I eagerly awaited the launch of this game. I wont say I was disappointed in it, but it just didnt pull me in like D2.
Anywho, I was pretty deep into a MMO at the time so my D3 attraction faded. After 5 years I pretty much had it up to my eyeballs with Turbine farming my wallet so I finally quit LoTRO slipped back into D3 and found the changes enjoyable.
Im just curious how much the future of this game may morph back to D2. There are certain things that made D2 just the best thing since sliced bread. While the walks were great (personally walked over 1000 servers)but they were dupe driven which is a negative to me, Id love to see a similar world event that doesnt involve dupes and "server hunting". I also thought runes and RWs were an awesome addition to D2, but Ill admit I never want to see teleporting again, either as a skill or a RW. I also hope that maphacks and other cheats never become widespread like D2.
I'd like to see what others are interested in seeing in D3 that is from D2 originally.
BTW, this is my first post here, since Im getting back into D3, I want to do it right by joining some forums for information and D3 relate ideas.
Blizzard already said that they are not going back to D2. There was a recent blue post saying that D3 will not turn into an updated D2, they want to create something new.
I also enjoyed Diablo 2 very much, and as much as I would like to have an updated version of D2, I acknowledge that Blizzard tries something new. They got some few things right, but had massive problems in the beginning. They're working on it, and every patch makes it a bit better; I'm eagerly waiting for 1.07. Just like you I want to see how the game evolves and what they do to improve it - but rest assured that one thing won't happen: going back to D2 and turn D3 into an updated version of Diablo 2.
I eagerly awaited the launch of this game. I wont say I was disappointed in it, but it just didnt pull me in like D2.
Anywho, I was pretty deep into a MMO at the time so my D3 attraction faded. After 5 years I pretty much had it up to my eyeballs with Turbine farming my wallet so I finally quit LoTRO slipped back into D3 and found the changes enjoyable.
Im just curious how much the future of this game may morph back to D2. There are certain things that made D2 just the best thing since sliced bread. While the walks were great (personally walked over 1000 servers)but they were dupe driven which is a negative to me, Id love to see a similar world event that doesnt involve dupes and "server hunting". I also thought runes and RWs were an awesome addition to D2, but Ill admit I never want to see teleporting again, either as a skill or a RW. I also hope that maphacks and other cheats never become widespread like D2.
I'd like to see what others are interested in seeing in D3 that is from D2 originally.
BTW, this is my first post here, since Im getting back into D3, I want to do it right by joining some forums for information and D3 relate ideas.
First of all, welcome to Diablofans!!
This is a dicey issue, the marriage of D2 and D3. I've seen some great deal of evidence that Blizz wished to have D3 stand alone by overtly killing off certain aspects of the franchise that core fans deemed as absolutely integral to the game.
Killing Cain. ...not smart. His presence should've been viewed as a constant, not a bit part.
Whimsyshire. Not only the funneled landscape and constrictive geography (an open field would've been more appealing IMO), but, the lack of actual cows betrayed the lore of the land. Also, the cows replacements, flowers, unicorn and teddy bears....OK...I appreciate the attempt at humor but it came at a great cost. These creatures likely would've been better received had they been large in scale. Their small appearance lends a phony, unfulfilled feel to the event.
Runewords. Some people were fine with this omission (I was not). However, their reason was that RW's whittled the player down to a handful of BiS items. Shamefully, we see this same skewed dynamic of a handful of BiS items merely transferred to Legendaries.. i.e Mempo, Lacuni, Echoing Fury etc. RW's were taken out and replaced with absolutely nothing. Granting the players a far smaller sample of items to work with.
Charms. Yet another omitted aspect of D2 that witnessed absolutely nothing to replace it, even further lessening the scale of itemization. There were issues with charms. Namely, players feeling the need to fill their inventory almost entirely (even when farming) to maximize their build, leaving only a few small places for unid items to be picked up. This could be remedied by simply imposing a strict limit on the number of charms carried.
ID ALL. This is HUGE with me. So so so sick of the monotony of individual ID'ing. Of all the issues I have with D3's playability, this one is so easy to fix yet such a burden to bear.
