My friends and I are all getting it... we've been waiting for Diablo 3 for years... so why not support Blizzard, the Diablo franchise, and get some cool perks out of it too. Getting it from Best Buy, it was hard to find a location that still had them. Hopefully Best Buy will have a midnight release... still pending...
Not bad. I think they can all use some kind of border. 1 or 2 px even would make it look much better. Right now they kinda just look like a cut/paste from a wallpaper or concept art, with text. Also the one with the paper texture filter doesn't look very good. Looks just like a random filter effect. Nice job, keep it up!
1) The targeting hit boxes are convenient. Makes it easier to point-click on some of those small enemies. I think it's fine for this type of game and the gameplay. It's not like Starcraft 2 that requires exact control and movement.
2) Having no hostility option I never really understood. Although the only purpose to go hostile was to join a random game, and go hostile against a party trying to quest, just to annoy the hell out of them. What do you get for killing them? Gold, and the satisfaction of killing other players and laughing in your room about it. Good job. Now they leave the game and create passworded games. It made people password all their games, thus destroying the open community and creating a less pubber/social atmosphere. It hurt the game basically. It was more of an annoyance than a perk. I won't miss it
3) Having no PvP at release kinda sucks. But to tweak a PvM Diablo 3 took a very long time, and during that time, Blizzard had trouble making PvP fun and a good experience and worth your time... The way I see it right now, the PvP is kinda like the PvP in borderlands. Just this extra arena location that you can kill your friends for 5-10 minutes, then say "okay, anyways back to the real game". I think Blizzard wanted it to have more impact than that, so they are going to hold off and make it right. I've always been a fan of Blizzards "We'll release when it's done" message... and that still applies to PvP, not just PvM.
4) Having the level cap at 60 is not a bad thing... It could take just as long, or even longer, to get to 60 than it took to get to the high 90's in Diablo 2. The last 5-10 levels in Diablo 2 were almost worthless, they took so long to get, most people wouldn't even bother. I think most people understood how meaningless those last levels were, and so Blizzard changed the level cap. Now there are items that you can only get at level 60. Even a level difficulty (Inferno) only for level 60's. That's a good perk to get the last level. Diablo 2, you can wear any item, and get to any location, and max your skills by level 80-85. The rest of the levels were just to increase your damage a little more, and to wave around your e-peen. Good change once again...
5) The skill tree has been argued time and time again, you can go either way on that one. The attribute points, I'm glad are not in D3. It would cause people to hoard points up until they find certain gear, then spend them as modestly as possible. That's not how the game is supposed to be played. It should be fun throughout, not just when you finally hit a certain level or find a certain item. I think Blizzard made a good move here, now players are forced to have "fun" throughout the game, instead of waiting for that one moment.
6) What's wrong with Battle.net 2.0?
7) I think having 4 players per game is a good adjustment. When you had a full game it just became a spam-fest. Nothing was challenging, and everyone just ran around like crazy with noob looters walking behind picking up everything. I can't imagine seeing 8 players spamming Diablo 3 skills all over the place, a little overwhelming for my eyes to know what the hell is going on. Having a player cap at 4 requires more thought process, more strategy with skills, and more of a challenge from the environment.
8) The cartoon graphics have been the most discussed complaint about Diablo 3. It does have some cartoon looking characteristics in it, but hardly any cartoony looks compared to WoW and Torchlight. Diablo 2 was pretty bright and colorful in itself. But also in Diablo 3 there is blood, demons, zombies cut in half with intestines all over the place, humans hanging from ropes on trees, doesn't that count for something? If you don't like the bright colorful graphics than turn your monitors contrast all the way down, and BAM! You'll be playing in black and white. Have fun.
9) Real money auction house is a good idea. It get rids of 3rd party websites like D2items and all those where people would just go buy gear or buy leveling services. It keeps people in the game, rather than exit the game to go search for items on a website. It is the best way to counter that problem. It's a good idea. And plus since there is no "hostility" option in-game, you don't have to worry about some guy joining your game with your friends, and owning all of you because he spend the most money in the auction house, and got the best items, and all you can do is complain and leave. At least you don't have to worry about PvP and hostility problems. If someone wants to spend hundreds of dollars to get all the best gear and just roll through everything, I see no problem with that. I'm not going to do that, I would rather have fun searching for gear. But everyone has their own idea of fun.
10) The skill interface is different and really easy to manage and understand. Maybe too easy, too noob-friendly. Not enough custom options? But it's better than D2's skill tree. That's an upgrade in my opinion.
Reapers are not a good idea. Practically every Protoss build will have a Stalker out by about 4 minutes and 5 seconds. (Unless they skip their cybercore and go for a fast expand). The fastest Reaper will spawn at about 3 minutes and 50 seconds (if you skip your first marine)... but you also have to add the travel time to get to your opponents base... on a small map it will take 30 seconds to get to your opponents base... on a large map it will take much longer... So usually by the time you get there the stalker is already there, and your Reaper 1) can't kill the stalker 2) is denied any scouting 3) wasted your barracks production. You can almost produce 2 marines for the price of that 1 reaper... so essentially your army is much weaker now just because you produced that 1 Reaper.
My best suggestion against a protoss for a large macro map would to be no gas fast expand.
