DiabloFans

While I do think it was a bit silly for this delay, I actually am happy we're getting dueling only. I think it's more fun and more social than mindless matchmaking deathmatch games.

Thanks for your support again, guys. I actually added the public games one yesterday because that feature means the most to me. Of course it'd be nice to have more social chat features... but I think a big part of Diablo 2's success was named games, 8 player max, and dueling. That way, the game becomes a hangout. You're always meeting people and that keeps you coming back. Who knows if they actually planned that or not, but back then, no one was complaining about Battle.net the way that we are now.

Putting aside itemization (or w/e other) issues with Diablo 3 that may exist, if your only public interaction is auto-matching quest runs, that puts a lot of pressure on the game itself to be endlessly entertaining, rather than people creating their own entertainment. It also seems to lead to "zero talk" runs. Games like Super Mario, Half-Life, or even mobile games like Tiny Wings, are games that you go nuts on for a while, and then stop. However, games like Diablo 2, Counter Strike, and Warcraft 3 keep you coming back because of the community (in the latter 2 cases, custom maps did it for me!).

The auction house has also had profound effects. I think it's very cool having one, but man, the one time (in D3) I had to do a real trade with someone made me realize how much I miss that interaction.

My conclusion is that all of these slick technologies and efficiencies have made the game so streamlined that it hampered the community/social aspect, and so the game didn't build as much culture around it, in the same way older Blizz games (including WoW) did. But these are just my opinions... maybe I'm becoming a cynical grumpy 24 year old lol.

I just read about this on d2jsp (actually my first time going there). They said it was emcor.dll grabbing your authentication token and allowing someone else to login under you, clear your items, and logout. Apparently they can't change your password or re-login... just a one off thing, but that's all it takes.

Edit regarding: Also read the note from page 3 ""an exploit was discovered by duplicating a session ID basically, if you join a public game with people, they can view your session ID and spoof it to login as you without need for a password or email or anyting if you play with people, try not to play in public games bro, only with people you know""...

I haven't been hacked, but I have randomly been assigned to games with chars with chinese symbols, doing nothing in town... makes me wonder. Because yesterday, I got a friend request from a player with a name like "d3-gold.com", or something along those lines. They must be building lists of people.

Why is it that no one can take a fricking picture. I can do this on my iPhone better

Also, the way they present legendary stats is kind of boring. Was so much funner seeing unique items on the old Arrest Summit site.

NBA playoffs.

*prays Jeremy Lin magically heals in time*

(and no I'm not Asian, I just love his smart play-style and education)

I think it's fun to look back on Blizzard's amazing work on atmosphere and environments, as I'm sure many of us have spent years in their worlds

Below are some images I gathered of similarly themed zones and how they've changed. Enjoy! The palette is fairly brief and limited obviously since D3 isn't released, but there's enough for a few fun comparisons here...

Forest:




Cave:




Jungle:




Dungeon:




Snow:




Desert:

See you back here in 30 minutes with a thread saying Skills UI and Chat UI sucks.

Stumbled on a cool effect earlier, and decided to make a full video! Basically I recorded some Monk footage and slow mo'd it... Blizz art looks really cool at that speed haha.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKpQ0j65X2I

(I wish I could have gone even slower but Fraps is a beast!)

Wonder if it'll get shut down soon? I thought we weren't allowed better social features lol.

Version 4:

Quote from shaggy

Quote from daisychopper

That's correct; the melee characters generally required high-damage weapons, unless you were (ab)using Crushing Blow, because most of those skills added % damage (which is another fun trick nostalgia plays ... anyone else remember when Zeal only added accuracy and not damage??).

Well I think that answers the question then.

The problem in D2 was not "intrinsic power" - it was simply the fact that certain classes could run around killing shit without a weapon while others required a weapon to kill things.

It makes sense, but it also creates s gameplay imbalance to have certain classes being completely dependent on their weapon while others can run around without a weapon and play effectively. That's why it changed. It's the kind of obvious logic that you have to sit back and think the only people who could possibly be irked with this are casters... since melee toons and Zons have been tied to their weapon damage forever.

The rest of your post is obviously accurate about itemization. But I just don't understand this "well it's OK for some classes in D2 to be tied to weapon damage, but GODDAMNIT IF YOU MAKE THEM ALL TIED TO WEAPON DAMAGE YOU'VE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE INTRINSIC POWER OF MY CHARACTER" train of thought.

All it amounts to was a slight nerf to spellcasters (in that they simply couldn't ignore weapon damage any longer). Physical damage toons carry on as if nothing ever really changed. This is a huge deal? Really? To me it sounds like massively trumped-up faux outrage.

