Diablo III: Not Just a Vitality Race!

[Meta]

A few helpful links to start:

http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/

Obligatory wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III

My personal obsession:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian

For anyone new to the franchise:

Diablo is a series that tells the tales of mortal heroes' attempts to battle the Prime Evils, Baal, Mephisto, and Diablo. Each game is a loot-heavy dungeon crawler with a dash (sometimes more) of horror. II introduced popular PvP options. Ideally, one will play through the game multiple times on increasingly challenging difficulties.

Anyone else been following this? Looks like the NDA has been lifted so there's a flood of new youtube videos and their ilk. Judging by my what friends at university are interested in playing, I'll probably play a witch doctor. Fine by me after seeing the zombie dogs in action and the model for the Gargantuan!
Any and all Diablo III news, expectations, and chat can go here, assuming I haven't missed the existence of another thread. Happy demon killing!

[A Weeping Angel]

Always on DRM, no pausing, auto timeouts for lack of activity, checkpoint saving currently, and region locked play. It's too bad as I enjoyed my time with D2 but since Blizzard is screwing single-player only people like me I won't be buying this.
Rock Paper Shotgun's concise DRM write-up (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/22/how-diablo-iiis-drm-will-affect-you/)

Have fun yourself though and hopefully your ISP is stable & Blizzard maintains their servers properly.

[Spartacus]

At risk of turning a third thread to this subject, this is entirely Blizzard's show. Everyone calls them Blizzard when happy, and bring up Activision when they get annoyed by them. Guess what? Blizzard's company bought Activision, not the other way around. Blizzard retained complete and total separation from Activision. If you have a problem with the game, blame the right studio.

Sure, it technically is Activision Blizzard now, but as I said above, people only bring up the Activision part when they don't want to accept that their beloved Blizzard is, in fact, screwing up.

As for the game itself, I am studiously avoiding any and all info regarding it, because I always do that during betas for games I actually intend on buying.

EDIT: Regarding checkpoints, didn't Diablo 2 save progress largely based on the Waypoints? Sure, your map was saved, but you still had to hack through all the enemies if you wanted to go there again.

[A Weeping Angel]

I wasn't aware of Blizzard buying Activision, my mistake. So Blizzard has the issues and will henceforth be the object of my ire. Regarding Waypoints, it has been awhile since I played but waypoints allowed you to quick-travel and enemies respawned every time you loaded your game. Saving only kept track of your objectives and overall goal. You still loaded into the camp every time with the respawned enemies which made the waypoints so invaluable to jump to where you needed to be without hacking through them all again. So regarding your edit yeah I guess.

[Meta]

Yea I think the waypoints in D3 are pretty much standard compared to other games. You've been there before? You can get there again in the blink of an eye! If the region locked play is anything like the different servers on legacy Bnet (at least for WC3,) jumping onto a different one sees fairly little change in performance and is easy as pie.

If I had to guess, the no pausing and auto timeout are for promoting conscientious multiplayer. If you're playing with a group of people you don't want someone afking or pausing all the time, leaving your group with difficulties of a four man group and only the firepower of three. If you're with people you know, they'll wait and you can always teleport right back to them with the banner system. For a multiplayer-centric game like this, those seem logical, if unwieldy with randoms.

DRM could be a deal breaker for some, I admit. I understand why it's there and not all the reasons are for the benefit of the consumer. That said, that's true of anything you purchase, and Blizz has to look out for the security of it's own investment. I do empathize with those who don't have the prerequisites to cope with DRM, be they a stable internet or other reasons, but I hope that at least some good (fewer hax!) comes from the DRM and that it doesn't spoil the game for too many. I suppose I would be okay with just my handful of friends and I playing though :)

[toasty]

Blizzard is dead to me. I liked Warcraft III a lot. I liked Starcraft and D2. I play SCII cuz its the best multiplayer RTS game. But I don't want D3 for multiplayer, I wanted it for a hacknslash game. No interest in this game anymore.

[A Weeping Angel]

But I don't want D3 for multiplayer, I wanted it for a hacknslash game. . Agree here. I may play it when and if years down the road things change. Though the Monk and Demon Hunter are mighty tempting I must admit.
Edit: Heard a rumor no LAN play either but don't care enough to follow up.

[faceroll]

Why would you ever play a diablo game for the single player?

[lord_khaine]

Why would you ever play a diablo game for the single player?

The better question is, why wouldnt you?

[faceroll]

The better question is, why wouldnt you?

Because 95% of the items you find are useless for your character. And killing monsters with friends > killing monsters alone.

[king.com]

Because 95% of the items you find are useless for your character. And killing monsters with friends > killing monsters alone.

Because if I wanted to do that I'd play an mmo?

Diablo has been good for LAN multiplayer only, without that and the many things they've done (characters are only differentiated by loot systen) this game looks like something i can safely miss.

[faceroll]

Because if I wanted to do that I'd play an mmo?

What MMOs were out when D1 was released? What MMOs were around that were at all similar to D2 during its release? That were free to play? That supported casuals? That were even remotely Diablo-like?


Diablo has been good for LAN multiplayer only, without that and the many things they've done (characters are only differentiated by loot systen) this game looks like something i can safely miss.

ok

[king.com]

What MMOs were out when D1 was released? What MMOs were around that were at all similar to D2 during its release? That were free to play? That supported casuals? That were even remotely Diablo-like?


Ultima Online.
Everquest.

Both cheaper than buying Diablo 1 or 2 full price.

You click on things and they die, using hotkeys, thats all that made Diablo special, oh and loot drops.

[faceroll]

Ultima Online.
Everquest.

Both cheaper than buying Diablo 1 or 2 full price.

You click on things and they die, using hotkeys, thats all that made Diablo special, oh and loot drops.

Neither of those games were very casual accessible. The level of griefing that occurred in Ultima is legendary. They're also not hack'n'slash like Diablo.

[king.com]

Neither of those games were very casual accessible. The level of griefing that occurred in Ultima is legendary. They're also not hack'n'slash like Diablo.

And the level of griefing and cheating in Diablo was legendary. Your clicking your moue while hovering over others.

[Meta]

Without helping a devolution into MMO debate, I would say there are a few noteworthy differences:

Past Diablos haven't had a monthly subscription. III shows no indications of having one and I'm over 99% sure will not. Frankly, the game would tank and Blizzard already has WoW.
Diablo III will be more single player friendly than an MMO. All of the game's content will be available more easily to the lone player than would be in the vast majority of MMOs.

That said, however, the single player only market may be upset about the DRM. I understand this, but Blizzard seems confident that losses from piracy and potential micro-transaction customers would be greater than the number of people irrevocably turned off by DRM.

I do think that it should be mentioned that the "sweet spot" of the Diablo experience is likely 2-4 players. Between university friends and DotA teammates, filling up a party should be easy and fulfilling. Without a stock of active and congenial allies though, I can see why one might pay less attention to Diablo III.

[MammonAzrael]

Why would you ever play a diablo game for the single player?

For the story, the lore of the world. The items and loot are secondary to playing through the story of the game as a world-saving hero. An atmosphere that is often lost once the game becomes multiplayer.

I rarely played D1 or D2 as multiplayer games. And I just as rarely enjoyed the experience, as if often devolved into click-loot-click-loot-etc. It became repetitious and lost any feeling that you were progressing something. Now this very admittedly is partly, if not wholly, because I have few friends that I can set up a game with, which is the same reason that MMOs can't hold my attention for very long. If I don't know the person I'm playing with IRL, and spend time with them outside the game, then it simply isn't enough for me.

I am saddened by Blizzard's decision to make the game this way, as I will likely be unable to play it. My internet connection is simply not up to the task. Should that change (and it should eventually!) I may pick up the game, though I'll still hope that on offline single player feature will have been added by then.

[faceroll]

And the level of griefing and cheating in Diablo was legendary.

The original? There was a lot of cheating, however, griefing was fairly minimal. Furthermore, every online game was an instance, and you could password it. You have no such luxury with an mmo.


Your clicking your moue while hovering over others.

In that case, all computer games are pretty much the same because you use a mouse and kill stuff. You're committing a pretty grievous equivocation in saying that Diablo's like Everquest. They are superficially similar for someone who doesn't play videogames, sure. But if you're actually a gamer, you'll realize that they are really quite different. I suspect, however, that you've not played any of them, though.

And you still haven't addressed subscription fees.


I do think that it should be mentioned that the "sweet spot" of the Diablo experience is likely 2-4 players. Between university friends and DotA teammates, filling up a party should be easy and fulfilling. Without a stock of active and congenial allies though, I can see why one might pay less attention to Diablo III.

It just sounds like people without friends QQing. Super Smash brothers is a pretty mediocre game without friends, you know?


For the story, the lore of the world. The items and loot are secondary to playing through the story of the game as a world-saving hero. An atmosphere that is often lost once the game becomes multiplayer.

I would agree that Diablo had really great atmosphere. Diablo 2 had silly lore and the story was pretty forgettable. I am definitely not picking up D3 for the story, I'm picking it up for Blizzard's commitment to making the finest Hack'n'Slash RPG ever. There's something about click-loot-click-loot that I find satisfying.

[Aidan305]

As much as I've enjoyed the Diablo franchise thus far, I've yet to see anything that's bowled me over with D2. While I don't particularly mind the DRM, the always online nature of the game is something I particularly dislike. When I play games, I'm generally playing them on my laptop whilst traveling somewhere. I can't play from college and my network at home is too slow and unstable to really support much online gaming. Frankly, I don't even know why Blizzard is doing this. Precedent has shown us that audiences dislike it, and it causes more problems than it solves.

The only thing I'm really interested in about it at this stage is finding out what sort of interesting things my namesake got up to before his moment of monumental stupidity in D1.

[Tebryn]

I never played either game online. Some people enjoy playing games by themselves for the story. I was sad to hear all this about D3...I won't be getting it or supporting Blizzard as a company anymore.

[toasty]

The original? There was a lot of cheating, however, griefing was fairly minimal. Furthermore, every online game was an instance, and you could password it. You have no such luxury with an mmo.

People get griefed when they try to trade items, or something. I just watched a vlog where this guy remembered how he lost his entire wealth as a kid because he trusted the wrong person. Sure, trust the right people, but still, it can happen to anyone.



And you still haven't addressed subscription fees.

Free-to-play games. League of Legends comes to mind. I play that, its more expensive than just buying diablo, but its cheaper than WoW.


It just sounds like people without friends QQing. Super Smash brothers is a pretty mediocre game without friends, you know?

For some reason, Diablo always struck me as a single player game. Maybe that's because when I played it I had terrible internet and played video games in LAN cafes where the scene was dominated by Counter Strike, CoD4, and Wacraft III/DotA. Those are my multiplayer games, even to this day, if I want a multiplayer game I will play CS: Source, League of Legends (similar to dota) and/or SCII.


I'm picking it up for Blizzard's commitment to making the finest Hack'n'Slash RPG ever. There's something about click-loot-click-loot that I find satisfying.

I was too, until I realized that it was a singleplayer game that required me to be constantly connected to the internet. THat's not a physical problem, I have constant internet where I live (college campus, yeah. :smallbiggrin:) but I am morally opposed to such a system. If I find out that 5 of my friends really play D3, then I'll consider it. But not until that happens.

Having said that, I will probably buy all the SCII expansions on release, just because I really do like that style of multiplayer.

[Spartacus]

If the region locked play is anything like the different servers on legacy Bnet (at least for WC3,) jumping onto a different one sees fairly little change in performance and is easy as pie.

It's likely to be more like SC2, i.e. one server, all the time. If you have friend in EU and NA, you get to buy two copies.


Edit: Heard a rumor no LAN play either but don't care enough to follow up.

Considering that a)SC2 has no LAN and b) you need to be constantly connected to B.net anyway, I suspect no LAN will be the case.

[faceroll]

People get griefed when they try to trade items, or something. I just watched a vlog where this guy remembered how he lost his entire wealth as a kid because he trusted the wrong person. Sure, trust the right people, but still, it can happen to anyone.

Diablo 1 "trading" was just dropping things on the ground and hoping that the guy you were trading with would also drop something on the ground. In other words, trading between strangers wasn't supported in any way.


