Diablo III

[Tavrobel]

The perspective from a hardcore gamer, someone who has been expecting this game for ten years (actually more like seven, because that's when 1.10 came out), as someone who has played the game intensely enough to realize that when you enter the Halls of Vaught, you toggle Walk back on to not have your armor rating reduced to zero, as someone who played mods extensively to increase the longevity of the game because of the playstyle, this game is a massive let down.

The formula in Diablo III is the same as Diablo II's: and that's pouring enemy water into a player sink and seeing what goes down the drain. For most this game is enough to enjoy it. It poses enough of a challenge to not be pointless drivel. The randomness of elite packs and items is also psychologically addicting. Casuals don't care about the mechanics of skills or how they apply, or the finer details of itemization versus skill selection.

In honesty, for casuals, the game ends at Hell Diablo. If you are okay with not playing through Inferno and the irritation it brings, if you don't have a completionist complex like I do, you should be fine, and it is a relatively enjoyable experience. It is not the best among MMOs, but that sixty you're paying now means access to the game for a very long time. Blizzard, at least, is very good about patches, which is one of the only things that keeps games like this relevant for years on end.

There is no story. If you have played Starcraft, you have actually played Diablo III. Frankly, I'm surprised at how much Metzen managed to screw up the world that other authors have managed to create with the novels. It's all predictable, but fortunately, I don't care about the plot.

The server issues have calmed down immensely since release. That is a plus.

However, the nature of the items forces you to engage in the use of the auction house. Which is down half of the time. Normally this would be perfectly fine for an MMO, but only if all five classes are not competing for the same exact items. I hope you have someone to twink you items, because I'm broke.

On a side note, Diablo III really reminds me of Nexon's Dragon Nest, as far as its item system goes. The nice thing about DN is that it's free. but also lol nexon

[Loony BoB]

Are there any of these games that can be played single player and have a decent story to them? Bonus points if it can be played across a LAN on two PCs, but I'm not hugely picky. I basically want an interesting game but in this kind of style. I don't care much about having to use special strategies for special fights or whatever - I'm more looking for a fun but still interesting time waster. Preferrably with half-decent graphics... but if I have to go and play Castle of the Winds I guess I'll do that.

[Shlup]

You have to have an internet connection. Which pissed a lot of people off, but I've enjoyed it. It's really easy to jump around into other peoples' games.

[Tavrobel]

Are there any of these games that can be played single player and have a decent story to them? Bonus points if it can be played across a LAN on two PCs, but I'm not hugely picky. I basically want an interesting game but in this kind of style. I don't care much about having to use special strategies for special fights or whatever - I'm more looking for a fun but still interesting time waster. Preferrably with half-decent graphics... but if I have to go and play Castle of the Winds I guess I'll do that.

Possibly Torchlight. It doesn't have any multiplayer aspect. Torchlight II is supposed to come out very soon, as well. It's very Diablo-esque. Steam.

Dragon Nest was a bit of mindless fun, and it's free. The lore doesn't get in the way, but it does exist. Internet connection required, but very easy to play with other people.

Kingdom Hearts, but I haven't seen anyone play that with a keyboard and mouse before. It's also not an MMO, but it is closer to the kind of RPG that Diablo III should be.

Diablo III will take a while before it gets its "1.10" patch or anything with an expansion, which is what everyone remembers about Diablo II. Since you didn't play during the first week, there's no point in getting it any time soon. Again, if you have no interest in playing through Inferno, then Diablo III is playable and enjoyable.

[Bolivar]

I like it. I have a friend who's a little upset he spent $60 for it, and I can sympathize, but I'm happy. I knew what I was getting and I probably align more closely to Tavrobel's casual category, so it's a fine purchase, especially since I just got a new laptop. I like the new skill system not only for accessibility, but it allows you to do everything without having to worry about wasting skill points (I'm assuming, I'm only a few hours in). The game definitely has that Blizzard magic. And maybe I've spent a little too much time with the superficial current gen of consoles, but I really like the visual style of this game.

Add me, I'm Bolivar#1918.

Possibly Torchlight. It doesn't have any multiplayer aspect. Torchlight II is supposed to come out very soon, as well. It's very Diablo-esque. Steam.

Also, Torchlight II will have multiplayer. I found the colorful cartooniness to be a nice contrast to Diablo.

[Shlup]

I beat the campaign on normal today and immediately started again in nightmare. I've already gotten so many goodies! Makes me wish I didn't have to bother with normal. The ending (SPOILER)was very unsatisfying. My banner is adooooorable.

[Tavrobel]

Got hacked. 0 gold no items. Waiting on a ticket. I got some really nice items last night for cheap from the auction house, and I think they're going to be gone. Rollbacks go pretty far.

[Necronopticous]

Sorry to hear, man. It seems like this is happening extremely frequently. Did you have a secure password, and were you using authentication?

