DiabloFans

Quote from PantheraOnca

Quote from Draxanoth

Whether or not you'd heard of D2 mods is irrelevant. That's a result of your personal habits and is anecdotal evidence at best.

At the same time, the fact that you played them is anecdotal and irrelevant as well.

Show me some numbers on the number of unique users that used any mod at all, and I'd be interested to see it.

I don't think either of us has those numbers. I don't even know if anyone's bothered to compile that kind of information.

I know that mods weren't supported through bnet. That's kind of my point. mods for d2 were never supported, and they don't plan to support them for d3. Any modders who want to do something in the d3 engine will have to allow players to connect with one another like they always have (or to play offline in the case of single player mods).

edit: by any mod at all, i don't mean things like maphack, I mean things like different abilities or game systems or whatnot.

Good thing I wasn't basing my comment as to their popularity on my own opinion then, otherwise you might have had a point there. You could probably find some of the old mod contests via Google, but I don't horde old game magazines so I can't tell you exactly what issues to look for.

In the end, Blizzard will do what they want. We'll just see more people who would have purchased it for single player/LAN pirating it instead.

Quote from PantheraOnca

Quote from Stalker7d7

(internet is expensive these days)

<_<

If you have a computer that can run the game, the price of your internet is a non-issue.

Telling someone they can afford internet if they have a capable PC is a jerk move. He may have the same computer he's had for 5 years due to budget limitations for all you know, Blizzard doesn't exactly make games with ultra high system requirements.

Quote from PantheraOnca

I am highly skeptical as to the value of mods to the longevity of d2.

I hadn't even HEARD about d2 mods until some months ago when people were bitching about online-onlyness back then. it may even have been from a diablofans article.

protip: modders will develop server workarounds to allow you to play on their or local virtual servers so that you can play whatever they've modded.

needing to connect to bnet to play the game blizzard sells does not stop modders from making mods that let you run their not-d3 game offline.

You just won't be playing with mods on bnet.

Whether or not you'd heard of D2 mods is irrelevant. That's a result of your personal habits and is anecdotal evidence at best. I'd suggest reading Gamefront or some magazines periodically, they do features on these sorts of things; mod of the year contests and whatnot. You might find some fun stuff you didn't realize you were missing.

We never played mods on D2 BattleNet. They had to be run LAN/TCPIP through unofficial servers. Blizzard is just making a big deal out of it so it looks like they have to spend years implementing mod support on BNET, when in reality people just want the same options we had in D2.

I think their primary goal is to tempt all players with the use of the RMAH by forcing everyone to play online. Everyone who plays will see it, and when Blizzard reduces the drop rates of item X to 1 in 10 billion, people will be tempted to shortcut and use the AH. Based on their tactics with WoW, I wouldn't be surprised if they released RMAH only items to make money. I consider that a dangerous prospect, one that could turn into something very ugly.

Their reasoning is weak at best. WoW hasn't stopped hacking. Hacks just had to evolve different tactics in order to work with the server based architecture versus direct manipulation of game values. Not to mention WoW and SC2 haven't stopped LAN play or piracy. This gives me hope that some industrious fans will create offline play when Blizzard screws us over on D3, but it also saddens me to see that the new Blizzard is really Activision's pet. They look for any reason to strip features away from the legitimate buyers with no real impact on the pirates, even forcing legal owners to use fixes developed by pirates to utilize their game to the fullest extent.

I sincerely hope they will reconsider single-player at the very least, even if they don't give us a LAN mode. Without it there will never be mods, and mods added great value to D2. That was one of the primary reasons I kept playing for over a decade. Without them I probably would have quit a year after LOD came out, and Blizzards new customer service style is throwing into doubt the likelihood that I'll ever play the next one. I don't trust the web performance to be any better for D3 than it has been for me in D2 and SC2.

You defeat Diablo in a glorious epic battle. Upon his death he drops a musket... which you are then forced to shoot yourself in the face with as you realize Diablo has become WoW.

They won't stop delaying it until they've had a chance to declare every new feature impossible from a technical standpoint. A large stash? HA, like that could ever be done. You'd have to hack some DLL's and cook up some really weird name like "PlugY" before you could even consider doing such a thing. (Or set a leprechaun on fire and make a wish, whichever one is easier.)

Looks like a marketing gimmick to me. Get everyone all excited, string them along for a few years, release 1.13 a week before Diablo 3 comes out with no changes except the version number.... Clever gremlins they are...

I think it's fairly clear that they expect to maintain the same ferocious slaughterfest that Diablo has always been. As long as they don't fall into the pit of anime style models that they did with WoW I think we'll be okay.

I don't want to see retarded weapons where swords are twice as tall and half as wide as the guy wielding it... or shoulder pads that make you look like you intend to jump off the barn roof and fly... and wrists wider than your face? What did they do? See how many different drugs they could jam in the same pipe?

Any developer who even suggests such modeling should be taken out back and shot.

:thumbsup:

I hope they don't do the "only available" on battle net stuff again. I hated having to mod D2 just to get all the new stuff offline/LAN.

It makes sense to do it this way but they have to be very careful. Anyone who has played Titan Quest knows that static outdoor areas can become tedious treks instead of adventures. I loved Titan Quest, but if not for the editor it would have died out really quick due to the repetition.