Free-to-play games. League of Legends comes to mind. I play that, its more expensive than just buying diablo, but its cheaper than WoW.

I meant 1996 through like 2004. There's plenty of other stuff out there now, but for their time, D1 & D2 were really good for what they were. Cheap, easily accessible, and great online support for nothing beyond the initial cost of the game and an internet connection. They were largely PvE environments, which is what I prefer in my RPGs.


For some reason, Diablo always struck me as a single player game. Maybe that's because when I played it I had terrible internet and played video games in LAN cafes where the scene was dominated by Counter Strike, CoD4, and Wacraft III/DotA. Those are my multiplayer games, even to this day, if I want a multiplayer game I will play CS: Source, League of Legends (similar to dota) and/or SCII.

Diablo's replayability is all in the loot grinding, and that never had any context for me outside of being able to trade that loot with other people. I don't play videogames for storylines; I don't think I ever have. The medium is pretty poor for that sort of thing, imo. A book or movie does much better.


I was too, until I realized that it was a singleplayer game that required me to be constantly connected to the internet. THat's not a physical problem, I have constant internet where I live (college campus, yeah. :smallbiggrin:) but I am morally opposed to such a system. If I find out that 5 of my friends really play D3, then I'll consider it. But not until that happens.

Having said that, I will probably buy all the SCII expansions on release, just because I really do like that style of multiplayer.

I have a deep-seated need for gameplay virtually identical to the diablo games. Something about the style and design of diablo also can't be beat. Torchlight sucks. Hate the anime art, and the level design isn't very intriguing. Something about torchlight... just doesn't work for me. It'd be much more fun if I could play it with a friend, though.

[king.com]

The original? There was a lot of cheating, however, griefing was fairly minimal. Furthermore, every online game was an instance, and you could password it. You have no such luxury with an mmo.


I remember loads of problems with people nicking gold as a result of the games hard cap inventory. Again, if your hardcapping your running the game with isolation not multiplayer, with friends running together in an mmo you dont get griefed anyway.



In that case, all computer games are pretty much the same because you use a mouse and kill stuff. You're committing a pretty grievous equivocation in saying that Diablo's like Everquest. They are superficially similar for someone who doesn't play videogames, sure. But if you're actually a gamer, you'll realize that they are really quite different. I suspect, however, that you've not played any of them, though.


Sure, ill rephrase without being condescending. Your grinding for loot and levels, minimum plot, little character involvement and the whole extension of the game is as a result of wanting more loot and levels.




And you still haven't addressed subscription fees.


I thought I had but ill explain it this time: Diablo sold for $100 retail, over here, Ultima only $60 and came with a month free gameplay. The game ran a $10 monthly fee so for 3 months more your paying $30 + $60 for box, still costing less than Diablo.



It just sounds like people without friends QQing. Super Smash brothers is a pretty mediocre game without friends, you know?


Thats frankly insulting.




I would agree that Diablo had really great atmosphere. Diablo 2 had silly lore and the story was pretty forgettable. I am definitely not picking up D3 for the story, I'm picking it up for Blizzard's commitment to making the finest Hack'n'Slash RPG ever. There's something about click-loot-click-loot that I find satisfying.

And thats the reason people buy it. click click click, personally I cant go for that, i need to atleast have something to work for, my own character is a good motivator.



I don't play videogames for storylines; I don't think I ever have. The medium is pretty poor for that sort of thing, imo. A book or movie does much better.


Huh...wow. Alright then.

[Trazoi]

Why would you ever play a diablo game for the single player?
The original Diablo was pretty good as a single player graphical rogue-like game. I liked playing it solo with the multiplayer client which caused the enemies to respawn. However today the gameplay is from over a decade ago and it shows.

Diablo II however wasn't that great singleplayer as the game was clearly designed for groups. You're meant to pick a specialist role right from the beginning and the vast majority of the loot is unsuitable for your character type.

I won't fault Diablo III for going further down the multiplayer route, since that's what Blizzard has chosen to specialise it. All that means is there's an open market for someone else to come up with good single player action rogue-likes - which reminds me I need to play more Spelunky. :smallsmile:

[blueblade]

Question for the more knowledgeable. Actually, its more a confirmation of my own understanding: I can play solo, correct?

Yes, I'll be online, DRM'd etc, and others may be able to see my session. But I can play (and beat at least on normal) the game as a solo, right?

[faceroll]

Question for the more knowledgeable. Actually, its more a confirmation of my own understanding: I can play solo, correct?

Yes, I'll be online, DRM'd etc, and others may be able to see my session. But I can play (and beat at least on normal) the game as a solo, right?

If it's anything like previous incarnations of diablo, I assume so. You just make a game with a password. No one can join unless they know the password. It won't even show up on the game list. Though they may implement something like starcraft 2 where the server automatically matches people up who are trying to play, say Left 2 Die, without actually showing the particular game that gets created in a list.

[The Succubus]

I won't fault Diablo III for going further down the multiplayer route, since that's what Blizzard has chosen to specialise it. All that means is there's an open market for someone else to come up with good single player action rogue-likes - which reminds me I need to play more Spelunky. :smallsmile:

Yay! Spelunky! :smallbiggrin:

Has to be said, games like Spelunky and Realm of the Mad God have given me a new appreciation for "Hardcore" mode games. It's hard to say why but I think it just tickles something in my gamer genetics from the early 8-bit games, where death *really* meant death. No saves, no whining about bugs - you died because *YOU* screwed up.

[faceroll]

Anyone know how the skill/spell system works yet? Is it like Diablo 2?

[Morty]

The game itself looks promising, but the DRM mess and shift towards multiplayer... don't. It probably won't be bad enough to spoil the game for me, but still.

[faceroll]

The game itself looks promising, but the DRM mess and shift towards multiplayer... don't. It probably won't be bad enough to spoil the game for me, but still.

I got Starcraft 2. The DRM hasn't bothered me yet. I pretty much only play online though, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.

[The Succubus]

I will probably get Diablo 3 but I have to admit the DRM makes me feel uncomfortable. More than that, however, was Jay Wilson's very derisive comments towards people with poor internet connections in PC Gamer and his somewhat arrogant stance about single player.

My concern is that sends a signal to gaming companies that they can treat people with contempt and get away with it because they have a must-have title. Upcoming EA releases all depend on Origins, which has some really *interesting* T&Cs hidden in the EULA. Blizzard have cheerfully axed their singleplayer market, describing them as "statistically insignificant". I'm just worried about what's going to happen next.

[Chen]

Why would you ever play a diablo game for the single player?

In terms of actual gameplay I played D2 almost exclusively single player. I still played online so I could trade, but trading was the only use I had for other players. Diablo was never that deep strategically so you didn't NEED other people to help you. The fact in D2 you had to compete on who could click fastest to loot didn't help either. With the change to loot in D3 I may consider partying with people but overall I find Diablo is just a good mindless loot grinding game. If I want to play something that requires teamwork I'll go for league of legends or starcraft or an mmo.

[Volthawk]

Anyone know how the skill/spell system works yet? Is it like Diablo 2?

Well, from what I've seen, it looks like you get a new skill each level, but there doesn't seem to be a skill tree. It seems like you get given the skill, not choosing it.

[ZeltArruin]

My friend made me all worried about the new skill/passive system, but after reading it over, I think it is pretty cool. Everything scaling to gear/level is great, and you can respec freely and damn everything just looks good.

[Morty]

Yeah, the new skill system doesn't look bad. Skill trees are gone but there's plenty of them anyway.

[Sir Dar]

I got Starcraft 2. The DRM hasn't bothered me yet. I pretty much only play online though, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.

The big thing is this,about Diablo 3.You're no longer buying and owning a game.You are renting it.One way or another,if these servers go down for good,so does your game.
Diabo 3 from what is know so far.You can't pause the game in its online all the time single player mode and it will kick you out back to the main menu if you are away from the computer for more then 15 minutes.

[Leon]

The big thing is this.You no longer are buying and owning a game.You are renting it.One way or another,if these severs go down for good,so does your game.

I still occasionally play Hellgate London and am happy that it had the offline mode (never played the online part as i got the game second hand).

Never played D2 online - why would i want to play with random people on battle net. It was great Single Player and also the LAN support (which is a fast dying option these days in all games) was great for when you had some friends over or a house full of friends that you lived with to play regularly.

Being unable to pause the game... i still recall one LAN game we were playing being paused for a long time as we had a lady give birth in our driveway and went to help them.

I have other games that need to always have the Internet holding its hand and it can be mighty annoying in the those times when the connection is being problematic so i can foresee that being more of the same.

Tis a Shame - was looking forward to playing a Demon Hunter.

[Meta]

Anyone know how the skill/spell system works yet? Is it like Diablo 2?

A character starts with 2 active skill slots. As they gain levels they will unlock new active skill slots and at level 10 unlock their first passive skill slot. These max out to 6 active and 3 passive slots. Each class has about 2 dozen active skills and just over a dozen passive ones. Active skills generally scale with level and many of them are tied to weapon damage. There are no stat or skill points.

The coolest feature, imo, is the rune system. There are 5 different runes that begin dropping a little ways into the normal storyline. The lowest has a level 14 req, but the beginning levels go by fairly quickly. Each active skill you socket can be further modified by one of these colored runes: Indigo, Golden, Crimson, Alabaster, and Obsidian. These will sometimes radically alter the skill and other times add a slight variation. This might be a helpful way to understand it: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#.

Now the one thing that I mentioned that did originally dishearten me, was how all damage was tied to weapon attack. How does that make sense for a wizard! The best axes or swords in the game will have a significantly higher damage than the wands, but every wizard running around with a claymore?! Foolish indeed.

Luckily blizzard seems to have handled this very well by giving wands properties like "Adds 131-271% more damage to Wizards only." A quick glance at the math involved show that this will keeps Wands a bit behind the strongest 2-handed weapons in the game like Messerschmidt's Reaver and pretty even with the other great 1-handed weapons like Grandfather, but balancing this with other great Wizard only buffs on the weapon. Overall, the system will have to be balanced carefully, but I think this is a great way to keep a lot of oddball builds viable without overshadowing popular archetypes.

EDIT: Single player is still a very viable play style. The only mechanical advantage a group will have aside from being better off with good teamwork, is that each mobs drops loot that is visible only to 1 player. Basically, after killing a boss each player will receive a different set of drops that is invisible to the other players. That said, if you decide to drop any of those items, now anyone can use them. Very useful if you're playing with friends and your wizard is finding all the axes and their barbarian is tired of wizard hats!

EDIT 2: This may already be known, but Diablo also has a hardcore mode for those that like it. The only caveat being you can't trade gear between hardcore and non-hardcore characters. Which reminds me! Each character has a stash that holds all extra items you dont wish to sell. Fairly basic, but the best part is that any character on your account can take any item from the stash! An epic crossbow drop from Diablo while you're playing your Monk? You can sell it for gold or real money, trade it to a friend, break it down for valuable crafting parts, or keep it as a gift for your low level Demon Hunter!

[king.com]

EDIT : Nevermind

[Forbiddenwar]

On the one hand, D3 seems geared towards multiplayer (online, no pausing) but on the other hand, D3 seems exclusively single player (region locking especially SC2 type of region locking where you have to buy a different version of the game for every single one of your online friends.)

So I'm confused. I don't want to have to buy 4 copies of a $60+ game to be able to play with people on this forum.

[Chen]

The online only and no pausing just make it so they don't need a separate mode for people who wanted to be online but playing alone. In D2 you could play single player (offline) and there you could pause. But in online mode (called multiplayer but could be done single player) you just couldn't pause. Now in D2 you couldn't use single player characters with multiplayer characters. All they did was remove the Single Player option. You can still play it solo but it needs to be online. I don't think the intent is necessarily to promote multiplayer playing but rather as piracy protection. While it will turn some people off a large number of people only played D2 online (even if just to trade) and I imagine will continue to do so with D3 as well.

[Starwulf]

I can't believe no-ones(well, i haven't read second page yet, so they might have) mentioned the Trainers from Diablo 1. They allowed griefing far beyond "not dropping an item" when trading, or "Nicking gold when full". You could Town-kill people the moment they logged into a game, and keep killing them. Certain trainers could force pop your character, causing you to lose all your loot.

There, is that enough griefing for ya?

