DiabloFans

Hey I just wanted to mention (as an observer) that this was a really good read, thanks for all the posts everybody. There were many good posts that didn't resort to fanboy vs nostalgia so that was nice. I'd also personally be interested if the conversation was broadened to not just D2's items, but other ARPGs that may have some strengths in the areas D2 lacked.

As far as the original topic, my view is that WoW pulled from D2 and D3 pulled from WoW, but the latter didn't work as well because of all the other things going on in an MMO that make up for a simpler system.

I didn't realize when I was (originally) playing D2+expac just how important many of the features were... like the horadric cube, or white items being useful for runewords, or prefixes/suffixes, or random affixes like cast teleport, hit recovery, or crushing blow... etc etc... it's not until a game like D3 takes them away that you realize what you had. I certainly did have a good period of fun with D3... definitely was an addict. However, I realized that I was just clambering for very minor number-upgrades via AH farming, and kind of lost the sense of fun. Overall, the items reminded me of WoW, except there you had an awesome social system and group raids and world PvP and so forth.

That's all I can really think of for now.

Quote from overneathe

Quote from OneTwoSC

I feel like Blizzard has lost its original company vision maybe since around 2007 onwards?

Mists of Pandaria begs to differ.

Other than that you could be totally right.

Ah I don't know about much about MoP so I can't speak for that; I quit WoW one day in 2007 and never came back lol. But it was a great experience.

Pretty crazy

We'll see where this leads for D3 in the coming months. Will be an interesting time, perhaps.

Maybe their higher-ups are getting out of touch, or too busy, or too big of a company, or too much aim at "grandmas can play". Battle.net 2.0's been critiqued for years now (since SC2's beta), and yet no Blizz game or expac appears to improve it much (rather they just keep compounding things on, rather than making the core experience more social, etc). I feel like Blizzard has lost its original company vision maybe since around 2007 onwards? And yet, things like D3's combat are so fun, but it needed more interesting item-hunt and itemization to surround it... but they failed to see how Diablo 2 tiers its items and stats etc...

Oh well, hoping for the best

I fought this guy http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/degnar-1523/hero/968242 a few mins ago. Multiple SSS's couldn't down him. I think we need to do what he did and go heavy into defensive lol.

Quote from Ezkaton

http://us.battle.net...gSQT!eVc!abYbZY
using this spec makes u invincible

Oh yeah that looks pretty good, especially Dashing Strike. My build in the video is just w/e I had from farming lol.

Quote from Marciao

nice... full spirit regen gear? or relying more on spells?

My build probably isn't the greatest for this, since I don't use LoH or much regen/LS... but yeah I do have a lot of spirit regen, mostly for TR farming.

I think Skorn with SSS is powerful though.

Just got this out quickly, enjoy people! PS legacy nats is a pain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdXzJz6Clgg

Quote from Sell

Spec got a few buffs, nothing changes about how you play it in 1.0.7.


Rush on.

Oh yeah I'm pretty stoked! Started TRing 4 months ago (though I've barely played for the last 3 lol), and this free buff is going to be insane.

While I do think it was a bit silly for this delay, I actually am happy we're getting dueling only. I think it's more fun and more social than mindless matchmaking deathmatch games.

Quote from Nikdik

Quote from MissionOO7

Quote from Hellfalcon

this may cause ban.
legit play may cause ban.
rmah usage may cause ban.
be awared

ive lost 2 accs already

How? if you don't mind saying

He means the new Blizzard dev team does not handle sarcasm or light teasing in any way. My D3 Forum account got banned for saying that Shrek the Third and Big Momma's House 3 were better threequels than Diablo 3.

Haha Big Momma's House 3.

Thanks for your support again, guys. I actually added the public games one yesterday because that feature means the most to me. Of course it'd be nice to have more social chat features... but I think a big part of Diablo 2's success was named games, 8 player max, and dueling. That way, the game becomes a hangout. You're always meeting people and that keeps you coming back. Who knows if they actually planned that or not, but back then, no one was complaining about Battle.net the way that we are now.

Putting aside itemization (or w/e other) issues with Diablo 3 that may exist, if your only public interaction is auto-matching quest runs, that puts a lot of pressure on the game itself to be endlessly entertaining, rather than people creating their own entertainment. It also seems to lead to "zero talk" runs. Games like Super Mario, Half-Life, or even mobile games like Tiny Wings, are games that you go nuts on for a while, and then stop. However, games like Diablo 2, Counter Strike, and Warcraft 3 keep you coming back because of the community (in the latter 2 cases, custom maps did it for me!).

The auction house has also had profound effects. I think it's very cool having one, but man, the one time (in D3) I had to do a real trade with someone made me realize how much I miss that interaction.

My conclusion is that all of these slick technologies and efficiencies have made the game so streamlined that it hampered the community/social aspect, and so the game didn't build as much culture around it, in the same way older Blizz games (including WoW) did. But these are just my opinions... maybe I'm becoming a cynical grumpy 24 year old lol.

The problem with hardcore is the deaths are mostly from disconnects, or crashes/freezes etc... so it's more a luck of the draw imo. But nonetheless good dedication by that dude.

Quote from st0rmie

Quote from DontUseMyName

The worst fact, for me atleast, is when I see your kill counter on your barb (3...K elite kills). I'm at around 6k on mine now and the best legendary I've found was a legecy ring in 1.03.

Haha, I know that feeling. 5300 elite kills, three legendaries, the highest level one (and the only one that dropped in Inferno) was the level 53 Swamp Land Waders.

I'm at around 6k too, and just recently had Ice Climbers drop worth 80 mill To be fair though, I spent a good portion of those elite kills in a pure MF set (of which I've smartly abandoned now lol).

Quote from constipationnow

did i understand this correctly? as soon as i turn on monster power level 1+ then all monsters will have exactly the same loot-table as in act3-4 regardless of which acts i play? (act1 and 2). this means all acts are the same loot-wise when activating monster power level?

if so, why would i want to farm an act higher than act1? act1 is natively easier than act2-4...

It's not as easy as you think (if you go play on the PTR). Sure Act 3/4 may have more annoying mechanics, but Act 3 also has a higher monster density. Regardless, I think a lot of us want to go back to farming Act 1 because we like it

Quote from Loroese

If all mobs will be lvl 63, does that mean their HP and damage is about the same across the acts at the same power level? Because if Act 1 mobs still have a fraction of the HP of Act 3 mobs and do a fraction of the damage, it would make Act 1 much easier than 3 at the same power level.

Go try the PTR. Act 1 and Act 2 are AS hard as Act 3 when you have monster power on. All of Inferno is equalized in terms of difficulty and loot.

So actually in MP1, A1 to A4 has the same drop rate? It sounds not right to me. Should A3/A4 have better drop rates?

But the thing is, with MP, all Inferno acts are equally as hard since the act 1/2 dudes are made to be level 63.