30 replies to this topic

[Riko]

http://i.imgur.com/OK7UQ.jpg  

[Tibur]

Well, I bought¹ it and can't play it because the video card on my 2006 iMac isn't supported.  So there.  

¹ Actually, I bought the WoW Annual Pass, which included a "free" copy of Diablo III, so I'm not as stupid as this post would otherwise imply.

[Wumpus]

To each their own I just played another several hours with no trouble. I'm even playing with a buddy in Asia (I'm in the US) and we can play together just fine with minimal lag. Fun stuff.

I never had a problem with Starcraft 2, which also requires you to be online if I recall. And Its not unusual for a super popular/hyped game to have server trouble on launch. I don't think its acceptable per se, just expected. They ironed out the servers pretty quick. I don't expect to run into much more interference. I actually ran into more in the beta than I have now.

[Matt Diamond]

Cougar, on 15 May 2012 - 09:36 PM, said:

Highly unlikely. It was designed from the ground up to be online, and a lot of the game is server-side.

Yeah, this morning it suddenly hit me that what I wrote was completely wrong. (I love how my brain does that hours later, instead of earlier when it would be useful.)

Although everyone labels Blizzard's scheme DRM, it serves another purpose, which is to allow them to run the auction house securely. Random items must be generated and authenticated by the server, otherwise people could hack their copies to generate super-powered items to sell.

I think the auction house feature does justify the online-only requirement, IF the player wants to use the auction house. But we should have the option not to, either in a particular saved game, or maybe even mix trusted (server-generated) items with untrusted (generated offline) items in the same game. Only trusted items would be auctionable.

It seems like a solveable problem, in other words, but I guess Blizzard didn't have much incentive to do anything like that.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

I just played through the demo today (Thank you Sneaky Snake!), and I like what I see.

Positives:
• Absolute gorgeous visuals. I mean, really. I love the style. More of that.
• Good story, that is well told and engaging.
• It's Diablo.
• Nice interactive environments. A bit too many "Dead villager"'s scattered around prehaps..

Negatives:
• I really don't like the new skills system. It's superficial and confusing to work with. In general the skills interface is pretty bad before you get to know it. You don't get it right away.
• I want to assign my own skill points, and attributes damned! Don't WOWify everything!
• Another hit at WOW; I don't like how everything is exploding in colors all the time, with corpses flying around, flashy skills and gigantic "BOOM" sounds, each time my character attacks something.

Apart from the awesome visuals (Really, I *love* how it looks apart from the attack flashyness, and look forward to seeing the rest of the game some time), I don't see what it has over Torchlight. Apart from more DRM..

[Wumpus]

My only real complaint about the game is the lack of manual stat point upgrades. I'm a Wizard, I want to pump my intelligence. Who is Blizzard to say I need strength and dexterity every level as well? I don't mind being a glass cannon. This annoyed me in beta, but I knew it wouldn't change. Oh well.

I like the artwork and style, but on a pure graphical basis its a bit behind. Environments and spells are gorgeous, but player characters seem low resolution to me, even with everything maxed.

Skill system is a bit obtuse, and unless you use Elective mode, you can't customize anything at all. Elective mode is still a touch confusing, but it works out.

[badger2d]

I was happy when I heard they took out attribute point allocation, because the attribute system in D2 didn't justify itself with real customization power anyway. They just didn't do much of anything interesting. The ideal attribute build for almost any character could more or less be described as: get just enough strength and dexterity to equip your favored item types, and put the rest of your points in vitality.

To make it a worse system still, there were nitty-gritty details that hardcore players found, that there was simply no way for a new/casual player to know, such as the exact number of dexterity points you needed to max out your shield-block ability. In the end, it was a system that on the surface of it looked like it was offering character customization, but was pretty much just a trap for newbies to wander off in the wrong direction and make unnecessarily and unfixably weak characters.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

badger2d, on 17 May 2012 - 12:32 PM, said:

To make it a worse system still, there were nitty-gritty details that hardcore players found, that there was simply no way for a new/casual player to know, such as the exact number of dexterity points you needed to max out your shield-block ability. In the end, it was a system that on the surface of it looked like it was offering character customization, but was pretty much just a trap for newbies to wander off in the wrong direction and make unnecessarily and unfixably weak characters.

If you play the game to *that* level, I'm quite sure you would research it anyway...

[badger2d]

Thain Esh Kelch, on 17 May 2012 - 01:13 PM, said:

If you play the game to *that* level, I'm quite sure you would research it anyway...

I wasn't a hardcore D2 player myself, but I tend to keep vaguely abreast of events and discoveries by the hardcore community in any games that interest me, because I find game design itself interesting. The hardcore players will always discover weaknesses in design. D2's attribute system was shown to be weak for several reasons, that's the extent of the point I'm trying to make. And thus, Blizzard has taken a new approach to it in D3.

[Monkeypox]

My only beef is the auto-allocation of points and talents. That was the most fun aspect of D2 for me was trying different builds of the same character.

Unless I missed something....

[Cougar]

I don't miss skill attributes in the slightest; it was boring as hell, and there was always just one way to optimize your character.

I love the new skill system. It's more dynamic and fun because it allows you to experiment. They variety of runes prevent each skill from getting too dull.

I agree that the interface system isn't the best, though. As a WD, I had to go elective mode in order to get an adequate skill set to defeat Belial.

As for it being online only--I don't care. It's pretty cool that a RL friend can join while I'm playing so effortlessly.