Game News Diablo III Open Beta Announced

[FeelTheRads]

Okay then, when was the last time you played the latest version of D2 LoD on hell?

You're assuming the WHOLE game has to revolve around a level of difficulty obviously designed for powergamed builds.
As long as they have other levels of difficulty why wouldn't there be builds that work on those levels but not on higher levels? What's bad about that? If you know how to do the perfect build, do it. If not, play and see what works and what not.

 

[Black]

Okay then, when was the last time you played the latest version of D2 LoD on hell?

You're assuming the WHOLE game has to revolve around a level of difficulty obviously designed for powergamed builds.
As long as they have other levels of difficulty why wouldn't there be builds that work on those levels but not on higher levels? What's bad about that? If you know how to do the perfect build, do it. If not, play and see what works and what not.

Hell in D2 and inferno in D3 are the game proper. It's not about powergamed builds but about getting the most out of the game, killing hardest monsters, playing on hardest difficulty, getting the best gear.

 

[made]

Travel allows exploration.

Not always.

No, not always. Teleportation otoh never does.

And really VD, Hommlet is your argument against exploration? The most boring fedex central ever conceived? Why yes, I see it now: towns have no place in RPGs either, let's remove them as well!

But before we do that let's have a look at a town that's actually fun to explore, excessive random encounters notwithstanding: Wiz 8's Arnika. Here we have a temple with some puzzles and loots, a couple vendors (that you can rob), a spaceport that's only important much later but has a few items to scavenge, some NPCs that hand out clues, a couple recruitable NPCs (one of which helps you break into a bank, another that you free from a jail), several buildings you can't enter at first (or can you?) including an ominous evil tower (boy, I wonder what's in there!), tons of hidden items everywhere, and a bunch of other locations I probably forgot. But not a single smashable barrel in the whole place.

Boring filler? I think not.

 

[Vault Dweller]

A lot has changed since 1.09, especially when it comes to equipment. You can have a paladin with level 1 zeal beat the shit out of everything if he has the hottest runewords, charms and merc while a "well rounded" pal with 20 in zeal, its synergies, fanaticism and so on won't do jack without good equipment.

Well, D2, especially in the context of this discussion, is not just the latest path. Maybe they fucked it up in patch #10, but it doesn't mean that the release version and 9 first patches didn't happen.

 

[Grunker]

Honestly I thought Arnika was boring as fuck for the most part.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Travel allows exploration.

Not always.

No, not always. Teleportation otoh never does.

Let's pretend that teleportation is the only way to move from A to B in the game.

And really VD, Hommlet is your argument against exploration?

Was that the only town/game mentioned?

But before we do that let's have a look at a town that's actually fun to explore, excessive random encounters notwithstanding: Wiz 8's Arnika. Here we have a temple with some puzzles and loots, a couple vendors (that you can rob), a spaceport that's only important much later but has a few items to scavenge, some NPCs that hand out clues, a couple recruitable NPCs (one of which helps you break into a bank, another that you free from a jail), several buildings you can't enter at first (or can you?) including an ominous evil tower (boy, I wonder what's in there!), tons of hidden items everywhere, and a bunch of other locations I probably forgot. But not a single smashable barrel in the whole place.

And?

In Teron you can run into different characters (preacher, storyteller, refugees, pickpockets, fake trader who promises to give you some candy if you follow him to his van, etc), get some quests (how many explorers got the Grain of Truth quest, btw?), explore the broken tower, infiltrate the "palace", etc. Not bad for a starting town.

 

[Dexter]

So, noone mentioned Always On/No LAN/No SinglePlayer, Auction House, Modding = Ban and RetardoNet 2.0?

More reason for me to stay away from this than missing Stats & Skills although those help xD
Torchlight 2 and Grim Dawn not that far away.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Wait eine sekunde. I only played a little bit of the AoD beta thing, because I try to avoid too many spoilers for games I'm really interested in. But... I thought that teleporting was only to get faster to quest givers and such. Or is there really no reason to explore because there's nothing else there besides a set of main and side quests and you're better off just teleporting the whole game?

 

[Black]

I know I wouldn't find the SPOILER ALERT merchant who tries to set you up END SPOILER if I hadn't explored and only went from instance to instance.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Wait eine sekunde. I only played a little bit of the AoD beta thing, because I try to avoid too many spoilers for games I'm really interested in. But... I thought that teleporting was only to get faster to quest givers and such.

Correct. You're teleported within a quest when NPC A says "go talk to NPC B" or when you return to NPC A to report quest competition.

Or is there really no reason to explore because there's nothing else there besides a set of main and side quests and you're better off just teleporting the whole game?

I listed what you can find/do between quests in the previous post.

 

[almondblight]

So, noone mentioned Always On/No LAN/No SinglePlayer, Auction House, Modding = Ban and RetardoNet 2.0?

It's pretty awful. I had to wait 15 minutes before starting a single player game because the connection kept timing out. Also, to sign up I had to give them my name, address, and telephone number (well, _someone's_).