[Tavrobel]

Did not use an authenticator specifically for this sort of event. I did not want to give Blizzard my number unless it was necessary. The likelihood that I would be compromised by visiting a shady website is lower than the chance that Blizzard is compromised successfully or the chance that someone randomly guessed my password. In this case, my password is unique, but not strong enough.

I was sitting online and someone tried to log into my account, and my authenticator didn't notify me. Session ended and I got kicked off.

Rothinzil#1166

[Skyblade]

Making it online-only was such a good decision. It really had a positive impact on the players, didn't it?

Probably not going to be playing this much past the end of Normal Mode. There are just too many problems and annoyances.

[Tavrobel]

I'm not really upset because it's something that happened that is completely out of my power to control. This is on Blizzard. I'm mostly upset because now it's impossible to play, and I was very close to achieving a breakthrough on my Monk.

... back to DII mods.

[Skyblade]

I'm not really upset because it's something that happened that is completely out of my power to control. This is on Blizzard. I'm mostly upset because now it's impossible to play, and I was very close to achieving a breakthrough on my Monk.

... back to DII mods.

See, I would be far more upset because it is completely out of my control.

If I'm running a Nightmare character, and I die, that's my fault, and my choice. Yeah, I'd be pissed, but it was my own doing.

This is Blizzard deliberately screwing its customers over, and they aren't even being subtle about it. Everything about this game seems tuned to give Blizzard as big of a potential profit margin as possible, regardless of what is done to the gameplay experience.

[Tavrobel]

This is Blizzard deliberately screwing its customers over, and they aren't even being subtle about it. Everything about this game seems tuned to give Blizzard as big of a potential profit margin as possible, regardless of what is done to the gameplay experience.

I don't think it's deliberate, I see it as them being incompetent. There's no reason that Blizzard would profit from having legitimate players lose equipment to random hackers. That just drives customers of the Auction House away. There's also no incentive to have an auction house that doesn't work 50% of the time. They just suck at their job.

It's not going to help being upset anyway. But in any case, I don't expect a ticket response for at least a day. At least the prices on the market will go down and affordable gear will be available.

[Skyblade]

This is Blizzard deliberately screwing its customers over, and they aren't even being subtle about it. Everything about this game seems tuned to give Blizzard as big of a potential profit margin as possible, regardless of what is done to the gameplay experience.

I don't think it's deliberate, I see it as them being incompetent. There's no reason that Blizzard would profit from having legitimate players lose equipment to random hackers. That just drives customers of the Auction House away. There's also no incentive to have an auction house that doesn't work 50% of the time. They just suck at their job.

It's not going to help being upset anyway. But in any case, I don't expect a ticket response for at least a day. At least the prices on the market will go down and affordable gear will be available.

The only reason to force the online-only aspect is to drive players to the AH, which benefits Blizzard. The fact that this screws over a lot of customers, by reducing security and availibility of the game, doesn't matter to them.

[Tavrobel]

The only reason to force the online-only aspect is to drive players to the AH, which benefits Blizzard. The fact that this screws over a lot of customers, by reducing security and availibility of the game, doesn't matter to them.

In honesty, I think that even if they considered availability, the auction house may have been the only viable option for this kind of game. The first problem was with a completely uncontrolled economy. Blizzard ran full Ruststorms only twice in between ladder seasons, during season 4, and it happened twice. And even if they had ran them more often, it was too easy to continue duping and inflating the economy. Everything ran through D2JSP, and forum gold was the commodity for which trades were conducted. This wouldn't be a problem if you couldn't buy forum gold with real money, and if the owner weren't a completely heartless thief (both of coding software and of money).

Diablo II had serious cheating problems aside from account thieves. One out of many is really an improvement. Botting, gold (item) vendoring, realm exploits (see Duriel Waypoint from the previous Brother/Sisterhood thread), and item generation (08 Valks) was way too easy to accomplish. I would say something about maphacks too, but I used those out of utility rather than malice.

Now if Blizzard had no real money component, it would be a lot easier to feel sorry for incompetent Blizzard. But then, the real economy would be outside of Blizzard's control. So what's better for people? A third party controlling the economy or Blizzard controlling it? It's lose-lose no matter what. I would go with the lesser of two evils, and that is to keep the control out of third parties.

I don't understand why it doesn't have a single player component. Open Battle.net was a great idea, but now how they have explicitly forbidden game modding.

I don't understand why the auction house was released in such a state. It's down half the time, and there's no form of moderation. You can't take items down, the time out on bids is two days, half of the item modifiers can not be searched. You can't search for specific stats on legendary items, which is strange because half of their components are randomly generated.

There are so many problems that I can't actually believe they're doing this intentionally. They're just incompetent. I would say "start firing people" but we saw how that worked with Blizzard North. Ditch them, get this.

In any case, what would be the alternative to not having an auction house as a means of organizing the economy? The new Battle.net infrastructure doesn't support large channels/chat rooms, and that was a problem since before Starcraft II, so it's not a Diablo III unique problem.

/sigh

dis game mang