/NOPICKUP. Again, this is a serious playability issue (with me) that nobody seems to even be complaining about. I grow sick of tripping over loot on the ground during combat. Accidental clicking is so easily remedied, yet it remains.
Blizz for the most part got D3 right, they left out a lot of the things people hated about D2, but then they all complained its not like D2...go figure.
Im still too green at this game to make any real in depth comparisons, I probably took close to 3 months off and even they didnt play too much before my break.
Just wondering maybe if there are things that should be in all Diablo games, maybe a signature type event or item(s). I like the Hellfire Rings even though Im not even close to getting into one, they are obviously directly related to torches of the past.
Thanks for having me, Im looking forward to a long future in D3.
Blizzard already said that they are not going back to D2. There was a recent blue post saying that D3 will not turn into an updated D2, they want to create something new.
I also enjoyed Diablo 2 very much, and as much as I would like to have an updated version of D2, I acknowledge that Blizzard tries something new. They got some few things right, but had massive problems in the beginning. They're working on it, and every patch makes it a bit better; I'm eagerly waiting for 1.07. Just like you I want to see how the game evolves and what they do to improve it - but rest assured that one thing won't happen: going back to D2 and turn D3 into an updated version of Diablo 2.
I agree, for the most part. I too have an appreciation for D3 needing to stand on it's own.
However, in order for Diablo 3 to feel like Diablo to the core fans, there absolutely must be certain aspects transferred from the previous iteration of the series. The isometric view is simply not enough.
I actually give two big 'ol thumbs up to the skill framework changes. But itemization..... this area should've shown the most reflection between the two titles. This is where the two games shold've met with a great deal of parity.
If you take every aspect of the game, combat mechanics, skill system, graphics, sound, story, user interface....EVERYTHING, all aspects of the game and combine them, nothing is as important as itemization. If itemization fails, the game fails.
I'm torn here. I really like D3. I feel it needs to be improved greatly, but for now, I have a lot of fun with it. BUT....itemization is pretty jacked up and uninspired. The "inspired" part of "uninspired" is key. The inspiration should've had more D2 influence.
Sidenote to the above point; I think the RMP advent (Random Magical Props) was near genius. A great innovation We need more critical thinking from the devs that reflect that sort of development genius.
I eagerly awaited the launch of this game. I wont say I was disappointed in it, but it just didnt pull me in like D2.
Anywho, I was pretty deep into a MMO at the time so my D3 attraction faded. After 5 years I pretty much had it up to my eyeballs with Turbine farming my wallet so I finally quit LoTRO slipped back into D3 and found the changes enjoyable.
Im just curious how much the future of this game may morph back to D2. There are certain things that made D2 just the best thing since sliced bread. While the walks were great (personally walked over 1000 servers)but they were dupe driven which is a negative to me, Id love to see a similar world event that doesnt involve dupes and "server hunting". I also thought runes and RWs were an awesome addition to D2, but Ill admit I never want to see teleporting again, either as a skill or a RW. I also hope that maphacks and other cheats never become widespread like D2.
I'd like to see what others are interested in seeing in D3 that is from D2 originally.
BTW, this is my first post here, since Im getting back into D3, I want to do it right by joining some forums for information and D3 relate ideas.
Hi there!
I didn't want D3 to really be Diablo 2 version 2.0. I wanted it to be the third in a series. I think D3 has done a great job at being a standalone product, just like Diablo 2 did a great job at not being Diablo 1 version 2.0. Both the D2 and D3 teams were right for keeping some themes but creating some distance between the new game and the previous game. Just as an example, D2 completely scrapped the tomes (something that I had a fondness for from D1) and replaced it with the talent trees. That probably wasn't a decision I was massively in love with, but D2 was still a great game, and the overall lesson learned is that a series can still feel like a series but each game in the series can still feel like an independent game. That's the feel that I'm pretty sure almost everyone wants - continuity among the series, but each game should feel like its own game.
