DiabloFans

i would make this an option set by the player from the options menu.

some players may want this new alt feature, some may prefer the way it works currently.

i prefer the current system.

imagine a big battle with items everywhere and i hit alt - why should i have to look at all the items for five seconds?

you missed my point.

the impact of the new chests on the game.

talk about that topic, which you sidestepped with Teo.

Quote from "SlappytheClown" »

Nope, I mean neuter - noting or pertaining to a gender that refers to things classed as neither masculine nor feminine - or meaning sexless. I'm just extremely impatient to see the other classes that they'll be introducing.

you meant gender neutral.

don't ever call a class neuter as in sexless.

that is barbaric.

D3 has announced there will both male and female gender in each class.

where does it refer to a neuter class?

It doesn't ever mention that.

Quote from "SlappytheClown" »

You need to understand this, you sound a bit arrogant here...

Expansion packs are not just a money making scheme. They're there to add on to the story line to create a long story to keep players occupied and interested in playing. You cannot compare a video game expansion to a car unless you want to say "Example - I have a car and I like it a lot but it's starting to bore me a bit. I want to make the car faster and have a little more umph so I'll EXPAND the engine a bit with newer parts. That should keep me interested.

As for Magistrate, I consider Diablo an MMO because there are most likely going to be thousands, if not, millions of people playing. MMO game just means Massive Multiplayer Onine game.

'Nuff said.

you failed to address my main point.

expansion packs lead to story confusion and incompatibilities within the player base.
some players own expansion packs, some don't, some require new machines, some change the storyline.

the strategy is not to make add-on expansion packs.

the strategy should be making new versions of the game.

your definition of a million players online being an MMO is false.

take your definition and go search the web.

it's not my job to educate you, but you are uneducated about the term MMO.

Quote from "Septar" »

Good thing that there is not going to be a World of Sanctuary.


.. You have never played the expansion, but you can say that expansions are nothing more than money making schemes? Idiot.



They're not going to change the name of the Amazon, because they're called Amazons, not "more feminine barbarians"

let me address without killing you.

there will probably be a Diablo MMO in the future. the question is whether it will be in D3 or in Diablo: MMO.

regarding expansions:

".. You have never played the expansion, but you can say that expansions are nothing more than money making schemes? Idiot." Septar

that statement made no sense, only an idiot could have said that.

my interpetation after painstaking analysis:

"you haven't played the expansion so you can not talk about expansions and they are just money making schemes."

i posted a few messages earlier on this page about what i thought about expansions in further detail.
read it.

lastly - regarding Amazon class. this is getting really boring talking to you all. i stated in response to a question about whether Amazon will return, that perhaps the Sisters of the Sightless Eye would be a player class in the game. In order to make that happen the Sisters would need to accept Brothers making it the Order of the Sightless Eye.

i can theorize about the new ranged weapon class as much as any other person.

why the HELL are you attacking ME about my statements?

there will always be hacks.

what will happen is that these nice features will be taken out.

no more random chests.

for those of us that start playing from the beginning, perhaps we will benefit from hack-free play for a time.

chests are designed for the new players.

the best items should still come from monster kills.

locked chests provided new players a way to obtain large amounts of gold and enchanted items early in the game.

taking that out will only make it more difficult for the less experienced players.


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i did find a rare wand in a chest next to gidbinn the other day in D2 original.


was stunned - haven't found a rare in a chest practically ever.

Quote from "Magistrate" »

Hm, yeah, he makes a good point, I think. Even if players are all put in chat channels before and after games limited to 4-6 players each (in Diablo III), that quality does not make it an MMO at all. That definition would make RTS's like Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II, and many others, as well as Halo II/III (maybe I, I didn't player that one), Call of Duty, and other, stranger games like Litte Big Planet and any other game that puts you in channels between games to communicate an MMO. That's an issue.

I can see what you mean, and it kind of works, but it's not precise enough.



