had in D2. I'm 26, I played the hell out of D2 when I was in highschool and, like many gamers, I don't have the time to do it so much.
You get around 100 skillpoints in D2, the ones from leveling up and a couple from quests. Thats, what, 5 skills maxed out and 1 point in a bunch of prereqs? Especially with the introduction of synergies, making an effective character required you to min max. What we get in D3 is the use of six skills at once, 2 spammy and 4 that have cooldowns of some nature, plus some passives.
That, right there, 9 skills at once, is a more varied character than any reasonably powerful diablo champ could hope to be. Especially at low levels! My first character ended up as utter **** because I spent a bunch of points in skeletons before skeleton mages. What a waste! Even at early levels we get access in D3 to multiple skills to use and more to use at one time than we ever had viably to use in D2. I like that. Diablo 2 was a great game, still is, but it was also punishing in ways that it didn't need to be. (hell, the grind led my buddy to sell people "blank" level 80 characters he made by running cow levels with alts and setting them up on dump accounts. how crazy is that?)
Quote from bLatch »
Wait, Wait, Wait, how was Diablo II not on rails? You had six quests. You did them.
I think he means that you couldn't get lost like you could in Diablo 2 sometimes. Think of Act 2 with the tombs or Act 3 and how you might have to explore 2-5 times as much map as a straight line.
However! Act 1 of Diablo 2 had roads almost everywhere. This early in the game is, I'm sure, intended as a tutorial of sorts. There wasn't exactly much variety in running blood raven a dozen times (and at least Leo has his "Totally not riven" triple hit and "o hai, skelatons" thing and a teleport compared to blood ravens... improved stats?) and there won't be in the first half of act 1.
Also, its kind of hard to talk about itemization much, isn't it? What did itemization look like in the Diablo 2 open beta? Gem shrine runs to get triple perfect skulls for the weapon your barbarian had all while maxing a single skill because, well, otherwise the barbarians (and it was JUST barbarians) who had level 13-14 bash would kill you in pvp because, well, after 150 blood raven runs to make level 14 or 15, that was all there was to do (and the scary thing of hearing about people who made level 19 or 20 off of running blood raven, yeesh)
My verdict? This is diablo. It has the mechanics of diablo. The Setting. The system is very similar (all skills, but you only use six at once + passive, instead of having to pick and choose before getting a chance to use them) and the stats are auto.
I don't see it as being that different, especially because, well, we've seen so little.
uhmmm excuse me? i still play diablo 2 to this day and i even hop on diablo 1 for nostalgia and they are exactly as i remember them to be. Diablo 2 could be compared to M:TG in some ways...its been out 12 years and its still running strong as ever. New patches come out every now and again, etc. sure the graphics weren't amazing but Diablo 3 has outdated graphics by far.
[QUOTE=SiNcereX;/comments/11242577]
If you still play them, as you claim, then how can you claim they aren't cartoony. Go do a Baal run. Go Ahead, I'll wait.
Ok, what colours were the succubi that you had to run through.
Checkmate.
[QUOTE=SiNcereX;/comments/11242577]
and what do you mean has minimal plot? did you even PLAY the games? the story of Diablo is huge.
Yes. I did. And the plot can be summarized in less than a page of text. That's pretty minimal.
And of course its a "click fest", its a dungeon crawler, thats the point. loot an dungeon crawling....omg do you even know what diablo IS?
Wait, so now this is the fundamental quality for something to be diablo-y? I've got good news for you then, thats exaclty what II is also! Seriously, I like that aspect of the game. I never said it was a bad thing.
uhmmm excuse me? i still play diablo 2 to this day and i even hop on diablo 1 for nostalgia and they are exactly as i remember them to be. Diablo 2 could be compared to M:TG in some ways...its been out 12 years and its still running strong as ever. New patches come out every now and again, etc. sure the graphics weren't amazing but Diablo 3 has outdated graphics by far.
Outdated compared to D2? Go do a screenshot comparison man, its not pretty.
and what do you mean has minimal plot? did you even PLAY the games? the story of Diablo is huge. And of course its a "click fest", its a dungeon crawler, thats the point. loot an dungeon crawling....omg do you even know what diablo IS?
Diablo is here. Bad **** is happening. You, HERO, go kill **** until FOREVER.
