DiabloFans

I appreciate your suggestion, and you're right that after you hit clvl ~70 you just did runs and maybe pvp.

Blizzard IS addressing this, however, and have stated that they will have more 'end-game content' for us so we don't just do runs for loot.

I get the impression you really appreciated the social atmosphere of D2, which for many, WAS the best part about it. From the looks of things, Blizz wants to ramp up the pace a bit by keeping it at that lower player limit. I, myself, wish I could kick players off my game for just hanging out in town. If there's 4 players actually fighting, and 3 back at town chillin and dickin' around, then they should leave. It increases the hit points of the monsters, making the game harder. If you're not going to play with us, create your own game. Its rather rude actually, IMO to join a game and 'do whatever you wanted'. You're making the game harder, and we need your help to play. So play with us.

Anyway, I think i'd like to see maybe 6 player limit, but no more. There IS a lot happening on the screen and I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to Blizz for their 'balancing' purposes. We shall see how it plays when it is released!

DKR

There are not as many people playing BF:BC2 as there are BlOps. But I never have a hard time finding a game! Several servers are always packed, though. So if you were thinking about purchasing it, I wouldn't think you'd regret it my friend.

I played Sacred 2 for an hour. Uninstalled. Been collecting dust for years now. Sacred 1 is my fav. There's even a very easy way to get online with people via LAN, but its actually Internet. Look it up. Pretty cool.

Drankensang- Look THIS up. Found on PCGamer. Its a BEAUTIFUL browser game. Free to play. Pleasantly surprising.

I Might reinstall FO:NV, but I think I'll look up some mods for it.

DKR

EDIT: Wasn't on BF servers yesterday!

Hmmm, I like the look of grim dawn and Path of Exile. except, I get the feeling PoE is game where you play as a Holy Knight, Paladin, or as stated, Templar. I like games that give choice of class. I'll look it up though. Nice post bud. thanks!


DKR

What happened to Diablo-style games?

Diablo, sacred, Divine Divinity, PlanetScape Torment, Baldurs Gate, IceWind Dale, etc etc.

Those are old now. Is that isometric-view style of Action-RPGs a thing of the past?

Personally, I don't like the moving camera of Sacred 2. Dragon Age was fun, great story. Dungeon seige....blah.

I miss that isometric-view, top down RPG. If I had an education in game design, a billion dollars, and time on my hands I'd make one with today's graphical technology.

Care to donate?

DKR

Sacred. D2. BF:BC2.

I just might reinstall Fallout New vegas....hmmm

Thought someone might appreciate the news, if you haven't heard already.

"Speaking during an investors conference call today, Activision said that some of the back-end tech being developed for the Diablo 3 auction house can be leveraged for its globally popular PC RTS game, StarCraft 2.

Rather than item trading as players will be doing in Diablo, Activision suggested that players would be able to create put their own custom-made maps up for sale to other players."


http://www.computerandvideogames.com/314167/diablo-3-like-trading-may-arrive-in-starcraft-2/?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS

DKR

Quote from Kashalot91

Its an act he puts on. Hes done it in many of his videos. Its a comedy act he inst actually serious.

I was questioning whether or not this was 'real'. Thanks

DKR

I suggest viewing the following. A gamer who is very, very upset about the RMAH and Always-Online feature. It quickly becomes rather entertaining as the video advances. ~4:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYjljdje-g

My favorite quote at ~0:49 and ~1:25

Cheers,
DKR

After reading the first paragraph :

So let me ask you: Have you been on Diablo 2 recently? Maybe even just 3 years ago, or yesterday? I'm guessing not, because you've been so busy with developing Diablo 3. But let me mention that the reason why Diablo 2 has survived until this day is due to PvP. Just pure PvP. That is the reason why people still purchase the Diablo Battle Chest at Best Buy for $40 a pop 10 years after release, when there are modern games like Portal 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on the shelves. For Christ sakes, Diablo 2 is over 10 years old, and thousands upon thousands of people still play it religiously every single day. As you've even claimed yourself, people spend actual $$$ on D2 pixels via 3rd party sites. Even for those people who do not spend real $$$, you know what they do? They do countless Meph runs, Chaos runs, Baal runs, and other such runs just to find better items. Why do people do all of that still? Because farming the same bosses over and over is fun? Because people enjoy spending money on pixels to look cool? No. It's because people want to build their characters up and become the best at PvP.

I decided to stop reading. I didn't buy this game for PvP. And people asking to duel and people going hostile...just doesn't happen that often. Some people ARE running quests/boss runs because its fun. (to find items)

Anyway, you want PvP to be more supported/prevalent in D3. I got your back on that. A lot of different people play Diablo for different reasons. the only reason I'm stopping at this point, is because you are saying everyone plays D2 for PvP. Maybe the people on your friends list. I find PvP in Diablo games strange. Thats me. But I support your desire for better PvP support, for sure. Just don't generalize your desire to the whole community of players, my friend!

Let's just see what happens.

DKR

Always-Online kinda sucks, IMO. I have internet. But it goes out sometimes. Just like sometimes your car breaks down randomly.