There is one thing from D2 which I definitely think should be implemented in D3:
- Non-storymode. Once you beat Inferno Diablo you should be able to unlock "farming mode" where all waypoints would be accessible, cross-act travel would be allowed, and all bosses would be alive. To me this is actually the single biggest failure of D3. It's not that storymode is bad, but farming in storymode sucks donkey dicks. It's cumbersome, it doesn't encourage building NV then farming bosses and elites (since you negate many boss opportunities to gain access to certain WPs), and it's just.... silly. Fixing this would be the platform for fixing many of the other issues with the game.
This is related to D2 only because D2 didn't have the issue of having half a million offensive affixes that were all somehow mandatory:
- Itemization. I made another post on these forums detailing what I'd do as a first step to fixing itemization. TL;DR version is that we can't have items that need to roll 6 offensive stats in the game - that's far too restrictive. We need to have flexibility that we can stack life regen (for example) if we choose to without sacrificing loads and loads of offensive power. In essence, single items (I'm looking at amulets, rings, gloves, and weapons as the primary offenders here) can't be forced to roll 6 offensive properties. It's bad for the game long-term.
Miscellaneous:
- Killing Cain kinda sucked. But making Adria into a villain could prove to open up a lot of things for us too. Honestly if/when we get to kill her it will be quite fulfilling for me.
- Act 4 feels out of place, but I did kinda like the curveball, the assault on heaven. I've always liked how Diablo visualized the denizens of hell and it was equally as interesting to see their visualization of heaven for me.
- ID All for a fee. 500g per item. Get some money sinks into the game. People will pay the 7000g (?) to ID everything in their inventory. People will pay it all day every day. Don't leave ubergems as the only main money sink outside of the AH. Gems are a great money sink, but they're still annoying.
- Craft All. Absolutely must be implemented. It's one of the most understated, yet highly annoying, things that really wouldn't take tremendous time to fix. I should not have to stand at the goddamned Jeweler and click for every single combine I need to make. Suppose I go buy Flawless Square Rubies with the intent to make a Perfect Star Ruby. That is a LOT of clicking when most of it should be automated.
So this whole thread about trying to get D3 to be like D2 boils down to (for the OP) a world event and RW's. I agree, more world events, runes and hell even jewels charms and more gems would be awesome. But the premise of bringing D3 back down to the level of D2 is a terrible idea.
Hardly about trying to get D3 to be like D2, I pointed some things that I thought would be neat to carry over as well as some things that I hope never do. I never wanted D3 to play like an expansion of D2 and Im glad it doesnt. I pointed out something like the Hellfire ring which is a carry over and was wonder what others would like to see. For me and most others, D2 and D3 are all about the items, something like a world event or runes are just more items on the table.
Ive been away from this game longer than Ive been in it, just trying to spark some conversation and see how others view it. I like the game and thats one of the reasons Im posting here instead of the official forums.
Not really. I played D2 to death, and then played it to death again. I want D3 to be it's own thing... that carries attendant risk, of course, but in the end I'm not particularly attached to the Diablo franchise (or any franchise, really... except maybe Rocksteady's Batman games), I just want a Blizzard-quality ARPG murderfest.
Some of the D2 itemization coming back would be great, but only if done properly. For example, bringing back RW's, exactly as it was, would be terrible. It makes BiS items that aren't just BiS for a class/build, but BiS, pretty much period (Engima, I'm looking at you). Don't get me wrong, there will probably always be a handful of items that are generally BiS, but the RW where just stupid, course that could be cause the duping made it feasible for everyone even half way dedicated could get one. Anyway, if they limited it so RW's would make a bad item decent, decent great, and great BiS, maybe.
Same thing with Charms. Limit them so it's not a "fill the inventory with them." Maybe reuse that talisman idea so you can only use a handful of charms, and/or make them interact so you have to chose (and not chose as in, I'll replace this cold res with a better cold res, but, "do I want off, def? If I take Off, do I want IAS/CHC/CD or +Damage/stun?").
As much as I liked Whimsyshire, I would like to see a return of the cows, at least a little, just cause at this point they are incredibly classic.
