What I actually meant was that, I put the multistrike rune into the mirror image skill giving me +1 image. Then i put a skill point into the passive that gave me another +1 to mirror image, giving me a total of 3 images. You were not able to put the runes into any passives, sorry for the misunderstanding.
- Respec
- Automatic stat placement
- health orbs
- automatic partying
- spawning with items after death
- minimap with dots for enemies
- fully lit actors at all times
- cartoony atmosphere
- extreme mana regeneration
- no tetris inventory
- showing every item on the floor for five minutes after it being dropped
- floating numbers above enemy heads
- auto pickup
Do you see a pattern here?
If you don't then you're probably still a baby and ironically this game will be right up your alley.
What will be next, a giant floating arrow pointing towards the goal of your current quest?
Blizzard better be shitting me cause this isn't what i hoped on getting after years of being a fan of Diablo and routing for a new title in the franchise i enjoyed from day one.
I don't know about you, but I was under the impression that most people LOVED D2 because each char they played made them feel powerful without being unbalanced and the item hunting was so damn addicting. All the little nitpicky stuff (tetris inventory, holding alt to show loot, light radius, chat room trading etc.) whether intuitive or not, were just things that came along with it and reminds us of D2. Now this NEW game D3 aims to preserve the core of what made D2 an amazing game (which it is currently doing a great job at from what i've experience), not all the little nuances that "hardcore" fans hold so dearly in their nostalgic minds. If D3 makes the little things that were annoying in D2 (yet grown so used to) better and more intuitive, I don't see how it is a bad thing. People can argue that it is making the game "easier" or "dumbed down" but they refuse to believe that the game might actually be made better and more streamlined by putting focus on the action. I'm sure the hardcore mode will still be thrilling enough for the masachistic crowd out there. So please let Blizzard make the D3 that we're all waiting for, not D2.5.
1. Did the game start at the Character selection Screen and then...?
yes, then you enter your name and choose single-multiplayer and went straight to game.
2. Did the game lag at all?
you think blizzard is that dumb/poor?
3. Were there loading screens (and) did they have solid graphics?
everything was ridiculously beautiful and fast
4. Did you experience any bugs in gameplay?
well, i'm not sure if it was a bug, but the final boss in the demo, when he swung (really fast) his body kind of disappeared. Maybe that was a bug, or him being really fast or a ghost
5. Did your character feel balanced with the enemies?
the witch doctor owned so much ass it was crazy. barbarian i can see becoming massively powerdul as he levels. the wizard-well its like the sorc in d2, its the best begining, balanced class.
6. Were their ingame options/tools that you could not use?
the runes that you could pick up and put in spells didn't actually do anything, but you could see the desired effect.
7. **Strong question** Do you feel D3 justifies the franchise so far?
yes
8. As a standalone game (not comparing to Diablo anything) rank the game out/10
9, and i'm an asshole.
PS, I went the first day, and it was a 30 minute demo. beat it twice, and the final boss can be extremely difficult if you didn't have the right class combo
I 'd like to point out that the runes DID have effect on the wizard's skills. One of the fun ones i found was rune of multistrike. When I put it in magic missile, it shot 2 at a time. It made my charged bolt shoot 4 bolts instead of 3. The most fun was when I put it into mirror image skill, and I made 2 copies of myself instead of 1. Then later I put a point into a passive skill which gave me another extra copy for a total of me + 3 copies.
1. Game started off at char selection between 3 classes and 2 genders each (male wizard was greyed out however). No customization of the characters were available, but you pick a name and jump into the game
2. The game ran very smoothly and i experienced no lag. However, I am sure the computers the demos were running on are rather powerful.
3. There was no loading screens that I saw at all. Once in the game, switching between floors of a dungeon was near instantaneous. The graphics were also very solid. It may not compare with top of the line games, but it certainly had its own style and looked very good.
4. Did not experience any bugs that I could tell.
5. Out of the 3 classes, the wizard seemed the strongest, simply because their skill tree was most developed. The game was a tad on the easy side when playing with 4 players, but dying certainly was possible. I am sure much more balancing will occur before release so I wouldn't worry about the difficulty.
