DiabloFans

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/3005349/brohemian-rhapsody

Quote from Rajahten

Can someone please explain to me what Lucy is doing in the previous caption winner's image? I don't get it. Seriously.

The last thread about baseball probably still wouldn't explain it.

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

Lucy picks the ball up so the guy misses kicking it and slips.

Quote from asfastasican

Most of my attention was wasted staring at my mana globe as I thought "Is it even possible for a skilled player or even an average player to run out of mana???" to myself.

Two years later and I'm still worried about never going oom in the beta!!!

Sorry for being a forum necromancer. I just decided to read this old post like a journal and I find myself still a little concerned for some of the things I thought about back at Blizzcon '09.

Does this mean we'll be seeing Diablo 3 hitting the shelves on December 31st, 2011 to mark a 15th year anniversary?

I'm not going to comment on the whole aura situation, but I am very concerned with a blue response stating how their basic game philosophy won't be compromised when it comes to rescricting classes from wearing specific armor types. They say that they don't want to restrict classes from wearing all kinds of armor, but isn't it true that they are restricting what weapons each class can use? If they consider Diablo to be an item driven game, why would they contradict themselves like that?

In Diablo 2, a necromancer could use an axe if he wanted to. Will this be the case with the Sorceress? Or will she only be able to use orbs, book and other hand-held caster items?

Quote from "Fodan" »

as i have said before i only found it weird that there were no death penalties so i didn't feel like i had to look after myself and just run in not caring. example is the timed cave thing you have a few mins to look around and find stuff and kill things before it will collapse and kill you but because not really happens at the end of the time limit (just kicked you out to the entrance) i would just keep running through it looking for stuff even if i did find an exit.

Yeah, that's a good point. Hopefully they will find an appropriate death penalty by release.

I realize that I might get flamed some for making this post, but I'll stick my neck out for it.

Does anybody here have any criticisms about D3 after playing the demo at Blizzcon, Pax, etc?

I want to share my honest first impression of the game. Keep these facts in mind though:

1. I played D1 when it first came out and of course D2 a long time ago. D1 made me develop this bad habit of spam clicking in every game I play years after. It's so bad that when I tried out Guild Wars, the game wouldn't shut up about how i didn't have to click so much and suggested I click and hold down the mouse key.

2. I only played for one session at Blizzcon.

3. I played the witch doctor with another witch doctor and a monk on my team.

So keep those things in mind as I share my opinions on the demo...

---

Gameplay -
The actual gameplay felt a little boring and I wasn't feeling it. I think there could be one of three valid reasons why that was the case in general. Either the witch doctor was boring for me, my experience felt rushed because of the time limit or the equipment they gave us made the game flow differently.

When I played with my teammates, I found myself not concerned with what spells I used. What I mean is that it really didn't matter what spell I used to fight any particular type of monster or group of monsters. Now, there could be two reasons for this. They may have given us an easy portion of the game to play or perhaps they gave us above average equipment on our characters for the sake of playing the demo.

The witch doctor's fire bomb was one spell I would occasionally lob at enemies. I could also summon spiders from the ground, similar to how you would summon normal necro skeletons in D2, but not really. From what I remember, the corpse spiders didn't require a corpse, which made the spell lose its meaning in a figurative sense. I'm not complaining about the fact that they are called corpse spiders, I'm just saying that the spell itself wasn't that fun or made much of an real impact. I would try to summon them entering a fight to create a buffer for myself and my hounds to work with (hounds don't use corpses either.) The hounds were somewhat interesting. They served as meatshields and did some damage on the side. They also made it easier to get enemies to stand still for fire bombs.

The witch doctor also had an aoe horrify spell, which was very easy to abuse and fear bomb with. Now since I was with another witch doctor, I found myself just spamming horrify to scatter every single enemy I dealt with in all directions. I didn't feel penalized while spamming this spell, because I felt that my mana regen was not a problem and I continuously kept them from doing anything the moment they moved in range. The horrify effect stays above your head like a pulsing beacon for a few seconds, so I wasn't using any strategy at all while running around with it yelling "Ooga Booga!" the whole time. It was a little boring to say the least.

Another thing that surprised me was that the monsters were kinda slow. Now I'm not sure if they were made slow purposely for the demo, but when you engaged a pack of mobs, they wouldn't necessarily charge directly at you. They would zig zag around while engaging you as if they were taking turns and their movement speed was relatively slow. Compared to most of Diablo 2 where mobs will constantly charge you head on and move at least as fast as you, I was a little surprised to find these monsters not provide any interesting threat.

I found myself thinking about the sand leapers in Act 2 of Diablo 2. You know, those little creatures that would leap around and try to pick you off and bounce around. Now you see, they weren't very organized either, but they were fun and memorable to fight. They would leap around and rebound around you, and you would knock them backwards when striking them. They were annoying and they were a nuisance, but they were very memorable to say the least. The monsters in the D3 felt like they were more polite to me than my teammates were, if that makes any sense. I wasn't getting the feeling that they were actually trying to kill me or at least annoy me!