There are a hundred other points of contention with "itemization" that I could understand. This doesn't even register in the top 1000 for me. The impact is marginal and insanely overblown.

They could have also gone the other way on this, they could have made melee classes less dependant on their weapons rather than making everyone completely dependent.

I would argue its about striking a balance between intrinsic power and extrinsic power. If you neglect intrinsic power then the feeling of your characters growth feels artificial dependent on his-her items. it's like a soldier who goes from using a rifle to driving a tank the soldiers ability has not improved just his weapon has, Though he can certainly overpower most enemies, but at the end the day he's a pussy not a mighty hero.(just like Grindelwald haha)

i do find it offensive and odd that my wizards power primarily depends on the power of his weapon/items, a wizards power should grow as his mastery and learning grows finding weapons should just augment that power....it even goes against the archetype of the class as blizzard caste it.

in the same way i dont think it makes sense for a melee character to be completely item dependent either, a great warriors power is the result of his strength and prowess not just of how sharp or deadly his weapon is.

basically role playing games are about mimicing or enhancing the kind of reward systems we find in the real-world, in the real world your abilities improve as a result both of you investing time in them(skill-improvement) and as a result of acquiring good tools(Items).

so a good RPG needs to manage skill improvement(Intrinsic power) and item acquisition(extrinsic power) in a way which mimics that found in the real world. IMO diablo 2 struck a better balance between these two aspects and thus going back to the OP...

Getting that balance right will help you to make the best game possible for your resources.

Well, like some of you I imagine, I was watching the Play Station event yesterday online and had the shock/supprise of seeing Chris Metzen announce Diablo 3 is coming to the Playstation 3/4.

After the initial shock wore off - it all started making sense.

I know a lot of the people left on this site are pretty much happy with the game and love playing it (more power to you), but for folks like me that spent years devouring development news, looking forward to this game more than any other EVER, and feel let down by it, yesterday provided a bit of an epiphany.

This game shifted during development from being Diablo 3, the sequel to Diablo 2: LoD, to being Diablo 3 for Consoles.

The evidence is so clear. All those late decisions that got dropped on us back during late 2010, and all through 2011 make so much sense now. This game had to be easy and simple to work on a console.

Skill System (runes not itemized)
Runes, which were supposed to be itemized, were changed to be part of the UI. When we finally saw that UI, my first thought was "really? this is a joke right?". The UI and really the whole skill/rune system feels like a port from a console game. Pick your skill, drop down box, pick your rune effect.
(To answe Maffia: As you say, Blizzard chose not to go that route. I wonder why? Consoles. Look at Path of Exile!! The Itemized skills works GREAT in that game. They chose not to address that so that the game could be made for consoles.

6 Skills at once (Thanks Maffia for the pointer forgot they changed it from 7 to 6 - again late in development)
Square, Triangle, Circle, X, Left Shoulder, Right Shoulder, Left Trigger, Right Trigger
6 Skills, two potions. Point is, simple is better. Point is, it makes much more sense to build a game that confines you to 6 choices when you realize its build for a console gamepad.

Linear "Randomness"
If you, like me, were/are very un-impressed by the supposed "randomness" of Diablo 3, than coming to the realization that the game is supposed to be played on a Console makes it all make sense. Its areas are perfectly designed to be walked through on a console, with multi players.

(To Answer Maffia: I'm not "HAHAing" at Console gamers. Its just a simple fact that if you intend for a game to be played split screen with 4 players, the environment needs to be linear.)

Simple Stats
You level up, and have more skills to chose from. Thats it. It always felt to me like just a grose simplification that really had no justification other than "it just makes it more simple". Well, guess what, BINGO. Simple Simple Simple, so you can play it on your couch.

(To Answe Maffia: Late in development, that stats were changed to be more stragithforward, the skill trees were removed, spending points at level up was removed, and we ended up with basically having more "perks" to chose from when you level. Sounds like another Activision game to me..)

