[Magnum50]

I have great memories with the first Diablo, sitting right here, with my then 5 year old daughter sitting on my lap watching me fight the monsters, taught her to hit the H key whenever the red ball got almost empty... we defeated the big guy a number of times that way.

Diablo 2 was still good, bigger, but not necessarily better IMO... so I'm hoping they don't screw Diablo 3 up... but looking forward to it... of course now, my daughters a teenager, and wants nothing to do with me. lol

[galzohar]

Just defeated Leoric on the open beta weekend with the barbarian, looted everything and servers crashed immediately after. Good timing I guess...

Now to try the 4 other classes. Though I really did enjoy the barbarian.

[DetCord]

My understanding is that the game, for lack of a better word, sucks. This is pretty much what I've been seeing elsewhere as well.

http://www.rockpaper...ighlight=diablo

[galzohar]

DetCord, on 20 April 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

My understanding is that the game, for lack of a better word, sucks. This is pretty much what I've been seeing elsewhere as well.

http://www.rockpaper...ighlight=diablo

I could try say something smart about that, but really it would just sum up to "the guy who wrote that post is a complete idiot". Sorry, but he just doesn't understand why things are the way they are, and is just looking at every game mechanic and tries to hate it instead of thinking why it's actually awesome to have it that way. As someone who spent a lot more "thinking-power" about this game, I can say I like most of the design decisions they made.

Also, while the beta is pretty damn easy and short, it does show that the game is living up to what I was expecting. As long as higher levels add the challenge and skill variety that they're supposed to add.

[Fixxxer]

DetCord, on 20 April 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

My understanding is that the game, for lack of a better word, sucks. This is pretty much what I've been seeing elsewhere as well.

http://www.rockpaper...ighlight=diablo

His avatar picture is of Horatio. 'Nuff said. I was going to cut his post up, but really, what's the point? Haters gotta hate. I think people just deliberately like to be miserable. I'm playing the beta and I'm loving it. All I'm worried about is trying not to play this game and focus on college.

[Witzbold]

Had to laugh at this, since was so true with how the "add friend" feature didnt work during the stress test beta.

[Fixxxer]

Which, as fan-boy-ism it may make me, it's just another reason I like Blizzard. Aside from making great games, they have a sense of humour and are okay with making fun of even themselves.

[Witzbold]

Im still wondering if there will be any sort of crazy bonus level like the cow one.

[galzohar]

Actually I had no problems adding my friends and playing with them during the open beta. The quick join feature is actually quite great. You can see exactly what classes and levels they're playing, what quest they're on, and how many players they have in their game. It only shows games that aren't full, too.

Edited by galzohar, 25 April 2012 - 12:22 PM.

[Witzbold]

Thats great you didnt have an issue, but there was a problem which others on the forums had posted on too. Then again since the beta was a stress test it was expected that various things would be not functioning or broken lol

It did not work once during the whole time when I had tried it on several occasions. Same error message that everyone else with the problem was getting.

Other folks said it worked, then their friends list either got deleted or the ability to add more didnt work after.

[Delta[84]]

I'm a bit disappointed that D3 will be a "more of the same" game, but at the same time, I didn't expect nothing new either. I expected some drastic changes in the gameplay, but I don't know which ones. Yes, I'm aware it doesn't make any sense . But there's one thing I'm disappointed for sure, we can no longer place our attribute points. I guess it was too complex for some people .

Still the graphics are pretty and they fixed many frustrating things from D2 and I'm sure I will enjoy this game with my friends.

[Witzbold]

Apparently they did have some new, things but they got removed as development went along. Who knows if they will be back later or not. Galzohar is pretty well versed in the whole history of things so he might know the details.

Some info can be found within the following links.

http://diablo.incgam...emoved-features
http://www.themogblo...es-in-diablo-3/
http://www.gamereact...moves features/

2 interview vids below, both are great informational pieces for understanding why 2 big choices were made for changes.

I think its a damned shame skill points were removed, since I had always liked that feature in D2. Even when Id screw up my choices.

Vid on why attribute points distribution was removed.

[Kirq]

Good links, thanks. This one is also interesting

[galzohar]

I actually totally agree with their decisions on attribute points and skill points. I mean, what would you do if you could place them? You'd either place everything in your primary stat or everything in vitality and that's it, really. What's the point of letting you do that instead of doing it for you automatically? Either way you don't really have a choice, or at most have to choose between 2 options!

In D2 stats were pretty messed up too. You'd have to know exactly what gear you will use at end-game in order to determine your strength and dexterity, place everything else into vitality, and nothing into energy. There was no real decision-making there either, except if you already had your gear laid out in advance, you could decide to pick items with lower requirements to save some str. In any case, this sort of mechanic is really outdated and has no room in D3's itemization system, which really is better than the one in D2. Let's face it - The only purpose attribute points served in D2 was to make people who don't have their gear setup planned out for them and prepared in advance to mess up their character by spending the wrong amount of points in str and dex.

