DiabloFans

Much closer to D2 than D1, in terms of gameplay. D1 was slower paced, enemies were more dangerous, and skills/abilities were more fluid between classes. Small random set of non-linked quests. Classes are general archetypes with only a certain superficial level of backstory.

D2 got faster paced, the player became more powerful relative to his foes, and there were more of them, and classes gained seperate skill trees. Story is told in acts and gains some progressive linked questlines. Classes became more specific, though they are still not specific characters, they do gain specific places of origin and some personality.

D3 now has seperate skill trees, seperate damage scaling stats, the player is even more powerful relative to enemies (and there are even more of them), and quests are justified and linked, and told through dialogue between players and helpers, as well as lorebooks. Classes are more than just archetypes and are distinct characters, with not only settings and origins but individual goals and outlooks.

Seems to me to be a natural evolution from 1->2->3, D1 in no way seems closer to D3 than D2.

How is it that every time someone posts this, or Leahblo, or Adriablo, or any of the other big theories that have been discussed to death, it's presented as a new idea?

Quote from Equinox

Wouldn't put too much stock in that reply. They probably don't have the time and devs are typically not as concentrated as some players out there.

Quote from Mastodon

Rub* it in your face! :Thumbs Up: Sorry, I feel mean atm.

Yeah too bad Blizzard changed that...

Yeah, they blue posted about it not too long back. Felt weird without scaling, so now they ramp up difficulty from act 1-4 (though gradually, I assume, since they didn't nerf Act 1, just buffed later acts).

Most of the play testers that are playing through nightmare/hell/inferno are people who have been playing for a long time, because they're Blizzard people who have been playing since (or before) the start of the internal alpha. They might not equate to absolute top-tier players from Diablo 2, but they're pretty experienced by this point.

Tester is a bad word, because its way too general. There are QA Testers, and there are Play Testers.

QA Testers: Contracted or Full Time Employees who spend hours and hours running into walls and doing weird shit looking for bugs. They spend 8-14 hours a day in a cubicle trying to break the game and writing a report on how to reproduce the issue every time they succeed. They don't really "play" the game in any kind of normal way.

Play Testers: Just about anybody who plays the game. Usually this will start off with just team members playing the game and giving feedback, then eventually testing with other people in the company, and finally a company wide Alpha, often with some small groups outside the company (tissue testers generally, who have never played the game before and only play once, to get an idea how new players approach the game). Finally, you get internal beta (pretty much anyone who is affiliated with the company can test) and external beta (us!). Playtesting groups will still generally be brought in for tissue testing. Also, by the time a game makes it to external beta the focus has *usually* shifted from game play to technical/hardware compatibility and stress testing. However, large amounts of data in the form of metrics will be gathered throughout most of the internal and external beta: how many times players die, how many monsters they kill, which abilities they use most, enemies killed with each ability/weapon type/damage type, average damage output/kills/deaths with each class, etc etc just about everything you can think of. This is generally where prompts for balance changes come from (rather than player feedback).

For the most part, play testers aren't paid.

Blizzard has its own QA department, but not a dedicated play testing department (AFAIK they don't really exist, due to the nature of playtesting).

Ah, another thread of conspiracy bullshit and misinformation. It's almost as good as a cup of coffee.

Literally all you have to do to solve this debate is look at Sc2. Sc2 doesn't have serious hacking issues. There we go, we now have our answer, there's nothing to worry about. Will hacks/bots show up? Sure, they always do. But they will be few and far between.

I came here to downvote, but after reading the thread I upvoted instead.

Quote from dnygren09

Im pretty sure that the first comment in that link doesnt have anything to do with your undead wirt theory?

That's him.

Quote from claven

O HAI GUSY I PLAYD TEH FIRST 45 MINUTS OF THE GAME LAL AND NOW I M AN EXPRT!!!!1111


seriously?

Now now now, the solution is to explain why he's wrong, not point it out.

Of course, literally none of this matters, since virtually any strategy will be enough to beat normal.

Quote from Ascendo312

This week a spent several days maxing out every class and obtaining every achievement. Here are my tips and observations.

5 Tips for Launch Day:

1. Select “Elective Mode” in Options. I overlooked this at first because I didn’t know it was there. This will allow you to fully customize all of you skills and toolbars.
2. Invest ALL your gold and resources into your blacksmith. Crafting will be the best source for gear. Craft selectively based on your biggest slot need.
3. Select purely DPS skills, attributes, gear. Normal difficulty is going to be so easy that you want to maximize your killing efficiency. I maxed out all 5 classes to level 13 without dying once. For the boss fights, if needed, you can always temporarily swap out for some defensive and buffing skills before the fight.
4. Play in a group for the best drops.
5. Witch Doctor’s Soul Harvest is not OP. I admit this is the most powerful skill in beta, however do not assume it will be the best skill for the full game (or that WD is the best class). We don’t know how this + intelligence will scale up with leveling. The DPS boost for a level 50 character could likely be much less than a level 10 character.