There are other things that I don't want back. The skill system/attribute system, for example. I don't really like how easy it was to gimp your character. It was, IMO, unfriendly and created unnecessary grief. I'm not saying that D3 system maybe doesn't go too far (I do enjoy the "build you're own character" idea), but I think it's poor design that you basically needed a FAQ otherwise you weren't going to make it out of NM. Same thing with the attributes. You either didn't have a plan, and you gimped your character, or you had a plan, and could basically set out the optimal progression at the get go. If they do include anything like this, I would prefer it be more like regular RPGs (Fallout/TES immediately comes to mind) where you build it at the get go, and use it to define what kind of class you will play. That said, I have no clue how that could be combined with their current design goal of letting people try different things.
I am also glad they took the art direction that the game does not have to be visual dark (as in low light) to be thematically dark. What I played of PoE (and if it's spaced like Diablo, with it's 3.5 acts, I played about half), they made that mistake, and it was some of the most boring visuals I've seen outside the "brown is gritty" MMS genre.
First of all, welcome to the community. I'm somewhat new here myself, mainly because the Diablo3.com forum is just a complete wash of negativity and hype.
Second of all...you played LOTRO too? I put a bit of money into expanding my account little by little, so I feel bad formally uninstalling it...but yeah, I poke my head back in from time to time. It's a fun game, but I've never been huge on MMOs in general, which is why I've always liked Diablo better. Plenty for solos to do, but social enough to find other players easily.
As for your topic at hand...
The developers have said numerous times that they want Diablo 3 to stand largely on its own and be its own entity, and I fully respect that. Yes, Diablo 2 became a staple in online gaming and its solid mechanics and style has persisted for 12 years. Pretty impressive! However, that 12-year legacy tends to blind a lot of people and make them think that D2 being a staple meant there was next to nothing wrong with it, and that's where I deviate.
I still LOVE D2...and I'll admit some of the faults D3 currently has...however, Diablo 2 wasn't perfect, and the way that some people state so matter-of-factly "shoulda just made D2 with better graphics, would've been perfect!" Hell no. Honestly, if D3 were basically just D2 with updated modern graphics, that would've disappointed me far more than ANY fault D3 had, or currently has.
Now, that all being said...is there some things from D2 I'd like to see added in to D3? Sure!
-You mentioned Runewords...having only gotten into them recently, I realize their definite potential to make D3 more awesome. However, I'd really appreciate if they could add a page to my journal, maybe even lorebooks or recipe pickups, so I don't have to constantly find an online guide to tell me what combinations of stones I need to make them. Even if various stones (I'd call them stones, we already have "runes" for our skills) are scattered all over Normal, Nightmare, Hell and Inferno Difficulty, and were all really rare to pick up (or even BoA, I know, god forbid), it'd still be a great way to enhance gear of lesser value, with the sockets to spare. I pick up blue chests with 3 sockets CONSTANTLY that I'd love to load up with stones to make them killer.
-Charms, big one for me. Though, I hate the way they clog up inventory. The Talisman idea they had before launch was great...a separate part of the interface where you could equip charms that didn't clog up inventory space. Awesome improvement.
-More gem types, too, D2 at launch had sapphires, diamonds and skulls, I'd love to see those in D3 and hopefully the devs' silence about them means they might appear in the expansion. I'd pay for an expansion for more gem types, for sure.
Can't really think of too many other things from D2 I desperately want. People say they want the ability to move between acts with Waypoints...eh, I don't need it. If a person is just doing a farming run, takes two seconds to leave a game and start a new one. Even if you need to get your NV stacks back, doesn't take long. People talk about stat point allocation and skill trees, I'm good without those, too. I like the skill system how it is, and as a gear-dependent loot hunting game, to me, that makes sense to make stats and strength based on the gear you have. Then again, some kind of Paragon leveling perks every 3-5 levels could be good, though, would add that little sprinkle of choice and a dash of customization this game could use.
All in all...I'm happy that D3 both pays homage to the past games in the series AND forges its own path and stands on its own. It's gotten a lot of bad press, but truthfully, much of the things people want for the game aren't impossible to change. So while there's plenty of people "quitting" or boycotting the game because it's not "D2 with better graphics," I want to believe many of those people aren't impossible to win back with deeper features.
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Anywho, I was pretty deep into a MMO at the time so my D3 attraction faded. After 5 years I pretty much had it up to my eyeballs with Turbine farming my wallet so I finally quit LoTRO slipped back into D3 and found the changes enjoyable.
