Preview Diablo III Hands-On Impressions

[Freelance Henchman]

u mean Turdablo III

 

[SG]

why are you guys being cynical about diablo. what were you expecting. blizzard doesn't even refer to it as an rpg, they called it an action game at the blizzcon.

cynical ?!

THIS IS THE CODEX

thats why

PS:

i reged ( 3 times lol ) just to post this :D

cya

 

[Kz3r0]

Moar liek Diablo THurd.

 

[halasterbc]

nothing worse than mouse hack'n'slash, with less impressive graphics and cutscenes than diablo 2 had for its time. GARBAGE

 

[Gerrard]

It won't take long until some genius gamedesigner decides that damage represented by the numbers 1-100 (where 100 is more than 1) is too complex to grasp.

Well, they already replaced ranges with DPS, didn't they?

 

[Berekän]

http://grimdawn.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_uWDK2r ... r_embedded

Please note that developers do not usually allow their audience to see a game this early in development while the art is still in such a rough, unpolished state

Le What? It looks beatiful!

 

[StrangeCase]

It was a fairly big dungeon, but the quest objectives were easy to find — when you got close to them, there was a glowing circle on the ground that made them easy to see. Once done with that, to escape the prison you needed a key that dropped from the zone's boss. A helpful marker on the map pointed out where he was — the convergence of four high walkways, with deep pits below.

Wheeeee

 

[poocolator]

the convergence of four high walkways, with deep pits below.

Sounds like they're using the Starcraft 2 engine/map editor.

 

[Sergiu64]

Same here but what I want to know is if there's no potion belt how do I get my potions?

There's no more potions. Some things drop healing orbs which heal you when you run over them, you can't carry them with you.

 

[Chefe]

http://grimdawn.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_uWDK2r ... r_embedded

Please note that developers do not usually allow their audience to see a game this early in development while the art is still in such a rough, unpolished state

Le What? It looks beatiful!

That's a rough, unpolished state to developers who care about their games.

GD is basically what Diablo 3 should have been, grimdark-wise. Gameplay wise, it's the excellence that was TQ. Setting-wise, it's freaking awesome.

 

[Shannow]

http://grimdawn.com/

Sounds actually really good for a Diablo-clone. Funny to see the Titan Quest devs, aka: "we whine about evil pirates when our shitty game tanks", taking pains to believably claim that they want no/as little as possible DRM in their game.
And yes, the vid looks stylistically much better than what I've seen of D3.

 

[flushfire]

There's no more potions. Some things drop healing orbs which heal you when you run over them, you can't carry them with you.

there still are. blizzard said that they will be rare and expensive, which probably means you can't buy a lot in the first 30 minutes tops. they put cooldown on using them though, that's a good thing.

 

[CraigCWB]

But will it have enough bedazzling particle effects? Oh wait... mouse-button mashing is in. Groovy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Diablo isn't "real" RPG. Funny thing, though... watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kPXdtz_c4

It sure as hell seems like more of an RPG than the shitass games that have been coming out lately, doesn't it? Bioware can only dream about making interactive movies that good, and Bethesda wishes the combat in FO3 was as satisfying. And I'm not so sure Diablo even qualifies as "hack & slash" anymore. Don't Bioware and Bethesda both have Diablo 2 beat in the brainless button mashing department? Playing Diablo II on "hell" difficulty required sound tactics and a good character build if you wanted to have any chance of success. Not so with Bioware and Bethesda titles. On max difficulty,m you STILL can't lose no matter what you do.

Diablo II was an action RPG in 2000. Today, it's not.

PS-Watching those videos on YouTube has reminded me what a blast I had with Diablo and how compelling the storyline was, and how addictive the gameplay was. Y'all Diablo haters can eat my shorts. If D3 is half as good as D2 was, I'll play the hell out of it for a long time to come. There aren't any Torments, Baldur's Gate IIs, MM7, Jagged Alliance IIs, Icewind Dales, Close Combat IIs, Fallout IIs, and so on and so on coming out to distract me from it so what else am I supposed to do? Come on RPG codex and whine?

 

[CraigCWB]

It won't take long until some genius gamedesigner decides that damage represented by the numbers 1-100 (where 100 is more than 1) is too complex to grasp.

Well, they already replaced ranges with DPS, didn't they?

The first time I ever heard "damage per second" used as an expression was in Everquest, and I think it started because EQ listed weapon damage(per hit) and weapon delay (in seconds) so it was quite east to do the math. However, you still had to know what your opponent's damage reduction was to know what your DPS was really going to be like. These days games just seem to report "DPS" without letting the player know what the raw damage, attack rate, or damage reduction of opponent is. Which is total bullshit because the only way anyone can know what their weapon is really gonna do is to use it. They may as well not tell the player anything. Fallout 3 for example reports Assault Rifles with nearly twice the damage as the low end hunting rifle. But I can head-pop raiders with one shot using the hunting rifle, whereas an assault rifle I blow off a whole damn clip to get the same result.

"DPS" is for asshats who can't even do basic arithmetic and it doesn't belong in computer games. Anyone who can't do basic arithmetic is too stupid to be using a computer anyway.

 

[Mrowak]

PS-Watching those videos on YouTube has reminded me what a blast I had with Diablo and how compelling the storyline was...

???

Sorry, but if you mean here D2 I've got only one thing to say: the storyline in Diablo II was anything but compelling... So much inanity, boredom in one game. The only thing that added some atmosphere were excellent CGs... in D2 vanilla, not the terribad (in this respect) expansion.

...and how addictive the gameplay was.