5 Opinions from Beta:

1. D3 feels exactly like D2. Except with a predictable facelift to the graphics and UI.
2. GameSpot Review predication: 8.5 – 9.0. The game has been in development for so long and expectations have been so high, I just do not see it scoring any better than a 9.0. There is nothing groundbreaking (e.g. no PVP) about this game. Torchlight has already incorporated many of the innovative ARPG concepts that made the Diablo 3 announcement so exciting back in 2008. Yup it has been 4 years already.
3. D3 will be perfect for a console. You literally can play the whole game with just a mouse. It is mindless hack & slash. Expect D3 to be on PS3 and XBOX within 12 months.
4. Too many barrels, urns, bookshelves etc. The amount of interactive junk in the dungeons almost seems silly. The only yield tiny amounts of gold so what is the point? I think they should reduce the amount of interactive junk and increase the potential for a drop so players don’t ignore it.
5. Barb was the most fun. The barb felt like an invincible cannonball--leaping into the fray and destroying everything in the way. For me at least, this seems like what a fast paced ARPG should feel like.

Tip 3 is absolutely wrong, you don't need to stack damage for the early game, you are much better served by stacking metastats, particularly +XP per kill. It's only possible to guess at the relative difficulty through normal, but it's likely that you would be better served by having an extra level or two of XP at the end then a bunch of damage items you will inevitably sell. Magicfind and goldfind are good too. Combat stats just aren't required, at least not in the beta, and what you need you will get from levels/non XP secondary stats.

As for your opinions, well, they are YOUR opinions, but I disagree with every single one of them.

Quote from raginkajan

Quote from Mezardan

if you think D3 have childish graphix may be you should stop playing video games in your basement secretly and open to the outside world. it is time for you to see all the world's horrors and human cruelty in its pure form, you are mature enough now.

Well I don't have a basement, and I'm a war veteran so I have seen the "cruelty" that you think you know from watching tv.

I never said anything about being scared in a video game. Diablo 1 and 2 were designed to pull you into the world, and there is nothing to be ashamed about with following that path. It's like reading a great book, you get pulled into the portrayed world, all I'm saying is that from the video and screenshots, Diablo 3 feels different than its predecessors.

Thanks for all the responses!

Congratulations on your trolling by the way, you really have done an excellent job. The more toned-down lead-in for your OP really helped, most people make it too obvious by hitting caps lock and going ZOMG TEH GAEM IS RAINBOWS RIGT GUYS LOL I'MMA BUY TORCHILIGT SCREW BLIZZRD. The title was a bit much though, kinda killed it.

A few pointers though:

1.) Try to establish the account somewhat before you start trolling, it makes it blend in a little more. You can see this with some of the guys that spam about 200 posts spewing verbal diarrhea before they make their first troll topic. The trick is making those posts subtler, like your topic was (minus the title, you really can't make the title a question without giving away that you are trolling, and it's too overtly inflammatory regardless)

2.) Don't counter someone's trolly basement rebuttal with an army vet claim. Rookie mistake, you lose all your credibility. Even if you were an army veteran, whipping it out in response to a cheap insult makes you seem desperate and defensive.

3.) Get an avatar, seriously, having a blank one destroys just as much of your credibility as your low post count. Makes it look as though you aren't established on the forums.

Anyway, good luck, good first attempt, keep at it!

Quote from Hpnot1Q

Since when was Diablo 3 supose to be competing with Amnesia when it comes to scare factor? This is a Action RPG mate no dead space 2

I agree, I don't think of Diablo as a horror franchise either. Dark? Yes. Violent? Absolutely. But not horror, really. Demons don't make something horrific, the atmosphere does. Diablo has some creepiness to its atmosphere, but it's an action game.

Quote from Eggtchup

You have to be childish to be scared by a game, maybe you have just grown up?

Games like Amnesia and Bioshock have scared me, that's part of why they're fun. What exactly is childish about being scared by a well-made horror game?

Quote from Antirepublican

There was a blue post clearly stipulating that inferno was nerfed. They even went into detail about the nerf and why it was being nerfed. A lot of wannabe hardcore crybabies went to the forums and did their waterworks dance, QQ! A few days later, shockingly 'wink' 'wink', Blizzard suddenly made another announcement completely contradicting what they said earlier. Now, supposedly, inferno is to be made even more difficult!!!

Well....

NEWSFLASH: They lied....its pretty damn obvious isn't it!! They have no obligation to tell the ignorant fan base the whole truth. Inferno was obviously nerfed! It is no surprise! They nerfed it for the exact reason given in the first post; to better allow access to to inferno and to allow them progress at their own pace through the now progressive content.

The monster levels mean nothing, they completely control how those mobs scale.

I am sorry if you bought into the hype once more, but that is all it is. Blizzard, once again, just hyped up their game by telling the fan base exactly what it wanted to hear. Yah its a real shocker I know....

You're 100% wrong. They announced they'd made changes to inferno by making it get progressively harder instead of being the same flat difficulty throughout. A bunch of idiots like you who don't know how to read interpreted that as a nerf, and blue posts responded explaining that it was actually a buff, because later acts ramp up much higher than they did before.

/thread