Build SCV's non-stop, get your supply depot, barracks, orbital as usual... but don't get any gas. Produce marines and build a command center at your natural, place one bunker down in front of your command center and you'll be fine. Put one marine in front of your bunker or you can have it go scout and check for proxy pylons which might indicate a 4-gate push. Depends on how much scouting information you were able to get... (did you see more than 1 gate? did he save his chrono energy or was he using it on probes)
My best suggestion for an aggressive protoss that you also want to be aggressive against would go with a fast rader/rine combo with conc shell.
-supply depot
-barracks (build 1 marine then make reactor)
-refinery
-orbital
-barracks with tech lab
-supply depot.
Heavy 2 rax aggression if timed right will stop protoss early aggression. Hope this helps, good luck.
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2) Having no hostility option I never really understood. Although the only purpose to go hostile was to join a random game, and go hostile against a party trying to quest, just to annoy the hell out of them. What do you get for killing them? Gold, and the satisfaction of killing other players and laughing in your room about it. Good job. Now they leave the game and create passworded games. It made people password all their games, thus destroying the open community and creating a less pubber/social atmosphere. It hurt the game basically. It was more of an annoyance than a perk. I won't miss it
3) Having no PvP at release kinda sucks. But to tweak a PvM Diablo 3 took a very long time, and during that time, Blizzard had trouble making PvP fun and a good experience and worth your time... The way I see it right now, the PvP is kinda like the PvP in borderlands. Just this extra arena location that you can kill your friends for 5-10 minutes, then say "okay, anyways back to the real game". I think Blizzard wanted it to have more impact than that, so they are going to hold off and make it right. I've always been a fan of Blizzards "We'll release when it's done" message... and that still applies to PvP, not just PvM.
4) Having the level cap at 60 is not a bad thing... It could take just as long, or even longer, to get to 60 than it took to get to the high 90's in Diablo 2. The last 5-10 levels in Diablo 2 were almost worthless, they took so long to get, most people wouldn't even bother. I think most people understood how meaningless those last levels were, and so Blizzard changed the level cap. Now there are items that you can only get at level 60. Even a level difficulty (Inferno) only for level 60's. That's a good perk to get the last level. Diablo 2, you can wear any item, and get to any location, and max your skills by level 80-85. The rest of the levels were just to increase your damage a little more, and to wave around your e-peen. Good change once again...
5) The skill tree has been argued time and time again, you can go either way on that one. The attribute points, I'm glad are not in D3. It would cause people to hoard points up until they find certain gear, then spend them as modestly as possible. That's not how the game is supposed to be played. It should be fun throughout, not just when you finally hit a certain level or find a certain item. I think Blizzard made a good move here, now players are forced to have "fun" throughout the game, instead of waiting for that one moment.
6) What's wrong with Battle.net 2.0?
7) I think having 4 players per game is a good adjustment. When you had a full game it just became a spam-fest. Nothing was challenging, and everyone just ran around like crazy with noob looters walking behind picking up everything. I can't imagine seeing 8 players spamming Diablo 3 skills all over the place, a little overwhelming for my eyes to know what the hell is going on. Having a player cap at 4 requires more thought process, more strategy with skills, and more of a challenge from the environment.
8) The cartoon graphics have been the most discussed complaint about Diablo 3. It does have some cartoon looking characteristics in it, but hardly any cartoony looks compared to WoW and Torchlight. Diablo 2 was pretty bright and colorful in itself. But also in Diablo 3 there is blood, demons, zombies cut in half with intestines all over the place, humans hanging from ropes on trees, doesn't that count for something? If you don't like the bright colorful graphics than turn your monitors contrast all the way down, and BAM! You'll be playing in black and white. Have fun.
9) Real money auction house is a good idea. It get rids of 3rd party websites like D2items and all those where people would just go buy gear or buy leveling services. It keeps people in the game, rather than exit the game to go search for items on a website. It is the best way to counter that problem. It's a good idea. And plus since there is no "hostility" option in-game, you don't have to worry about some guy joining your game with your friends, and owning all of you because he spend the most money in the auction house, and got the best items, and all you can do is complain and leave. At least you don't have to worry about PvP and hostility problems. If someone wants to spend hundreds of dollars to get all the best gear and just roll through everything, I see no problem with that. I'm not going to do that, I would rather have fun searching for gear. But everyone has their own idea of fun.
10) The skill interface is different and really easy to manage and understand. Maybe too easy, too noob-friendly. Not enough custom options? But it's better than D2's skill tree. That's an upgrade in my opinion.
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My best suggestion against a protoss for a large macro map would to be no gas fast expand.
Build SCV's non-stop, get your supply depot, barracks, orbital as usual... but don't get any gas. Produce marines and build a command center at your natural, place one bunker down in front of your command center and you'll be fine. Put one marine in front of your bunker or you can have it go scout and check for proxy pylons which might indicate a 4-gate push. Depends on how much scouting information you were able to get... (did you see more than 1 gate? did he save his chrono energy or was he using it on probes)
My best suggestion for an aggressive protoss that you also want to be aggressive against would go with a fast rader/rine combo with conc shell.
-supply depot
-barracks (build 1 marine then make reactor)
-refinery
-orbital
-barracks with tech lab
-supply depot.
Heavy 2 rax aggression if timed right will stop protoss early aggression. Hope this helps, good luck.
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