[Meta]

There will be nothing like that in Diablo III, though. All PvP will be in the arena. I understand you were addressing that towards the people debating Diablo I and II's merits compared to older MMOs, but we had just started to move beyond that :smallsigh:

[Sholos]

I got Starcraft 2. The DRM hasn't bothered me yet. I pretty much only play online though, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.

Not everyone has a perfect Internet connection that will never go down in the middle of their game. Not everyone has their own Internet connection to themselves that they won't have to share with anyone making gaming online impossible. Yes, yes, you can play other games during those times, but the point is that you shouldn't be forced to. Not with a non-MMO game.

In addition, some people do not want to be forced to be connected to the Internet just to play a game on principal, rather than practical reasons (or in addition to). The complete disregard for people who don't have spotless Internet connections doesn't help, either. Also, people don't like being told that they're playing a game the "wrong" way and that the makers are going to try to insure they play it the "right" way.

[Drascin]

In addition, some people do not want to be forced to be connected to the Internet just to play a game on principal, rather than practical reasons (or in addition to).

Pretty much. I just find the hassle annoying, especially when my router decides to act up. I tolerate Steam because iI use it to get games at a fifth (or less) of their original price - less price, worse service, you get what you pay for, I can understand that. But paying full 50€ price for a game that saddles me with such hassles? Sorry, not happening. So I didn't get SC2, and chances I'll get D3 are slim, at least until I can get them for about 10€ each.

[faceroll]

The big thing is this,about Diablo 3.You're no longer buying and owning a game.You are renting it.One way or another,if these servers go down for good,so does your game.
Diabo 3 from what is know so far.You can't pause the game in its online all the time single player mode and it will kick you out back to the main menu if you are away from the computer for more then 15 minutes.

[citation needed]

Also, I never paused Diablo 2 because I never played offline.


Not everyone has a perfect Internet connection that will never go down in the middle of their game. Not everyone has their own Internet connection to themselves that they won't have to share with anyone making gaming online impossible. Yes, yes, you can play other games during those times, but the point is that you shouldn't be forced to. Not with a non-MMO game.

In addition, some people do not want to be forced to be connected to the Internet just to play a game on principal, rather than practical reasons (or in addition to). The complete disregard for people who don't have spotless Internet connections doesn't help, either. Also, people don't like being told that they're playing a game the "wrong" way and that the makers are going to try to insure they play it the "right" way.

So, like, 5 people?

[Spartacus]

faceroll, you may not have problems with these things. You may even be in the majority, as blizzard obviously thinks. But the fact that people are complaining means that not everyone plays the same way you do. Sometimes you get called away from the computer. In a single player game, you can pause. In a multiplayer game, you just die. Given the option, I know I would prefer to pause.

[Runestar]

Has anyone been following the beta D3 replays on youtube? The wizard looks particularly cool especially electrocute. That will definitely be the first class I try when I get my paws on this game. :smallcool:

[Chen]

faceroll, you may not have problems with these things. You may even be in the majority, as blizzard obviously thinks. But the fact that people are complaining means that not everyone plays the same way you do. Sometimes you get called away from the computer. In a single player game, you can pause. In a multiplayer game, you just die. Given the option, I know I would prefer to pause.

Did they remove town portal scrolls/books from the game? I mean its conceivable since you get an item to sell gear in the field so its not as necessary, but if they didn't the pausing issue is pretty trivial I'd say.

The always being online thing seems like a more legitimate concern, but considering the ~10 million subscribers WoW and all the SC2 sales, its seems fairly clear they have a HUGE market of people who are willing to constantly be online to play their games. Presumably enough so that its better to use online only as DRM and lose some customers than to do it the other way and presumably lose sales to piracy.

[Sir Dar]

[citation needed]

Also, I never paused Diablo 2 because I never played offline.

That is why its not a big deal for you.And why its a big deal for others,who have not played in the same way as your self.:smallwink:




So, like, 5 people?
Far more then 5 people,who don't have perfect connections.


Did they remove town portal scrolls/books from the game? I mean its conceivable since you get an item to sell gear in the field so its not as necessary, but if they didn't the pausing issue is pretty trivial I'd say.

The always being online thing seems like a more legitimate concern, but considering the ~10 million subscribers WoW and all the SC2 sales, its seems fairly clear they have a HUGE market of people who are willing to constantly be online to play their games. Presumably enough so that its better to use online only as DRM and lose some customers than to do it the other way and presumably lose sales to piracy.
Its not a lost sale,if they were never going to pay for your game in the first place.And starcraft 2 did have a offline mode.Sure it didn't work for a while ,but now it does.So i have heard.

[Forbiddenwar]

Its not a lost sale,if they were never going to pay for your game in the first place.And starcraft 2 did have a offline mode.Sure it didn't work for a while ,but now it does.So i have heard.

Yes Sc2 has an offline mode. And it was vital for playing the campaign when the servers suddenly dropped (which was often for the first 6 months) If Diablo stays online only, delaying purchase until the servers are stable (6 months minimum, year likely) seems reasonable.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Two flies mar this ointment...

1) Always Online. If I want to play a free MMO, I've got a dozen options. This isn't 2004, this is 2011, in case you missed the date. D1 has no MMO competition. D2 had some, but none free that was worth playing. But that niche has been flooded, and provides stiff competition for D3.

I played D1 exclusively offline. I played D2 almost exclusively offline. I have no interest in playing D3 online. I've got three different free MMO's I can play if I want to do that. D2 was a fun single-player game. They've completely removed that for D3.

The inability to pause makes this completely unappealing. I'm sorry, if someone knocks at my door, and I'm in the middle of a boss battle, do I ignore that person at the door or do I let my character die? Sorry, that stinks.

2) Real Life Transactions. Full stop. Just... no. Why? Simple. If you want to get phat loots, you've basically got three options: 1) spend hours and grind them yourself, 2) hack and dupe items, 3) find someone who has spent hours and gotten the items, and grief them.

Option 1 is unappealing to most people wanting to make a quick buck. Option 2 is basically getting paid to hack. They never could remove duped items from D2 online play, I fail to see how they could get any better at it for D3. Option 3 is the dangerous one, though. Particularly when you've got people who are after money first and foremost. If you can scam enough people and sell their stuff and get more cash than it would cost to purchase a copy of the game, then you've made a profit, even if the account gets banned. Then you just go and buy another copy, with a new username, and a new BlizzardID. Rinse, wash, repeat.

The current method that D3 uses combines the WORST of both MMO and Hack n Slash games.

It's pretty, it's got some interesting ideas, but until these two issues are addressed, they aren't getting my money.

[Spiryt]

Two flies mar this ointment...

1) Always Online. If I want to play a free MMO, I've got a dozen options. This isn't 2004, this is 2011, in case you missed the date. D1 has no MMO competition. D2 had some, but none free that was worth playing. But that niche has been flooded, and provides stiff competition for D3.

I played D1 exclusively offline. I played D2 almost exclusively offline. I have no interest in playing D3 online. I've got three different free MMO's I can play if I want to do that. D2 was a fun single-player game. They've completely removed that for D3.

The inability to pause makes this completely unappealing. I'm sorry, if someone knocks at my door, and I'm in the middle of a boss battle, do I ignore that person at the door or do I let my character die? Sorry, that stinks.

2) Real Life Transactions. Full stop. Just... no. Why? Simple. If you want to get phat loots, you've basically got three options: 1) spend hours and grind them yourself, 2) hack and dupe items, 3) find someone who has spent hours and gotten the items, and grief them.



Not much to add really.

I like to play stuff, minimize it, and go Internet something, or just go play with dog for a hell of it. So, no, because no?

Or I go to a place, with * gasp * NO INTERNET. I can't play too?

Seems that they've gone full "emaciated victims cannot escape" route. :smallwink:

[Spartacus]

3) find someone who has spent hours and gotten the items, and grief them.


Just pointing out that while it won't stop people scamming others, Blizzard is making all loot drop individually. If a monster drops that nice Stone of Jordan for you, nobody can pick it up before you. Perhaps there is a time limit, like if you leave it on the ground for 300 seconds or something, it becomes free game, but loot is all individual.

[raymundo]

Presumably enough so that its better to use online only as DRM and lose some customers than to do it the other way and presumably lose sales to piracy.

Except that DRM only bothers those who bought the game, people piracying it will just wait until it is cracked and play it offline. Every DRM is going to be cracked, especially always-online-DRMs.. partly because they are so very annoying. At the end of the day, you just scared away a bunch of legitimate buyers.

[Tengu_temp]

1) Always Online. If I want to play a free MMO, I've got a dozen options. This isn't 2004, this is 2011, in case you missed the date. D1 has no MMO competition. D2 had some, but none free that was worth playing. But that niche has been flooded, and provides stiff competition for D3.

You know you can just play the game alone, right? Nobody forces you to play it with other players if you don't want to. Lack of pause sucks, but who knows, maybe it will be available in single player mode.


2) Real Life Transactions. Full stop. Just... no. Why? Simple. If you want to get phat loots, you've basically got three options: 1) spend hours and grind them yourself, 2) hack and dupe items, 3) find someone who has spent hours and gotten the items, and grief them.

Honestly, the only problem I have with this is that it makes the job for professional gold farmers easier - I hope Blizzard will find other ways to find them. Buying and selling items for real currency is not that different from buying and selling them for in-game gold, and you don't need to participate in this if you don't want to.

[Chen]

2) Real Life Transactions. Full stop. Just... no. Why? Simple. If you want to get phat loots, you've basically got three options: 1) spend hours and grind them yourself, 2) hack and dupe items, 3) find someone who has spent hours and gotten the items, and grief them.

Option 1 is unappealing to most people wanting to make a quick buck. Option 2 is basically getting paid to hack. They never could remove duped items from D2 online play, I fail to see how they could get any better at it for D3. Option 3 is the dangerous one, though. Particularly when you've got people who are after money first and foremost. If you can scam enough people and sell their stuff and get more cash than it would cost to purchase a copy of the game, then you've made a profit, even if the account gets banned. Then you just go and buy another copy, with a new username, and a new BlizzardID. Rinse, wash, repeat.

The current method that D3 uses combines the WORST of both MMO and Hack n Slash games.


I'm confused as to what you're saying here. Is it that all of these things will be worse with a real money AH? Because clearly all the above mentioned things happen with or without the real money involvement. Remember too, that people actually have to want to pay real money for these items. If duping is rampant no one is going to spend money on a market flooded with duped goods. Scamming can only really occur when trading with another player. Sure people will do it, but I don't see what this has to do with the real money aspect since people did this in D2 and in WoW and in almost every other online RPG.

I suspect hacks and the like will also be less prevalent if everything is forced to be online. Blizzard has done a fairly good job at keeping duping and the like to a minimum in WoW and they tend to crackdown on it fairly fast. I don't see any reason why the loot mechanics can't heavily borrow from the WoW code in this manner.

[Starwulf]

That is why its not a big deal for you.And why its a big deal for others,who have not played in the same way as your self.:smallwink:

Far more then 5 people,who don't have perfect connections.


Its not a lost sale,if they were never going to pay for your game in the first place.And starcraft 2 did have a offline mode.Sure it didn't work for a while ,but now it does.So i have heard.

You're barking up the wrong tree arguing with Faceroll. In every single thread concerning diablo 3, anytime someone complains about it and mentions internet connections, he's been entirely unsympathetic, and, as you can see, even going so far as to troll us in his own special way. I've come to completely ignore him when it comes to this type of thread. ^^ he obviously lives in some fantasy world where everyone has a perfect internet in all the world, and refuses to come out of it and see that even in the U.S. there are millions of people who don't have good options for internet. Hell, I only live 8 miles from the nearest town, but there is absolutely no decent internet for anyone where I live, dial-up is literally the only option, and that encompasses about 500 people or so who live on the mountain.

[Meta]

As some other posters have touched on, I feel it is unfair to complain about illegal piracy, duping, etc. in the same breath one complains about DRM. One is being done to avoid the other, and while I do empathize with those unable to play online, I would rather lose 50,000 players or whatever number will actually stick to their guns and not purchase it, so that the rest of the players will have a much less rampantly cheat-heavy environment. EDIT: Possibly avoiding and quashing any cheating whatsoever!

