DiabloFans

I was waiting for him to bring up Warcraft 3/WoW in the part about technology in medieval games. I hated when they started bringing alien space ships into warcraft – what were they thinking?

The ones closer to the screen are demon heads, while the ones far away are wolf demon heads.

Hey, did anyone notice this?
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/screenshots/ss51-hires.jpg
Look at the banisters, particularly at the bottom. Looks so much better than the gryphons.

I would find it incredibly boring, cliche, predictable, out of character, and disappointing if Tyreal or the forces of heaven turn out to be evil/get corrupted. I mean, almost every fantasy/fiction story that has angels in it love to "corrupt" or "expose" them. It seems to much like an underlying agenda about religion, which is something nobody needs in a computer game.

What happened when you died?

Quote from "Karjalan" »

I'm personally for as much customisability as possible and at first this sounded like a downer... but seriously think about how stat allocation went in Diablo 2...

Strength: - Enough to wear the "best" gear
Dexterity: - None, or enough to wear gear/max block
Vitality: - Every point that wasn't needed in Strength/Dexterity
Energy: - None ever....

And don't try to say otherwise because most serious players this was exactly how the points were spent, and because of this, hell difficulty was tuned based on the assumption that all players there had a similar stat distribution. This is not customisation, this is pigeon holing.
I never liked the stat allocation system in D2 except for the one class where it mattered, the dragon tail Kick Assassin.
The one positive thing was that it allowed for creative random builds like melee casters etc.... but even some of those (such as energy shield sorcs) were over powered.

No one (sane) is saying the D2 system worked out the way it was supposed to, but D3 was a chance for them to perfect a deepening element to the RPG aspect to Diablo. Instead they completely removed it, which does, as you said, remove the possibility of wacky class types, like a Wizard who stops time, then runs in slashing with an axe, or a Witch Doctor who uses bows from behind his zombie wall.

Also, the removal of runewords really reduces the effectiveness of pumping only vit, because with rune words you always knew how much str you needed to use them. With rare items becoming a focus again, people will (oops, would have been) reluctant to skimp on str or dex incase they found a powerful weapon or strong armor/shield.

As for the 4 player thing, some people like chaotic, frantic gameplay. Think of the huge fan base for games like Starcraft, Marvel vs. Capcom, Super Smash Bros. Melee – games where if you looked away for a second, oops, you're dead!
Of course some people don't like super fast games, so they can (oops, could have) set the player limit to what they want.

What I'm getting at is this: All of these things could have been options, but Blizzard is forcing people to play one way only; it's their way or the high way now, and less options is always less fun.

Quote from "poznahv" »

I don't think it's a bad thing. Diablo III has to be different than the 2nd. And everyone was taking the sames stats.

There was a problem, yes, but Blizzard had a chance to fix the problem. Instead, as with a lot of the D3 development, they are using a chainsaw where a scalpel was needed.

People only used the same stat allocation. Balence stats? No! remove player control all together!

Again, Jay contradicts himself. He said he wanted as much diversity as possible, and the new skill trees would reflect that. Then he turns around and makes it impossible for a barb to be ranged, a wizard to use melee, or a witch doctor to tank. Jay makes no sense.

They are making D3 very much like a Gauntlet game. Whether thats a good thing or a bad thing will vary with different people, but the similarities are there.

Heath drops that are not storable
Bosses are vastly larger than your character
4 player limit
Unable to return to town mid quest
God like heroes
Over the top skills
Vivid, some times clashing colors
Grand scale to environment
Gold based economy
Enemy generators
All skills are AoE damage skills
Lots of violence and blood, but in a humourus way, "sylized" way
Auto stats.

So, yes. D3 is like an arcade game in the sense that they removed the RPG aspect, and made it almost entirely a Hack n'Slash, but to some people that isn't automatically a turn off.

I think runes in skills are around, oh, 1000 times better than in items. It's the one idea I think Diablo 3 really achieved innovation with.