6. I did not really check for any options in game as we were on a 15 min time limit and we were eager to play the game. It seems like none of the options were available to the players however.
7. From the small amount of the game that I did experience, I feel that D3 definitely retained the essence of D2. Everything was very fast paced and you felt very powerful as you plowed through the dungeon. One big improvement I noticed is the interactive and immersive environment. You can you blow up doors, bookcases, walls etc. so the environment feels very realistic. I also remember at one point, I lobbed a flaming skull from the 2nd floor onto a skeleton on the 1st and killed it. That made me appreciate the 3-D nature of the new environment as opposed to the static 2-D of D2
8. I would definitely rank what I've played of d3 9.5/10. I think any fan of D2 would not be dissapointed by the game as long as they let go of their nostalgic views and stop expecting D2.5. This is a new game and I think it is doing a great job at taking the franchise to a whole new level while retaining many important aspects that made D2 so fun.
Looking at the wizard's skills, each tree has 7 useable skills, giving a total of 21. These useable skills only require 1 skill point each. In addition to the useable skills, there are about 7-10 (forgot actual #) passive skills in each tree as well. These passives are things like +3% cast speed per skill level or +1 # of bolt for charged bolt. Basically, they modify the main skills as well as your overall damage , cast speed, etc. You can put 15 into these passive skills, so a bulk of your skills goes into those. Also, to unlock each tier of a tree, you have to put 5 points into that tree. Each tier consists of 2 useable skills (execpt 1st tier which has 1) and 2-3 passive skills.
I personally think this system is great because it will give people the freedom to try many different builds and use more than 1-2 skills throughout the whole game. In addition to all this, the rune system will add another layer of customization to the skills which will allow even players of the same build to be unique.
They already stated that there will NOT be a paladin class coming back. They also mentioned that they were against any class needed as a healer. With that said, I am guessing one of the 2 remaining class will most likely be specialized in range. Hopefully they have something new and refreshing up their sleeve for the last 2 classes.
All content arguments aside, let's consider an often overlooked feature that comes with p2p. In wow, there are a good amount of GM that are able to handle many in game issues. If your account got hacked and you lost all your items in WoW, you can ask GM's to retrieve your account, and even recover all lost items. If someone scams you (for example you gave something to someone to make an item, and they just take off without making it), you can petition a GM to get your items back. If someone is harassing you or behaving badly, you can report him and have him punished. If any of that stuff happened to you in D2, good luck getting any sympathy from anyone, much less your items back. Wouldn't it be nice in D3 to have a staff of GM's that can assist with these frustrating problems and improve the overall gaming community in general with proper moderation?
All these things require a large staff of GM's that cost a large sum of money to keep on staff. This is why you only see this kind of support in p2p based games. For as much money as Blizzard has, nothing in this world comes free. As nice as it would be for Blizzard to give us these features at the company's expense, they've got a business to run and shareholders to report to. Isn't having a d3 community with less scammers and jerks (in addition to continuous content) worth a little money a month. Again, no one knows how much the p2p will be so it is very likely that it will be less than the standard $15 based on what we'll be getting.
Quote from name="Elfen Lied" »
About the SCII split, did they actually say the would be sold as separate discs?
Red Alert 2 has two campaigns, Allied Faction and Union Faction, and has a disc for each side, but was sold as a single game.
Why couldn't SCII follow the same suit? 3 discs, one for each campaign but they are packaged together when you buy the game.
I do not recall them saying they would be selling them as separate discs with 3 separate campaigns on them.
I have nothing against splitting up campaign/single player story mode onto more than one disc, I do have an issue with buying them as separate games almost, that seems over the top.
Please look at my comparison between the 3 episode thing they're doing for sc2 and what they did with sc/bw found in post #35 in this thread. Also, another big reason they split it was because to finish all 3 campaigns and put it in 1 release, they would have to delay the game for a few years. I think it's a good idea to release what they have now so people can start enjoying the multiplayer. I'd guess the expansions would come about 1 year apart, and add to the multiplayer experience in addition to giving us a big chunk of the campaign. The key things to remember is that each part of sc2 they release will have a campaign that lasts as long as the campaign of all 3 races found in sc put together, just that it will focus on 1 race at a time. Another thing is that the 2 episodes following the first will most likely NOT be the same price as the first, if you think of them as expansions ( which they are).