I think I understand why the no pause rule is there, but it should be lifted in single player, I agree. Perhaps, it already is, I don't know.

[Starwulf]

As some other posters have touched on, I feel it is unfair to complain about illegal piracy, duping, etc. in the same breath one complains about DRM. One is being done to avoid the other, and while I do empathize with those unable to play online, I would rather lose 50,000 players or whatever number will actually stick to their guns and not purchase it, so that the rest of the players will have a much less rampantly cheat-heavy environment. EDIT: Possibly avoiding and quashing any cheating whatsoever!

I think I understand why the no pause rule is there, but it should be lifted in single player, I agree. Perhaps, it already is, I don't know.

The issue with that line of thinking, is the 50,000 people(which btw, I think will be much higher) that refuse to purchase it, are the ones who obviously weren't going to cheat to begin with. The pirates are the ones who are going to cheat, and they weren't planning on buying the game to begin with.

[faceroll]

faceroll, you may not have problems with these things. You may even be in the majority, as blizzard obviously thinks. But the fact that people are complaining means that not everyone plays the same way you do. Sometimes you get called away from the computer. In a single player game, you can pause. In a multiplayer game, you just die. Given the option, I know I would prefer to pause.

Or you just hit the hotkey for a town portal and chill in town. That's what I did in D2, which I pretty much played online exclusively for the better part of 10 years (jesus christ that's a lot of time on a pretty ok game).


MMO.

Diablo's never been an MMO. D1 had game sizes of 4; D2 had game sizes of 8; and it sounds like D3 is going to have a game size of 4 (maybe 8). Bnet's basically a matchmaking service in the Diablo franchise.


As some other posters have touched on, I feel it is unfair to complain about illegal piracy, duping, etc. in the same breath one complains about DRM. One is being done to avoid the other, and while I do empathize with those unable to play online, I would rather lose 50,000 players or whatever number will actually stick to their guns and not purchase it, so that the rest of the players will have a much less rampantly cheat-heavy environment. EDIT: Possibly avoiding and quashing any cheating whatsoever!

I think I understand why the no pause rule is there, but it should be lifted in single player, I agree. Perhaps, it already is, I don't know.

That's a really good point, but I am uncertain if dupes, etc. can be solved with DRM. Maphacks in starcraft 2 are solved with mass bannings. There's not really any way (or so I'm told) to deal with maphakcs from the server side. Not without some seriously invasive programming.


You're barking up the wrong tree arguing with Faceroll. In every single thread concerning diablo 3, anytime someone complains about it and mentions internet connections, he's been entirely unsympathetic, and, as you can see, even going so far as to troll us in his own special way. I've come to completely ignore him when it comes to this type of thread. ^^ he obviously lives in some fantasy world where everyone has a perfect internet in all the world, and refuses to come out of it and see that even in the U.S. there are millions of people who don't have good options for internet. Hell, I only live 8 miles from the nearest town, but there is absolutely no decent internet for anyone where I live, dial-up is literally the only option, and that encompasses about 500 people or so who live on the mountain.

/shrug
Diablo's only worth playing online. I've always considered it an online game, so your complaints seem to me to pretty much be "why can't there be single player WoW?"

[Starwulf]

Or you just hit the hotkey for a town portal and chill in town. That's what I did in D2, which I pretty much played online exclusively for the better part of 10 years (jesus christ that's a lot of time on a pretty ok game).



Diablo's never been an MMO. D1 had game sizes of 4; D2 had game sizes of 8; and it sounds like D3 is going to have a game size of 4 (maybe 8). Bnet's basically a matchmaking service in the Diablo franchise.



That's a really good point, but I am uncertain if dupes, etc. can be solved with DRM. Maphacks in starcraft 2 are solved with mass bannings. There's not really any way (or so I'm told) to deal with maphakcs from the server side. Not without some seriously invasive programming.



/shrug
Diablo's only worth playing online. I've always considered it an online game, so your complaints seem to me to pretty much be "why can't there be single player WoW?"

Yeah, but that's just you. On the various d3 threads on this forum alone, I have seen at least a dozen or more people who have clearly stated they only play Diablo in single player mode, or LAN. That is a fairly obvious indicator that there are likely hundreds of thousands of people who do so at large, if not a million or two. Which imo, gives you no right to throw out the troll-like comments you have on these threads. And you can't deny the "like what..all 5 of them" comment was trolling.

[faceroll]

Yeah, but that's just you. On the various d3 threads on this forum alone, I have seen at least a dozen or more people who have clearly stated they only play Diablo in single player mode, or LAN. That is a fairly obvious indicator that there are likely hundreds of thousands of people who do so at large, if not a million or two. Which imo, gives you no right to throw out the troll-like comments you have on these threads. And you can't deny the "like what..all 5 of them" comment was trolling.

Just because I disagree with you doesn't make me a troll. Some people have contrary opinions because they actually feel differently about things, not because they're "out to get you".

I also hear a lot of people online QQing about always online stuff or whatnot, and you know what? There are still hundred of thousands, if not millions, of people playing them.

[raymundo]

Just because I disagree with you doesn't make me a troll. Some people have contrary opinions because they actually feel differently about things, not because they're "out to get you".


Correct. Your disagreement does not make you a troll.




I also hear a lot of people online QQing about always online stuff or whatnot, and you know what? There are still hundred of thousands, if not millions, of people playing them.

Your choice of words might make other people think of you as a troll.
Your thinking there is "a right way" to play a certain game might make other people think you were a troll.
Ignoring some arguments and enforcing others at your liking might make other people think of you as a troll.
And finally, saying "It just sounds like people without friends QQing." will make people think of you as a troll.
Just wanted to summarize it for you.


Well, I just heartily disagree with most of your arguments. You play Diablo mainly online, alright. Other people do not. Perma-online-DRMs has its advantages, but you just can not deny it also has disadvantages for quite a few people as well.

[nooblade]

I watched a youtube of the beta, and I have to say that I'm really sad about what the story looks like, or at least the start. When content doesn't make me think about something (philosophy, tactics, people, anything other than, "go here, hack-and-slash bad guy") IMHO it can't possibly be good. The quest about the man's possessed wife was exactly the kind of trashy thing you'd find in an MMO. He doesn't do anything! You can't interact with the situation! Ugh. It's the kind of thing that's already a little tedious the second time you do it.

Hell, I can't even think of the word "quest" properly anymore. I should think that a quest would be the ultimate in exerting your own force on the world. Videogames should acknowledge that the quest should start epic and not be used as a device to measure incremental progress.

It's probably also that I'm disappointed with the setting itself. The smith-man whose wife was possessed, he appeared kinda tormented, but it wasn't very interesting. It's a shame because there are some really nasty possibilities with exorcism or with half-living suffering... But with the way the game went, I was convinced that the woman was basically the same as all the classic undead creatures--they had died and turned into unfeeling, loot-dropping mooks.

There. I've stupidly gone and added value to the story that I hated. But it still remains that they've spent a bunch of time on setting, which looks pretty poor quality, and consequently most people just skip it. Why do they develop settings like those?

[Starwulf]

Correct. Your disagreement does not make you a troll.




Your choice of words might make other people think of you as a troll.
Your thinking there is "a right way" to play a certain game might make other people think you were a troll.
Ignoring some arguments and enforcing others at your liking might make other people think of you as a troll.
And finally, saying "It just sounds like people without friends QQing." will make people think of you as a troll.
Just wanted to summarize it for you.


Well, I just heartily disagree with most of your arguments. You play Diablo mainly online, alright. Other people do not. Perma-online-DRMs has its advantages, but you just can not deny it also has disadvantages for quite a few people as well.

Thank you for perfectly summarizing my viewpoint. It's not that you can't disagree with people on the internet, that's perfectly acceptable. It's the WAY you do the disagreeing, by so blatantly dismissing the other sides viewpoint and concerns, AND doing so in a fashion that is both insulting and demeaning to that side, that is what made me call you a troll, because you've done so in every diablo 3 thread on this forum. If you want to disagree, do so in a more polite fashion. No-one on this thread has treated you, or your opinions with dis-respect, there is absolutely no cause for you to do so to us.

[Avilan the Grey]

Diablo's only worth playing online. I've always considered it an online game, so your complaints seem to me to pretty much be "why can't there be single player WoW?"

And that's where a lot of people disagree; I played D1 online a bit before the cheating became rampant; after being forced to cheat myself just to stay alive and not loose all my stuff to noob-killers I played exclusively single player and loved it.

D2... Never played online at all.

Of course both these games are from the dialup era; running a game of 4 people where all are connected with 14400 or 28800 modems... (Sarcasm mode)Those were the good old days(/Sarcasm mode).

I will most likely only play D3 alone.



I watched a youtube of the beta, and I have to say that I'm really sad about what the story looks like, or at least the start. When content doesn't make me think about something (philosophy, tactics, people, anything other than, "go here, hack-and-slash bad guy") IMHO it can't possibly be good. The quest about the man's possessed wife was exactly the kind of trashy thing you'd find in an MMO. He doesn't do anything! You can't interact with the situation! Ugh. It's the kind of thing that's already a little tedious the second time you do it. (Snipping the rest)

You mean it is exactly like Diablo 1 and 2? What a shock! :smallbiggrin:

[Meta]

And that's where a lot of people disagree; I played D1 online a bit before the cheating became rampant; after being forced to cheat myself just to stay alive and not loose all my stuff to noob-killers I played exclusively single player and loved it.

D2... Never played online at all.

Of course both these games are from the dialup era; running a game of 4 people where all are connected with 14400 or 28800 modems... (Sarcasm mode)Those were the good old days(/Sarcasm mode).

I will most likely only play D3 alone.




You mean it is exactly like Diablo 1 and 2? What a shock! :smallbiggrin:

I'll be your D3 friend if you like. I can't backstab a grin that adorable :smallsmile:

[Avilan the Grey]

I'll be your D3 friend if you like. I can't backstab a grin that adorable :smallsmile:

Well that is an idea... I remember when Spore came out and this forum organized a list. Too bad the game itself was a major disappointment.

Let's do that again for D3!!!

[Meta]

I can put that in the OP, for sure. I believe the region locked servers may hamper our efforts a bit. Perhaps multiple groups would be best?

I was able to dig this up: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3082080739

[ZeltArruin]

I just wanted to point out that all you people saying your internet is too bad to play online, you may be overestimating how much bandwidth this game will require, especially if you are playing single player/on your own. Now, I haven't had dial-up in the last decade, but I do remember the only thing that was remotely slow was the patching, otherwise I could pretty much play any game, D2, Dungeon Siege (it was new back then), and stuff just fine. No lag, no real problems. Also, I guess my connection was really solid, never got dropped or anything spotty like that.

On a different topic, I see Diablo as a social game, like dnd or a board game, and I rarely played with people I knew, when I did play with others. I find it really weird that people would intentionally cut them selves off when the option to play with others was available.

Edit: Also, put all points into vitality, disregard energy/dexterity/strength, profit.

[BlackSheep]

I just wanted to chime in on the side of "I hate the idea of mandatory online play." There's nothing particularly wrong with my 'Net connection. I've just never felt there was any value added in playing Diablo online.

As for the comment about bandwidth, that's not really the main cause of poor online gaming performance. Latency (ping time) has a bigger impact there.

[GungHo]

Not a fan of mandatory online play, either. I'm not antisocial. I just don't want to deal with YOU.

Additionally, if I want to cheese my butt off and give my guy all 18s (or whatever the max ability score will be) and the Beefcake's Sword of Godslaying, that's my business.

[Kesnit]

On a different topic, I see Diablo as a social game, like dnd or a board game, and I rarely played with people I knew, when I did play with others. I find it really weird that people would intentionally cut them selves off when the option to play with others was available.

While that is a perfectly valid opinion, and I cannot speak for the others, I do have a few reasons why I usually prefer to play alone.

1) Time. I don't know how it was in DI or II (since I never went online for either), but based on other online games, getting a group together can take time. Players have to find other players who want to group up. Those that were in the middle of something have to finish up and get with the rest.

For people whose play-time is limited, every minute you spend waiting is one minute less you can actually play. Contrast that to hop on and actually play for the 30 minutes you have free.