I can't say I 'like it', all I can say is games will eventually all be 'online' per say, so I'm just not surprised.

I can only speak for myself here. I'm only buying Diablo 3 and Battlefield 3 to play online. So it ofcourse it doesn't bother ME if they require internet connection. And the majority of people DO have internet these days. But not EVERYONE. How many thousands are there that can't access the net? Wouldn't this, on an economic standpoint, translate into millions of dollars of revenue from box sales if these people could ALSO enjoy the game?

I guess all I'm saying is, I see their reasoning behind 'always online', but it sucks some people are left out because of it!!

EDIT: yea, wait, to second what others have suggested, they actually can't make it so Offline and Online are completely separate? That ACTUALLY CANNOT do this? I'll do some digging, because I'm having a tough time believing that. Maybe I'll discover I'm wrong!

DKR

You ever write something and second guess yourself? Well Id like to clarify a little bit if I may.

I should have made it clear that I think there is a clear distinction between trolling and complaining. Blizzard needs to be questioned and prodded for how things work. The problem is, people prodding Blizzard are using pitchforks and torches. For example, two posters who replied to my original post demonstrated exactly what I meant to get across.

Zero(pS)
People trusted Blizzard on SC2 and they delivered a mainstream half-baked online experience. That's what everyone fear. To mention just a few problems SC2 has that weren't addressed are chat channels, massive problems with custom games (who have been "fixed" after 6-8 months, and only partially, you still can't "name" your game to describe game modes, etc.), absolutely no clan functionality, absolutely no weekly/monthly tournaments - and before you even think of saying "they don't have to deliver all those features" well, Warcraft 3 had all these, all they had to do was polish them and it would be fine, and they were all awesome features, and yet they managed to screw up.

I'm not saying SC2 isn't good (like many SC1 fanboys claim). It is in fact imho the best true real time strategy games released until today, but to think that "battle.net features" screwed an otherwise near perfect gameplay experience is saddening.

D3 is walking the same path in some aspects. Instead of going a more "we have better stuff online" approach to incentive people to play online, and still offer lan and offline functionality for those who "need" it (it's not always about wanting this), they're just going the easy way to prevent piracy, and won't even admit that's the real reason for it - they claim it's "to enhance and incentive coop play" - everyone knows that's bullsh*t.

Although I loved the no-stats solution, right now I think the "no skill points" approach is really lazy too. Instead of finding a decent balance for respecs (like 1 skill per act, and a whole respec per difficulty, or something along those lines) they just went the "you can choose whatever, any time you want, maybe even during a dungeon in-between encounters". Skill points being saved or even transfered later to different skills is something you can easily fix by limiting respec, Jay talked about it as if you could just freely respec every skill whenever you wanted, and that "saving skill points" was actually possible. If people can blast through the game without spending skill points, it's probably because something is a little bit too easy don't you think?

People bash them because they want the game to be good, because they love it. While I don't personally like that approach, sometimes mass mob rage is the only way to make the developers see that we're right (just like it worked with SC2 chat channels), while "soft talking" won't take you anywhere, except polite and premade responses, like most ones Bashiok give. And then he'll answer but hardly talk about it or respond to reasonable posts, he will usually just bash a very stupid post with bad arguments (in the post he's bashing, not his post).


And Seniri
How can you possibly laud anybody from Blizzard right now for their apparent skill in dealing with idiocy? Are you insane? The so called idiocy on the forums was brought about by Blizzard's inflexibility. They get an idea in their heads, they do it, then when the shit hits the fan they cower behind half truths and silence.

I *will not* be able to play this game if an internet connection is required. I am irate. I had to move to an area with no internet access, and because of that Diablo 3, the game I've been waiting for a decade to have, is out of my reach? That is unacceptable. What about our friends and family in the military, with shoddy internet overseas, will they have to miss out on Diablo 3? You bet your ass they will. Is that fair?

And don't tell me it's my fault I live with no internet, or that I should move to a new area, because that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that Diablo isn't an MMO, and should not require a constant connection. That's lunacy.

Did they flame me? Were they aggressive? Did they call me insane? Well, Seniri asked if I was insane, which I am. Mwahahahahaha!!! But these 'type' of responses are the correct ones. Opposition/disagreement comes in two flavors. Respectable and Pitiful. These guys are an example of the former, which is awesome. They have some great reasons for their thoughts and they can communicate them well. And they make perfect, reasonable sense of why they feel the way they do. We need more people like that in the gaming community.

Anyways, I appreciate the feedback!

DKR

Quote from Wingless

I agree with you.

You have some reading to do though

There has been given several examples on how runes can affect skills. Such as Arcane Orb, when runed, becoming an Orb that floats around the character and damages anyone getting too close.

So it is known that runes can change offensive to defensive skills and so on

I feel a little bad for Bashiok as well. He's replying to complete retards, but his job dictates he can't call them as he sees them. He has to be all polite and sh!t

I was completely ignorant of that fact. I thought I stumbled onto something! And you take my thunder away.
But there ya go. perfect example bud. Good skill for a....melee mage? Possibly!

