Never was that lucky in diablo 2 did entire nightmare and got only a few usable items and found that blacksmithing conversion totally useless because it always gave stats for a different class. Was wearing lots of normal mode gear when I entered hell.
I'm talking about fresh character normal run. That yellow item was always useful for a new character wearing whites and blues.
The Sorceress from D2 was the first teacher of the Wizard in D3. You learn that she ends up getting killed by mage assassins or whatever in the short story firefly.
In D2 I remember ending up with 5-10 set items and 3-5 legendaries (might be lowering the numbers) after just an initial normal mode campaign play-through. Even more if I was lucky. They were not the best items ofc. but you got the taste of things to come at least.
Here people new to the game probably would not even realize that there are things like set or legendary items in-game if they don't visit forums or game guide.
Not saying that the game needs give-aways as it would ruin the whole treasure hunting concept but it definitely needs some drop rate tuning. Right now we have a stick but don't have any carrot.
Wait, what??? you seriously got that many?
I've NEVER had that kind of luck with one playthrough for normal for D2. Never. I've even tried stacking MF to see if I could get some of the lower level uniques because I like to item collect. Found nothing, plenty.
Well, yeah. Act 1 first zones, for example, 50% droped 1-2 low level set items.
Yeah, those level 13 sets or w/e it was, shitty items but it was fun getting a green drop x)
That's what I'm talking about! You found greens, you had a guaranteed yellow from the blacksmith quest (and it was really cool to see your ordinary item being transformed into awesomeness). The game was all like "Check this out! See what I've got? Play me and you might find more of those."
In D2 I remember ending up with 5-10 set items and 3-5 legendaries (might be lowering the numbers) after just an initial normal mode campaign play-through. Even more if I was lucky. They were not the best items ofc. but you got the taste of things to come at least.
Here people new to the game probably would not even realize that there are things like set or legendary items in-game if they don't visit forums or game guide.
Not saying that the game needs give-aways as it would ruin the whole treasure hunting concept but it definitely needs some drop rate tuning. Right now we have a stick but don't have any carrot.
Wait, what??? you seriously got that many?
I've NEVER had that kind of luck with one playthrough for normal for D2. Never. I've even tried stacking MF to see if I could get some of the lower level uniques because I like to item collect. Found nothing, plenty.
Well, yeah. Act 1 first zones, for example, 50% droped 1-2 low level set items.
There is no reason, after time well spent farming and buying AWESOME gear, that you could use any spec in Inferno and do just fine. Diablo 2 was hard with blues and yellows too. Look at it now when everyone in it has the best uniques.
So what was the point promoting 20562334588blablah skill combinations then?
Didn't know there was legendaries in Diablo2, I must've missed something - then again I only played very very very very very much, didn't pindlebot 8 accounts
Uniques, fine, wahtever. Don't pick on my words. You perfectly know what I'm talking about.
In D2 I remember ending up with 5-10 set items and 3-5 legendaries (might be lowering the numbers) after just an initial normal mode campaign play-through. Even more if I was lucky. They were not the best items ofc. but you got the taste of things to come at least.
Here people new to the game probably would not even realize that there are things like set or legendary items in-game if they don't visit forums or game guide.
Not saying that the game needs give-aways as it would ruin the whole treasure hunting concept but it definitely needs some drop rate tuning. Right now we have a stick but don't have any carrot.
Guild Wars is a mmo. It's designed around online interaction with other players. Sure, you can perfectly run alone (up until the point when you decide to take on that boss or run a dungeon) but that's just an option, much like cooperative in Diablo is an option and not the main aspect of the gameplay.
But GW could've been just fine as an offline game. With the full party hero's and some nerfs to certain elite dungeons, the game could've been fully playable offline. Heck, most of the time I played GW I was solo, only interacting with people to trade.
I plead ignorance on this one, but I still cannot grasp the definition of MMO? How is a game like GW an MMO but D2 is not? People say "D2 is an RPG, not an MMO". But I fail to see the difference?
Because D2 is online only, isn't that an MMO by definition (massive multi-player online)?
If I'm wrong I digress, I'm not really a hardcore gamer. I'm very casual with my gaming.
It's the design question. MMOs are designed with constant player interaction in mind be it pvp, raids or dungeon runs. Sure you can down the difficulty and adopt Guild Wars to be a single player rpg much like you can give diablo barbarian a blaster and send him into space to fight zergs in a FPS.
D1 and D2 were both designed as single player RPG with multiplayer option (you don't call Mass effect 3 a multiplayer game just because it has such an option, right?). The core idea was that you're the hero taking on lots of monsters and having fun at searching for those elusive legendary items that could possibly make you a god of destruction.
Now in D3 the didn't change the core design philosophy - you can still play the game solo you don't need to interact with others, you don't need AH or item trade - all you need is luck. Hence the frustration - D3 is not MMO at it's basic gameplay, it's still a single player RPG game on one hand. On the other hand it requires the unneeded constant connection to the internet which shifts it into the MMO niche.
I'm having trouble understanding this notion that Blizzard had no right to offer an online only game, especially when other companies do the same thing and people don't fret about it. Namely Guild Wars.