2) Idiots. While I know there are a lot of mature gamers out there, there are also a lot of idiots whose idea of fun is rushing off and dying, then expecting everyone else to cover for them. Or players who want to stand in the back and do nothing to help, then get the rewards. (Please note: When I say "stand in the back," I do not people people playing classes that are ranged or healers. Those people do stand in the back, but they contribute to the group.)

[AgentPaper]

Just popping in to mention that I am in the beta, and if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer.

[Suichimo]

On a different topic, I see Diablo as a social game, like dnd or a board game, and I rarely played with people I knew, when I did play with others. I find it really weird that people would intentionally cut them selves off when the option to play with others was available.

Edit: Also, put all points into vitality, disregard energy/dexterity/strength, profit.

I agree completely. Online is the only way I could even play Diablo 2 once I got on it.

Also, not entirely true on your edit. Strength and Dex got the absolute minimum of points needed to equip all of your equipment after your other equipment. Energy can jump off a cliff though, no matter what your class.


While that is a perfectly valid opinion, and I cannot speak for the others, I do have a few reasons why I usually prefer to play alone.

1) Time. I don't know how it was in DI or II (since I never went online for either), but based on other online games, getting a group together can take time. Players have to find other players who want to group up. Those that were in the middle of something have to finish up and get with the rest.

For people whose play-time is limited, every minute you spend waiting is one minute less you can actually play. Contrast that to hop on and actually play for the 30 minutes you have free.

2) Idiots. While I know there are a lot of mature gamers out there, there are also a lot of idiots whose idea of fun is rushing off and dying, then expecting everyone else to cover for them. Or players who want to stand in the back and do nothing to help, then get the rewards. (Please note: When I say "stand in the back," I do not people people playing classes that are ranged or healers. Those people do stand in the back, but they contribute to the group.)

1. Find a game name that interests you, for instance "bossthatdropsstuffiwant 278". Join it and then follow it, since its likely a string of runs to that boss. Go as long as you want. Or, if you want to do specific things a game title that says "Act 1 beginning" means they're starting a new character, most likely. It is extremely easy to jump in and out and find a game that meets your requirements.

2. Ignore them, and name calling is actually fairly low. If someone died in D2 you just saw people spamming TP, if one wasn't already up.


Just popping in to mention that I am in the beta, and if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer.

You lucky bastard.

[Meta]

Not a fan of mandatory online play, either. I'm not antisocial. I just don't want to deal with YOU.

Additionally, if I want to cheese my butt off and give my guy all 18s (or whatever the max ability score will be) and the Beefcake's Sword of Godslaying, that's my business.

No need to be rude; always online does not equate to forced cooperative play. It's entirely possible to experience the game without seeing another player's character.

I edited the OP to include some information to those interested in playing with other playgrounders. The game won't be out for a few months, but who wants to be on the forums when it's released :smallsmile:.

[Gamerlord]

I'm considering getting the game, but not for sometime until after it is released. The servers will probably be overloaded for the first month or so, and I have no intention of pre-ordering a game that will barely be playable for several weeks.
On the topic of online play in the first two, I never played the first (Lost my disc before I had a chance to install it, was too busy having fun with the second) but the second I played mainly offline, though I did play online occasionally. I don't have much of a problem with the always-online part,my internet connection is pretty reliable, and if I don't feel like letting someone else in on my massacre, I'll just make some gibberish password. The fact you cannot save besides checkpoints or pause is annoying, but not a deal breaker.

[JabberwockySupafly]

As someone who's actually in the Closed Beta, I have this to say regarding complaints:

1) Story
There's a lot of it, actually. Like in D1, it is mostly told through Tomes or journals you find lying around, as well as some NPC interaction. There's probably more story in the first act, after you start going into the dungeon, than both of the first games & expansions combined. It's also a really solid story, rife with lore and expanding on the downfall of Tristram in the first game. As someone who remembers D1 with a great deal of fondness, and still has a lot of questions regarding the back story, this is a big bonus for me. Mind you, this is just the first Act. I cannot speak beyond that, of course.

2) Atmosphere & "Cartoony Graphics"
The game looks, plays, and feels like Diablo 1 but much better graphics. It's still dark, gory, and most importantly - fun. The graphics aren't nearly as bright or cartoony as many people lead you to believe. Even in most gameplay videos they have turned the gamma up. At max settings and a moderate gamma level, the game is sufficiently claustrophobic and creepy that I refuse to play it without a light on. This is a good thing.

5 (Three, Sir.) 3) Lack of Skill Trees & the automatic allocation of stats.
You really, really need to read up on skill runes. They literally change the way a skill works to the point where it can be considered a whole new ability. Beyond just changing elements, they modify skills entirely. An example would be the Wizard's Meteor. By itself? Flaming chunk of rock hits ground, does damage. One rune makes it a Comet that freezes on impact, and leaves a zone of frosty mist that slows & damages enemies. Another makes it split into 14 mini meteors that rain from the sky. Another doubles the impact damage and causes a fire DoT. And there are a lot of skill and rune combinations. As an example, using the skill calculator (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian), someone figured out there are around 1,817,811,072,000 different builds you can make with the Wizard alone. Not a million, not a billion, a trillion builds, and a lot of them are very viable. As the CB caps at 13, I haven't gotten to play with skill runes personally, but I am looking forward to it.


As for the stat thing? They've never been as important as most of the detractors are trying to make them sound, except for with some very specific builds (like the old Pre 1.10 Meleemancer from D2) or with Hardcore, where +VIT trumped virtually everything. You actually don't even notice the loss of assigning the points, and it actually streamlines the game a bit, so that you don't have to keep stopping every time you level and allocate points, then potentially get mobbed because your screen was covered by the old Inventory + Character Sheet Shroud O' Death.

4) Always Online
Yes, it's a problem for some. I had no problems with it, but this is an issue they may end up eventually addressing as apparently they are receiving a lot of backlash about it, especially since a console port has been announced as a strong possibility, and they will most likely allow offline play on it.

5) No Pause
Since you have infinite Town Portals (you get essentially a Hearthstone with no cool down), there's no reason not to just port back to town and sit nice & safe next to Cain, so the no pause thing is not nearly as big a deal as people are making it out to be.

6) Checkpoint saves
Again, not as bad it it seems. Again, port back to town and it should CP Save. Problem solved.

6 ('What happened to Seven?' Just kidding.7)Real Money Auction House
If you don't plan on playing with anyone but people you know or by yourself, this doesn't affect you. It can be effectively ignored by simply not using it. People who are having a big cry about it are essentially nerdraging about something that doesn't even concern them. "It's Pay to Win!" is not an effective argument, because you don't need to use the RMAH unless you want to. There will be nothing you will get on the RMAH you cannot get in game with some patience & MF (Magic Finding, for the uninitiated. It's gear the increases your chances of finding magical, rare, or unique items) Gear.

There are more issues than these, but these seem to be the main concerns of most people. I also want to make this abundantly clear: I was completely against this game before I played the Closed Beta, so was my best friend. He had a bit of a play on the CB while visiting recently, and has promptly put down a pre-order at a local game shop, as have I. You can sit there and complain about everything as much as you like, but once you play the game?
You're going to be right back where you were when you first opened a strange door in the 2nd level of the Cathedral, and a ghastly, bloated thing met your gaze, and it's meaty voice greeted you with "Aaaaahh... Fresh Meat."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Witch Doctor who has a date with a certain undead patriarch.

[Runestar]

It's funny, but the first thing that struck me when I saw the replays was how similar the game seemed to Nox, but that's probably just because of electrocute, which seems mechanically quite similar to its lightning spell.

How do you cast spells in the game? Press the corresponding number tab and point in that direction? Or just click and point?

[Morty]

Well, infinite Town Portals would definetly make the lack of pause more bearable. All in all, Diablo III looks good despite the "no real singleplayer" nonsense. I like the Runestones and the amount of fiddling with skills they make possible.

[Sir Dar]

As someone who's actually in the Closed Beta, I have this to say regarding complaints:

2) Atmosphere & "Cartoony Graphics"
The game looks, plays, and feels like Diablo 1 but much better graphics. It's still dark, gory, and most importantly - fun. The graphics aren't nearly as bright or cartoony as many people lead you to believe. Even in most gameplay videos they have turned the gamma up. At max settings and a moderate gamma level, the game is sufficiently claustrophobic and creepy that I refuse to play it without a light on. This is a good thing.

I my self never cared much for Graphics.I still play old games which have far worst graphics than your normal new game made by ubisoft,ea or the like.


As someone who's actually in the Closed Beta, I have this to say regarding complaints:

4) Always Online
Yes, it's a problem for some. I had no problems with it, but this is an issue they may end up eventually addressing as apparently they are receiving a lot of backlash about it, especially since a console port has been announced as a strong possibility, and they will most likely allow offline play on it.


You can do online all the time just fine for new age consoles,even think a few console games have them or at least a few capcom games,that they may of removed it from[not sure about the removed part.],thinking off the top of my head.



As someone who's actually in the Closed Beta, I have this to say regarding complaints:

5) No Pause
Since you have infinite Town Portals (you get essentially a Hearthstone with no cool down), there's no reason not to just port back to town and sit nice & safe next to Cain, so the no pause thing is not nearly as big a deal as people are making it out to be.


So you can teleport back to to town.So can you just as easily teleport back to where were before?


As someone who's actually in the Closed Beta, I have this to say regarding complaints:

. You can sit there and complain about everything as much as you like, but once you play the game?
You're going to be right back where you were when you first opened a strange door in the 2nd level of the Cathedral, and a ghastly, bloated thing met your gaze, and it's meaty voice greeted you with "Aaaaahh... Fresh Meat."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Witch Doctor who has a date with a certain undead patriarch.
call me a old timer if you wish.But i want to own my games that i have paid for. Play them as long as the disk last.Even come back to them when i have grey or white hair like a drow.Something online all the time does not let me do.I do not own the game,i am paying to rent it.So many other games i can go out and buy,that i can own for long as the disk last.So, i'm not doing my self any harm by not picking up Diablo 3.

[The Glyphstone]

call me a old timer if you wish.But i want to own my games that i have paid for. Play them as long as the disk last.Even come back to them when i have grey or white hair like a drow.Something online all the time does not let me do.I do not own the game,i am paying to rent it.So many other games i can go out and buy,that i can own for long as the disk last.So, i'm not doing my self any harm by not picking up Diablo 3.

Until the technology advances that your computer can't read the disk anymore, is the counter-argument. I have a good number of games I 'own' on disks that are so old they won't function unless the computer is in the oldest compatibility mode it has, and some that I need a DOS emulator to run. One or two I've had to give up entirely because the video drivers they depend on to animate are so outdated I can't patch/download them anywhere. So owning those disks is still just 'renting' the game, the only difference is that your renter's lease lasts until technology has marched on instead of when a company decides to shut down its servers.

[AgentPaper]

How do you cast spells in the game? Press the corresponding number tab and point in that direction? Or just click and point?

By default, you can put two skills on your mouse buttons, and another five on the 1-5 keys. The fist two you click on an enemy to cast, or hold shift to hard-cast it. 1-5 you just press the button and it casts the spell at your mouse target.

You can also re-bind the extra slots to also be buttons on your mouse, though I haven't had to fiddle with that since my mouse already has a numpad on it that works for the number keys just fine.

[Suichimo]

By default, you can put two skills on your mouse buttons, and another five on the 1-5 keys. The fist two you click on an enemy to cast, or hold shift to hard-cast it. 1-5 you just press the button and it casts the spell at your mouse target.

You can also re-bind the extra slots to also be buttons on your mouse, though I haven't had to fiddle with that since my mouse already has a numpad on it that works for the number keys just fine.

Anyway to get it back to the Diablo 2 style? Shift Left Click to use that skill, right click to use that skill no matter where you are pointing, and setting up hotkeys that switch out skills?

[Sholos]

Until the technology advances that your computer can't read the disk anymore, is the counter-argument. I have a good number of games I 'own' on disks that are so old they won't function unless the computer is in the oldest compatibility mode it has, and some that I need a DOS emulator to run. One or two I've had to give up entirely because the video drivers they depend on to animate are so outdated I can't patch/download them anywhere. So owning those disks is still just 'renting' the game, the only difference is that your renter's lease lasts until technology has marched on instead of when a company decides to shut down its servers.

