Diablo 3 is a-coming?

[Norfleet]

They can't. Because they're distinct. It's like saying grass will make flowers obsolete.

Grass might not make flowers obsolete, but concrete does. I honestly cannot think of a good reason why I would specifically want flowers instead of concrete. Flowers do not stop onrushing enemy vehicles, flowers are overly high maintenance, and generally lack any of the benefits of concrete.

 

[Atrokkus]

Alright, everybody here knows that I'm a blizzard fanboi. I don't even know which of their franchises I love the most. Diablo is a unique game (no wonder the entire genre of neo-graphical roguelikes is based upon that game). What's great about it? The grind is fun. The replayvalue is pretty much infinite. And most importantly, the multiplayer system is very addictive and accessible for everyone.

Of course, as far as mass multiplayer (battle.net) is concerned, I'm talking only about Diablo 2, because Diablo 1, despite being a great game all by itself, and delivering great coop gameplay value and all, fails utterly in terms of Battle.net gaming because of bugs, exploits and lack of features. Diablo 2 is like a half-MMORPG, really: every realm has its rather advanced trading system (sure it's mostly makeshift, but it works), with currency and ebbing/flowing prices; it has ladder that provides challenge and ultimate goal for those who can't just settle for grinding for the sake of grinding (and again, grinding in D2 *is* fun); furthemore, it has permadeath servers which provide the best PvP PK experience I've ever had (sure some say it's annoying and not fun, but hey -- it adds tons of challenge rating and keeps you on your toes all the time, unless you just play private games -- the only problem is the recent outbreak of various haxx that give PKers unfair advantage, but that's mainly due to Blizzard's abandonment of D2 bnet maintenance; in the days of olde, PKing was an art); and the very flexible and multifold item and skill systems that let you experiment with various builds (well of course there's but a fixed number of actually viable (and sometimes imba) builds, but still that number is rather large).

But what is most important, and unique about D2, is the fact that it only but borders the realm of MMORPG, but not belongs to it. Meaning that it's completely free of charge, and most importantly, it has no foolish phantom aspirations to true roleplaying -- instead, it is more like Starcraft -- a highly competitive (ladder) strategy game with high stakes (in hardcore mode). I mean, there even used to be entire TEAMS with sole purpose of being the first who reached the top of the ladder with lvl99 char that season (most notable are team GerBarb and RusBarb).
Hell, D2 was even a little bit of a cybersport game -- even though PvP is generally flawed and imbalanced (blizzard made a disclaimer right from the start: "we are not going to make PvP balanced"), but the 2x2 match-ups were pretty balanced, and very fun and surely not repetitive. I remember there were many 2x2 tournaments held (lanparties usually), in Russia, namely.

Ahh, good ole' times...


If Diablo3 draws upon the core of D2 multiplayer system, its free of charge nature and high competitiveness, then D3 will rock so fuckin' hard.

 

[Norfleet]

The question is, "What will it offer that Diablo 2 doesn't already?". I mean, as everyone knows, there have been many, many Diablo clones. All of them have fallen short in some way, even where they surpass it in others. Why does this happen? No one knows. It's always been a mystery to me why a game would intentionally regress in a design feature that is already known to the public.

 

[Atrokkus]

I remember CE being godly in the old days, but wasn't it nerfed into the dirt during the 1.09 era? My test drive of it in 1.11 just a few minutes ago seemed to suggest that it sucked.

The catch here is that the damage no longer scales with the number of players. So yeah, in most of the baalruns and other crowded game-types, it sucks. But if you solo, it still rocks so fuckin hard with just a little bit of point investment (like 5, disregarding the skillers)

Serious? How?

necro Summoner is de-facto the safest character in the game. You can pretty much solo everything with the very strong skellies and curses. Only phsyical immunes can become a problem, but amplify damage pierces the immunity, or you could let the merc deal with them (giving him some nice ele dmg polearm or somethign), or fire golem (though it's not a very viable choice). Or CE.

Also, if you've only played d2 pre-1.09 then you pretty much haven't played it. The 1.10 patch is where it's at -- the best fuckin patch there is. It made PvM challenging again with the introduction of immunities in Hell.

 

[Atrokkus]

The question is, "What will it offer that Diablo 2 doesn't already?". I mean, as everyone knows, there have been many, many Diablo clones. All of them have fallen short in some way, even where they surpass it in others. Why does this happen? No one knows. It's always been a mystery to me why a game would intentionally regress in a design feature that is already known to the public.

nope, there has never been a TRUE diablo clone. Because if you just make a grind-fest with shallow multiplayer mode - it's NOT diablo clone, no matter how good is the stat system or whatnot. A real diabloclone would have to have a great free-of-charge accessible gameserver like Battle.net, a ladder, good anti-cheat policy, LOTS of patches with new features and fixes, and of course all the great gameplay elements that d2 already offers (with some extra stuff) -- that's what makes diablo2 great as it is even today.
And believe me, there is no such thing as features getting old. Look at shooters or RTS -- it's mostly the reiteration of old principle but with more polish -- and it sells and peopel love it. I'm a starcraft/warcraft fanboi myself and I don't really want Starcraft 2 to have something completley fuckikng revolutionary/new -- i want it to be true to SC:BW, as much as possible. If they want something completely new, they'll make a completley separate franchise. That's the best policy.