I was going to make a snarky comment along the lines of "Diablo 2.5? More like Diablo 1.1! Amirite!?"
I never could understand the fascination with the original Torchlight. It played nearly exactly like Diablo 1, sans multiplayer, only it was about 15 years late to the party. I struggled to make it through the first playthrough, let alone multiple runs (and not due to difficulty). More than anything, I think it showed how starved this genre is. Not for lack of imitation - but just lack of halfway quality products.
Re: The streamlining & 'modernization':
Seems like we just had this conversation, only replace "Diablo" with "The Elder Scrolls" and "Mass Effect". Can't say if Blizzard's system is going to work out or not, but this process can be and has been done very successfully.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3811455085?page=1
Edit: looks like the skill point entry might be slightly out of date, as it mentions buying runes on the AH.
Edit 2: fun fact; according to Steam stats, only 20% of players who own Torchlight on that platform have beaten the game on easy or normal. Though to be fair, only 88% have even played a few minutes of the game at all.
WCommander EeshaBDrana, Kalastria BloodchiefBGGlissa, the TraitorBWVish Kal, Blood ArbiterRUNin, the Pain Artist
UGEdric, Spymaster of TrestWRBasandra, Battle SeraphBGWDoran, the Siege TowerBGWGhave, Guru of Spores
RGWUril, the MiststalkerGUBThe MimeoplasmUWGRafiq of the ManyWUBRGSliver Overlord
[In my case, since the wife and I both use the same Steam account - she's generally got it logged on]
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
However, given the gamer stereotype of achievement chasing, I have a hard time believing those people make up a terribly skewing portion of the playerbase. Hell, even if you assume EVERYONE who falls under the 12% that own the game but never even got the 'players first achievement', that's only 1/3 of the playerbase who have finished it, and we both know that's not the case. I'd split the difference and say that maybe 1/4 finished it, and even that's probably being generous.
Edit: Of course, a portion of those players are likely also people who bought it while it was on a $5 sale. I know I've got a sizable backlog on my account, made up heavily of games bought during sales for $5-10 because they were 50-80% off and I wanted to have access to them some day with it being likely that even years from now, they'd be around that price after a decrease, or not much cheaper even on sale.
WCommander EeshaBDrana, Kalastria BloodchiefBGGlissa, the TraitorBWVish Kal, Blood ArbiterRUNin, the Pain Artist
UGEdric, Spymaster of TrestWRBasandra, Battle SeraphBGWDoran, the Siege TowerBGWGhave, Guru of Spores
RGWUril, the MiststalkerGUBThe MimeoplasmUWGRafiq of the ManyWUBRGSliver Overlord
But with the "played the game for 30 min" achievements, those should all be 95%+, maybe 5% would leave a game on backlog any length of time without giving it a few minutes to try and/or have a gifted copy they've not started playing from a friend.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
On a serious side though, the Diablo series is what hooked me hardcore into PC gaming back in 90s. I played Diablo for hours in Battle.net, and played Diablo 2 for more way more hours than I should admit. I have played through the beta, and I must say that whether this is my nostalgia talking or whatever but this game did not seem like Diablo. It felt more like an Action RPG with a World of Warcraft spin on it. Please keep in mind that I am not saying that it was not fun, but it just did not feel like the Diablo I loved back in the day.
Personally (and this is my opinion only) I have not been happy in the direction Blizzard has been going in the past few years, and some of the decisions that have been made with Diablo 3 grate on me. It is for those reasons I will not be buying Diablo 3 on release.
I will be purchasing Torchlight 2 on the release day though. I have had a chance to play a small portion of Torchlight 2, and man is that game a blast! The combat is so much faster and more visceral feeling in comparison. And the open world aspect with multiplayer just seemed to blow the "smallness" of Torchlight wide open. I was able to play with 3 others in the same game, and it was a rush on Elite difficulty (the game's hardest difficulty level). Also, I cannot be certain but from what I observed the itemization in Torchlight 2 is far superior than the first game.