It was massively hinted at that there would be another game or, more likely if you use logic, an expansion some time in the future including possibly old classes or some such thing. Look through the articles here, you're a smart person

there was significantly more content in that post then you refer to.

if that is all you can see in my posts you are not worth my time.


don't bother looking for expansions.

expansions are in fact a money making scheme.

in LOD the Dark Wanderer was slain if what i heard was correct.

the hero of Diablo was slain so that an expansion pack could be made.

to kill Baal. which nobody cared about in the first place.

i never played the expansion for several reasons.

start a thread, 'why i didn't buy the expansion' and i might have something to say about that.

-------------
expansion example illustrated.

i buy a car. i must now buy a second engine just to run the car after three months of ownership. after that i must then buy a new fuel tank if i want the car to run with the new engine.

---------------


i expect my products to standalone. if the car needs an 'expansion upgrade' i make a new model car and get all the upgrades done correctly.

this is how it will work in the future.

if it doesn't the game industry will kill itself from the complexity of compatible expansion packs, sequential expansion packs, standalone expansion packs, paid membership expansion packs and so on.

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and Skovos better not be an expansion pack.

Quote from "Magistrate" »

Hm, yeah, I could agree with that, actually. I thought everyone was saying this "assumed" coming project that people are thinking is coming because of some interviews was an MMO, when it would make more sense as an Expansion since that's what they've always done. As a seperate project, one that is years down the road... Well, I can agree with that. Hopefully technology will be so advanced by then that they won't have to lose the fast-paced action of Diablo's battle system for a turn-based one like most MMO's (WoW comes to mind, obviously.) Ironically, FFXII has this same battle system. I never equated the two before until I thought about it. Weird.

that wasn't what i said.

Quote from "SlappytheClown" »

There can still be a male Amazon, they'd just have to change the name Amazon to something more neuter. There should be no arguments over what kind of character's they make until they make them though. Any class can be a male/female combination.

you meant neutral.

Quote from "saggo68" »

Yea i really hope the amazon gets comeback in the expansion

the amazon are comparable only with the Sisters of the Sightless Eye with their bows.

read that somewhere.

perhaps Rogues will be in there. characters like Flavic are Rogues in Diablo 2.

Male or Female...probably the Order of the Sightless Eye now.

Quote from "FingolfinGR" »

let me ask you something:

is Guild Wars considered MMORPG?

if yes (thats also what it is) how would you explain the fact that there are never 1000+ players on the same map? Even in Guild Wars most things are instanced with people meeting up in lobbies.

Diablo is mostly a single-player game that has a great multiplayer part that managed to keep it alive for many years after its release. That online platform made it MMO. Because on battle.net there are thousands of people in lobbies creating instanced worlds for themselves. Thats what made it MMO.

there is a lot of confusion about this in the media and among fans.

Guild Wars is a hybrid MMORPG. it has static content and it is geared towards experiences with 30-50 players if i remember correctly. if i remember correctly the Guild War development team came from Blizzard. perhaps they moved forward with the Diablo MMO concept while the company was holding it for a future release.

regarding the MMO question.

the definition of MMO as an online platform is too broad. if a game is multiplayer and is online it is MMO? that would include every game made today. MMO specifically refer to a game where there is an online persistent world. MMO and MMORPG are used interchangeably in the current media.

generally the hallmark of today's MMOs are hours of uninterrupted gameplay. Diablo is much more flexible in this respect.

moving towards an MMO model would probably mean some areas would need walking distances that take 10-20 minutes of following a road through the zone. as Guild Wars demonstrated the use of waypoints in the MMO world destroys realism and creates continuity problems with the existence of a persistent reality within the online world.

Diablo avoids this with the randomness of the the whole world. waypoints make sense because none of the DIablo characters know which way is north or south. the randomness creates the realism in Sanctuary.

moving towards MMO would change that drastically. i've help beta test a number of MMOs and their predecessors in the text-online adventure format and changing the formula is going to change the feel and playability of the Diablo.

instead of what we have now in Diablo and Diablo 2, the experience will shift more towards a MMO experience heavily influenced by World of Warcraft.

