EQ is quite an extreme example though, it was too unforgiving.
I thought it was good that dying had consequences, dying resulted in 1-1.5 hours set back in XP, wiping in a raid resulted sometimes in hours of corpse recovery, sure it was hardcore but it was a bit too hardcore
EQ certainly didn't created progamers, on the other hand it created very frustrated and angry people. Punitive is just a cheap tactic to make something difficult.
You can make something difficult without making it punitive thats called good design.
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I assure you you're not as logical as you think you are.
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<-- DI fan.
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Are you trying to use the "if there's no alternative than the thing we have is great and amazing!" argument? It's a false one, I hope you realize.
Most companies right now do not make Hack&Slashes. Although there is Torchlight 2. Which I'll probably end up playing instead of this. No matter how unpolished TL 2 is, it's going to better than Diablo 3 because it doesn't fuck up the player or have an RMA, + mods, I've seen the results in TL 1 and they were great. Grim Dawn looks interesting as well. But I was always able to enjoy Hack&Slashes outside the Diablo franchise. Nox, Sacred - I liked these more than DII. I had fun with TQ. Demon's Souls >>>>>>>>>>>>> DI + DII + DIII already. Some blind fans will see everything without the "Diablo" sticker as bad, so my statement will be ignored here, but I won't have that issue.
SW:TOR will probably be relatively close to WoW, as well, without all the money hogging garbage.
SCII is not that great, either, I find AoE III a much better game overall, even though I was unhappy with AoE III changes compared to AoE II, but SCII feels like a weak graphic update with partial downgrades, while AoE III is a very solid, standalone game with many interesting implementations.
Besides, when was the last time Blizzard did something that wasn't WarCraft, StarCraft, or Diablo? Are they running off their own current success, or mere past success "It's Blizzard so I must buy it"? Really, SCII was not that great. It wasn't. I got it because I liked SC1 and because all my friends were getting SCII. I have significant trouble getting into it these days. WoW was good during vanilla/TBC, which was some while ago. I play it because of a guild. In fact, I feel dirty about that right now.
I do not believe you have the right to ask a poster from 2006 why they're here. I've been here before DIII was even announced. People who like games come in different forms. Some are blind insane fans who will buy everything relating to their favorite game and grind to 99. Some acknowledge it as a worthwhile title they want to see a continuation towards. I've spent ~4 years on this forum, waiting, watching, what Diablo III was becoming. Perhaps it's time for me to leave, but this forum is not the official forum that exists solely for buttlicking Blizzard. This forum is full of real, living people, who have opinions. And so we make those opinions heard. I'm sorry you think only die hard new Blizzard(tm) fans can post here.
When we're discussing that company, I'll discuss that. Just like I don't harp on HoN's recent F2P change on Dark Souls forums, that doesn't make much sense, does it?
I am a far seer you could say, I take little things and see how they extrapolate into the future, becoming huge. I know that I have to fight for every little crumb, every step of the way, or all will be lost in the numbness that people have when things change... slowly. But slow change is still change. Bad things other companies do at least are recognized as bad things. This isn't.
One person not murdering doesn't excuse their stealing as OK.
Blizzard doesn't have proper numbers on their actions, though.
Not that I care about pure greed. People are numb, that's why they accept these things. Marketing is all about making people who don't need it think they need it. Then people become the marketers, as if hypnotized.
I am not good at persuasion or conviction. I'm just here to let people know they're not alone. I'm not here to convince you - I can't. You either see it or you don't.
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The offline only thing is dumb but that's a different topic.
The whole offline restriction thing often means I either have 2 version of the game (offline-capable by shady means + normal), or have a secondary SP game to play when my internet randomly dies.
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No.
Your example is faulty because you're comparing Diablo 1 to McDonalds it seems. For me it's more like this:
Joe spent a while going to this little non-franchise burger shop in his home town where they made really nice burgers, because they loved their craft. Then some friend took him to a 4-star restaurant. The restaurant looks a lot nicer, with waiters and everything, and the burger may even look prettier w/e. It is backed by this rich famous company that has access to all this, I don't know, cutting edge technology. It also costs a lot more. But the burger still tastes the same, if not worse.
Good graphics design trumps technology every time and SCII and DIII are proof of that IMO. Especially these games also suffer in the audio department (I'm not talking about Matt Uelmen). If they could update resolution and color palette on SC1 + add all the mechanical modifications (auto-mining, etc.), I'd rather play that. SCII is slow, WCIII'ish, and has awful sound work and animations compared to the original. Among newer titles, it's greatly inferior to AoE III, for instance. The only reason it gets anywhere for me is because it's, well, SC.
The collective consciousness also runs after the most recent fad out there and demands the latest little thing because it's considered cool. I don't know why you bring up the collective consciousness here since it's extremely dumb. I'm not talking about whether most people will like Diablo III's design. This is very hard for me to judge since I lack figures on SCII.