According to your logic then, Lord of Destruction could never have been released. Or Brood War for that matter. Or Beyond the Dark Portal, and the Frozen Throne. All expansions that were developed and released without any prior P2P content.
Amazing what a little research can do! :thumbsup:
He is saying that because people are too cheap to pay for p2p, companies are encouraged to make these expansions to sell more content. Not the other way around like you implied where you think he meant that the lack of funds from p2p prevents these expansions from being made.
The firebat skill seemed pretty weak when I tried using it. It is probably because there was no support skills implemented for it yet. I much preferred the flaming skull that you can throw. I really wish the witch doctor's skills were as developed as the wizard's.
It may not make a difference but at least we tried.
And you might want to consider the differences between WoW's P2P and D3...
WoW has permanent servers, massive worlds, open ended game play, professions, 40 man raids, various types of organized and world PvP, heck even fishing tournaments!
D3 is an instance only game, with linear worlds, gameplay that leads you from one act to the next, rigid class system that pigeonholes everyone into the same spec, 4 player maximum per game, no world PvP, etc.
WoW may be repetitive, but the system is much more developed and the world itself is much more massive and server intensive. D3 will not be, hence does not IMHO qualify for P2P status.
Looking at the skills of the wizard, I'd say there are more unique build possibilities for d3 classes than WoW by far. Plus, if they do p2p, no one said it will be the same amount as they are charging for WoW.
I think you guys complaining about the 3 episodes of sc2 are not grasping the situation. Think of it this way, Starcraft was released for full price. Then the expansion pack Brood wars came out with similar amount of campaign missions and a few new units for multiplayer at a lower price than the original game. Most if not everyone bought Brood Wars if they liked Starcraft.
Now with sc2, they are releasing the initial game with the same amount of campaign missions (they said 30+) but just for one race as well as a fully developed multiplayer game with all 3 races. The 2 episodes after that can be considered expansion packs just like brood wars. They will give 30+ more campaign missions each, but for one race only. They will probably add a few more units and maybe features to the multiplayer game, enhancing it much like Brood Wars did. These future "expansions" will most likely be at a reduced price ( I don't know why everyone is assuming will each cost $50). The ONLY difference between these 3 episodes and starcraft + brood wars is that the campaigns here are limited to 1 race only, but will last just as long as all 3 campaigns in the original starcraft. I don't see why everyone is making such a big deal. The method sounds pretty fair to me, especially if it means we get to play the game a few years sooner.
Only got a bunch of random blues with stats like +2 willpower, or +8% chance to find magical items (yes, mf is back). I found a rare when i killed the boss, but I couldn't remember it's stats. No uniques.
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What I actually meant was that, I put the multistrike rune into the mirror image skill giving me +1 image. Then i put a skill point into the passive that gave me another +1 to mirror image, giving me a total of 3 images. You were not able to put the runes into any passives, sorry for the misunderstanding.
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I don't know about you, but I was under the impression that most people LOVED D2 because each char they played made them feel powerful without being unbalanced and the item hunting was so damn addicting. All the little nitpicky stuff (tetris inventory, holding alt to show loot, light radius, chat room trading etc.) whether intuitive or not, were just things that came along with it and reminds us of D2. Now this NEW game D3 aims to preserve the core of what made D2 an amazing game (which it is currently doing a great job at from what i've experience), not all the little nuances that "hardcore" fans hold so dearly in their nostalgic minds. If D3 makes the little things that were annoying in D2 (yet grown so used to) better and more intuitive, I don't see how it is a bad thing. People can argue that it is making the game "easier" or "dumbed down" but they refuse to believe that the game might actually be made better and more streamlined by putting focus on the action. I'm sure the hardcore mode will still be thrilling enough for the masachistic crowd out there. So please let Blizzard make the D3 that we're all waiting for, not D2.5.
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I 'd like to point out that the runes DID have effect on the wizard's skills. One of the fun ones i found was rune of multistrike. When I put it in magic missile, it shot 2 at a time. It made my charged bolt shoot 4 bolts instead of 3. The most fun was when I put it into mirror image skill, and I made 2 copies of myself instead of 1. Then later I put a point into a passive skill which gave me another extra copy for a total of me + 3 copies.