Of course, in theory you could keep around old machines to play those old games. If the servers go down and they don't patch it to be able to play offline, it doesn't matter what you do.

[The Glyphstone]

Of course, in theory you could keep around old machines to play those old games. If the servers go down and they don't patch it to be able to play offline, it doesn't matter what you do.

True, though I think the equivalent would be a hack to run the game on a private server.

[faceroll]

stuff

Nice try, Blizzard sales representative. :smallwink:


Reading that gave me a nerd-on.

[AgentPaper]

Anyway to get it back to the Diablo 2 style? Shift Left Click to use that skill, right click to use that skill no matter where you are pointing, and setting up hotkeys that switch out skills?

Actually, I misspoke. Right-clicking casts the spell no matter what. It's only left click that makes you move around. Though, I think if you right click (or left click for that matter) on an enemy that's out of range, you'll move towards them before casting if you're not holding shift.

[Sir Dar]

Of course, in theory you could keep around old machines to play those old games. If the servers go down and they don't patch it to be able to play offline, it doesn't matter what you do.
How did you know i was going to say something like this?:smallbiggrin:

Their maybe work arounds to get the game working.they may or may not work.All a matter of luck.Again may not work.Someone may of made a program out their to help you run old games,which then may take a lot of testing to get it to feel just right or like dos games[which is what i have been basing this on.],end up with a game way to fast to be playable or a game that is way to slow for your liking.


Until the technology advances that your computer can't read the disk anymore, is the counter-argument. I have a good number of games I 'own' on disks that are so old they won't function unless the computer is in the oldest compatibility mode it has, and some that I need a DOS emulator to run. One or two I've had to give up entirely because the video drivers they depend on to animate are so outdated I can't patch/download them anywhere. So owning those disks is still just 'renting' the game, the only difference is that your renter's lease lasts until technology has marched on instead of when a company decides to shut down its servers.

Interesting thing about games is they work or they don't.Cars degrade over time,the words on the pages of books start to fade away.While a game works or it don't.So yeah,things one day break down or stop working for one reason or other.

With needing to be online all the time,a few more things can make your game stop working,for how ever long.Internet connection stops working for some reason or starts acting up.Servers have to go down for some reason, but will be back up soon.Fun little things like lag,which can take away from the fun.To be fair,this can happen to offline single player games,but it is far far more rare or is done by something that is with in the users control.Titan quest with immortal throne, does happen to get laggy when walking past a few areas in the game.Or other offline games can get laggy as well,when trying to run it on higher settings than your computer can handle or something like using a mod to add more monsters every where in the game.With so many monsters on your screen,your computer can't handle it.

If we are talking about online all the time vs install limits.Then yeah i think you may of got me there,in how long you can play the game for.More so if the install limits don't come with any tool to revoke them,in order to get a install limit back.Then yeah in that case,online all the time,may and is more likely to let you play the game for more time in total than the 3 install limit game.

[AgentPaper]

From my experience in the beta, unless you're on a really poor 56k modem internet or satellite or something, you're not going to run into any problems with lag. I was running it from my parent's house using a generally sub-par wireless hotspot, and I didn't run into any problems. There was hardly any difference between that and the super high-speed internet at the office, anyways.

As for whether you'll be able to play the game 20+ years down the line, well first off that doesn't make the game any less fun to play right now, and second off when blizz does eventually take the servers down, I'd bet that they'll put out a patch beforehand that makes it so you can play offline. By that point nobody will really care if you hack the game anyways, and it means more people might buy the game for nostalgia, so I can't see any reason they wouldn't do that.

[Starwulf]

From my experience in the beta, unless you're on a really poor 56k modem internet or satellite or something, you're not going to run into any problems with lag. I was running it from my parent's house using a generally sub-par wireless hotspot, and I didn't run into any problems. There was hardly any difference between that and the super high-speed internet at the office, anyways.

As for whether you'll be able to play the game 20+ years down the line, well first off that doesn't make the game any less fun to play right now, and second off when blizz does eventually take the servers down, I'd bet that they'll put out a patch beforehand that makes it so you can play offline. By that point nobody will really care if you hack the game anyways, and it means more people might buy the game for nostalgia, so I can't see any reason they wouldn't do that.

Not to beat a dead horse, but... 26.4k Dial-up here ><

[AgentPaper]

Not to beat a dead horse, but... 26.4k Dial-up here ><

Erm, why? :smallconfused:

No wait, I take that back.

How? :smalltongue:

[Starwulf]

Erm, why? :smallconfused:

No wait, I take that back.

How? :smalltongue:

I live on top of a mountain(surrounded by trees), 8 miles away from the nearest town, which is population 1,300. No DSL lines or cable lines stretch out this far. Satellite is a dicey proposition due to all the trees, in any light wind or rain storm I'd lose connection, in any major It'd be out for hours and hours. Not worth spending 200 bucks on the dish, + installation fees + 50 bucks a month for the lowest tier connection available when I'd probably only have a solid connection 50-60% of the time, plus a 7.5 Gig download cap + satellite and gaming = horrid, which is the primary reason I'd want it.

[AgentPaper]

I live on top of a mountain(surrounded by trees), 8 miles away from the nearest town, which is population 1,300. No DSL lines or cable lines stretch out this far. Satellite is a dicey proposition due to all the trees, in any light wind or rain storm I'd lose connection, in any major It'd be out for hours and hours. Not worth spending 200 bucks on the dish, + installation fees + 50 bucks a month for the lowest tier connection available when I'd probably only have a solid connection 50-60% of the time, plus a 7.5 Gig download cap + satellite and gaming = horrid, which is the primary reason I'd want it.

Do you have cell phone reception? My parent's house is in a similar situation, we were using satellite for a while, but now we've switched over to using wireless hotspot internet. If you have a smartphone, you can probably get it to turn into a hotspot, otherwise you can get a dedicated device like this (http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=5633). (which is what I use)

It's not as good as DSL, but it's far and away better than Dialup or Satellite. (which has a huge delay and is very unreliable in my experience) It costs about $50 a month, which seems to be standard, though unfortunately there is a limit on the data you can transfer. You'll probably never hit it through just normal browsing/playing games, but if you download anything big or watch a bunch of videos you'll probably go over. If you do go over, it doesn't shut off or anything though, they just charge you more for each amount of data over. (at about the same rate as the normal cap costs)

Probably the best part about it, though, is that you can pick it up and bring it with you if you're going on a trip or something, and if the power goes out you don't lose internet access. :smalltongue:

[Starwulf]

Do you have cell phone reception? My parent's house is in a similar situation, we were using satellite for a while, but now we've switched over to using wireless hotspot internet. If you have a smartphone, you can probably get it to turn into a hotspot, otherwise you can get a dedicated device like this (http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=5633). (which is what I use)

It's not as good as DSL, but it's far and away better than Dialup or Satellite. (which has a huge delay and is very unreliable in my experience) It costs about $50 a month, which seems to be standard, though unfortunately there is a limit on the data you can transfer. You'll probably never hit it through just normal browsing/playing games, but if you download anything big or watch a bunch of videos you'll probably go over. If you do go over, it doesn't shut off or anything though, they just charge you more for each amount of data over. (at about the same rate as the normal cap costs)

Probably the best part about it, though, is that you can pick it up and bring it with you if you're going on a trip or something, and if the power goes out you don't lose internet access. :smalltongue:

Unfortunately, even cell-phone reception is spotty up here. Not the case 2 miles down the road though, my wifes parents have what you're talking about, and it runs just fine, but I spend at least a week or so every month with my cell-phone being unable to make or receive calls >< Also, no smart-phone, lol. My cell-phone doesn't even have texting or internet enabled.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

It's not a matter of your internet connection's speed. It's a matter of your internet connection's reliability and Blizzard's server reliability. Unlike SC2, D3 simply won't run at all without a constant connection. Any server interruption boots you. So a storm that knocks out your ISP... gone. Someone spills coffee on the blizzard servers... gone.

Also, I don't believe in paying that kind of money just to rent usage of a game, which is why I don't play MMO's. If you read the EULA, it reads like an MMO's, wherein you don't purchase the game, you simply lease a seat on the game.

[Psyren]

Why would you ever play a diablo game for the single player?

Seriously, this. I never got more than three levels into single player without having a burning need to sign on to BNet.

[AgentPaper]

Unfortunately, even cell-phone reception is spotty up here. Not the case 2 miles down the road though, my wifes parents have what you're talking about, and it runs just fine, but I spend at least a week or so every month with my cell-phone being unable to make or receive calls >< Also, no smart-phone, lol. My cell-phone doesn't even have texting or internet enabled.

I'd suggest asking if you could borrow theirs for a bit just to test it out. If not, well, you might be able to play over the modem as long as the connection is steady.

[Psyren]

I live on top of a mountain(surrounded by trees), 8 miles away from the nearest town, which is population 1,300. No DSL lines or cable lines stretch out this far. Satellite is a dicey proposition due to all the trees, in any light wind or rain storm I'd lose connection, in any major It'd be out for hours and hours. Not worth spending 200 bucks on the dish, + installation fees + 50 bucks a month for the lowest tier connection available when I'd probably only have a solid connection 50-60% of the time, plus a 7.5 Gig download cap + satellite and gaming = horrid, which is the primary reason I'd want it.

Sorry if I sound callous, but there's plenty of other games you can play. Nobody can really fault Blizzard for not catering to the customers that live on mountaintops with dial-up. (Not saying you're faulting Blizzard, but still, it's really a fringe scenario.)

[Sir Dar]

As for whether you'll be able to play the game 20+ years down the line, well first off that doesn't make the game any less fun to play right now, and second off when blizz does eventually take the servers down, I'd bet that they'll put out a patch beforehand that makes it so you can play offline. By that point nobody will really care if you hack the game anyways, and it means more people might buy the game for nostalgia, so I can't see any reason they wouldn't do that.

Well,Diablo 3 is not the only action rpg out there or will be coming out soon.
In fact i could buy touchlight 2 or grim dawn. Both which have offline single player modes. Far cheaper than 60 buck Diablo 3 as well. May have no drm, depending on the version you get.Leaving me with money to spare to buy at least one or two cheap games. Why risk the money on a game that does stuff i don't like and supporting it with my money. leading them to using stuff i dislike over again.When i can use my money, to support stuff i like and get a few fun games?

Blizzard may remove their all ways online drm in the future,again that is maybe, in the future. For now,it does nothing to make me want to risk 60 bucks on their game.

[AgentPaper]

Well,Diablo 3 is not the only action rpg out there or will be coming out soon.
In fact i could buy touchlight 2 or grim dawn.Both which have offline single player modes.Far cheaper than 60 buck Diablo 3 as well.May have no drm, depending on the version you get.Leaving me with money to spare to buy at least one or two cheap games.Why risk the money on a game that does stuff i don't like and supporting it with my money.leading them to using stuff i dislike over again.When i can use my money, to support stuff i like and get a few fun games?

Blizzard may remove their all ways online drm in the future,again that is maybe, in the future.For now,it does nothing to make me want to risk 60 bucks on their game.

You wouldn't be here complaining about this if you thought Torchlight or Grim Dawn were better games than Diablo 3.

You can talk about the principles of things and what might happen or what they should have done all day long, but in the end it comes down to whether it's worth the money or not. Does potentially not being able to play the game 10+ years down the road make it any less fun now? Does not being able to play it without a connection make it any less to play when you do have a connection?

[Starwulf]

Sorry if I sound callous, but there's plenty of other games you can play. Nobody can really fault Blizzard for not catering to the customers that live on mountaintops with dial-up. (Not saying you're faulting Blizzard, but still, it's really a fringe scenario.)

Yes, but it's kind of stupid that they are making a game entirely online only, when in the last 2 games, it had a perfectly fine single-player. And while I may be a fringe case(living on a mountain-top), there is at least(and this is according to verizon) 5% of the country that isn't covered by DSL or the likes(like AgentPapers smartphone connection idea). 5% of a country that has what..300million, is 15million people. If even 10% of those 15million are gamers, thats 1.5million. If 10% of those are into Diablo, that's 150,000 people they are alienating. If the number is 25%, that's 375,000 people they are alienating. That's a HUGE chunk of people they are losing money from. Not to mention the other people who have just fine internet connections, but are appalled by their callousness(and just judging from this thread and the other 3 that have been about D3, that's probably a good many people), that won't buy the game. They could easily be losing 1million people in customers. That's 10% of the estimated people that play WoW. Do you think they can afford to lose 10% of their profits? That's a significant enough chunk of people to make a game a World-Class Super-star, to just Super Star. From Major Leagues, to Triple A.

