DiabloFans

Is there any known gameplay video or screenshots for the Wrath of the Berserker skill?

Quote from "SFJake" »

This year is -not- the year of Diablo, come back in 2011 2012.

Fixed.

It's Tasha Yar!

tasha yar

Quote from "Pryda" »

Well if they make Act III a swamp area then its starting to seem like the Acts are following the D2 pattern. And Act IV would probably be Hell.

The Acts are not strictly categorized by a single terrain/setting. You will encounter multiple terrains/settings in each Act.

Quote from name="Lt Venom" »

I'm not going to read the wall of text.

Good. Because it wasn't addressed to you. It was addressed to the other guy who wrote a wall of text.

Quote from "Don_guillotine" »

Firstly, Blizzard games have never been known for their state of the art graphics, and frankly, who'd want just another hollow graphics showcase showing off exactly how hairy the dude's balls look like so they can license the graphics engine and live off it.

Since the discussion is about breaking sales records then graphics are definitely going to factor into sales figures when it comes to attracting new gamers. There are many people who will take a pass on D3 if it does not look as current as the rest of the games being released in 2011.. maybe even 2012. That's a long time for other studios to raise the bar for the status quo.

Quote from "Don_guillotine" »

I'm also not exactly sure where you're getting with jerking too many fans by taking too much time to make the game. I mean it was announced about 18 months ago and probably released around halfway 2011 (I'm being optimistic!) giving it about 3 years announcement prior to the release.

If you paid attention to my post, I said that complaint was coming from someone who has been following the SC2 development for years. I don't know if you have been following the development of SC2, but it has been absolutely ridiculous this year when it comes to news and announcements by Blizzard. They are missing targets for news bits by months. They also said in no uncertain terms at the beginning of the year that the beta was starting "soon" and then followed up by saying the beta would start in the summer. Blizzard really needs to shut the hell up until they know exactly when they can deliver. If that means they can't announce anything until the day before the event.. then so be it. I would rather know something for certain than get jerked around by their horribly ambiguous language ALL THE TIME. I'm sure they still think it's cute, but it's growing really old really fast.

Their first mistake with D3 is announcing it so early, knowing that it's going to take at least 3 years to complete. In the coming years I can expect the same piss poor PR management that has been coming from the SC2 development team.

If you think that ill-will is not being generated here due to this, then you are mistaken. People who were mildly interested in D3 when it was announced will have basically forgotten about it when it is released. Who knows if they'll care to pick it up then.

So.. combine the lack of interest by old fans.. and the lack of new and up to date looks for new fans.. and you can expect that this is going to eat into the sales numbers.

Quote from "Don_guillotine" »

Now I'm being cynical, but 3 years is hardly a lot unless somebody's sorta young, very impatient or have the attention span of fifteen seconds - or maybe all at once.

Excuse me? I don't like waiting 3 or more years for a game that I've already been waiting at least 5 years for indicates that I have an attention span of 15 seconds..?? Sorry, no. It indicates that I DON'T HAVE AN ATTENTION SPAN OF 3 BLOODY YEARS. People are going to lose interest in the game by the time it is released. I know the buzz has already worn off for me for SC2. I'm still buying it because I'm a hardcore fan, you see. But it's going to take a helluva lot more than the hardcore fans to break any sales numbers. They need new blood to do that. Remember that this is what the topic is about. Sales numbers.

Quote from "Don_guillotine" »

Also I'm bit cynical towards adding development resources having any real effect. It's the classical problem that if you ordered a man to dig a hole and thought you'd speed things up and hire another man to dig with him, they would get the job done faster, but the effectiveness of adding an extra person diminishes with each person added. In the end there'll just be a few guys digging the hole and the rest watching them.

I believe you're right that, in some case, adding more development resources is not going to help. Too many cooks spoil the broth, right? If you double the team that was responsible for concepting the character skills then you might generate too much tension and too many ideas start to conflict.. and it takes too long to resolve differences. Okay, I get that. I don't want to see the quality of the game suffer because they *rushed* through development. But, taking SC2 as an example again (and yes it is valid to use SC2s development as examples here) if they had added more resources to the development of battle.net, which is basically a separate project from Sc2 and D3 and which was blamed for the delay of SC2 since they grossly underestimated how much work needed to be done, then maybe SC2 would have been on time for a 2009 release.

Also, don't be fooled.. there is a lot of grunt work to be done building these games. Once the basic formula is establish and foundations are built.. you need people to start churning out all sorts of character models for holding different weapons, for generating new dungeons, for drawing all of the items.. etc. All of these things CAN be improved by throwing more people at the project. It's mainly at the concepting level that it hurts to have too many people working on the same thing. But when it comes to churning out digital assets like rigging models and setting triggers on maps.. the more the better. To put it into the same terms as your example.. once you plan out where all the holes have to be dugg, what shape they have to be and how deep you have to go.. then you can hire as many people as you want to digg those holes and speed up the process.