:symg:Rathmaker:symg:
WCommander EeshaBDrana, Kalastria BloodchiefBGGlissa, the TraitorBWVish Kal, Blood ArbiterRUNin, the Pain Artist
UGEdric, Spymaster of TrestWRBasandra, Battle SeraphBGWDoran, the Siege TowerBGWGhave, Guru of Spores
RGWUril, the MiststalkerGUBThe MimeoplasmUWGRafiq of the ManyWUBRGSliver Overlord
I mean you can play all 3 of the new Diablo style games for 80-90 bucks.
Since Path of Exile is free except for vanity items and other nifty things to have.
Torchlight 2 will cost 20-30 bucks at most.
Diablo 3 confirmed at 59.99 for base game.
So 80-90 bucks, definitely not a huge financial deal to own all of them.
I can only see having to choose between them for most consumers if you have a limited amount of time to play video games.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sCdbdsFgNGI
- Preview of Lineage Eternal. It looks like so much fun. Diablo-ish MMORPG made by NCsoft, release 2012-2013
- This game has some neat features. All cutscenes transition directly into gameplay, so if you see the Battle of Helms deeps and thousands of orcs... thats what you fight against. Its done really well.
- The fighter feels hefty. Really reminds me of Gutz. I never play warriors but damn I want to play this one.
Just check out the warrior and mage. They are so awesome. I wish Diablo3 had new concepts like this. This game just looks fun.
The first thing that jumped out at me was the game feels to move at a slower pace than Diablo 2 (maybe I should have made that statement clearer as we had to WALK everywhere in Diablo lol). I like my aRPGs to be fast paced and furious. I did not get that feeling from the beta.
The next thing that caught my attention was the item descriptions in the interface. When I picked up a piece of loot I did not get that "ooh cool" feeling I normally get in aRPGs (to be fair after the first 30 or so levels in Torchlight the itemization went to hell as well). I really am not sure how to explain that in a more eloquent way other than they just did not excite me like the items in D2 did.
Another thing I noticed was that the fights just seem so much on auto pilot (I hesitate to use the word casual). There was not guerrilla style fighting like you had to do at points in Diablo 1 and 2. I was just able to rush in and blow everything up with my Wizard. I am sure the game will get much more difficult in the later parts, but I was disappointed at how I could just steam roll in the beginning.
I know that they have re-done the skill/attribute system, but I am not a fan of what we have been able to see so far in the beta. I am sure there is going to be more customization (as they have said), but it just felt so...un-exciting...when I leveled up. I guess maybe I personally like the illusion of choosing what skills I get as I progress. It ties me to my character more.
Overall I did not get the blown in the back of my chair feeling that Diablo 2 gave me when first starting out. Once again I realize that statement may be my nostalgia talking (or my gaming preferences have changed as I have gotten older). In Diablo 2 running the Blood Moors and Cold Plains, and clearing the Den of Evil was a blast the first times through. And then the fight with Blood Raven and all those zombies was a rush. I never got that in the beta. The beta also felt to be on rails much more than a typical aRPG is (maybe I should blame the Sacred games and Reckoning for that one lol).
I am definitely not saying the game was horrible. I enjoyed the beta, but it just wasn't something that made me want to keep playing it.
:symg:Rathmaker:symg:
If its anything like Lineage 2 thanks but no thanks.
That game became mind numbingly boring at about 10 hours in for me.
This is a sequel to their Lineage series which brings Korean style MMO grinding which makes the "grind" in any western MMO look like a joke in comparison.
The preview looks decent but like I said Korean MMO's are notorious for having insane grind requirements to level.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
having just played the open beta this weekend, I'm having a difficult time understanding how it was not diablo like...
The only significant difference between diablo II and Diablo III that I could see was the fact that you have access to all your skills rather than being locked in to your (potentially poor) choices early on in the game.
I guess I'm kind of in his camp, but not firmly. Can you give me some discernable quality that is consistent between Diablo 1 and 2 that is lacking in Diablo III?
I played it, looked at my wife (who was also playing it) and said. Hmm, feels like they took diablo II and updated it to include the 10 years of inovation that has occured since it came out.
Wait, Wait, Wait, how was Diablo II not on rails? You had six quests. You did them.
I guess you'll have to bullet point it out for me then: What makes something a Diablo game. A list, if you please.