Simple Gear
No one wants to use a spread sheet for a console game - so, now we know why the itemization is so straight forward in Diablo 3.
(To answer Maffia: My point is this: in Diablo 3, you don't think about your gear beyond just wanting maor!!. There are no oddball builds that become viable with certain itemization. No number crunching you can do to make a particular weak skill become godly with proper itemzation. Its just, Find primary stats, Health, Crit% and Dam and Attack speed. Do this for every character you have. Simple. Simple because its made for consoles. In a way this is good news for me. I thought the developers were just that bad, that making the items the way they did was just a massive screw up. But it makes sense now)

4 Player's only
We heard it was because there was too much onscreen clutter. Ok.. I don't buy it. It was because 4 Players works on a console.
(To answer Maffia: Oh really? Call of Duty lets more people play than 4? Shock. Guess how many can play on one system though? 4. 4 Player split screen. In the words of Chris himelf "One Couch to Rule them all")

Lack of Game Creation / Game names
Sorry, but it seems to me like the whole "auto join / auto match maker" system was designed specifically for the console crowd. This makes sense now too.

Look, hate on me if you will (I'm sure you will, and thats ok) but when I heard this news.. I just kinda let out a long sigh.. and the lightbulb went off for me.

Call me a hater, tell me to go on my way, tell me to leave this site if I'm done playing.. but you know what? No! I spent 2 years of my life devouring everything about this game. I've earned the right to voice my opinion on here as long as I like.

I still care about the game, I still (for some insane reason) feel like it could get better. Heck, I even enjoyed the game while I played it to a point. But, the fact remains, that I feel like Blizzard pulled the chair out from under me and about a zillion other Diablo fans. Its their game, they can do what they want to with it, but man.. I feel like all the big (and to me annoying) game changes that came late in development were made just to accomodate consoles.

You can think Diablo 3 is a great game. As I said at the start, more power to you! I really am glad you like it. But, to take this IP which I love so Dearly and make it a Console game (at its heart) really bothers me.

I know some people say "You don't know Diablo, if you did you would know that Diablo was already on a Console, so this is no big deal". Well, your right, except that no one knows about that Console Version of Diablo for PS1 because it was SOO bad. And it should have been. Diablo was a pure PC ARPG, trying to put that in a console should never work.

Sadly, the reverse is true with Diablo 3. So, I feel the console version will work quite well. Heck, I'll buy it, I like console ARPGs. It was, after all, built to be a console ARPG.

Quote from OneTwoSC

Thanks for your support again, guys. I actually added the public games one yesterday because that feature means the most to me. Of course it'd be nice to have more social chat features... but I think a big part of Diablo 2's success was named games, 8 player max, and dueling. That way, the game becomes a hangout. You're always meeting people and that keeps you coming back. Who knows if they actually planned that or not, but back then, no one was complaining about Battle.net the way that we are now.

Putting aside itemization (or w/e other) issues with Diablo 3 that may exist, if your only public interaction is auto-matching quest runs, that puts a lot of pressure on the game itself to be endlessly entertaining, rather than people creating their own entertainment. It also seems to lead to "zero talk" runs. Games like Super Mario, Half-Life, or even mobile games like Tiny Wings, are games that you go nuts on for a while, and then stop. However, games like Diablo 2, Counter Strike, and Warcraft 3 keep you coming back because of the community (in the latter 2 cases, custom maps did it for me!).

The auction house has also had profound effects. I think it's very cool having one, but man, the one time (in D3) I had to do a real trade with someone made me realize how much I miss that interaction.

My conclusion is that all of these slick technologies and efficiencies have made the game so streamlined that it hampered the community/social aspect, and so the game didn't build as much culture around it, in the same way older Blizz games (including WoW) did. But these are just my opinions... maybe I'm becoming a cynical grumpy 24 year old lol.

I completely agree - community is what holds games together. I remember back to the days of Socom and the amount of community there was on that game. There were no forums, and not much for chatrooms.. and the gameplay was your average run of the mill counter strike gameplay but the fact that you and your friends could play together constantly finding new lobbies, and your clans could make clan lobbies so you could all hang out while you enjoy the game you bought.. it made it so much more appealing to want to come and play for years. Diablo 3 needs a community, and the practically solo experience they have running right now isn't working. The chatrooms are nice but the way Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3 had it set up allowed for a presence of population that really made you feel like you were part of a larger place. From the lobby chat rooms that had 50 different characters staring you in the face, random stupid chats and of course the public named games, where you saw hundreds of people enjoying the game you bought, all in different parts of the game.

That is really what makes the world feel alive. Sure the auction house takes away from the very personal trading and bartering (which I feel is a very strong part of Diablo) but if we had public games a lot of high end traders would be making FT games because they wouldn't lose the ridiculous cut that the auction house takes.

I really hope your screenshots spoke to them, because I know that even the starcraft community has been complaining about the overall dead feeling of their lobby since 2010, and here we are doing the same thing with no change. Even if they don't take it part for part here's hoping they'll at least consider it.