Blizzard needs to make sure that since the exterior maps don't change the stuff you find out there does, and dramatically. If all there is in a far corner is 2 normal monsters to club and nothing else, you're never going to go there. Much like the dungeons that exist in D2, there's a gold chest, bout it. (Unless you have MedianXL, in which case they're populated with horrible fiery death.) They need to use those roaming adventures to their full potential.

I'd like to see a balance, a slight increase in mob difficulty coupled with an increase in sheer numbers. It probably won't work that way due to performance issues, but with 8 people it would be nice to see the horde grow enough that there's mobs for everyone. In D2 sometimes it felt like there were too many people for the number of baddies.

Anything that adds a reason to visit somewhere is a good addition. Median XL really hammered that idea by using a lot of the generic dungeons for something special. Did anyone really visit the pit in D2 when the only thing in it was a generic gold chest?

Quote from "TheShatnerDude" »

Easy use of BattleNet doesn't magically reduce the overhead to allow an ARPG to run on analog connections. I'm sure if they thought it would yield them enough sales they'd put it in. I said they didn't want to spend the money. They are gutting a feature to reduce time and cost. There is no other upside that isn't propaganda no matter how much rhetoric Bashiok throws around. It's amazing to think that anyone would buy that hogwash.

It's funny you mention the graphics. So not only are you endorsing that they take out a core component of D3, and even more importantly SC2, but it's okay that they recycle graphics? They might as well use the Warcraft engine for everything they make in the next 40 years, apparently they can do no wrong. Is Blizz borrowing the Apple kool aid mix?

If they could guarantee multiplayer will function on a 32kbps connection I'm sure this would matter a lot less. They said D2 would and everyone knows what a croc that is. 15 minutes and you'll start black mapping on 48, 56, or 68, little lone 32.

Shatner might be a little overly passionate, but the point is made. It's like Blizzard hired some modders to fiddle with WoW to make SC2 and D3. Probably why there isn't any LAN. The part that scares me is what happens when they decide they need to charge us for multi? It's easy to say you won't, but the Hellgate guys said you'd be able to play forever as a founder and look how that turned out. If that happens we have no alternatives.

Also keep in mind just because you assume few people are stuck behind narrowband doesn't mean it's true. If the digital TV switch has taught us anything it's that a large portion of the world still can't get a wide line. My area alone had 200,000 people lose TV service with no alternative aside from satellite, and anyone who's had internet satellite knows what a total wank that is.

Quote from "likwidsteel" »

Hellgate's an MMO...

Hellgate is Single/Online. It's exactly the same in both instances unless you subscribe.

Quote from "Equinox" »

I don't know a game that doesn't have LAN (excluding MMORPG's and such)... I am pretty sure there is nothing to worry about.

I do, it was called Hellgate. I think someone took it outside and shot it after they saw what a monstrous piece of crap it became, so I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it.

BNET only would mean no CO-OP mods either. =/

Has anyone heard any mention of LAN play? All I've seen is "cooperatively play through battle.net" I'm going to be very disappointed if we can't have a good ole hack and slash fest using an 8 port switch... Especially with the horrendous amount of lag that will no doubt ensue for months after launch day...

I'm not sure the bluish color is a problem, I have a feeling there will be many different hues of dungeon lighting throughout, but you can see too far. I don't want to know there's 400 zombies lurking in the next room, I want to see 3 of them from on the edge of the dark, and once I enter the room see them flooding out of gods only know where. Scripted "oh crap" moments will only be surprising for so long. Being able to get bushwhacked by the randomly placed wandering monsters will make the games RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! moments ever possible. If my buddy disappears in the dark I want to have to search the darkness to find him and pull him out. Or by listening to his screams on positional sound...

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/frostwake/Diablo31.jpg <-- I like that a lot, it's a little too dark likely due to that it's photoshopped, but it has that the world is going to end feel. No doubt the entire game shouldn't look like that. If the bad mojo has JUST started, I don't expect the forces of evil have had time to torch everything, but I don't want to see a "ruined village" looking the same as the beach resort version of the blasted lands in WoW. Even those bird monsters in the blasted lands look happy to be there...

I'm not going to rag on the cartoony style, it's still better than how terrible WoW is. In WoW, the characters look like gushers candy shapes taped together, in D3 it looks solid and proportioned. The people's hands arent as big as their head like in WoW. I hear a lot of people comparing D3 to the graphics in Titan Quest. When you turn the special effects off the TQ character and equipment models are no more intricate than D3. They are just as blocky, you just can't tell with alll the AA and special effects turned on. I don't expect any less from Blizzard. It doesn't even look like AA is turned on in any of their screenshots, I imagine it can only get better.

They need to change it so you have to arrange junk in your bags. 12 hammers do not take up the same amount of space as 12 gems. I want to have to pitch out some junk to pick up something spiffy. That's how adventuring is meant to be!

Really, there's not much to complain about. The ability to stumble around in the dark without knowing exactly how close you are to your demise is something I greatly enjoy. I'm sure they can accomplish that without too much effort, and knowing blizzard I highly doubt they haven't implemented that somewhere already. That said, do you want every dungeon to be exactly the same? Diablo 1 only had ONE dungeon... I can see them using a wide range of color schemes. Not all rocks are grey you know... I don't expect every dungeon to look that way.