Auction House Online: The Game (Diablo 3) is a MASSIVE decline

[sgc_meltdown]

You need to lay off the furry for a while, I think.

even dragons and their honour have to be enjoyed in moderation

 

[shihonage]

I still can't get over the fact that Wizard is possibly the least fun character in the game. How could they screw it up this badly? Why are his spells so ugly and lacking any sense of connection with the enemies? WoW's mage was a paragon of awesomeness compared to this, and Wizard never even gets a proper firebolt spell, nevermind firewall, or anything that utilizes fire in a major way, it seems.

 

[Johannes]

You know, when you force 20 mil monkeys to connect to your servers even though it's in no way relevant to the gameplay model your game uses, then you shouldn't be surprised when they do.

They wanted a real money auction house, thus they were forced to generate all items on server to prevent problems with FTC. If theirs management decided on the real money auction house, they didn't have much choice. Creating a special offline setting for a single player would have it's own problems. Can you imagine the shitstorm that would be caused when someone would get an item worth of 1000 $ in singleplayer and would be unable to sell it in auction house?

Both you and Sea are unable to grasp a fact they were limited by physical laws, and that relatively understaffed beta.

It's not about people getting valuable drops in singleplayer which they cannot sell that'd cause butthurt, but exactly the other way around. The forced online play is there to ensure nobody can hack the game to create expensive items, compromising the auction house.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...l-never-be-offline-single-player-in-diablo-3/

It just makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

 

[J1M]

Starcraft had a very good story for an RTS, and the cinematics were pretty well done.

Play it again sometime: you might be surprised to find your memory doesn't match reality. Blizzard has been pretty consistent over the years when it comes to their stories. That is, their stories have consistently been schlocky scifi/fantasy pulp that appeals to your inner 12 year old boy. And honestly, if you can put yourself in that mindset -- of a 12 year old boy -- Blizzard stories work pretty well as light entertainment. To my knowledge, Metzen, unlike Gaider, has never claimed to be telling the "story of the human condition". In all honesty, I don't think Metzen is even aware that writing can be a medium for such ideas, which is good because it's completely out of place in bog standard sci-fi/fantasy plotting and characterization.This shit isn't Shakespeare, but unlike Bioware, I'm not wincing every time a character opens his or her mouth either.

Finished Act II a few miinutes ago. I've played now for 12 hours and 20 minutes, and am totally loving my level 25 Demon Hunter.

I replayed SC1 less than a year ago. The story holds up. It has excellent characters and although I wish everyone had listened to Aldaris, I don't know what you are talking about in terms of quality. StarCraft 1 is miles above SC2 in story. SC2 has amazing mission design. Which is nice, but not a good excuse.

 

[J1M]

I still can't get over the fact that Wizard is possibly the least fun character in the game. How could they screw it up this badly? Why are his spells so ugly and lacking any sense of connection with the enemies? WoW's mage was a paragon of awesomeness compared to this, and Wizard never even gets a proper firebolt spell, nevermind firewall, or anything that utilizes fire in a major way, it seems.

They tried to make it less of an elementalist an more of a harry potter blaster / arcane / time control caster. Red explosions were purposefully removed for purple ones, probably so the demon hunter gadgets could be full of fiery explosions.

 

[J1M]

I would honestly say that they made a mistake of stopping the starter edition at the SK rather than extending it to the end of Act 1 or at least a quest or two past that point, because you barely get a taste of the character system or crafting etc.

It is definitely dumbed down, there's no denying that, but I think the skill system is more fun than D2. I don't understand why they completely removed allocating your own stats, though. They could have even left stats as they were in D2 but let you reassign them at will like the skill system, and even that would have been vastly better than auto allocation.

You get stat choices through gems in armor slots. After you've exclusively placed your primary stat in those for a few hours I'm sure you will see why they didn't find stat customization a compelling choice. The only reason I'm using some +vitality gems right now is because I don't have enough flawless rubies for weapon + helm + 4 armor sockets.

