Diablo 3 doesn't have the legs of its predecessor, but it's not, as everyone seems to be concluding, for a lack of content. I believe it's because the items are boring, and the way you get them is boring. They thought the item-hunt would be as fun as it was in the last game, but they didn't realize that they had compromised it. The auction house has made it so easy to buy and sell items that it's where you get your gear, not the game itself. It's like a funnel; you can ignore the AH, but ignoring it will be harder and harder as you approach the endgame where the game demands better gear -- and here's the most important part -- gear that won't drop for you, because they have balanced drop rates around the playerbase as a whole, and not individually, on behalf of the AH. It's why you don't find sets or legendaries as you play, either. Practically, the only things that ever drop are blue or yellow, which is another thing that makes the item-hunt less interesting. And because your primary attributes are on items now, there is a very small window of viable itemization that all items have to be in for them to be worth anything to anyone, and because they're completely random, they almost never are. Add to it that most items that drop are much lower-level than you, no matter what level you are.
All of that makes the item-hunt a lot less rewarding than anyone had hoped. It's so much more efficient to shop than to farm. That's what has made this game's appeal so much shorter than expected. Now, I should say that even still, the game has brought me plenty of hours of fun, and the game is well worth the money in my opinion. It certainly doesn't have the lasting appeal of Diablo 2, which I played off and on for years, but that only means it's down to staying fun several times longer than most games do.
I'll be ready to go at midnight and play for a few hours before I fall asleep, then wake up early and get right back to it. It's gonna be awesome.
That is, of course, if I'm able to play it when it comes out. I mean, I signed up for the Annual Pass and I'm getting through that, but I'm still worried that if it's anything at all like the Mists of Pandaria beta, I might have to wait a few weeks before I'm even allowed to play it. After all, the Annual Pass never explicitly stated when I'll get to play Diablo 3; Its release date hadn't been even been revealed at the time, and if Blizzard thinks that even the phrase "when it goes live" gives them weeks of wiggle room, I shudder to think what they might do with ambiguous verbiage.
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All of that makes the item-hunt a lot less rewarding than anyone had hoped. It's so much more efficient to shop than to farm. That's what has made this game's appeal so much shorter than expected. Now, I should say that even still, the game has brought me plenty of hours of fun, and the game is well worth the money in my opinion. It certainly doesn't have the lasting appeal of Diablo 2, which I played off and on for years, but that only means it's down to staying fun several times longer than most games do.
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That is, of course, if I'm able to play it when it comes out. I mean, I signed up for the Annual Pass and I'm getting through that, but I'm still worried that if it's anything at all like the Mists of Pandaria beta, I might have to wait a few weeks before I'm even allowed to play it. After all, the Annual Pass never explicitly stated when I'll get to play Diablo 3; Its release date hadn't been even been revealed at the time, and if Blizzard thinks that even the phrase "when it goes live" gives them weeks of wiggle room, I shudder to think what they might do with ambiguous verbiage.