What I'm also trying to say is that you could easily just run away and dodge nearly all conflict if you wanted to. was this because of the equipment we were given? I'm not entirely sure, but it's safe to say that everything was easily kitable and I didn't feel any rush or excitement whatsoever in any fight. Once again, I was bored in that aspect as well.

In fact, one of the optional quests was to locate a mini-dungeon nearby that was about to cave in on itself. I didn't even realize it was a timed quest until I finally noticed the timer after finding the actual dungeon. I found myself entering the dungeon, before running past every monster inside, looking for the treasure, which was the objective of the quest. I ended up dying in the collapse, which was my only death in the demo. Many other players suggested others to "run around to find the treasure." That gave me a bad vibe. What kind of Diablo game is this if other Diablo players actually tell you that it's better to run around like a coward instead of fight deadly monsters that can actually engage you?

I'm not sure if the health globe mechanic is a good or bad thing. I didn't notice any potions or use any potions personally. I'm sure others on these forums know more about potions and globes than I, but I'm still not really sure if the globe mechanic feels like Diablo. Keep in mind that I understand that potions and rejuvs were problematic in D2 and that they may have trivialized some content in the game. Still, I didn't feel like I was in danger or running out of mana at any given point in time. I wasn't feeling desperate, nor was I looking for globes. I just kind of accidentally ran into them without caring.

Most of my attention was wasted staring at my mana globe as I thought "Is it even possible for a skilled player or even an average player to run out of mana???" to myself. I'm sure the monsters had a few more HP's since there were three of us in the game, but they didn't deal any real damage to be honest. Once again, maybe it was the equipment that we were given?


Controls -
The controls were smooth even though the new tab function to switch your right click ability will probably take some getting used to. I had mixed opinions about it, but I'm sure it was mostly I was rushed because of the time limit. I'm sure when we all play the finished game, we will get used to the tab key and master it.


Visuals and Monsters -
Physical animations, the environment and ambiance were great. Whoever they have working on the scenery and doodads are really putting their hearts and soul into it. The desert eniroment was dark enough, even though it was based during the day time. This is something that every Diablo players will want, as opposed to having a game with low gamma lighting.

The models and monsters weren't anything spectacular or memorable. I honestly can't picture any memorable monsters in my mind as I'm typing this post to you guys. The only thing I can recall was the one monster Dervish they talked about in one of the panels. It was a ghostly looking thing that would spiral around, whipping axe bladed limbs at you. We fought a unique one, but besides it having a lot of health, it wasn't that interesting to fight. You guys remember the one quest boss with an assload of HP's at the start of Act 4 in D2? Picture fighting that bastard with him not dealing any threatening damage. Sound boring? It may be.

As for the spell effects, I share the same gripe as some others have mentioned. The game is a tad visually noisy. For those of you that don't understand what I mean, I'm basically saying that the spell effects are too flashy. Some of the spell effects either took up too much of the screen or were too bright for no reason. Some explosions were done right, but some weren't spot on. I remember another fan pointing out that a game of 8 players in D2 all fighting at once could provide a visually noisy battle, but he felt that you only needed 3 or 4 D3 characters to create the same amount of noise. I really do agree with him. Perhaps the game's point of view needs to be zoomed upwards and outwards. Having more monsters on the screen wouldn't hurt one bit, in my opinion.

---

One thing that I want to make clear is this... I only played one session, because the game didn't hold my interest. Call me jaded, but I didn't think to myself "Hmmm, I should probably play more D3, because I may never get a chance to play it again till release." I really had no urge to give it another go. I did find myself going in line to play Starcraft 2 three times without even realizing it. I understand that SC2 is more developed than D3 by a good year or two, but still. Also keep in mind that I refrained from bringing up common public gripes like "D3 looks like WoW!" or "The rainbow unicorns are attacking!" I have my own opinions about the direction of D3 and of Bashiok, but this is honestly how I felt when I was playing the real thing. I just hope it was just a watered down demo? I hope others honestly had a more exciting experience?

Quote from name="Drake Tristan" »

Blizzard fan-boys amuse me.



Immature, ignorant, clueless Blizzard fan-boys amuse me to no end.

I hate to be the guy to defend the fanbois that supposedly are immature, ignorant, and clueless, but have you ever played that POS game? You can't possibly tell me it's any good. Even after the big bug-fixing patch they threw in recently, people still fall through the world and it's only made it slightly more playable for the few that still play it. The game is definately not fit for new players.

The entire Flagship company got pink-slipped, and here you are ragging on so-called "fanbois"? lol.

Quote from "Medievaldragon" »

When we settled to refill our mana pool, and some food --- great ... no McDonald's anywhere. And all the food menu is in French in every restaurant around us. Amazing adventure for a Paris noob.

There's a McDonalds on Champs Elysees for goodness sakes! lol. You know!? That long road that goes straight down from the Arc!? One of the most famous streets in the world!? Go get a big mac for me, will yah?