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2. The game ran very smoothly and i experienced no lag. However, I am sure the computers the demos were running on are rather powerful.
3. There was no loading screens that I saw at all. Once in the game, switching between floors of a dungeon was near instantaneous. The graphics were also very solid. It may not compare with top of the line games, but it certainly had its own style and looked very good.
4. Did not experience any bugs that I could tell.
5. Out of the 3 classes, the wizard seemed the strongest, simply because their skill tree was most developed. The game was a tad on the easy side when playing with 4 players, but dying certainly was possible. I am sure much more balancing will occur before release so I wouldn't worry about the difficulty.
6. I did not really check for any options in game as we were on a 15 min time limit and we were eager to play the game. It seems like none of the options were available to the players however.
7. From the small amount of the game that I did experience, I feel that D3 definitely retained the essence of D2. Everything was very fast paced and you felt very powerful as you plowed through the dungeon. One big improvement I noticed is the interactive and immersive environment. You can you blow up doors, bookcases, walls etc. so the environment feels very realistic. I also remember at one point, I lobbed a flaming skull from the 2nd floor onto a skeleton on the 1st and killed it. That made me appreciate the 3-D nature of the new environment as opposed to the static 2-D of D2
8. I would definitely rank what I've played of d3 9.5/10. I think any fan of D2 would not be dissapointed by the game as long as they let go of their nostalgic views and stop expecting D2.5. This is a new game and I think it is doing a great job at taking the franchise to a whole new level while retaining many important aspects that made D2 so fun.
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I personally think this system is great because it will give people the freedom to try many different builds and use more than 1-2 skills throughout the whole game. In addition to all this, the rune system will add another layer of customization to the skills which will allow even players of the same build to be unique.
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All these things require a large staff of GM's that cost a large sum of money to keep on staff. This is why you only see this kind of support in p2p based games. For as much money as Blizzard has, nothing in this world comes free. As nice as it would be for Blizzard to give us these features at the company's expense, they've got a business to run and shareholders to report to. Isn't having a d3 community with less scammers and jerks (in addition to continuous content) worth a little money a month. Again, no one knows how much the p2p will be so it is very likely that it will be less than the standard $15 based on what we'll be getting.
Please look at my comparison between the 3 episode thing they're doing for sc2 and what they did with sc/bw found in post #35 in this thread. Also, another big reason they split it was because to finish all 3 campaigns and put it in 1 release, they would have to delay the game for a few years. I think it's a good idea to release what they have now so people can start enjoying the multiplayer. I'd guess the expansions would come about 1 year apart, and add to the multiplayer experience in addition to giving us a big chunk of the campaign. The key things to remember is that each part of sc2 they release will have a campaign that lasts as long as the campaign of all 3 races found in sc put together, just that it will focus on 1 race at a time. Another thing is that the 2 episodes following the first will most likely NOT be the same price as the first, if you think of them as expansions ( which they are).
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He is saying that because people are too cheap to pay for p2p, companies are encouraged to make these expansions to sell more content. Not the other way around like you implied where you think he meant that the lack of funds from p2p prevents these expansions from being made.
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Looking at the skills of the wizard, I'd say there are more unique build possibilities for d3 classes than WoW by far. Plus, if they do p2p, no one said it will be the same amount as they are charging for WoW.
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Now with sc2, they are releasing the initial game with the same amount of campaign missions (they said 30+) but just for one race as well as a fully developed multiplayer game with all 3 races. The 2 episodes after that can be considered expansion packs just like brood wars. They will give 30+ more campaign missions each, but for one race only. They will probably add a few more units and maybe features to the multiplayer game, enhancing it much like Brood Wars did. These future "expansions" will most likely be at a reduced price ( I don't know why everyone is assuming will each cost $50). The ONLY difference between these 3 episodes and starcraft + brood wars is that the campaigns here are limited to 1 race only, but will last just as long as all 3 campaigns in the original starcraft. I don't see why everyone is making such a big deal. The method sounds pretty fair to me, especially if it means we get to play the game a few years sooner.
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