 

[DoppelG]

To me, the most fun thing about Diablo 2 (apart from the standard "what makes Diablo fun", like random items/areas/monsters, fun hack&slash, tens of viable builts per character, athmosphere,...) is playing in a well thought out party. The thing is, it can be very annoying to find some people that work well together, most of the time you either have arogant kids or complete "have free?" noobs. But once in a while you find someone where its actually fun to discuss tactics with, to set a goal of what you want to achieve, to create items together, to gamble, to discuss some builts and to share items and discuss set-ups and to create good party combo's wich work well together. That to me is what made Diablo 2 fun. Imo, it wat a thrill to work in a well made party. Diablo 1 was arguebly a more fun single player game though.

 

[Atrokkus]

OH yes, most definitely that's another great element of D2 bnet gameplay. Even during monotone baalruns you sometimes encounter people willing to teamplay well, especially if you set the initiative -- like, if you're an avenger with conviction aura, casters will just love it (and you should switch it on even if you'd do better without it on your own (like in Normal diff you prolly wont have the mana to use vengeance anyways due to bad mana pool/leech).

 

[Norfleet]

The catch here is that the damage no longer scales with the number of players. So yeah, in most of the baalruns and other crowded game-types, it sucks. But if you solo, it still rocks so fuckin hard with just a little bit of point investment (like 5, disregarding the skillers)

So, still sucks, then. Playing on anything other than P8 all the way is like picking "Can I Play, Daddy?". Only utter wussies play that way. Besides, nothing ever drops. I miss the days when it wasn't capped at 8 and you could play as high as P256. That was good stuff.

necro Summoner is de-facto the safest character in the game. You can pretty much solo everything with the very strong skellies and curses.

I thought the safest was bonewall/prison spammers. The problem with "safest" is the old paradigm of "nothing ventured, nothing gained". It may be a safe method to play, but man is it ever tedious and slow. And wait, "very strong" skellies? They do damage now? Last time I did this, skeletons were things that crumpled like wet tissue in a single hit and did next to no damage, so the only way they ever accomplished anything was from IM, and we all know how slow THAT is, because monsters have like 80000 hitpoints and do only about 500 a hit.

Only phsyical immunes can become a problem, but amplify damage pierces the immunity

Bitchin'. Seriously? It does now?

Or CE.

We've established that this has been nerfed into sucksauce now. It's pretty much only useful to defile corpses so they can't be raised by the shamans and whatnot.

Also, if you've only played d2 pre-1.09 then you pretty much haven't played it. The 1.10 patch is where it's at -- the best fuckin patch there is. It made PvM challenging again with the introduction of immunities in Hell.

I thought we were up to 1.11 now. And weren't immunities introduced in 1.09?

 

[slipgate_angel]

Exactly! Secret of Mana wasn't even an ARPG. It is concole styled crap. Console styled RPGs are basically platformers that borrow a very few stats(HP and MANA and sometimes "attack" adn "Defense") from the turn-based strat genre(ala Warlords and HoMM).

You mean console, right? Your attempt at trying to be funny by typing incorrectly, you've failed.

And last time I checked, Secret of mana had no platforming elements in it. Although you are right about it being a console style game, because it borrows from stat based RPGs, and Zelda. Frankly, I don't see why people here hate Secret of mana, because from what I've played so far it's fun. Tell me, what did it fail to do?

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

http://www.diablo3.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6979

In the past days there have been a lot of activity in the network sites after the countdown teaser. A few forum threads keep continuous debate between Diablo fans of what this announcement will be. I have given a few responses of what it is not, to make sure fans won't be thinking the wrong thing. We have made no claims and expect fans to not get caught up with the wave of speculations and rumors in the forums and the web to the point to believe them.

With that said, I will mention some of those I have ruled out since it seems fans haven't thoroughfully read all the forum posts in said thread.

Things the May 1 Announcement are not:
1. It is not an official announcement of Diablo 3
2. It is not about an upcoming Diablo novel
3. It is not a Network merge

 

[Xi]

Exactly! Secret of Mana wasn't even an ARPG. It is concole styled crap. Console styled RPGs are basically platformers that borrow a very few stats(HP and MANA and sometimes "attack" adn "Defense") from the turn-based strat genre(ala Warlords and HoMM).

You mean console, right? Your attempt at trying to be funny by typing incorrectly, you've failed.

And last time I checked, Secret of mana had no platforming elements in it. Although you are right about it being a console style game, because it borrows from stat based RPGs, and Zelda. Frankly, I don't see why people here hate Secret of mana, because from what I've played so far it's fun. Tell me, what did it fail to do?

Secret of Mana was a fantastic SNES RPG. People can argue taste all they like, but it was just a fantastic game regardless of how we categorize it. It was hardly a Diablo clone though. Definitely a unique experience that might borrow from Zelda some, but finding new things under the sun isn't exactly easy anymore.

