DiabloFans

Well half their developement team that originally worked on the Diablo franchise left...they either went their seperate ways, went to different companies, or just branched off and made their own. The only people left to pick up were they left off are probably the same blizzard eomployees that helped design WoW...so you got one half that still knows enough about Diablo to make it a game, but the other half that does most of the game design. Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft all had distinct graphics and features. D3 seems to resemble WoW. Other than just using the graphics engine, it's the only thing I can think of that would explain it so much other than just saying "Well gee, WoW is really popular and looks great, hell, we'll make Diablo3 look the same way too."

Exactly, you can't honestly assume that because D2 had those sub-genre of classes, that means D3 must be equipped with the same thing? Blizzard has alot of talented artists, designers, and writers who can come up with unique and wicked classeses without having to rely on the basis of "sword and shield, range, and magic"

They've dont it before. Every character will have the same "feel" like melee, magic, etc. But use your imagination...make the magic and abilities seem bold and new, and not just borrows. Witch Doc's zombie wall. Nec's bone wall, but animated and can attack back. It's creative, but that's why so many people say they share such similarities. The fear ability is like the necro's fear ability, accept it's not a curse, just a scary image above his head. The fire bomb is like the bomb the assassin throws as one of her first level moves. I think the locust swarm was the one move I saw from him that seems new...or atleast I havent seen it in any diablo game.

Im not saying make ALL the abilities brand new. Something like...combustion, have a curse-like ability that sticks to an enemy for "x" time then explodes causing "y" damage. Like a ticking time bomb. Or place it on yourself if you know your going to die.

As for classes, have something like a martial artist who can control the elements, etc. Most of us can agree when we saw the WD, we first thought of the Necro. Why? Because they seemed so similar. I guess that's what I'm trying to see; make a character that dosn't remind us of a D2 character right off the bat.

But part of playing the game is that sense of "freshness" you get whenever you play a sequel. Taking a trip down memory lane is nice and all, but if you feel like your playing the same character from D2, but with a different game, it dosn't make it as much fun as before. Having one or two old classes is fine, but making 'newer' ones that play like old ones...why even make the new ones at all? I honestly don't think it should be that hard for Blizzard to scrap up 3 new ideas for classes, abilities, etc. If your giving a class basically the same things a different one had in D2...its just not fun to me.

I think the coloring scheme should fit the mood. I like both points of view; Blizzard's take on the graphics, and the fan's take on the graphics. I like both pictures, I like both ways of coloring, which is why I think both should be in the game. As I said, it should depend on the mood, the atmosphere.

If you're outside, and your in a part of the world that isn't completely taken over by evil, than having color isn't such a bad thing. But, if your in a deep, dark dungeon, then deffinantly, the colors should reflect that a.k.a the atmosphere. Change some parts of the world depending on where you are, and leave others the same. Let color truely take charge, and not just make everything "bright and clear" or "dark and gothic".

Diablo is a gothic style game, but not EVERYTHING in gothic culture is always, and completely, dark or black. All I'm saying is meet in the middle, and everyone will be happy.

Imagine parties of 10 or 20 playing D2 or D3 - we'd spend more time arguing over sharing the green set pieces and so on than actually playing the game.

I have to agree, item looting in D2 with teams is a pain; and that's just with three or four people. If 10 to 20 people were playing...it just dosn't make sense.

WoW was build for huge groups because so many people are playing in a huge world with different quests, etc. etc. That game was designed as an MMO and plays like one --- with lots of people playing ( in sometimes ) really large groups. ( i.e. raid parties, etc. )

But Diablo was never designed for that game play; the world may be huge from a certain persepctive ( randomly generated maps help ), but since its isometric, on a certain scale, most levels are condensed, so having 20 or so people flow through that tight space would be insane.

Plus, the monsters. You have to look at it like every other Diablo game; there could be a horde of monsters, but 1 hero could wipe them out, or at the most, 2 people. Some monsters are easier to kill and sometimes die in 1 shot. To have anymore than 10 people take on the world of Diablo all at once wouldnt be fun...because there wouldnt be enough hacking and slashing to go around.

How can you say it's not a big deal? Anyone who plays blizzard games ( especially Diablo in this case ) knows it's going to pwn hard upon it's release. When I found out, I screamed like that fat kid from the movie Accepted.

I agree, either they will have the mercenary from Act III or from Act II. Maybe there will be something like a fallen angel class? It's hard to speculate since everything is a secret right now, but I'm sure w.e characters come out they will have to well balanced and fit along with the other characters without seeming like they are copying them. That's why I have doubts in the warrior class...it would be too similar to a barbarian and thus, boring. He already represents melee, so I think hybrids would be nice.

With all of the destructable enviroments now in Diablo 3, I think having abilities like that would really imrpove gameplay.

Wouldn't a geomancer just be a mix of like a shaman and a druid? I think it would be awesome only if they added martial arts to it, like the monk class from Diablo I or the assassin from Diablo 2. Martial Arts and Elemental powers would rule all.

To be honest, we've only seen two characters, and the female barbarian dosn't look old at all. Plus, if you look at Diablo lore, the Necromancer is D2 was actually 200 years old I think. ( By magic, but still, old )

Until we've seen the other three classes we can't judge the age of all of them.

I have a question. Well, a few actually.

1. Didn't they actually start working on Diablo 3 a few years ago? I thought I remember reading that from somewhere; that, and they were basically finished with the game, so at this point they are just adding in everything else.

2. Which would be released first, Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2? Maybe at the same time?

3. Does anyone think the petition to 're-design' the color-scheme and everything will actually work? I have my doubts, and at first I really didn't care what the game looked like until I saw a few edited screen shots of the game for 'what it should be' and I must say, I like the re-designed colors and armor better than the 'World of Warcraft' style they use now.

I know no one has any facts, so solid speculation would be awesome.

I think balancing comes with era of any game. When you first play a game ( any game, not just blizzard ) you may notice a few faults here or there, but generally no one ever complains. It's usually a few years and a couple patches and game expansions later that people are introduced to a new way of doing things ( which they like ) so they start to hate the old way of doing things because they find it 'glitchy' or 'un-balanced'. ( though, those beatles were REALLY annoying unless you had full lightning immunity )

I think Diablo 2 and LOD wanted you to focus mainly on magic resistances, plus the 'cut-down' periods of frost and poison effects. It's all about the armor and charms, and unless you have a pally with salvation, the game gets really hard once they start throwing the magic at you. But, poison was bad mainly because if you had low or no resistance, and someone with a real high poison damage, you could die in seconds.

Why would you want like...hundreds of people playing on the same realm all at the same time? ( on Diablo III, I mean. )

I don't think it would be just a graphical issue, it just wouldn't be fun. Everyone beefs up their characters so they can take on hordes of demons by themselves, not so they can build them for 20 man raid parties. That's for WoW, but this is Diablo. It plays differently, it acts differently, and it's run differently. The game was meant so that if you did team up with other people, it would take no more than maybe 5 to really get the job done. Anymore is just over-kill, and it takes the fun out of it.

Besides, when more people enter the game, didn't the monsters get stronger too? Wouldn't that be a major factor in too many people playing all at once? Plus how would you share that much exp with that many people?

I have good poison resistance, especially in the game now...I think it's at max. But why force yourself to achive maximum resistance all the time? They aren't like spells that, if you resist them, ( especially later on in the game ) they will do less damage. It gets to a point were if you don't have high resistance, you essentially die, and when your being poisoned while twenty or so other things are attacking you and adding to the damage, then it's just no fun. Balancing is all that's required.