Quote from "ncnhitman" »

how are you worried about ove powered characters? all the characters in d2 are over powered, killing everyboss by yourself wiht 8 ppl in game or soloing uber trist isnt over powered? only way i ever died in pvm is when there was a huge lag spike and i couldnt do anything, and also i read that there will be a seperate pvp thing, it was on gamespy i think, look it up,

He said epically overpowered compaired to Diablo 2. You're perfectly right, people could solo the whole game easy. Jay wants your character to be even more powerful.

Quote from "Thasador" »

JWilson explains that he wants to have the characters of Diablo III to be epicly powerful compared to Diablo 1 and 2. "Being superpowered and allowing the player to defeat hordes and armies of minions will bring the excitement back into the medeval game."

If there's one point I think Jay got totally and utterly wrong, it's this. Quite simply, it takes away any chance of feeling any "fear" or tension. Pair that with no death penalties, smaller skill trees, and repecs, and you're looking at a game with very little replay value. If you're so overwhelmingly powerful, where the heck is the challenge? I mean, the puny little Wizard took several direct hits from a mace 3X bigger than her body, but she walks it off.

Other than that it looks fantastic.

Yeah, I'm still not sold on 1 level skill ideas, and from the looks of it, you'll be able to max out a larger number of spells than in D2, which reduces variety and strategy.
I know what the common response to this is. "Warden, people only got, like, the exact skills all the time in D2! There was no variety there, either!"
And that's true, but only because certain skills were outliers when it came to damage and usefulness – some skills were just to far ahead of the curve. That Blizzard has removed skill variety and leveling in certain cases seems to suggest that they gave up on trying to build a variety of balanced, yet interesting skills.

I may have sounded negative in my earlier post. I want to make it clear I really like the Wizard as a class, just not as a class name.

I mean, she can fire her lazar! That is serious business.

Quote from "dunhac82" »

I'm more into making my character unique....rather than playing around with stats.

Because everyone with the same stats is unique.

People keep saying that this will force people to find items that are unique to them because everyone was using the same items in D2.

But they are removing runewords. That alone would have solved the problem. Uniques (without botting) are too rare to be "cookie cutter," and with the improved focus on rare items, stat assignment would be even important.
Like you're, say, a wizard. You find a good set of armor. Because you're a caster you die fast in combat. You need more strentgh to use it, and you've gained a level, but you also run out of mana faster than you'd like, seeing as monsters seem to swarm you all the time. Do you use your points to last longer if you get hit by getting the armor, or take down more enemies with you spells by pumping mana?

I also love how the Blizzard fanatics jump on anyone who doesn't brown nose D3. I was making an observation – not a complaint. I think D3 will be a fantastic game, OK?

Of course, because when everyone's stats are the same there is more variety. :confused:

This removes oh so much strategy from the game, especially for melee classes. Do you want a lot of damage or a lot of hp? Faster attack & block rate? Or slower but more powerful swings? Do you pump strength to use that awesome axe and become a glass cannon? Or stay with your weaker one, but build HP?

With the removal of runewords, there will be no more "cookie cutter" builds, or +50 to str items. Didn't they remove charms too? Didn't they say they were focusing on rare items again? People couldn't pump vit and survive.

They are turning Diablo into Gauntlet.

"Over the top" spells? Yay
Totally unrealistic environments and equipment? Yay
Humorous violence? Yay
Regulated leveling? Yay
Bright, clashing colors? Yay
Health drops that you can't store? Yay
Not returning to town in the middle of a level? Yay
Enemy generators? Yay

Granted, Gauntlet is one of my favorite games of all time, so I'm not panicing about the simularities (I only got D2 because I loved gauntlet so much), but it is totally different from what D1 & D2 were like.[/QUOTE]

Quote from "XXLaw" »

Think the art style haters will still be whining?
To me the environment looks amazing.

I'm sure they will. A lot of this stuff is even more of what they would hate.
1) Skeleton Kings looks ripped from WoW (purple & red armor, huge fantasy weapon)
2) To depict tougher skeleton warriors, bigger shoulder pads, of course!
3) Pixelated blood, low resolution textures.
4) bright neon greens and blues.

Pretty much everything people who made petitions were worried about came true

But Wizard? I think they could have come up with something that hasn't been done over 9000 times.