Im just curious how much the future of this game may morph back to D2. There are certain things that made D2 just the best thing since sliced bread. While the walks were great (personally walked over 1000 servers)but they were dupe driven which is a negative to me, Id love to see a similar world event that doesnt involve dupes and "server hunting". I also thought runes and RWs were an awesome addition to D2, but Ill admit I never want to see teleporting again, either as a skill or a RW. I also hope that maphacks and other cheats never become widespread like D2.
I'd like to see what others are interested in seeing in D3 that is from D2 originally.
BTW, this is my first post here, since Im getting back into D3, I want to do it right by joining some forums for information and D3 relate ideas.
Blizzard already said that they are not going back to D2. There was a recent blue post saying that D3 will not turn into an updated D2, they want to create something new.
I also enjoyed Diablo 2 very much, and as much as I would like to have an updated version of D2, I acknowledge that Blizzard tries something new. They got some few things right, but had massive problems in the beginning. They're working on it, and every patch makes it a bit better; I'm eagerly waiting for 1.07. Just like you I want to see how the game evolves and what they do to improve it - but rest assured that one thing won't happen: going back to D2 and turn D3 into an updated version of Diablo 2.
First of all, welcome to Diablofans!!
This is a dicey issue, the marriage of D2 and D3. I've seen some great deal of evidence that Blizz wished to have D3 stand alone by overtly killing off certain aspects of the franchise that core fans deemed as absolutely integral to the game.
Killing Cain. ...not smart. His presence should've been viewed as a constant, not a bit part.
Whimsyshire. Not only the funneled landscape and constrictive geography (an open field would've been more appealing IMO), but, the lack of actual cows betrayed the lore of the land. Also, the cows replacements, flowers, unicorn and teddy bears....OK...I appreciate the attempt at humor but it came at a great cost. These creatures likely would've been better received had they been large in scale. Their small appearance lends a phony, unfulfilled feel to the event.
Runewords. Some people were fine with this omission (I was not). However, their reason was that RW's whittled the player down to a handful of BiS items. Shamefully, we see this same skewed dynamic of a handful of BiS items merely transferred to Legendaries.. i.e Mempo, Lacuni, Echoing Fury etc. RW's were taken out and replaced with absolutely nothing. Granting the players a far smaller sample of items to work with.
Charms. Yet another omitted aspect of D2 that witnessed absolutely nothing to replace it, even further lessening the scale of itemization. There were issues with charms. Namely, players feeling the need to fill their inventory almost entirely (even when farming) to maximize their build, leaving only a few small places for unid items to be picked up. This could be remedied by simply imposing a strict limit on the number of charms carried.
ID ALL. This is HUGE with me. So so so sick of the monotony of individual ID'ing. Of all the issues I have with D3's playability, this one is so easy to fix yet such a burden to bear.
/NOPICKUP. Again, this is a serious playability issue (with me) that nobody seems to even be complaining about. I grow sick of tripping over loot on the ground during combat. Accidental clicking is so easily remedied, yet it remains.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
Im still too green at this game to make any real in depth comparisons, I probably took close to 3 months off and even they didnt play too much before my break.
Just wondering maybe if there are things that should be in all Diablo games, maybe a signature type event or item(s). I like the Hellfire Rings even though Im not even close to getting into one, they are obviously directly related to torches of the past.
Thanks for having me, Im looking forward to a long future in D3.
I agree, for the most part. I too have an appreciation for D3 needing to stand on it's own.
However, in order for Diablo 3 to feel like Diablo to the core fans, there absolutely must be certain aspects transferred from the previous iteration of the series. The isometric view is simply not enough.
I actually give two big 'ol thumbs up to the skill framework changes. But itemization..... this area should've shown the most reflection between the two titles. This is where the two games shold've met with a great deal of parity.
If you take every aspect of the game, combat mechanics, skill system, graphics, sound, story, user interface....EVERYTHING, all aspects of the game and combine them, nothing is as important as itemization. If itemization fails, the game fails.
I'm torn here. I really like D3. I feel it needs to be improved greatly, but for now, I have a lot of fun with it. BUT....itemization is pretty jacked up and uninspired. The "inspired" part of "uninspired" is key. The inspiration should've had more D2 influence.