I will admit my uncontrollable urge to write a topic like this. Unfortunately, this is a rant. But I'll try my best to spare the emotional language and just make my point. I'll be making two points-

1. Stat points removed, which gives the vibe "no more 'real' control over customizing characters". If you have that vibe, thats cool. Definitely. If you take your initial reaction to that news and amplify it over the forums here then I want you to cool your jets.
- Want to make more of a tank build? What would we do in D2...pump Dex, and Vit for life and block. That's 'down to the bone' micro-fine-tuning customization. In D3, you build a tank by active/passive skills. select the active that boost health by 300% or whatever it is. Choose that passive that increase block chance or block amount. I've never seen a skill like that in gameplay videos, but if Blizzard says there's going to be crazy customization, then there will be. Gems will probably raise your favorite stats too, by the way, to even further develop your tank. Bottom Line: You haven't seen all the skills, much less all the skills combined with 1 of the SEVEN runes. No one has, yet. But YOU think you know that customization won't exist in D3. Did anyone notice on PCGamer what looked like the Zombie Wall but it was cheerleading zombies that climbed on top of each other to fall down on the enemy? Was I the only one to recognize this could mean certain runes don't just amplify damage/cost/cooldown, but can change skills from defensive to offensive ones? Tell me where you could do that in D2. And tell me that total skill-alteration is not customization for a particular build.

2.Lastly, this Bashiok guy, (new here, still unsure of who the Blue poster is :o) is doing a fine job of replying to posts and giving us information. I just read several ridiculous posts from smartasses who don't just dislike the system, its apparent they don't understand the new systems, and they're talking shit about Blizzard and Bashiok. Regardless, what is this? What is with this bashing? And rebellion against Blizzard? There's actually people here who go and bash Bashiok for merely being more or less the middleman? (what I've gathered about him so far)

I'm 'iffy' on some things. Definitely. But calm down. These developers have played D1 and D2. They played Torchlight. They played Divine Divinity. They played Planetscape Torment. They played Sacred. And Risen. They get it. They live it. They build it.

You read it. And puke all over the place.

This is not a respectable way to start out on a forum site, writing a rant I mean. From now on, I'll follow in the steps of some other members and not reply to rants directed towards Blizzard and any other employees/affiliates. But if this crap keeps up, this bashing and smartass aggression about things the public has not even seen, then I'm out man. Acquire the skill necessary to disagree with respect.

DKR

I gotta agree with your point, but even though I feel the same way, I think I'm just accustomed to a certain style and could be biased. At least I can realize that right?

Anyway, keeping it more casual and less hardcore doesn't seem attractive to us. I'll throw out an uneducated guess that you're twenty-something years old. We grew up when game developers could really go out on a limb and get creative, and make that game that will only be received by X amount of people, or TYPE of people. You and I are a very small minority and you know what, even though I might share some similar opinions as you, I always feel so 'old' and 'conservative'. Like that old man who complains about young hooligans these days. "maaaaahhhhh, back in my day we'd teach a young whippa' snappa' a lesson for wearin' shorts below his waist like that! Kids and their music..."

Like an old guy who resents change because it's not what he's used to, I have stated opinions similar to yours my friend. But games are changing, because EVERYONE plays games. Call of Duty is so 'pick-up and play', the whole concept of a console is 'pick-up-and-play'! Some girls are 'pick-up-and-play". And McDonalds is 'pick-up-and-play".

I think I'm rambling. Anyway, I see your point. It's different than D1 and D2, definitely. But stay excited man, I have a good feeling D3 will be epically fun and I think it will surprise both of us man.

DKR

I was wondering if anyone felt the same way I do:

We all receive information on the mechanics of Diablo 3 in, lets say, theory form. We get the 'on paper' concept and read the text and numbers....but maybe grow confused because of our perception. Do you guys think maybe some of us (myself included!) may not get the whole picture because of this aspect? I mean c'mon, Jay and the guys all seem pretty confident that the systems they've put in place are awesome and benefit D3 - because they've seen it in action and played it. Just sayin, they do seem pretty happy with the system and they've SEEN the skill and rune system and we've just READ about it. Anyway, that's just me 'thinking out loud'. I don't know.

Considering a recent video had zombie wall, which is a defensive skill, turned into an offensive one. (presumably from a particular rune) I don't know, maybe the effects from runes really will transform the skills enough to push our characters towards a role, specialization, or build. 'Mico-fine-tuning' EACH attribute point in D1 and D2 is what we're all used to and it IS fun! I just think the skill system/rune system will actually be a fresh, new way of customization in the Action-RPG genre. What do I know though? I've just been gaming for 15 years.

DKR

consider this- In D2, you'd mainly use 2 skills. Okay...maybe 3. I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, but would you have purchased Dragon Age Origins if you read the review and it said "there's only 2 skills in this game", or would you have purchased Diablo 2 in the FIRST place if you knew it only had 2 skills? No, you just realized after playing that the design demanded you maximize a couple skills. That IS a poor system. (sorry, went off course there)