Guild Wars is a mmo. It's designed around online interaction with other players. Sure, you can perfectly run alone (up until the point when you decide to take on that boss or run a dungeon) but that's just an option, much like cooperative in Diablo is an option and not the main aspect of the gameplay.
So maybe you should've read before you bought and decided online only is something you don't want. Don't complain that a product isn't what you want when there are plenty more out there that will tailor to your wants. It's not a companies job to please everyone, especially an entertainment company. they make what they want how they want, it's ultimately up to the consumer to say "I want this product" or "I don't". So your whole argument is invalid. simple as that. If you wanted Diablo to be offline single-player then by all means you didn't get what you wanted you got what the developers wanted, which is perfectly fine with millions of other people.
My whole argument? My whole argument is that I wish there was an offline mode in D3 and that I don't like that we're having problems because there is none. What's invalid in that? Am I wrong at not liking that fact and I love it in reality or what?
Unfortunately that is just a sign of the times we live in. Nearly everyone has internet access so the assumption is that people will adapt with them. This is coming from someone (ME) that the first 5 years I played D2 was offline.....and I loved it. Yet when I finally went online with it....WOW, I was fucking knocked out my socks at all the things I didn't know and how much better the game experience was.
So your point is "f#ck those with crappy ISP, f#ck those, who travel a lot, f#ck those who's only internet connection is irregular wi-fi"?
I'm honestly glad that you loved your online experience (no sarcasm) but that doesn't mean that everyone should love it or need it too. I played first diablo with my friends 50% of the time, second diablo I mostly played solo and was totally fine with that.
Don't go into a Chinese restaurant and order pizza.
Blizzard's is not going to make a custom game for you. They're going to put together a menu of things they do well and enjoy making and show you the menu. You can always find another menu if you don't like theirs. It's their concern to draw business, and they seem to be doing very well at it. On-line only play is a part of their best practices to maintain the integrity of their product. You can't please everyone, nor should you try.
"Seem to be doing very well at it" - in context of the last week that made me smile.
A custom game? So now a game that works 24/7 and that you can play 24/7 is called a custom game?
And yes, I don't go to chinese restaurant and order pizza. When I go there, I expect it to serve a chinese food. Much like when I buy a game that is not a mmo I expect to play it whenever I want. much like when I but music or a film I don't expect that my player has to be constantly connected to the internet for me to enjoy it.
Please notice how, when listing the exploits from WoW, he lists end dates. Meaning, these are simple manipulation techniques that were easily shut-down.
As well, the author essentially admits that storing the program server-side only makes it exceedingly difficult for people like him to create duplicate items when he says things like this;
"Diablo 3 will have dupe exploits and tricks as well, I have no doubt in my mind. Item duping, gold duping, point duping, or stat duping (e.g. stacking of stats).. users will always find a way."
"Blizzard has a great team of programmers but a lot of these exploits slip by. They have a limited quantity of QA Testers, and besides, they are tasked with testing the gameplay, quests, and bugs that appear in normal gaming sessions for the casual player. They don't sit there with WPE trying to exploit the game."
"Exploits are discovered over a long period of time and after thousands of players have played the game and stretched the variety of gameplay in ever which direction."
I want to add that I think this guy (and everyone like him) are fucking scumbag bottom feeders. What this piece of human garbage has essentially stated in his article is "I intend not to play the game, but rather, to spend all my time finding exploits so that I can rip you (the player) off. I intend to try my hardest to fuck you out of your real world money {and in game gold, which is worth real world money} by flooding the RMAH {and the GAH} with fake items."
/scumbag, I hope you (the author) die of colon cancer you shitstain. This hypocrite talks trash about Blizz, saying how greedy they are, yet his entire existence in-game is intended to fuck "us" over. Die in a fire you bottom-feeder.
Back on point;
In D2 the only method they had to deal with dupes was an 'after the fact' retroactive measure known as "ruststorming". What we saw in WoW was the companies ability to correct exploitative methods and prevent future incidents, not just simply erase duped items, which only hurt the victim.
I'm assuming that when dupes are identified, Bliz will track the lineage of the item back to the original source and wipe his/her account from the game. Making it difficult for exploiters to trade their phony wares. Now that Blizz has made the dubious choice to support a real money economy, they will most definitely take extreme measures in dealing with scumbags like the guy in the article you posted.
And yet I still fail to see how having offline client could possibly compromise the separated online mode as it is now? Do keep all the online games and characters on servers, do monitor them for exploiters and cheaters. But how would those of us that play offline compromise that system that we have now?
What worries me in this whole situation is that we're becoming company hostages. What if other companies decide that it's a great idea to make single player (and Diablo is a single player game at its core) games online only? What if they release a game but in a month go like "Oh, we've got all the profit we wanted so f#ck those servers - we're putting them on a garage sales!"? I want my entertainment I pay for on my terms - when I want it and where I want it.
You're leaving us a blog of a guy that a lot of people don't take seriously? He is so full of himself that he believes everything he says is fact. Read his other blogs and laugh about how inaccurate his predictions were.