It remains to be seen how allowing everyone every skill will play out, but WoW does the same exact thing with respecs now and it is a much more enjoyable experience than paying 10000 gold for a respec since your druid needs to heal this raid instead of tank. Or starting all over with a new toon since the meta and optimal builds changed.
D3 is going to let you re-level that mage toon to fire from ice and back, removing the insane grind to do so. They haven't removed customization, they steamlined it. Sure, the loss of boosting your stats your self is a downgrade in customization, but really, if you ever played d2 or any other stat assignment game, there's only ever 1-2 correct ways anyway.
D3 beta was infinitely more interesting and engaging than Torchlight was. I burned through the beta on a monk with out even realizing the time i had spent. That hasn't happened in a long time, outside of Valve games. Torchlight left me thinking D1.5, not some epic new game. (its also laughable the game has zero multiplayer) I was worried Blizz wouldn't capture the magic of D1 and D2, games i have played the cover off, but they certainly did. The atmosphere and ambiance screams Diablo. I certainly went from a skeptic to a launch day buyer with the beta.
My wife was on MTV with this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUutIZg2EpU
The things D3 did wrong was that it changed the game 100%. Back when the first game footage was released the game looked epic, the mechanics were awesome, and the overall feel of the game was "diablo". now, Blizzard is catering to casual gamers by not letting you "build" your character. You have no stat points, no point skills, etc. Nothing is different from one character to another. Everyone is the same. Sure, you might have different skills, but the fact that you can just switch them out at a moments notice with only a 15 second cool down is absurd. its no longer Diablo...its World of Diablo.
Plus they took out Mana, which was a huge let down. Sure, every class has their own type of "mana" but its not the same. Plus, even to this day, they are changing things about the game that didnt need to be changed.
Heres an example. The class i was the most excited about, the Demon Hunter. The DH was awesome in every way. A ranger mixed with an assassin. She had speed, one handed crossbows, and the whole package. Well, they took her best move, Shadow Power, and nuked its effect. It no longer gives her speed, but instead it generates life which doesnt make sense because she's a long range character and shouldnt be taking damage.
They have changed the game 100% from when it was first announced and thats what the problem is. Reguardless to what people think, we dont want Diablo 2.5, we want something that IS Diablo that has replay value, and as of right now, it doesnt have any. Runes are no longer items that drop but they are unlocked, which is a HUGE let down. The Real Money Auction House is gonna be a disaster because everyone says they will sell but not buy, which in turn makes it useless lol.
Then, they take PvP out of the game. Took it right OUT. Sure, its only for a "little while" but the designers of Diablo dont LIKE PvP and they even stated themselves they want this game to NOT be an e-sport. So that says 2 things. Diablo 3 PvP will be crap, and it wont be balanced because balancing it makes it so it can be an e-sport.
With this game they completely shunned out the old school players in many ways and they will openly say they dont care, cause its what THEY want, not what WE want. Oh well, thats Activision and Blizzard for you...care more about the quick buck than how long the game runs. Cause as we all know, if this game stops selling, D4 will be right out.
Plus, the graphics are laughable. Its to "cartoonish". It literally has the same graphics it had back in 05. Thats a 7 year delay lol. So i have offically dubbed this game "Diablo : Baulders Gate"
Overall, i canceled my pre-order and i'm playing Guild Wars 2. I'd advise anyone with a brain who wants substance to come with their game to do the same
Dude. Stop, breathe, take off your rose coloured glasses and go play Diablo I/II.
It's nothing like you remember it. It never was.
Good Riddance.
Anyone who thought Diablo I/II had any kind of "substance" was clearly deluding themselves. The games are massive clickfest / dungeon delve/loot whoreing with minimal plot to get in the way.
Surprisingly enough, Diablo III is the same.
uhmmm excuse me? i still play diablo 2 to this day and i even hop on diablo 1 for nostalgia and they are exactly as i remember them to be. Diablo 2 could be compared to M:TG in some ways...its been out 12 years and its still running strong as ever. New patches come out every now and again, etc. sure the graphics weren't amazing but Diablo 3 has outdated graphics by far.
and what do you mean has minimal plot? did you even PLAY the games? the story of Diablo is huge. And of course its a "click fest", its a dungeon crawler, thats the point. loot an dungeon crawling....omg do you even know what diablo IS?