The collective standards sees only shaders and nothing else. They do not see design at all, for them it does not exist.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. I believe you should be aware that I am not a die hard Diablo fan at all. I am here because I like the series, just like any other series, and looking forward to it. My expectations for DIII are not different from expectations for SW:TOR or TES 5. But my expectations are typically high, both for gameplay and design. I can accept a game that doesn't meet my expectations, play it, and enjoy it, but it will lose the title of great game for me, and I want every game to be great.
Which means I'll whine about graphics, cooldowns, and everything else.
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I'm saying you shouldn't be able to spam anything significant (try to spam anything in DII at lower levels).
Yes, there should be no best skill. What you're describing occurs with cooldowns as well. In MOBA's, it even has a name. It's called the Ultimate.
That's not even my logic, that is game logic as old as games themselves. Why would they not cost more? Why do we have a resource then if they're not going to cost more? How else to compensate?
I just replied to that.
IF YOU SIT YOU SHOULD DIE.
And, again, that occurs with cooldowns as well. Give me an example that doesn't also occur with cooldowns. That's one of the issues - it's redundant. Mana fullfills the task of "cooldown" just fine, except it's a choice. Cooldowns don't leave you a choice.
There's nothing difficult about that. It is just a tradeoff. You want to cast a spell that kills half the room, spend your mana orb. Nobody is forcing you to cast it.
Because Blizzard's argument was to use cooldowns to prevent ability spamming, which means some abilities are inherently better than others, which leads to a rotation.
The only way to prevent a rotation is to make skills independent of each other in power.
I don't appreciate being told where to use a spell, and neither do min-maxers. It doesn't matter what the spell is designed for, it can be used for anything.
You need to bring up examples of what spells you're talking about. This "spells from the wiki" gives me nothing. All I heard about being spammed was teleport. Again, teleport was not an issue in any game with CC, and doesn't need a cooldown, but teleport is a special case anyway. I've been told that they are doing it to prevent 1-skill spamming, which means they're still using the WoW model.
Probably because I didn't say that.
I presume the videos were made prior to the whole cooldown idea.
But imagine if every fight went leap-mortal strike-hammer something-insert 2 more spells here-repeat.
These spells should not exist. To me, these spells are just bad design.
If you're in a tough spot/overwhelmed, you should die, end of story. I thought this game was supposed to be difficult? I don't recall any games where I had a spell specifically as a cop out, wtf?
Seriously, what are these spells really for? I don't want to have any skills I am not constantly using in every fight excluding single target spells for bosses. Pretty sure these skills are actually first thing you use in battle, so that they get off cooldown faster. If you have a cheap spell that kills half the room you are not going to wait to cast it.
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Further proof we need respeccs before the game gets flooded with minmaxers who think they're some hot shit because they know the phrase "you suck, please uninstall" and have too much time on their hands.
There are no problems with respeccs except psychological patologies some people have in their heads, for which I do not feel compelled to be held responsible for.
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Think before you post, please.
It's quite essential for staff to have beta access on a fansite, though, otherwise they're out of the loop and when your forum members have keys and you don't that's pretty stupid if you ask me.
The staff here is not that large so it's not that big of a deal, there should be plenty of leftover keys.
Or, not keys. If they don't use keys they'll probably use something else that will be distributed similarly.
@snared
Can you point me to a link where it says that the entire beta includes no SP in any way, shape or form, and is 100% on battle.net?
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A better comparison would be MMO instances. The largest MMO instances I'm aware of are 40, which is a group of 8, and many people complain about those because at that point you are nothing more than a goon who follows commands of a leader. From what I've seen, the preferred groups are 5 to 10 because there's more camaraderie and you don't feel as a goon as much. Some people like doing a 40 group sometimes (don't ask me why), because it feels like a big accomplishment or something, I always felt I only accomplished shit if I did it by myself so I dunno. But from what I've seen, 40-player instances aren't exactly the peoples' choice and after WoW there's a stronger soloer and small-grouper trend.
People being attracted to the world of thousands of people is a very different matter. Diablo would require an over-world and I don't think that's necessary, although it would make trading more interesting.
I personally never found zerging interesting because the more players there are in a room the less I matter, or, if it's balanced properly, everyone just dies constantly. This is not going to be Diablo II where you can turn on the game do /players 8 and level really quickly. This is where you do /players 8, you are going to die (hopefully). And it's very difficult to find 5 competent players, let alone 8. With no extra reward? Not happening.
Even WoW's low level 5-mans are not balanced you can blitz through them with just tank and healer lol.
I would generally limit my room to 3-4-5 players if I made one anyway but the reason an 8-cap is negative in my opinion is that they would have to use skewer balancing (in the form off, multiple monster HP by 5), rather than smart balancing for each individual setting. I.E., if the 8 cap is in, the 8 cap is attempted to balance, the rest is kinda on the wayside. And if the whole difficulty of 8-player is how long you are going to hack on monsters or how long you're gonna stand and regen HP, that'd be a big disappointment.