I think Blizzard is the only company I trust to make "good games" regardless of genre. I just wish they would jump into the RPG genre with Warcraft or Starcraft. You know they would most certainly do them justice. Or at least it would be a quality experience.

 

[Atrokkus]

I thought the safest was bonewall/prison spammers. The problem with "safest" is the old paradigm of "nothing ventured, nothing gained". It may be a safe method to play, but man is it ever tedious and slow.

Bone necros (and of course i mean those that pump their bone spear and spirit a lot, not just walls/prisons) are *extremely* item-dependent. You have to have a very good item set in order to be viable, whereas summoners can pretty much play untwinked, and effectively naked throughout the game. Hell, you don't even need maxxed res in hell (though you better be careful then, especially with LE/FE bitches).

And wait, "very strong" skellies? They do damage now? Last time I did this, skeletons were things that crumpled like wet tissue in a single hit and did next to no damage, so the only way they ever accomplished anything was from IM, and we all know how slow THAT is, because monsters have like 80000 hitpoints and do only about 500 a hit

Hoho. Skellies don't just "do damage", they can take on bosses in Hell. + a low-lvl clay golem to slow the bastards down. The only bosses that is impossible to beat with skellies alone are uber tristram bosses, you'll have to revive some Urdars or similar extra-healthy monsters for meatshielding.

I thought we were up to 1.11 now. And weren't immunities introduced in 1.09?

We are at 1.11 now, what made you think i implied the opposite? And to be honest, i dont quite remember whether it was 1.09 or 1.10 but i think it was 1.10, and even if not, 1.10 introduced synergies and that's pretty much the best single gameplay feature tweak ever, in diablo2.

Bitchin'. Seriously? It does now?

Yep.

We've established that this has been nerfed into sucksauce now. It's pretty much only useful to defile corpses so they can't be raised by the shamans and whatnot.

Well yeah but its 50% fire damage component could help a little if you're having some massive problems with immunes and if it's like, 4-5 ppl game (not always do you have 8ppl games anyways).

 

[Astromarine]

lrn2read. He plays single player, with the "players 8" command enabled to spawn mobs like an 8-player multi would.

 

[Kingston]

"LE/FE bitches"

Have they fixed the bug where they do that huge amount of damage on death? Isn't that what knocked one of your chars off?

Oh and Secret of Mana was great. Had some great tunes too.


"It is not an official announcement of Diablo 3 "

And no Diablo3 then? Oh well. Maybe its just an *unofficial* announcement. MAYBE.

 

[Atrokkus]

Have they fixed the bug where they do that huge amount of damage on death? Isn't that what knocked one of your chars off?

Well, fuck -- I thought they fixed it, but as you correctly noted, my necro got zapped to death with a single fuckin bolt.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Wait, skeletons are useful? I was told they weren't worth shit and I should just concentrate on golems
i r confuse

 

[Kingston]

You won't get very far with a single golem, mang. Although back in the day a blood golem and iron maiden was quite a combo. You iron maidened the enemies, who would then hit your golem, taking damage, thereby giving you and the golem life. Basically an immortal golem, unless there was an enemy that did a shitload of damage in one hit. They took that out with a patch though.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Yeah, that's what I was told to do... by someone who never patched the damn game, I assume.
Back to the drawing board.

 

[kingcomrade]

The best build is Zeal + Holy Freeze paladin. Of course, it turns you into a lawn mower.

 

[OSK]

The best build is Zeal + Holy Freeze paladin. Of course, it turns you into a lawn mower.

Fuck yeah. I've played through D2 three times and that's the only build I've ever used.

I'm now tempted to play again as a different class…

 

[sah]

I think I played every class at least to lvl 30. More than once sometimes, with different builds. Barbarians are awesome.

 

[Raapys]

No one here play the Easter Sun mod for Diablo 2? It makes the game like twice as fun, and that's saying something for what's an already great game.

 

[kingcomrade]

The best build is Zeal + Holy Freeze paladin. Of course, it turns you into a lawn mower.

Fuck yeah. I've played through D2 three times and that's the only build I've ever used.

I'm now tempted to play again as a different class…

Yeah, I always play as that class. The thing about Diablo 2 is, I don't like any of the classes except the Paladin. Aethestically, play-wise, or anything.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

The best build is Zeal + Holy Freeze paladin. Of course, it turns you into a lawn mower.

Fuck yeah. I've played through D2 three times and that's the only build I've ever used.

I'm now tempted to play again as a different class…

Yeah, I always play as that class. The thing about Diablo 2 is, I don't like any of the classes except the Paladin. Aethestically, play-wise, or anything.

My thoughts exactly!

In fact I play a paladin character in every game where it is remotely possible. It has something to do with ethics, I suppose.

 

[JarlFrank]

I do like the sorceress more. And the barbarian. The sorcreress because she's hawt, and the barbarian because he kicks some serious butt. And they're fun to play, and effective when you do them right.

Paladin is more of a support class, anyways.