[postive remarks about World of Warcraft here]

given that, i can tell you that the Diablo player will NOT like the shift if it has a lot of MMO content.

some possible changes:

static environments
static boss locations
static item drops

long walking time (10-30minutes) between areas
removal of waypoints
realism of waypoints unbalanced by static environment

status icons on the screen showing whether battle orders is active.
status icons on the screen showing whether your character is cold affected.

minimap in the corner rather than TAB map as it is currently.

PVP in MMO working differently than in Diablo 2.

Trade system having a completely different dynamic in MMO vs Diablo 1on1 trading.

Monthly fees.

Complexity of the game increasing, ie more bugs and less support resolving them.

and these are just off the top of my head.

there are bound to be *REAL* issues as well.

i have clarified my point.

have you ever gotten 1000 players together online in one map area?
have you ever seen that?


be reasonable. you want D3 to have 1000+ players on the same map?

is that kind of game going to be Diablo at all?

other babble about fixed terrain and random monsters is only pointing to the fact that Diablo is moving towards an MMO style game.

Forget that! I say two games.

one game is Diablo 3 -> improved on Diablo I and II.

second game is Diablo MMO -> incorporated whatever the Hell MMO concepts you want in there.

not everyone can see the big picture.

Diablo is being pushed into a direction of an MMO product.

I suggest Diablo MMO be a separate product.

Diablo 3 should be an improvement on the mechanics developed in Diablo I and DIablo II.

Diablo 3 as one product.

Sanctuary: World of Diablo MMO as another product.

Quote from "Magistrate" »

How are they bringing MMO-like qualities in to Diablo III? They want to reduce the number of players per game to 6 or less. Your definition says the main quality of an MMO is 100+ players to a game.

what i said if i recall correctly is that MMOs

are games that *INVOLVE* 100+ players

MMO qualities as you referred to them would include static environments.

Diablo is at it's heart a small group game.

MMOs usually involve hundreds of players. ever reach top level in an MMO? it requires a lot of communication with other players, a lot of deal making, and constant bickering.

Diablo doesn't really have that, and i like it that way.

reading through that garbage that unclean posted i have interpreted it as this.

he likes Diablo.
he supports blizzard 100% no matter what.
he doesn't like wow fans that are coming to diablo.


other than that i think the discussion can move on.

it's been hell getting access to this site.

finally fixed that issue.

Diablo genre game is called action RPG by most industry people.

there are three categories of games that Blizzard currently makes.

a. real time strategy
this game involves coordinating and directing a large army of units at the same time.

b. massively multiplayer online [mmo]
this game involves 100+ players online with the ability to interact with any other player.

c. rogue-like games

this game doesn't really fit into any category. others have tried making similar games and it is a game that stands alone. so for the sake of public awareness it was labelled action role playing game [rpg].

for those of you unaware of what rogue-like games are you can find information about them on the internet.

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in response to the direction of Blizzard making permanent outdoor locations.

outdoor play areas should be randomized.

if they can't figure out how to do it they shouldn't be reducing features that players love in the game. it is not too complex. it was done in diablo2 and regardless of the demands on the art department i think that having waited ten years that we deserve a game that keeps that critical feature of Diablo. the RANDOM factor.

what they are describing is bringing MMO concepts into Diablo. Diablo was never a MMO and it deserves to be developed as its own game with its own concepts.

just because MMOs bring in money doesn't mean it's the best model.

for example.

10 million WoW subscrbers at $15.00/month. that is $150 million dollars/month in income before expenses to Blizzard.

that's more than $1 billion dollars a year before expenses.

so Blizzard is thinking that they can move other games into that model and 'synergize' their games.

this is already known by most of you.

not every game can be merged.

at its heart these are what Blizzard fans think:

starcraft is a real time strategy game.

warcraft is a real time strategy game.

world of warcraft is a mmo.

diablo is a rogue-like game.


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if Blizzard wants another MMO make it. but don't take diablo and try to convert it into an MMO. that is what i am seeing and it will be a lot better if they announce Diablo MMO and Diablo 3.

Diablo will always be a rogue-like game. if they want to offshoot and make movies and MMOs fine, but keep my Diablo game the way it is supposed to be played.