Sidenote to the above point; I think the RMP advent (Random Magical Props) was near genius. A great innovation We need more critical thinking from the devs that reflect that sort of development genius.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
Hi there!
I didn't want D3 to really be Diablo 2 version 2.0. I wanted it to be the third in a series. I think D3 has done a great job at being a standalone product, just like Diablo 2 did a great job at not being Diablo 1 version 2.0. Both the D2 and D3 teams were right for keeping some themes but creating some distance between the new game and the previous game. Just as an example, D2 completely scrapped the tomes (something that I had a fondness for from D1) and replaced it with the talent trees. That probably wasn't a decision I was massively in love with, but D2 was still a great game, and the overall lesson learned is that a series can still feel like a series but each game in the series can still feel like an independent game. That's the feel that I'm pretty sure almost everyone wants - continuity among the series, but each game should feel like its own game.
There is one thing from D2 which I definitely think should be implemented in D3:
- Non-storymode. Once you beat Inferno Diablo you should be able to unlock "farming mode" where all waypoints would be accessible, cross-act travel would be allowed, and all bosses would be alive. To me this is actually the single biggest failure of D3. It's not that storymode is bad, but farming in storymode sucks donkey dicks. It's cumbersome, it doesn't encourage building NV then farming bosses and elites (since you negate many boss opportunities to gain access to certain WPs), and it's just.... silly. Fixing this would be the platform for fixing many of the other issues with the game.
This is related to D2 only because D2 didn't have the issue of having half a million offensive affixes that were all somehow mandatory:
- Itemization. I made another post on these forums detailing what I'd do as a first step to fixing itemization. TL;DR version is that we can't have items that need to roll 6 offensive stats in the game - that's far too restrictive. We need to have flexibility that we can stack life regen (for example) if we choose to without sacrificing loads and loads of offensive power. In essence, single items (I'm looking at amulets, rings, gloves, and weapons as the primary offenders here) can't be forced to roll 6 offensive properties. It's bad for the game long-term.
Miscellaneous:
- Killing Cain kinda sucked. But making Adria into a villain could prove to open up a lot of things for us too. Honestly if/when we get to kill her it will be quite fulfilling for me.
- Act 4 feels out of place, but I did kinda like the curveball, the assault on heaven. I've always liked how Diablo visualized the denizens of hell and it was equally as interesting to see their visualization of heaven for me.
- ID All for a fee. 500g per item. Get some money sinks into the game. People will pay the 7000g (?) to ID everything in their inventory. People will pay it all day every day. Don't leave ubergems as the only main money sink outside of the AH. Gems are a great money sink, but they're still annoying.
- Craft All. Absolutely must be implemented. It's one of the most understated, yet highly annoying, things that really wouldn't take tremendous time to fix. I should not have to stand at the goddamned Jeweler and click for every single combine I need to make. Suppose I go buy Flawless Square Rubies with the intent to make a Perfect Star Ruby. That is a LOT of clicking when most of it should be automated.
Ive been away from this game longer than Ive been in it, just trying to spark some conversation and see how others view it. I like the game and thats one of the reasons Im posting here instead of the official forums.
Some of the D2 itemization coming back would be great, but only if done properly. For example, bringing back RW's, exactly as it was, would be terrible. It makes BiS items that aren't just BiS for a class/build, but BiS, pretty much period (Engima, I'm looking at you). Don't get me wrong, there will probably always be a handful of items that are generally BiS, but the RW where just stupid, course that could be cause the duping made it feasible for everyone even half way dedicated could get one. Anyway, if they limited it so RW's would make a bad item decent, decent great, and great BiS, maybe.
Same thing with Charms. Limit them so it's not a "fill the inventory with them." Maybe reuse that talisman idea so you can only use a handful of charms, and/or make them interact so you have to chose (and not chose as in, I'll replace this cold res with a better cold res, but, "do I want off, def? If I take Off, do I want IAS/CHC/CD or +Damage/stun?").
As much as I liked Whimsyshire, I would like to see a return of the cows, at least a little, just cause at this point they are incredibly classic.
