I played a bunch of Diablo clones - Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, PoE, Victor Vran, Torchlight. Never finished a single one. Only piece from this genre I've ever liked is Diablo.
I remember trying UO and EverQuest in, like, late 1990s I guess and absolutely hating them. Compared to all the glorious single-player RPG experiences at that time they felt weird, dumb, repetitive and ugly, plus my internet was bad and my Engrish was barely passable and I couldn't interact with people, which is the main (the only) draw of MMOs. Your mileage might've varied tho if you had a good internet, are an English speaker and actually like to interact with fellow neckbeards, autists and weirdos (the only kind of people who were playing MMOs back then).
Exactly. For the same reason some people nowadays love so much games like Space Station 13. It's all about social interactions while the game itself just a playground which set a direction of sorts. That's my take on those old MMOs as well. But I disagree that that's the only draw of MMOs in general: both PvP oriented and PvE team co-op focused provide a lot more than just a platform for social interactions.
No it won't.
The original W3 was an excellent game with vastly different playable races with a light rpg touch. Perfection!
And the studio making the game is an independent studio or one belonging to Activision and under the control of Blizzard.
Warhammer 40,000: Inquisito isn't likely to ever get a GOG release... boo!
“Diablo” developers speak on game and company issues
Stephen Totilo
Image: Activision Blizzard
The creators of “Diablo II: Resurrected” say people should “do what they feel is right,” when considering whether to buy next week’s big release from Activision Blizzard.
Why it matters: “Resurrected” is the first game from Activision Blizzard since California filed an anti-discrimination suit against the company, largely over sexism, harassment and other workplace problems at Blizzard, where the “Diablo” series was created.
Between the lines: The remake is primarily being made by Vicarious Visions, a studio in upstate New York that has long worked on non-Blizzard games and was not implicated in the suit.
- “It was definitely very troubling to hear these types of things,” “Resurrected” design director Rob Gallerani tells Axios, referring to the misconduct allegations.
- “And we really wanted to support our colleagues and our co-workers.”
Details: The remake wasn't expected to be controversial when it was announced in February.
- But the allegations still caused the team to self-reflect, Gallerani says, which involved studio management reaching out to employees to ask what could be done better.
- “We heard a lot of really positive things, but I don't think that we ever get a pass on that,” he says. “We always need to keep asking.”
- The controversy also triggered a “scrub” of the original content of “Diablo II” for any problematic references. Names and quests are being changed in other Blizzard games, but Gallerani says the check found nothing.
- 2000’s “Diablo II” is a beloved fantasy classic that lets players team up with friends to hack through legions of hellish foes while collecting ever-better loot.
- Gallerani refers to the project as a “double-decker cake” of 100% of the original game’s code — tweaked only for the remake’s online and security systems — with a new visual engine on top of it.
Amazon warrior in "Diablo II Resurrected." Image: Activision Blizzard
Changes include new looks for the game’s characters, including its female Amazon warrior.
The bottom line: Some long-term fans are now hesitant to support Activision Blizzard games, demanding that the company meet employee demands for reform.
- Her original, more sexualized design has been criticized by some, including a longtime Blizzard fan who once publicly challenged Blizzard over its "Victoria’s Secret" approach to female character design.
- “A lot of those points of view weigh very heavily on us,” Gallerani says, though he says her revamp for the new game was primarily due to an effort to make all the characters look more like warriors who battled hell demons, rather than people who “rolled out of a nightclub.”
Fixed.
I finished a few of them (Torchlight, Torchlight 2, Victor Vran) probably because I mostly play them in CoOp, but I agree with the overall gist of this. Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Torchlight I/II, Dungeon Siege III are boring, Path of Exile is boring (I didn't get very far though, since I dropped it relatively early and it was quite a while ago), even Diablo III is fucking boring. For most of these not even playing CoOp will make you suffer through and finish them. Replaying the Diablo 2 Beta and going through the content again with two chars reminded me that these games don't have to be boring and they can even be exciting enough that you'd want to replay the same content again with another character and not be thankful that it's finally over. The only one I actually liked and got into was Victor Vran, which also had some unique and new game mechanics.
This shit is especially funny, since StarCraft notwithstanding, Diablo II and WarCraft 3 are probably the best games Blizzard has ever made.