 

[Mortmal]

Got my hands on it too, something no one mention is when you install , it send you on NA servers by default, i couldnt see nor add my friends, and had to figure myself why .In option,region selection ,it was written europe server but i was on NA ones....11 levels of sorcerer to the trash bin, i had to restart on EU servers. Now with friends and with lag.
Game is extremely easy, i never die, the only way i die is answering someone on chat.They should have allowed harder modes from the beggining , i dont remenber diabo 2 being that easy,, i am slaying every bosses on the first try without loosing much if any health.Its ok , rather fun, but meh..
The mandatory online stuff is just to forbid piracy, it adds nothing to the game except crippling the latency and gameplay, but who cares of it if it sells millions ?It will definitvely sell millions.

Diablo 3 is the future ,mainstream, easy no frustration ,no challenge, good for all audience, and no piracy possible, we will get more and more of that.The new xbox will get all its game by direct download and i am sure diablo 3 is the perfect example of the kind of future games(except the once in a blue moon good indie) we will get now on pc, its a new milestone .

 

[Gregz]

Its kinda sad, really.

D1, SC1, Warcraft 2 and 3.

Masterpieces. True classics.

Oh Blizzard, what have you become... ;/

Sadly, the decline has spred far wider than I have suspected... After playing the starter edition I have grasped how dumbed down d3 really is. Really, there is NOTHING LEFT. I'm very glad I didn't buy the game.

Fear not brothers!

 

[Tigranes]

Got my hands on it too, something no one mention is when you install , it send you on NA servers by default, i couldnt see nor add my friends, and had to figure myself why .In option,region selection ,it was written europe server but i was on NA ones....11 levels of sorcerer to the trash bin, i had to restart on EU servers. Now with friends and with lag.
Game is extremely easy, i never die, the only way i die is answering someone on chat.They should have allowed harder modes from the beggining , i dont remenber diabo 2 being that easy,, i am slaying every bosses on the first try without loosing much if any health.Its ok , rather fun, but meh..
The mandatory online stuff is just to forbid piracy, it adds nothing to the game except crippling the latency and gameplay, but who cares of it if it sells millions ?It will definitvely sell millions.

Diablo 3 is the future ,mainstream, easy no frustration ,no challenge, good for all audience, and no piracy possible, we will get more and more of that.The new xbox will get all its game by direct download and i am sure diablo 3 is the perfect example of the kind of future games(except the once in a blue moon good indie) we will get now on pc, its a new milestone .

Get to Act 2 and start dying.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's not about people getting valuable drops in singleplayer which they cannot sell that'd cause butthurt, but exactly the other way around. The forced online play is there to ensure nobody can hack the game to create expensive items, compromising the auction house.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...l-never-be-offline-single-player-in-diablo-3/

It just makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

Hacking the game to create expensive items would be impossible even with single player available, barring exploits that could occur with or without online-only play. Online only is in place because otherwise offline people would be able to cheat through bosses instead of buying stuff. Now Blizzard can directly nerf classes or buff enemies and watch as players need to purchase more equipment to win.

I replayed SC1 less than a year ago. The story holds up. It has excellent characters and although I wish everyone had listened to Aldaris, I don't know what you are talking about in terms of quality. StarCraft 1 is miles above SC2 in story. SC2 has amazing mission design. Which is nice, but not a good excuse.

What? Nearly every SC2 mission except the final ones boil down to spending 90% of your resources on the unit they just gave you which the mission is designed to be beat with. Or just spam marines, because they easily beat most missions even on the hardest difficulty.

The other problem with SC2's story other than how bad it is is how non-existent it is. Seriously, 95% of missions are basically irrelevant sidequests. Its painfully obvious that things are being dragged out into a 2-expansion format. SC1 would have compressed the same amount of story-relevant elements into half of a single race's campaign.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

I still can't get over the fact that Wizard is possibly the least fun character in the game. How could they screw it up this badly? Why are his spells so ugly and lacking any sense of connection with the enemies? WoW's mage was a paragon of awesomeness compared to this, and Wizard never even gets a proper firebolt spell, nevermind firewall, or anything that utilizes fire in a major way, it seems.

The Wizard certainly is more geared towards arcane shite than the "traditional" spells of Diablo 1 & 2... which kind of makes sense when you think about the lore of the character, but not so much when you're considering how fun the character ought to be in terms of gameplay. I truly do wish that they'd added some sub-types of the runes themselves, such as a multi-purpose rune which you could use to morph your Magic Missile into either a Firebolt or a Frost Bolt.