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The disgruntled fans and the new players that dismiss the game due to graphics are, admittedly, not the majority. Even though I am peeved with Blizz about the way they are handling SC2 and D3 development I'm pretty sure I'll be buying them (SC2, for sure, anyway). So don't take what I said and assume that I am trying to draw a picture of a roudy and angry fan base and a whole world that doesnt care what Blizzard is making because it doesn't look "the best". I am not trying to paint that picture. I am just explaining some reasons why Blizzard is probably not going to break any sales records.. and it basically boils down to an inability to generate a lot of interest from new players, and taking too long with the development that casual fans may simply not care about the game in a couple of years. Either way, the momentum won't be there to break the top sales records that have been set in recent years. Especially those records by console games.

No way. Blizzard has taken too long to develop the game and has jerked too many fans around with delay after delay after delay (this is coming from someone who is also anxiously awaiting SC2). They seem to have taken advantage of how long their loyal fans are willing to wait. They should have announced D3 and SC2 way later into development and/or increased development resources by a significant proportion to get the product out the door sooner.

When the time comes to launch, the game will have a dated look that won't be as attractive to new players.. and some of blizzard's old fans will have gotten tired of their antics and others will have basically grown too old.

I see them having a really hard time getting anywhere near 10 million sales.

I hated the loud green color for sets and orange for crafted items. It also made me not want to use them. Sofuckingugly.

The Twitter message doesn't even say if they are doing the 3D models yet. It just says "artists" which could mean the items are still in concept stage in terms of design. They may be pushing out a lot of designs, but it's no way an indication of how far their development process is.

Does anyone else find the melee attack sounds to be wholly unsatisfying? There is this predominant squishy sound that reminds me of swashing saliva between my teeth or the sound of cartoon zits popping and oozing. I don't think it's suitable for D3 at all. I hope it's something they plan on improving as continue to refine the game.

Quote from "Turmobil" »

As I said in my above post, IF the Fatalities would be included, they would not be scripted nor random during battles. That would just be fucking retarded. They are fatalities, finishing moves. Not random or normal attacks.

ok, thanks for reiterating -your opinion- (strike that) your comment :confused:

Quote from "Credge" »

Obviously it has to have a trigger, otherwise it will become a random annoyance and the fight will always be a gamble for melee characters (read: not related to skill but luck).

I agree that it should not be included in the game as a random event that can occur during battle. Even if you are not playing hardcore, players still don't want to die as a result of such an obviously random event that they have no control over.

Quote from "Credge" »

Diablo 3: Bosses have certain animation and A.I. queues which result in specific skills being used. You learn them in order to avoid them in order to beat them.

Given that these are the parameters that the designers have to work with anyway, there is no harm in trying to make the scripted events as interesting as possible, even if they are just scripted events.

I think they should keep the decapitation animation, but it only triggers on a killing blow. That way you would be dead anyway, but at least you get to see an interesting death animation that relates to the viciousness of the boss you are fighting.

EDIT: In fact, I think that it might already be an event that only occurs due to a killing blow. So there is really nothing to argue about how it could hurt the gameplay.

Quote from "tristen620" »

they have been saying they want to keep people in the flow of the game, keep things fast paced and (brutal, fun).

Finishing moves would not pull people out of the flow of the game. It is exactly equivalent to an elaborate death animation which all bosses have and which you just stand around to watch anyway. The only difference is now your character gets involved in this animation.

Quote from "tristen620" »

but think about it, if you had to keep an eye on the boss' hp to know when to expect to do some trivial clicking game it would pull you out of whatever intense frenzy a person could get worked up into while fighting a fearsom foe

No.. the boss would effectively be dead at the point that you initiate the move. He would slump over and otherwise stop moving and attacking and just be waiting for you to finish him.

And if you could execute these moves in the middle of a fight as well (they could just be optional during fights), no one said you would have to watch the HP... the boss could just fall into a momentary stupor while the runes/triggers appear which are large and obvious and all you have to do is click them... (the runes are just an idea to get your character involved, don't get hung up on the idea).

Since they have stated that they are such big fans of God of War I would expect nothing less than some type of unique finishing move after you've "killed" the boss.

For example... you fight the boss until its last sliver of health using whatever skills you've invested in. Once the boss reaches its last sliver of health it falls over, weakened. You approach the injured body of the boss and 4 runes appear around the body.. you click them in quick succession and your character does some wicked scripted finishing move.

If they haven't thought about doing that yet, hopefully they read this thread and start thinking about it now! Have you seen the GOW III gameplay demo? If that isn't inspiration... I don't know what is! Maybe it doesn't just have to be a finishing move.. but there could be scripted events that you can trigger at certain moments during the fight, too.