DiabloFans

Sounds like an excellent system to me. Guys, games are supposed to be fun. If you like penalties and challenges that badly. Than I have something more fun and challenging for you, it's called life... so get off your computer, and go try to be a millionaire and do something more productive with yourself, and experience those penalties and challenges, I'm sure you'll find them extremely fun, since you love it so much.

I don't understand what the problem here is. It's simply logical, players do not want to die. No one logically finds entertainment in playing a game because "they want to die." Blizzard understands this. Dying in itself is the punishment.

Now the only problem you have to deal with is when a player sees the opportunity cost of dying as being lower than the reward they'd get from doing so. For instance, beating down a boss and killing him at the cost of dying 20 times is worth it to a person than not killing him at all.

In those instances this system self regulates because dying over and over again constantly puts you no where, and you make no progress. You aren't frustratedly "punished" for the death that you don't want to happen, you just simply "go nowhere." In the game. Something that works in its most pristine form, how awesome.

Us others who want to spend some of our free time having fun, we'll enjoy this game, and enjoy the escape from real world stress, challenges, and penalties. Something games are all about in the first place.

You other guys that love challenges and penalties all the time, should try to go raise 12 children, contract HIV, and try to be a millionaire all at the same time. According to you guys, all those challenges and penalties will be right up your ally, I'm sure of it.

Getting ganked and getting angry about it, was fun to me, I loved getting jumped by a player and coming back and beating them down. I also loved getting pwned and camped so bad I'd have to leave the game.

If you're going to take gankability away from me. Then please just do a Normal Mode and PvP Mode type of deal. I have been satisfied with most of Diablo's new developments, but if I have to step in a stupid Arena to fight every time. I will be thoroughly dissapointed.

It takes so much away from the, "OMFG I HATE YOU DIE!!" type of stuff and makes it into this circumcised sportsmanship without any edge.

Partying is terrible. It requires people, and a population to be just right. It makes people start choosing classes based on how easy it is to get groups. How lame... Just make everyone badasses, and when they combine they are a clusterfuck of badassery. That's more fun.

Oh, I guess my post wasn't clear in that area.

If you Pre-Order the game from GameStop it will be for the base version. When other editions (collector's or special) are announced. You can very easily upgrade your Pre-Order to any addition you like. Which is what I'm doing. What's good is if I don't upgrade though, my Pre-Order is still accounted for and paid for.

I put full money down on the Pre-Order at GameStop. GameStop is a huge retailer for publishing companies and has a very comprehensive pre-order program which coordinates with game companies often.

There's a computer record of my pre-order at GameStop. I have a bank statement with my purchase recorded, and have the receipt in a dark and cool place in an unused closet next to an Atari 2600 box in a house that I've lived in for 14 years.

I know the manager at my GameStop and my friend works there. When the Collector's Edition is announced it will be a very simple matter to upgrade my Pre-Order status to the Collector's. I'm going to be spending this money anyways. But now when the game comes out. I have less headache and stress.

This is good for the game since pre-orders allow them to figure out exactly how many units they should publish and expect to sell on release. This allows companies like GameStop to coordinate their handling of pre-orders more smoothly.

I don't get what all the negativity against pre-ordering is. Maybe if I was 12 or couldn't afford it then I guess I would allow nominal negative logic to sway me into believing, "Yeah, not preordering is the smartest thing I could ever do!"

For anyone who doesn't want to read the post and just know the question. It is...

Where did Diablo II's interface stylings originate from? What ancestral game (if any) preceded Diablo II to cause this form of interface/gameplay style to be used? (if you're not going to read the post, then I'll add, we're talking "precisely" almost down to window positioning and screen percentage measurement, not, "you shoot fireballs in one game, and you shoot fireballs in the other")

Reasoning for this Thread:
I was having a conversation with a friend about how similar Aion was to WoW, in terms of interface/execution. The interface is extremely similar, game play, down to holding down left and right clickers was the same. Character management and inventory system also shared extreme similarities. Even their Flight Path type of interface used grossly the same interface. (same modal box size, same layout, same positioning of elements, list style, etcetera) This all excludes the combat "chain" system which is present in the game, along with the flying, and character customization are really some of the only unique aspects. (then again, if you didn't put something unique in the game it'd be almost a clone, and not worthy of developing)

He argued that, it wasn't similar, just that every single similarity the interface, controls, and UI elements shared to WoW were simply, "standard." I later researched in to previous MMO's such as Matrix Online, Earth and Beyond, Everquest, Ragnarok Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online, Neverwinter Nights, etcetera, and I found the definition of "standard" seemed to be relative, being that all these games had interfaces fairly different from WoW's by the same standards.

The only games that really shared similarities that were so strong were Everquest, WoW, and Aion.

Everquest I can't account for why, is so similar to WoW. WoW's interface is simply channeled mostly from Diablo II's, and Aion, well, Aion just seemed to copy the biggest most successful MMO in history, (WoW) which is a smart move right? The best business model for them would be to take que's from the most successful competitor.