As for impact... Yeah, some spells are boring, but I still find Disintegration to be quite "meaty" in terms of visuals and in terms of "feeling". Still... could be better.

All in all, I'd dare say that the most "gameplay-oriented" character class would be the Demon Hunter... which kind of sucks since I don't play that kind of character.

 

[DragoFireheart]

So is it true that they removed single-player? You can play on a private or public server, but you MUST be on-line?

 

[shihonage]

All in all, I'd dare say that the most "gameplay-oriented" character class would be the Demon Hunter... which kind of sucks since I don't play that kind of character.

It is apparent that in order to have an enjoyable game, one has to purposely restrict their usage of skills, avoiding the derpy ones like Demon Hunter's chaingun or Wizard's laser.

So is it true that they removed single-player? You can play on a private or public server, but you MUST be on-line?

2/10

 

[DraQ]

So is it true that they removed single-player? You can play on a private or public server, but you MUST be on-line?

Have you just awoke from a particularly lengthy slumber?

 

[DragoFireheart]

So is it true that they removed single-player? You can play on a private or public server, but you MUST be on-line?

Have you just awoke from a particularly lengthy slumber?

I try to ignore anything Bobby is involved with. What, are you seriously giving me shit for NOT being interested in Bobby's shit games?

 

[DraQ]

So is it true that they removed single-player? You can play on a private or public server, but you MUST be on-line?

Have you just awoke from a particularly lengthy slumber?

I try to ignore anything Bobby is involved with. What, are you seriously giving me shit for NOT being interested in Bobby's shit games?

No, Just slightly puzzled how anyone could have missed all the shit about always online DRM and waves of resulting butthurt.

 

[Executer]

Played for a couple of hours yesterday, D3 will likely and sadly be the last Blizzard product I buy (barring some major incline) , If this is the future I'm just not interested anymore.

 

[DragoFireheart]

No, Just slightly puzzled how anyone could have missed all the shit about always online DRM and waves of resulting butthurt.

I kept getting bad information that there was a single player mode but you needed to be online for a DRM check or something, not that there was NO single player mode and the only difference was private or public servers. I saw many sources claim that the single player mode just needs you on-line. I then had other people tell me that there was no single player mode.

 

[Zed]

Well, I'm 60 now and I'm still in hell (just started the last act). Still a challenge, even though I breezed through act 3 once I figured out how to skill the barbarian properly. Still no items of higher quality than rare...

 

[Jasede]

How the fuck are you 60 and in Hell, last ACT? Did you take days off of work?

I've been playing as much as I can since I bought it and I'm... in Act 1, normal.


(jelly)

 

[sgc_meltdown]

jasede's level discrepancy just reminded me that you can't do the old /players 8 trick anymore to sort your grindan out like a true pro gamer because of that online thing

...can you?

 

[Zed]

How the fuck are you 60 and in Hell, last ACT? Did you take days off of work?

I've been playing as much as I can since I bought it and I'm... in Act 1, normal.


(jelly)

no I spent half a day at university (the 15th) and tomorrow is essay-writing day. I'm actually super busy. or I should be.

 

[Jasede]

So much for finishing the game in four hours; I'm level 9 on both my characters and 3-4 hours each.

 

[RK47]

Yeah man, it took me dozens of hours to finish ME3 too. Don't believe those naysayers when they said the game is short, it is as short as they want to make it to be.

 

[DemonKing]

I dunno - so far I am quite enjoying this - more than D2 which never really did much for me (loved D1 though). The main reward for me will be the unlocking of new tilesets, monsters and character powers (I've never liked the Diablo loot system and it deosn't seem to have changed much here).

I like the more interactive environments and the spell effects are quite good. Also you can't just spam the same kind of attacks for every enemy, which is what I remember doing in D2 because you could only usually be effective if you invested your points in a few areas. Yes it's annoying to have to log in online to play SP but I guess there's not much that can be done about that. The leveling process seems a bit too automated but I guess that's too make sure the great unwashed massess don't get stuck with "dud" characters.