???
Ok, the gameplay started to become addictive on nightmare in act 2 provided you played in multi. The thing is you had to go through boring-ass normal level and nightmare act 1 to reach that . Playing till that in singleplayer meant you are either a mindless drone, or hopeless masochist or both.

Edit:

It sure as hell seems like more of an RPG than the shitass games that have been coming out lately, doesn't it?

:D

Diablo II was direct progenitor of WoW - with a lot of its idiotic shit e.g. focus on items, broken world economy, grind, mirrorlike (mostly) dumbfuck community. It literarly introduced all that into wRpgs. If anything albeit it is excellent hack&slasher on the whole it contributed much to RPG's

 

[MetalCraze]

It literarly introduced all that into wRpgs

Here's the list of RPGs since Diablo 2 with that stuff introduced:












OLOLO guys did I just get KKKs for bashing Diablo 2 for the horrible decline of RPGs? Now that's done I'll go play Dragon Age and Failout3 to fight the decline

 

[Mrowak]

It literarly introduced all that into wRpgs

Here's the list of RPGs since Diablo 2 with that stuff introduced:

Great list (even further of cryway)

OLOLO guys did I just get KKKs for bashing Diablo 2 for the horrible decline of RPGs? Now that's done I'll go play Dragon Age and Failout3 to fight the decline

By all means do play them. Then return here and tell me stupid-ass, pointless fights with tactics for both you or the computer on the level of kindergarten from DA weren't in any way influenced by (misapplied implementation of) D2.

 

[jiujitsu]

POWAH ARMOR MANZ unite!

 

[Malakal]

Too much discussion for what essentially is a hack and slash game meant to run on almost all machines and kick ass in multiplayer. What did You guys really expect? Story? Great graphics? Interesting lore? Nope, its Diablo. Graphics were always shit (especially with D2 blamed for low res even when it was released), gameplay rather repetetive and lore is definitely ripped off anythign even remotely interesting. But is fun in the mindless way You are expecting it to be. And thats enough for me.

 

[Mrowak]

But is fun in the mindless way You are expecting it to be. And thats enough for me.

Why should anyone bother with mindless shit? Too much time?

Besides, we already have too much mindless games all around. Mindless = casual = boring.

What did You guys really expect? Story? Great graphics? Interesting lore? Nope, its Diablo.

I only wanted the things that made D1 great: genuinely (as opposed to lamely) dark ambience and some level of world integrity capped with some great art-design. So far I can see that d3 is going to have even less of all that than D2.

 

[Shannow]

But is fun in the mindless way You are expecting it to be. And thats enough for me.

Why should anyone bother with mindless shit? Too much time?

Besides, we already have too much mindless games all around. Mindless = casual = boring.

I have friends with Doctorates who don't want anything mentally challenging when the come home after 10 hours at the university. They just want to turn off their brains and have a little fun. Some do sports, some read inane fiction, some watch brain-dead TV and some just want to play games that have exploshuns and not much more.

And seriously, there are no mentally challenging games. Engaging perhaps, but not challenging. Unless, of course, you're some kind of retard...

 

[Metro]

http://grimdawn.com/

Have fun waiting on that one. Should be out by 2015... maybe. As far as all the D3 criticism goes, like one of the guys above said: seriously, it's an ARPG, what the hell do you expect? Either you like them or you don't.

 

[DriacKin]

What did You guys really expect? Story? Great graphics? Interesting lore? Nope, its Diablo. Graphics were always shit (especially with D2 blamed for low res even when it was released)

Graphics were not ALWAYS shit. Diablo 1 had pretty solid graphics for a game back in 1996.

 

[acolyte]

Nice newspost, good news.

tough to decide what skills to use : good
"They've stated in the past that some form of respec will be added to the game." : would be very nice
skill rune system : ...amazing ?!

I also get the general feeling it will be an insanely polished game... as expected from a Blizzard game.

 

[Mrowak]

But is fun in the mindless way You are expecting it to be. And thats enough for me.

Why should anyone bother with mindless shit? Too much time?

Besides, we already have too much mindless games all around. Mindless = casual = boring.

I have friends with Doctorates who don't want anything mentally challenging when the come home after 10 hours at the university. They just want to turn off their brains and have a little fun. Some do sports, some read inane fiction, some watch brain-dead TV and some just want to play games that have exploshuns and not much more.

And seriously, there are no mentally challenging games. Engaging perhaps, but not challenging. Unless, of course, you're some kind of retard...

Fair enough, though to be fair doing sports is much more profitable than the rest of activities you mention and hence more desireable form of activity for a guy such as yourself.

I also agree that at present there are few genuinely mentally challenging single-player games - even the best RPGs we play are merely engaging. For a game to be really challenging one must apply the same set of rules, gameplay mechanics or even game settings for both sides. Even most strategic games cannot guarantee this.

However, to my mind even playing games can be worthwhile if there is enough intellectual effort invested in its creation AND if it succeeds in inspiring you on some level, be it artistic, intellectual or other. Best RPGs, Strategies, Adventure or Logic Games do that. Casual games such as Diablo 2 do not.

Your examples about your friends with PhDs is true to life. I personally know a lot of equally enlightened people who can enjoy, say Gears of War or WoW, read pulp-fiction, have over 200 friends on their facebook accounts and watch shows like JackAss on a daily basis. That's perfectly fine. It does not mean though that such activities should be promoted. And with the game like D3 this is bound to happen. Mindless, brainless clickfest, attracting not only the highbrows but also flocks of casuals wasting hours upon hours running after pixels.

If d3 had anything that could add to experience which could detract from pointless gameplay it would add some value to it. Unfortunately, from the hype and example given by SC2 it does not look like that.