I played wizard the most, got to level 9, so I never got to choose a passive, but the whole "free respecs whenever" feels alot like guild wars.
Sure, you only brought a limited number of skills with you, but that makes the difference pretty well.
Do I use the basic ranged attack with wizard and snipe or do I use the shorter range, aoe lightning attack that does much more damage, but requires I get up close. For the mana costing attack, do I want to have a reasonable damage single target beam that slows or an aoe pulse that I can't sustain indefinately, but lets me burst down waves of skelatons?
Then we get to the aoe freeze vs diamond skin, both keep damage off you, but in very different ways.
I think that the game, especially with the inability to switch skills at will, allows for greater customization than we otherwise would which is nice.
If I build my mage as sparks/orb/diamond skin in the beta I am going to run up to groups and try to AOE the **** out of them.
If I build my mage "blast"/ice beam/Frost Nova in the beta I am going to stand back, kite, and be more fleet. I only unlocked the "make the beam slow more" part, but given the number of runes I saw for some skills, it seems like there will be quite a bit of customization.
The cool thing, is that if I want to try out a different way to play, I can just... do it. I don't have to grind forever so I can have 3 different level 80+ sorcs like I had in D2. I'm 26, I played the hell out of D2 when I was in highschool and, like many gamers, I don't have the time to do it so much.
You get around 100 skillpoints in D2, the ones from leveling up and a couple from quests. Thats, what, 5 skills maxed out and 1 point in a bunch of prereqs? Especially with the introduction of synergies, making an effective character required you to min max. What we get in D3 is the use of six skills at once, 2 spammy and 4 that have cooldowns of some nature, plus some passives.
That, right there, 9 skills at once, is a more varied character than any reasonably powerful diablo champ could hope to be. Especially at low levels! My first character ended up as utter **** because I spent a bunch of points in skeletons before skeleton mages. What a waste! Even at early levels we get access in D3 to multiple skills to use and more to use at one time than we ever had viably to use in D2. I like that. Diablo 2 was a great game, still is, but it was also punishing in ways that it didn't need to be. (hell, the grind led my buddy to sell people "blank" level 80 characters he made by running cow levels with alts and setting them up on dump accounts. how crazy is that?)
I think he means that you couldn't get lost like you could in Diablo 2 sometimes. Think of Act 2 with the tombs or Act 3 and how you might have to explore 2-5 times as much map as a straight line.
However! Act 1 of Diablo 2 had roads almost everywhere. This early in the game is, I'm sure, intended as a tutorial of sorts. There wasn't exactly much variety in running blood raven a dozen times (and at least Leo has his "Totally not riven" triple hit and "o hai, skelatons" thing and a teleport compared to blood ravens... improved stats?) and there won't be in the first half of act 1.
Also, its kind of hard to talk about itemization much, isn't it? What did itemization look like in the Diablo 2 open beta? Gem shrine runs to get triple perfect skulls for the weapon your barbarian had all while maxing a single skill because, well, otherwise the barbarians (and it was JUST barbarians) who had level 13-14 bash would kill you in pvp because, well, after 150 blood raven runs to make level 14 or 15, that was all there was to do (and the scary thing of hearing about people who made level 19 or 20 off of running blood raven, yeesh)
My verdict? This is diablo. It has the mechanics of diablo. The Setting. The system is very similar (all skills, but you only use six at once + passive, instead of having to pick and choose before getting a chance to use them) and the stats are auto.
I don't see it as being that different, especially because, well, we've seen so little.
Yes. I did. And the plot can be summarized in less than a page of text. That's pretty minimal.
Wait, so now this is the fundamental quality for something to be diablo-y? I've got good news for you then, thats exaclty what II is also! Seriously, I like that aspect of the game. I never said it was a bad thing.
Outdated compared to D2? Go do a screenshot comparison man, its not pretty.
Diablo is here. Bad **** is happening. You, HERO, go kill **** until FOREVER.
I think they could have nailed the art too. SC2 nailed it. The units have a Starcrafty feel. Everything just seems like its in the SC universe.
D3 seems disjointed and cartoon-y.
D3 Graphics - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVPakGBUKEQ
compare with
Lineage Eternal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sCdbdsFgNGI
and with D2 for old times sake - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ2aGhOB2Vk