So, yeah, I may be a fringe case, but those fringe cases add up when you look at it as a whole. It's not like it would be to terribly hard to implement a single player mode. And yes, it's for DRM, but ya know what, the people they are alienating? Weren't going to pirate the game to begin with. the people they are trying to stop, they aren't going to at all. The game will still be pirated by the hackers. It may take a bit longer for them to find work-arounds to the duping, and maphacks, and teleport hacks, but they'll do it eventually regardless. All they are doing is losing money on the honest customers out there.

[Sir Dar]

You wouldn't be here complaining about this if you thought Torchlight or Grim Dawn were better games than Diablo 3.

Wait what?:smallconfused: Someone that points out, there is bad sides about online all the time. Is not complaining in my book. Are there good things? Yes. Are there bad things about it as well, yes there is. That is why we are having this debate. Pointing out the good and bad things about it.

I through we were having a debate here? It is true,that these two games are both cheaper in cost than Diablo 3. They both use no drm or use drm that is less of a pain. Depending on where you get it from and your feelings about drm. As seen in this very thread,some are ok with online all the time drm and others are not. All i did was say a few facts, we know for sure about the games. Not sure about you. For me the price of a game, does play a part if i want to buy it or not. Diablo 3 could be fun for you and i can find it the worst thing on earth. Not everyone shares the same taste in games. A game that is the best game ever for you,could be the worst game ever for me.



You can talk about the principles of things and what might happen or what they should have done all day long, but in the end it comes down to whether it's worth the money or not. Does potentially not being able to play the game 10+ years down the road make it any less fun now? Does not being able to play it without a connection make it any less to play when you do have a connection?
I think we have said this before. These with spotty connections will find it less fun. And be disconnection far more from their game then others. These with internet connections that are not spotty or work perfect will not have these things happen to them. I would say,a lot of it comes down to how well your connection is and your feelings about drm. Along with what your price point for games is and what you feel safe spending.

Edit:I my self have a spotty connection. So yes i would find it less fun,having to be online all the time. So yes,i would see my self getting mad a lot,over something i should of been getting joy from. For i was unable to play it or my connection would keep going down,making me unable to play it.
I would rather not have the joy,that if i would have enjoy Diablo 3. Than have the joy of it and then have it be taken away. Or worst yet, have that joy turn in to rage. I do think we should just end this debate here. Does not seem to be going any were. So sorry if you were enjoying this,but i must bow out. I tip my top hat to you good sir or ma'am. I will be enjoying some other game[s] and i hope you enjoy Diablo 3.

[faceroll]

So, yeah, I may be a fringe case, but those fringe cases add up when you look at it as a whole. It's not like it would be to terribly hard to implement a single player mode. And yes, it's for DRM, but ya know what, the people they are alienating? Weren't going to pirate the game to begin with. the people they are trying to stop, they aren't going to at all. The game will still be pirated by the hackers. It may take a bit longer for them to find work-arounds to the duping, and maphacks, and teleport hacks, but they'll do it eventually regardless. All they are doing is losing money on the honest customers out there.

Lose 150,000 customers, prevent 15,000,000 pirates.

[Meta]

All of these numbers are estimates at best and wild guesses at worst. Blizzard has decided DRM is the correct business decision. Perhaps they will change it in the future. Until then, any discussion on its supposed merits and faults seems rather fruitless.

In other news: this little tool is fun
http://d3db.com/tool/planner/witchdoctor

[Starwulf]

Lose 150,000 customers, prevent 15,000,000 pirates.

It's not going to prevent 15million pirates. The game will be pirated a week after release, and hacked a month after. Again, all they are doing is punishing their loyal customers. End of story.

[AgentPaper]

Ok, so there's definitely downsides to this. I think some people are blowing things out of proportions, but that's just a matter of scale, so I won't nitpick that much.


It's not going to prevent 15million pirates. The game will be pirated a week after release, and hacked a month after. Again, all they are doing is punishing their loyal customers. End of story.

Maybe it will be pirated a week after release...but those people won't be able to play on the Blizz servers. If it were really that easy to hack an online-only game, then WoW would be filled with hackers and pirated accounts, and there'd be no reason to steal other people's accounts.

Also, I think you guys are downplaying the difficulty of making the game work in singleplayer. It's not like they can just flip a switch and make this happen. The game seems to be built around being online, so changing it so that all that data that's stored and processed by the server to instead be stored on your computer, is a big deal. It would probably take weeks to months just to develop, and then even longer to work out all the bugs.

Maybe there will be single-player eventually, in a patch or expansion or something, but I honestly doubt it. Saying that 10% of the potential buyers of the game won't buy it because of this honestly seems a bit absurd. I would guess that maybe 1% of the potential buyers will be flat-out unable to play because of it. As for people not buying the game on principle, I'm sure you could find a million people that will say that, but 49% of them are going to buy the game anyways and 49% weren't going to buy it in the first place.


Also on the topic of hacking, I wouldn't be surprised if people eventually hacked the game and got it to run offline through some sort of fake-server shenanigans, so if you're really desperate maybe you'll have that as an option for offline play eventually. :smalltongue:

[Starwulf]

Ok, so there's definitely downsides to this. I think some people are blowing things out of proportions, but that's just a matter of scale, so I won't nitpick that much.

Maybe it will be pirated a week after release...but those people won't be able to play on the Blizz servers. If it were really that easy to hack an online-only game, then WoW would be filled with hackers and pirated accounts, and there'd be no reason to steal other people's accounts.

Honestly? The people who hack the accounts in WoW aren't doing so in order to play the game, they are doing so in order to sell the gold and gear, ie: Chinese gold farmers. What's the point of hacking an account you don't have to pay for, when you can just STEAL one, strip it entirely, then cancel it, or steal a high-level account, strip it to the bare-bones, then use it to farm menial things repeatedly at a fast pace(because it's high level). Or, alternately, they are hacked because the hacker doesn't want to start out at level 1 and grind their way to max level, then spend more time grinding for good gear, so they just hack a high level account that they've targetted through forums where the person talks about their exploits(Clan websites and the like). Why hack the servers to make a level 1 account, when you can hack a high level account and save yourself a few months?

Not to mention, If you believe the pirates are going to hack D3 so they can play on private servers, you're wrong. I can guarantee that they'll figure out a way to hack the servers and make accounts on the regular public servers. And if they are found out, so what? It didn't cost them anything but a bit of time. They'll just find a new work-around and start up again. They don't do it to actually play the game, they do it for the challenge, and to piss off major corporations that they feel are money-grubbers.

[AgentPaper]

Honestly? The people who hack the accounts in WoW aren't doing so in order to play the game, they are doing so in order to sell the gold and gear, ie: Chinese gold farmers. What's the point of hacking an account you don't have to pay for, when you can just STEAL one, strip it entirely, then cancel it, or steal a high-level account, strip it to the bare-bones, then use it to farm menial things repeatedly at a fast pace(because it's high level). Or, alternately, they are hacked because the hacker doesn't want to start out at level 1 and grind their way to max level, then spend more time grinding for good gear, so they just hack a high level account that they've targetted through forums where the person talks about their exploits(Clan websites and the like). Why hack the servers to make a level 1 account, when you can hack a high level account and save yourself a few months?

Not to mention, If you believe the pirates are going to hack D3 so they can play on private servers, you're wrong. I can guarantee that they'll figure out a way to hack the servers and make accounts on the regular public servers. And if they are found out, so what? It didn't cost them anything but a bit of time. They'll just find a new work-around and start up again. They don't do it to actually play the game, they do it for the challenge, and to piss off major corporations that they feel are money-grubbers.

If you could really hack the game to that extent, what I'm saying is that you'd be able to do stuff like hack in new items and such.

I'm sure people will figure out ways to steal other people's accounts, though I'm also sure that blizz will have ways to make that very hard to do, after learning so much about it with WoW over the years.

[Runestar]

Seriously, this. I never got more than three levels into single player without having a burning need to sign on to BNet.

I have played only D2 singleplayer. Never ventured into multiplayer. No real reason, just never felt like it. :smalltongue:

[Starwulf]

If you could really hack the game to that extent, what I'm saying is that you'd be able to do stuff like hack in new items and such.

I'm sure people will figure out ways to steal other people's accounts, though I'm also sure that blizz will have ways to make that very hard to do, after learning so much about it with WoW over the years.

I'm sure they will hack in new items ^^ Ever seen Open realms for D2? Some crazy **** there. At one point, some of that stuff managed to get hacked into the Closed Realms, but it was gone about 12 hours after it occurred. Which of course, I suspect would happen in d3 as well, though probably on a much faster time basis(Probably 2 hours instead of 12). My point is: Their online DRM isn't doing anything but hurting the honest customers. hackers and pirates will still hack the game. They'll still figure out ways to play on the regular Battle.net servers without ever having paid for the game. They'll probably still hack in outrageous items. If they keep them to themselves, it might be a while before Blizzard finds out and deletes them. If they distribute them, it'll be much quicker process of them getting deleted. On the other hand, the honest, loyal customer like myself, and others on this thread who only play Diablo for single player(I actually LIKE multi-player, but I both take issue with the no single-player, AND their arrogant attitude towards people with slow internets), are getting punished by a DRM that is doing nothing.

[Spartacus]

If you could really hack the game to that extent, what I'm saying is that you'd be able to do stuff like hack in new items and such.

Hacking into a game is a rather different order of magnitude than hacking content into a game.


I'm sure they will hack in new items ^^ Ever seen Open realms for D2? Some crazy **** there..

Which is possible because the open realms are using information from your computer. I assume the closed realm shenanigans tricked b.net into thinking that their own pcs were the legitimate character servers, which seems rather tricky and easy to stop.

[Starwulf]

Hacking into a game is a rather different order of magnitude than hacking content into a game.



Which is possible because the open realms are using information from your computer. I assume the closed realm shenanigans tricked b.net into thinking that their own pcs were the legitimate character servers, which seems rather tricky and easy to stop.

Oh, it was easy to stop. as I said, it was 12 hours or so for blizzard to become aware of the situation, shut down the servers, fix the problem, and institute character roll-backs to take care of the problem. To my knowledge, it never happened again, but the point remains, it is possible, and I'm sure at some point in time it will happen for D3 as well, it'll just take a little while for it to happen(the incident I refer to didn't happen until a year or two after LoD was introduced). I'm just making the point that the online-only DRM will not stop the hackers and pirates, it's just making us, the loyal customers, be at an dis-advantage. There has to be other forms of DRM they can institute that will slow down the pirates/hackers that won't affect the loyal customers, or that won't take away an integral part of the game for some people(those who play single-player only(again, not me, I like multi-player), due to various circumstances).

[AgentPaper]

I'm sure they will hack in new items ^^ Ever seen Open realms for D2? Some crazy **** there. At one point, some of that stuff managed to get hacked into the Closed Realms, but it was gone about 12 hours after it occurred. Which of course, I suspect would happen in d3 as well, though probably on a much faster time basis(Probably 2 hours instead of 12).

It's not a stretch to believe that the framework for D3 will be at least as difficult to hack as WoW's, and will probably be much harder. The data for what items your characters have is stored on the server, not on your computer, so hacking in an item is practically impossible. It's never happened in WoW, so I seriously doubt it'll ever happen in D3.


My point is: Their online DRM isn't doing anything but hurting the honest customers.

It does hurt honest customers, but so does having high(ish)-end graphics that some people can't afford a computer to run.


hackers and pirates will still hack the game. They'll still figure out ways to play on the regular Battle.net servers without ever having paid for the game.

I'm sure a skilled hacker or clever thief will find ways to get to play the game for free. However, what they won't be able to do is upload a hacked copy of the game and let thousands of other people download it without having to know how to hack it themselves, which is the real threat of pirating.


They'll probably still hack in outrageous items. If they keep them to themselves, it might be a while before Blizzard finds out and deletes them. If they distribute them, it'll be much quicker process of them getting deleted.