There are other things that I don't want back. The skill system/attribute system, for example. I don't really like how easy it was to gimp your character. It was, IMO, unfriendly and created unnecessary grief. I'm not saying that D3 system maybe doesn't go too far (I do enjoy the "build you're own character" idea), but I think it's poor design that you basically needed a FAQ otherwise you weren't going to make it out of NM. Same thing with the attributes. You either didn't have a plan, and you gimped your character, or you had a plan, and could basically set out the optimal progression at the get go. If they do include anything like this, I would prefer it be more like regular RPGs (Fallout/TES immediately comes to mind) where you build it at the get go, and use it to define what kind of class you will play. That said, I have no clue how that could be combined with their current design goal of letting people try different things.
I am also glad they took the art direction that the game does not have to be visual dark (as in low light) to be thematically dark. What I played of PoE (and if it's spaced like Diablo, with it's 3.5 acts, I played about half), they made that mistake, and it was some of the most boring visuals I've seen outside the "brown is gritty" MMS genre.
Second of all...you played LOTRO too? I put a bit of money into expanding my account little by little, so I feel bad formally uninstalling it...but yeah, I poke my head back in from time to time. It's a fun game, but I've never been huge on MMOs in general, which is why I've always liked Diablo better. Plenty for solos to do, but social enough to find other players easily.
As for your topic at hand...
The developers have said numerous times that they want Diablo 3 to stand largely on its own and be its own entity, and I fully respect that. Yes, Diablo 2 became a staple in online gaming and its solid mechanics and style has persisted for 12 years. Pretty impressive! However, that 12-year legacy tends to blind a lot of people and make them think that D2 being a staple meant there was next to nothing wrong with it, and that's where I deviate.
I still LOVE D2...and I'll admit some of the faults D3 currently has...however, Diablo 2 wasn't perfect, and the way that some people state so matter-of-factly "shoulda just made D2 with better graphics, would've been perfect!" Hell no. Honestly, if D3 were basically just D2 with updated modern graphics, that would've disappointed me far more than ANY fault D3 had, or currently has.
Now, that all being said...is there some things from D2 I'd like to see added in to D3? Sure!
-You mentioned Runewords...having only gotten into them recently, I realize their definite potential to make D3 more awesome. However, I'd really appreciate if they could add a page to my journal, maybe even lorebooks or recipe pickups, so I don't have to constantly find an online guide to tell me what combinations of stones I need to make them. Even if various stones (I'd call them stones, we already have "runes" for our skills) are scattered all over Normal, Nightmare, Hell and Inferno Difficulty, and were all really rare to pick up (or even BoA, I know, god forbid), it'd still be a great way to enhance gear of lesser value, with the sockets to spare. I pick up blue chests with 3 sockets CONSTANTLY that I'd love to load up with stones to make them killer.
-Charms, big one for me. Though, I hate the way they clog up inventory. The Talisman idea they had before launch was great...a separate part of the interface where you could equip charms that didn't clog up inventory space. Awesome improvement.
-More gem types, too, D2 at launch had sapphires, diamonds and skulls, I'd love to see those in D3 and hopefully the devs' silence about them means they might appear in the expansion. I'd pay for an expansion for more gem types, for sure.
Can't really think of too many other things from D2 I desperately want. People say they want the ability to move between acts with Waypoints...eh, I don't need it. If a person is just doing a farming run, takes two seconds to leave a game and start a new one. Even if you need to get your NV stacks back, doesn't take long. People talk about stat point allocation and skill trees, I'm good without those, too. I like the skill system how it is, and as a gear-dependent loot hunting game, to me, that makes sense to make stats and strength based on the gear you have. Then again, some kind of Paragon leveling perks every 3-5 levels could be good, though, would add that little sprinkle of choice and a dash of customization this game could use.
All in all...I'm happy that D3 both pays homage to the past games in the series AND forges its own path and stands on its own. It's gotten a lot of bad press, but truthfully, much of the things people want for the game aren't impossible to change. So while there's plenty of people "quitting" or boycotting the game because it's not "D2 with better graphics," I want to believe many of those people aren't impossible to win back with deeper features.