Skill trees in D2 were also pretty stupid. Then they made the WoW talent trees, but those weren't that much better either. Notice how similar the D3 system is to the Mists of Panderia WoW expansion. They are evolving towards systems that actually let you make meaningful choices, rather than picking the cookie-cutter solution from the internet. I'm betting you that nobody will be agreeing on which build is best for a long long time if ever! This is new in D3, as in D2 and WoW it was pretty obvious which builds were best, and all you had left to do is choose between one of those builds, and then maybe make some tiny adjustments that had very little significance. Now not only will choices be tough (just play with the skill calculator and try make a build you think is good and you'll see), but there will be a lot of choices that are actually going to be good and effective so you can change your style every minute/hour/day/whatever. Besides, the only point of skill points was so that you pick which ones to max. Now you pick which ones to use, and a lot more useful options are available. I like the new system much better!


I honestly don't appreciate how so many people shoot down D3 "because it's not D2". Really, "different from D2" is not a good argument for why something is bad! D2 was great, yeah, but it had so many issues that you simply can't keep the game the way it was without making it suck. Slack needed to be removed, and new awesome stuff needed to be added. I'm sure even all the complainers will love D3 bigtime if they actually buy it and play it as a new game rather than a "but it's not D2" game. It really reminds me of the people who say Arma suck and OFP was so much better (and same for Arma 2 vs Arma 1), even though Arma is basically OFP with an improved engine, better graphics and more features. And in Arma's case I don't think they even removed any actual features, and even the terrains were ported later in some shape or form. Don't take this personally guys, I mean you are commenting about it in a rather moderate way, but I've talked to some and read some posts of people who really take this to an extreme and say D3 sucks so bad and there's no way they'll buy it just because of a few GOOD changes that were made.


As for the beta, the only problems I had was creating/joining games. Often had to try several times before it worked. Then again even when I had problems creating or joining public games, I almost never had problems joining friends who were already playing. In any case, that can be understood when they were stress testing the servers. I hope their tests were fruitful and we won't be seeing those issues at launch. Even if we do, it'll probably get better after a few days. Blizzard won't let day1 buyers rage for too long, as bad reviews about the servers having trouble more than 1-3 days after release can really kill their profits.

Edited by galzohar, 25 April 2012 - 07:53 PM.

[Fixxxer]

Skill attribute point systems are a relic that no modern RPG should have. Like galzohar said, all you do is start a character, use a calculator to determine how many points you can devote to STR and DEX in order to equip each item of set X, and then dump the rest in vitality. What's the point? Sure, it gives you more choice, but the only choice it really gives you is to have a powerful character or a weak character. Sure, I could dump all my points into strength and carry a two-handed maul on my Sorceress and dump all my skill points into Enchant Weapon and play a really gimped melee character, or I could just roll a Barbarian. It's nice to have options, but is it necessary?

I also agree with galzohar about all the weak arguments I read on the D3 forums about the game sucking. Disliking it is one thing, but saying it isn't like Diablo 2 and that by default makes it a bad game is just plain silly. And to be honest, all that is really different is the chat rooms and the attribute system. Everything else is pretty damn similar. Now you just get to use and enjoy every skill. Not to mention when a patch is released that nerfs your primary skill you won't wish death on everyone since you min/maxed your character specifically for that skill which is now garbage.

Don't even get me started on peoples "The RMAH will just allow people to buy their way to being better" because seriously, eBay allowed that 10 years ago. The proper people will just be profiting off it now.

[V2_Bloodline]

[Kirq]

I was sceptical till I played 3h in open beta. Now I'm thinking about geting it on release.

[galzohar]

Beta servers just went down. Just as I was about to check out the monk's wave of light!

Apparently I've had beta access for a while (before the open beta even started) but didn't know about it because I haven't seen any e-mail from Blizzard. Either their mail appeared like the various fake Blizzard mail I keep getting, or they just didn't send one. Latter more likely, because I noticed my brother's account had beta enabled too, and since he doesn't really touch his e-mail I could go over it and make sure there's really nothing there (then again it might have gone to junk).

In any case, everything that matters in this game looks very good. Sure some things aren't perfect, but they're mostly things that don't really affect the gameplay, and we can trust Blizzard that anything gameplay-critical will be fixed/tweaked very quickly.

Edited by galzohar, 01 May 2012 - 04:14 AM.

[Witzbold]

If anything Blizzard is going to support this game for a long time and go on adding more stuff back in just like what they did with Diablo 2. So should be a good ride.

Do hope they got multiple expansions planned also.

[Witzbold]