Omg! You're right! Constant "fixed an exploit" patch notes didn't happen. WoW, being online only was immune to dupers, cheaters and hackers. And there is no such thing as "WoW free shards". And you couldn't play D3 beta (well, to some point) in offline mode. And we don't have D3 trainers that give you movement speed, open up map and show mobs on minimap.
Offline would ruin online. See "Diablo 2" for evidence. Great game, but it was ruined by hackers and manipulators. Unless you think you can successfully argue that D2 kept it's integrity intact? I have a sneaky suspicion that many of the complainers probably were the same people that complained about D2 the whole time it's been out, as well, they're likely part of the bunch that was hacking it to death, all the while, complaining.
Oh please. This is total bs. Diablo 2 had totally different structure for online mode so comparing how D2 was ruined with hackers and what could have become of D3 if it had a separated offline mode is like comparing... I don't know... trains with cars maybe?
Besides, there will always be people trying to find ways to cheat and hack. D2 had dupers, WoW had dupers, D3 will have dupers. It has nothing to do with having offline mode but with how the online part was made, how it is being monitored and moderated. So please stop talking this nonsense about offline compromising online.
The issue is, how easy it makes it for people to mass-duplicate and hack when the program is entirely stored on private hard drives. I played Guild Wars for the better part of 7 years and never, out of thousands of items and thousands of trades, never did I have anything poof. I never even heard anyone talk about dupes because the full-client wasn't stored on private hard drives. They had some incidents in 2007 because someone found a reconnect loophole, but it was quickly shut down.
Yes.....it's possible, but it makes it exceedingly difficult if the game is online only.
You people need to understand this.
Shake your head and say "huh uhh" all you want. Allowing people access to the same program you offer online makes for easy hacking.
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That's what I'm talking about! You found greens, you had a guaranteed yellow from the blacksmith quest (and it was really cool to see your ordinary item being transformed into awesomeness). The game was all like "Check this out! See what I've got? Play me and you might find more of those."
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Well, yeah. Act 1 first zones, for example, 50% droped 1-2 low level set items.
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Uniques, fine, wahtever. Don't pick on my words. You perfectly know what I'm talking about.
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Here people new to the game probably would not even realize that there are things like set or legendary items in-game if they don't visit forums or game guide.
Not saying that the game needs give-aways as it would ruin the whole treasure hunting concept but it definitely needs some drop rate tuning. Right now we have a stick but don't have any carrot.
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It's the design question. MMOs are designed with constant player interaction in mind be it pvp, raids or dungeon runs. Sure you can down the difficulty and adopt Guild Wars to be a single player rpg much like you can give diablo barbarian a blaster and send him into space to fight zergs in a FPS.
D1 and D2 were both designed as single player RPG with multiplayer option (you don't call Mass effect 3 a multiplayer game just because it has such an option, right?). The core idea was that you're the hero taking on lots of monsters and having fun at searching for those elusive legendary items that could possibly make you a god of destruction.
Now in D3 the didn't change the core design philosophy - you can still play the game solo you don't need to interact with others, you don't need AH or item trade - all you need is luck. Hence the frustration - D3 is not MMO at it's basic gameplay, it's still a single player RPG game on one hand. On the other hand it requires the unneeded constant connection to the internet which shifts it into the MMO niche.
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So I guess SC2 is old generation?
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My whole argument? My whole argument is that I wish there was an offline mode in D3 and that I don't like that we're having problems because there is none. What's invalid in that? Am I wrong at not liking that fact and I love it in reality or what?
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So your point is "f#ck those with crappy ISP, f#ck those, who travel a lot, f#ck those who's only internet connection is irregular wi-fi"?
I'm honestly glad that you loved your online experience (no sarcasm) but that doesn't mean that everyone should love it or need it too. I played first diablo with my friends 50% of the time, second diablo I mostly played solo and was totally fine with that.
"Seem to be doing very well at it" - in context of the last week that made me smile.
A custom game? So now a game that works 24/7 and that you can play 24/7 is called a custom game?
And yes, I don't go to chinese restaurant and order pizza. When I go there, I expect it to serve a chinese food. Much like when I buy a game that is not a mmo I expect to play it whenever I want. much like when I but music or a film I don't expect that my player has to be constantly connected to the internet for me to enjoy it.
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And yet I still fail to see how having offline client could possibly compromise the separated online mode as it is now? Do keep all the online games and characters on servers, do monitor them for exploiters and cheaters. But how would those of us that play offline compromise that system that we have now?
What worries me in this whole situation is that we're becoming company hostages. What if other companies decide that it's a great idea to make single player (and Diablo is a single player game at its core) games online only? What if they release a game but in a month go like "Oh, we've got all the profit we wanted so f#ck those servers - we're putting them on a garage sales!"? I want my entertainment I pay for on my terms - when I want it and where I want it.
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Omg! You're right! Constant "fixed an exploit" patch notes didn't happen. WoW, being online only was immune to dupers, cheaters and hackers. And there is no such thing as "WoW free shards". And you couldn't play D3 beta (well, to some point) in offline mode. And we don't have D3 trainers that give you movement speed, open up map and show mobs on minimap.
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http://daeity.blogsp...-exploits.html
I'll just leave this here for you to read.