Other than that, I've found the game itself to be lacking. In D2 you could go pretty much anywhere in an act from the beginning. D3 closes off a lot of places until you finish a quest. Also, no /players 8. This makes the poor difficult a lot worse (in D2, I'd usually start a new character and immediately run to the plains on /players 4 or /players 8).

 

[made]

In Teron you can run into different characters (preacher, storyteller, refugees, pickpockets, fake trader who promises to give you some candy if you follow him to his van, etc), get some quests (how many explorers got the Grain of Truth quest, btw?), explore the broken tower, infiltrate the "palace", etc. Not bad for a starting town.

Sounds promising. So there is exploration in the game after all. I assume bigger towns have more stuff to do, more hidden secrets to find, more locations to explore...

Is it then safe to say that you allow walking when you could figure out interesting stuff to implement along the way for the player to find, and teleport him when you couldn't?

 

[Vault Dweller]

So there is exploration in the game after all.

Why wouldn't there be?

I assume bigger towns have more stuff to do, more hidden secrets to find, more locations to explore...

Correct.

Is it then safe to say that you allow walking when you could figure out interesting stuff to implement along the way for the player to find, and teleport him when you couldn't?

You can explore all you want between quests. We teleport you within quests for your convenience (to speed things up). That's all.

 

[almondblight]

Things like:
http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Melee_Sorceress

"What the Melee Sorceress wears may prove far more important than her small array of skills."

 

[made]

So there is exploration in the game after all.

Why wouldn't there be?

I was led to believe your game teleports players from POI to POI, depriving them of the pleasure of manually exploring in between. I will rest easy tonight knowing that this is not the case.

Sorry for OT. Please resume bemoaning the decline of Diablo.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You can't believe everything you read on the internet.

 

[chewie]

Sorry for OT. Please resume bemoaning the decline of Diablo.

Thanks. *takes microphone*

So... why 4 pages? Thought Diablo was the last relevant game?

 

[asper]

There's a larger topic over at General RPG discussion.

 

[Stabwound]

Also, a lengthy post on stats in d2 and d3.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3811455085?page=1

After reading this, I'm no longer concerned about the game. I'm convinced that the system they setup for skills and character building is ultimately superior to that of D2, even if it doesn't seem so at first glance.

The lack of stat selection is obviously troubling, but then you can see that they've switched it so that you modify your stats by socketing gems into your equipment, and in fact it makes it even MORE flexible than D2 in that you don't have to completely munchkin your character.

Reading through that thread made me convinced that most of what they've done is mostly positive outside of always-online DRM and the cash auction house.

 

[FeelTheRads]

and in fact it makes it even MORE flexible than D2

Or, rather, it just looks like everyone (or at least those who grind enough or buy from the auction house) will end up with the same maximized characters.

From that topic:

How cool would it be to play a sorceress that mastered firewall, blizzard, chain lightning, enchant, and static field all at the same time?

This, in a way, makes the skill systems power entirely purchasable on the auction house through trading gear and gems

In D2 it was entirely purchasable only after doing thousands of baal runs to hit level 99.

So, in other words, leveling up sucks because you can't max out everything until you reach the level cap. The better choice is to build your character from items bought at the auction house.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

"So, in other words, leveling up sucks because you can't max out everything until you reach the level cap"

it sucks because you're sitting on stacks of points and avoiding the earlier skills because they're worthless at end game.

"The better choice is to build your character from items bought at the auction house."

With the all the blacksmithing i've been doing, i reckon the only shit i'll need from the AH will be cheap mats and gems.

 

[Black]

Sorry for OT. Please resume bemoaning the decline of Diablo.

Thanks. *takes microphone*

So... why 4 pages? Thought Diablo was the last relevant game?

RPG of the year, man, this or ME3.

 

[Black]

Shiet, I don't know why elective mode isn't on by default, it's so much better than your casual standard mode.

 

[Turok]

The only decision i have to do on Diablo 3 was choose the skill of my companion LOL...

This game is a MMO, ppl only buy the client side of the game, is not like the old diablo where you can actually host the game in Multiplayer, the game run on Blizzard servers (SOLO PLAY IS JUST A HOSTED GAME ON BLIZZARD SERVERS WITH ONLY YOU PLAYING) soo they make sure that the items you get are legitimate, in that way they can be sure that items and drops are real ones and not hacked ones and all this is for one reason, is not about security, no no, is not about protect you from hackers, no no no, is for the core of the game:

THE AUCTION HOUSE.

The money maker for ACTIVISION/BLIZZARD.

Sorry for my english.

 

[nihil]

I played the D3 beta a bit in the weekend. Too cluttered with MMO and meta things that break the fourth wall, dialogue if awful and non-engaging, the tone and visual style is still "Bloodrayne" comic horror, and Blizzard's new idea of impact is apparently sending floaty ragdolls flying 20 feet every time you hit something.

Still, it seems like a fairly entertaining game, but a disappointing one.

 

[Black]

Character Customization Explained - Updated!! - Forums - Diablo III

So dumbed down q_q