That question leads me to this, if WoW's ancestral interface came primarily from Diablo II, and Aion's from WoW. What came before Diablo II that championed the same style of interface?

Loose definition of this interface style:
A singular Move/Action bar lined up horizontally at the bottom of the screen.
Square action icons within a frame. (seems mundane, but this didn't HAVE to be designed like this)
Character management system with imagery of the character in the center, and slots for equipment on or around the characters' persons.
Square/Grided inventory management system. (again, doesn't seem very special, but think about it, they could've chosen a plain 'list' like Final Fantasy or some other form of management)
Possibly any other similarities you can see.

It's also staunchly amazing how the games that seemed to share the greatest similarities to Diablo II's interface also ended up being the most successful amongst their competition.

Anyone see a pattern, in the fact that character customization and equipments appear on the "right" side of the screen in Aion, WoW, and Diablo II, and moves/build customization appears on the "left" side? Who started that trend? Because it seems to be almost a brainwash by developers to mysteriously all do the exact same thing. I've yet to see a developer, that didn't follow that pattern. (again, a sign of influence or unconscious inspiration by a predecessor)

Also can anyone clarify why Everquest and WoW's interface seem to be very similar to each other and Diablo II's when every other MMO on the market didn't seem to go the same route as them when they were released?

There was a debate on whether the Monk would be wearing heavy armor or not? Seems like a pretty idiotic debate to me. This is Blizzard, they don't really throw crazy loops in there, they do pretty predictable things because their audience is so large. I guess people don't really get that. Oh well, common sense isn't so common I guess.

I don't use these forums a lot, I just assume point out every aspect of something. But I've noticed something that hadn't been said in the first couple pages of this thread, and I noticed there was something obvious to me. I haven't read all 30 pages but I'll just say this and someone can tell me if someone else already said it.

During some interview months before the Monk announcement, it was said that they had both classes, 1 class they said was using programmer art with a default model, and the other needed real, actual modeling and animations made from the beginning.

At that moment I called a friend and told him, "They're going to announce the Holy class next." he said, "How do you know." I said, "They said they had a class that required actual animations and modeling. That would be something with complicated animations, like a Holy class, with auras and melee moves."

The other thought I knew, was, "What class could get by on programmer art." to me, "programmer art." means like a programmer can just get by representing something with a solid 1px white line or some jazz... solid white lines and... sol--- arrows... ?? RANGED! So we know, from the basic fundamental beginning of the making of this class, before it was even concepted, it was using programmer art for its gameplay. Best suited for say a default model shooting 1px solid white line projectiles slopped together by some programmer at his desk to feel out the class. This means, this character is ranged ranged ranged, even waaaay before it ever even went into concept.

So uh, whatever it is, it's HEAVILY projectile based from the get-go and there's no way it's some other kind of class. Because as we know with the monk, other more complicated looking classes with auras and melee moves, require animations and models from the start. I'm not saying it won't have other moves or trees, but the fundamental basic fabric of what this class is, even before actually deciding was ranged projectiles.

Well, whatever system Bashiok and them come up with, we'll find out if it works or not. As soon as the game is released to the public within hours we'll all be on it finding and pointing out those exploits with which they'll discover, and the system will be amended to fix it, maybe to a point worse or non-graceful then some of the good ideas I've read, all for the benefit of fairness.

Everything always seems like there is a positive and negative in theory, but in practice things start to change a lot. Especially in practice by thousands of players.

Most of the time as you begin development you don't even know exactly what it is you need, and people take on the task of multiple roles, as the project continues and people start to get a larger workload and focus more on specific aspects, then all of the sudden you might realize exactly what things you will need in particular, "Ok well now we need someone else to work solely on this. We are very familiar with this portion, we have finalized and fleshed out other things. We for certain need this."

I mean that happens frequently. If you really think about it, on a lot of projects it's hard to just fully flesh out a full force of people right from the beginning. The creativity aspect lags behind the need for work. "How is the inventory system going to work?" You can't delegate that to an employee if you don't know what they're going to be making. So then you come up with the concept, ok now you know what you need done. Now you can hire the guy to work on that portion.

Not exactly what Blizzard might be doing, but just some illumination on the subject.

Four for the story. Eight for PvP and we're golden. Too much for PvP was not that fun either. 8 was just enough chaos to be fun and not be lost, yet a little too much for PvE.

It's all about Diablo III for me. I will not play any other game except for Diablo III, whatever hours I would have used playing something else, will go into Diablo III. I have already warned loved ones in advance that I will be departing from my participation in "life" for a little while when Diablo III comes out. That's what I did for Diablo II also. It was notorious back in my Highschool days with my parents as being, "That game that stole my life away." I can only hope my fiance will be able to handle Diablo III's release. I am also putting together a new box along with the release to make sure I can squeeze as much performance as I can.