Like I said above, this isn't going to be possible, exactly because the game is online-only.


On the other hand, the honest, loyal customer like myself, and others on this thread who only play Diablo for single player(I actually LIKE multi-player, but I both take issue with the no single-player, AND their arrogant attitude towards people with slow internets), are getting punished by a DRM that is doing nothing.

I've never seen Blizz show an arrogant attitude towards people with poor internet connections. Everything I've read has been along the lines of "It really sucks that some people might not be able to play, but we've decided that this is the best option for the overall health of the game". or something to that degree.

[Starwulf]

I've never seen Blizz show an arrogant attitude towards people with poor internet connections. Everything I've read has been along the lines of "It really sucks that some people might not be able to play, but we've decided that this is the best option for the overall health of the game". or something to that degree.

Did you not read the article that interviewed one of their guys? he was as arrogant as can be, talking about how slow-internet didn't exist, and even if it did, to bad?(that's para-phrased). There was quite an outcry about it, and it's even mentioned in this months Game Informer magazine. if I had a link, i'd give it to you, unfortunately I'm not sure if it was mentioned in another D3 thread, or on the "Worst gaming moments of history" thread. Actually, give me a moment, I'll go and find it if I can, then edit my post with it. give me 3-4 minutes before checking the thread again ^^

Edit: Ok, it was in the "Bad moves by gaming companies" thread. here it is: http://www.pcgamer.com/.../diablo-3-lead-designer-on-lack-of-offline-mode-the-game%E2%80%99s-not-really-being-played-right-if-it%E2%80%99s-not-online/

[toasty]

Lose 150,000 customers, prevent 15,000,000 pirates.

I lived in a country where games are pirated and you can't actually buy real games.

It took them a month to get a ****ty crack for Assassin's Creed II. Another month for a good crack.

I'd assume, by then, people have gotten better at figuring out how to stop these "online only" singleplayer game bull**** stuff. Or they're just creating their own servers.

The truth is, DRM doesn't stop Piracy. Believe me, I lived in Asia. Piracy is a way of life in Asia. It can't be stopped.

[AgentPaper]

The truth is, DRM doesn't stop Piracy. Believe me, I lived in Asia. Piracy is a way of life in Asia. It can't be stopped.

It can be stopped by putting all the relevant data on servers which a physically impossible for people to access.

[Starwulf]

It can be stopped by putting all the relevant data on servers which a physically impossible for people to access.

That's likes saying that the Pentagon can't be hacked. it not only can be, it HAS been. If there is even the smallest connection to the servers, it can be gotten to.

[AgentPaper]

That's likes saying that the Pentagon can't be hacked. it not only can be, it HAS been. If there is even the smallest connection to the servers, it can be gotten to.

And yet, I've never heard of anyone being able to hack items into WoW. I still don't see why things would be any different for D3.

[Meta]

It will probably be hacked infrequently for short periods of time and then corrected. If the only defenses people put up were the impregnable ones, the lock making market would be in deep trouble!

[Starwulf]

And yet, I've never heard of anyone being able to hack items into WoW. I still don't see why things would be any different for D3.

We are just getting into platitudes now, but I'll continue, just for the hell of it: Just because you've never heard of it happening, doesn't mean it hasn't. Maybe the hacker kept quiet because they were on his trail and he didn't want to get arrested? Maybe he realized the way they stopped him could be circumvented, and he decided to stay quiet while he continued on his quest to hack it more?

You can't see the wind, yet it's there. You can't taste, see, feel or hear air, but yet it keeps us alive every day(sorry, had to add the last bit in, lol).

Hell, maybe it has happened, and they were never caught. Why call attention to it when by doing so, you alert blizzard to the problem, and all their awesome gear vanishes? Could be someone out there right now slowly flooding the market with top-notch gear pieces, slowly making a fortune in gold that he can sell for RL currency. The Mafia doesn't brag about the banks they just robbed, do they? Same thing applies here. Why brag about something when doing so will get you caught, and unable to spend your earnings. ^^

[AgentPaper]

We are just getting into platitudes now, but I'll continue, just for the hell of it: Just because you've never heard of it happening, doesn't mean it hasn't. Maybe the hacker kept quiet because they were on his trail and he didn't want to get arrested? Maybe he realized the way they stopped him could be circumvented, and he decided to stay quiet while he continued on his quest to hack it more?

You can't see the wind, yet it's there. You can't taste, see, feel or hear air, but yet it keeps us alive every day(sorry, had to add the last bit in, lol).

Hell, maybe it has happened, and they were never caught. Why call attention to it when by doing so, you alert blizzard to the problem, and all their awesome gear vanishes? Could be someone out there right now slowly flooding the market with top-notch gear pieces, slowly making a fortune in gold that he can sell for RL currency. The Mafia doesn't brag about the banks they just robbed, do they? Same thing applies here. Why brag about something when doing so will get you caught, and unable to spend your earnings. ^^

That all seems pretty far-fetched. Anyone with the resources to do things like that has much better things to be doing than hacking a game. Like, say, hacking a bank. Or the Pentagon. Or at least hacking some other big company and stealing all their money. Something that makes it worthwhile. They certainly aren't going to waste their time and resources to make a few bucks selling items in a game.

Anyways, here (http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/22/diablo-3-lead-designer-on-lack-of-offline-mode-the-game%E2%80%99s-not-really-being-played-right-if-it%E2%80%99s-not-online/)'s a pretty good article explaining their decision and the reasons for it. Especially relevant quote: “You’ve got to make choices about what you want to do, and sometimes those choices are going to make some people unhappy, but if you feel like it’s what is the right thing to do to making a better product then you have to do it."

[toasty]

It can be stopped by putting all the relevant data on servers which a physically impossible for people to access.

I don't believe it.

I'm sorry, but every time they say "it can't be cracked." Its cracked. Its cracked in a stupidly short time. Like, an amount of time that makes me want to laugh. Best they could come up with was the 1 month Assassins Creed II DRM.

Even WoW can be played pirated via private servers. Sure, its not the same, but its wow. I can easily imagine some place in China where a big Internet Cafe has its own WoW server with a few dozen people logged at any given time.

[AgentPaper]

I don't believe it.

I'm sorry, but every time they say "it can't be cracked." Its cracked. Its cracked in a stupidly short time. Like, an amount of time that makes me want to laugh. Best they could come up with was the 1 month Assassins Creed II DRM.

Even WoW can be played pirated via private servers. Sure, its not the same, but its wow. I can easily imagine some place in China where a big Internet Cafe has its own WoW server with a few dozen people logged at any given time.

Of course it can be cracked, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you can't hack items into the main game. I'm actually quite aware of the private servers for WoW, and actually played on one where we were given super high-level items and 10-levels-over-the-cap characters to play around with. However, I was by no means able to then take that super-character and play on the main servers, just the same as that I couldn't play my main server characters on the private server.


The thing about DRM is that it doesn't need to be impossible to crack, it just needs to be difficult enough to crack that there aren't a ton of people running around using it. I mean, just because you can't make an impenetrable safe doesn't mean safes aren't still extremely important.

[toasty]

Of course it can be cracked, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you can't hack items into the main game. I'm actually quite aware of the private servers for WoW, and actually played on one where we were given super high-level items and 10-levels-over-the-cap characters to play around with. However, I was by no means able to then take that super-character and play on the main servers, just the same as that I couldn't play my main server characters on the private server.


The thing about DRM is that it doesn't need to be impossible to crack, it just needs to be difficult enough to crack that there aren't a ton of people running around using it. I mean, just because you can't make an impenetrable safe doesn't mean safes aren't still extremely important.

Oh, of course you can't play on the main servers, but in a game like Diablo III, why does that matter? Its not a "true" MMO where having hundreds of players logged in on the same server at the same time is actually beneficial. If you get a privater server with 4 people, that's probably enough.

And yes, you're right, in theory, if they're hard enough to crack less people will crack them. But the reality is that I've yet to see one that is good enough to really deter people who aren't interested in paying for the game.

The only thing I can think of that is 100% effective is free-to-download models that are ever so popular in Asia. I wonder why? :smallwink:

[JabberwockySupafly]

Nice try, Blizzard sales representative. :smallwink:


Reading that gave me a nerd-on.

I don't work for Blizzard. If I did, I wouldn't have a highly oppressive mortgage and stress-related insomnia from a job I don't enjoy. Plus, I live in Australia and as far as I'm aware they don't have an Australian office, otherwise our Ping wouldn't suck so horribly on WoW during busy periods. Besides, if I actually did work in the gaming industry I'd be trying to get into 2K Sydney as fast as humanly possible. Because Bioshock, man. Bioshock.

[AgentPaper]

Oh, of course you can't play on the main servers, but in a game like Diablo III, why does that matter? Its not a "true" MMO where having hundreds of players logged in on the same server at the same time is actually beneficial. If you get a privater server with 4 people, that's probably enough.

And yes, you're right, in theory, if they're hard enough to crack less people will crack them. But the reality is that I've yet to see one that is good enough to really deter people who aren't interested in paying for the game.

The only thing I can think of that is 100% effective is free-to-download models that are ever so popular in Asia. I wonder why? :smallwink:

Like I said before, yes private servers like that will exist. However, those people won't be able to trade or play with anyone else, so they're largely irrelevant. Those types of things are also unsurprisingly difficult to set up and join, and are often of poorer quality, so most people will want to buy the game and play on the main servers, unless they simply can't afford it or don't have good internet access. AKA, the type of people that wouldn't have bought the game anyways.

[The Glyphstone]

Like I said before, yes private servers like that will exist. However, those people won't be able to trade or play with anyone else, so they're largely irrelevant. Those types of things are also unsurprisingly difficult to set up and join, and are often of poorer quality, so most people will want to buy the game and play on the main servers, unless they simply can't afford it or don't have good internet access. AKA, the type of people that wouldn't have bought the game anyways.

But...isn't that exactly what singleplayer mode is?

[AgentPaper]

But...isn't that exactly what singleplayer mode is?

Well, singleplayer + LAN.

[toasty]

Well, singleplayer + LAN.

Yeah, that's my point. Sure, true MMOs are really hard to emulate on private servers (unless you somehow can get 40 people on at the same time), but D3? Hmm... not necessarily.

{Scrubbed}

[The Glyphstone]

Well, singleplayer + LAN.

Maybe I've lost track of who's on which side of the argument, because that sort of private server arrangement seems like the exact solution to the 'I'm only renting cause the servers will be shut down eventually' faction.

[Sir Dar]

One of my other posts, i used the words "fun games" when maybe i shouldn't. Yes i think that may of been a misuse of words on my part. Seeing how this debate has turn to one about talk of piracy. I have just the right story for you all. The ubisoft numbers are interesting, but don't seem to have much meaning to them. Are they talking about selling less pc retail copies then a year ago? 20 years ago? retail and digital download sales or just retail? The numbers seem very meaning less, with out more knowledge about them. Reason i say the ubisoft numbers are interesting, is they love using online all the time drm. As i pointed out, they don't have much meaning with out giving us more knowledge to go on. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-30-how-bad-is-pc-piracy-really-article

Edit:Found it interesting and think its something wroth adding to this debate. Now i am going to bow my tip hat again and exit this thread. Hope you all enjoy the debate and what ever game[s] you end up spending that money of yours on or save it up for something else.

[Sholos]

Like I said before, yes private servers like that will exist. However, those people won't be able to trade or play with anyone else, so they're largely irrelevant. Those types of things are also unsurprisingly difficult to set up and join, and are often of poorer quality, so most people will want to buy the game and play on the main servers, unless they simply can't afford it or don't have good internet access. AKA, the type of people that wouldn't have bought the game anyways.

Wrong. The people with bad internet connections might very well have purchased the game if they weren't being denied the ability to play it in peace.

[AgentPaper]

Wrong. The people with bad internet connections might very well have purchased the game if they weren't being denied the ability to play it in peace.

What I meant was, they wouldn't buy the game anyways if it hadn't been pirated, not that they wouldn't have bought the game if it hadn't been online-only.

On the other hand, if the game wasn't online-only, then it would be much easier to simply download a hacked version of the game and play single player as much as you want, which would probably be used by at least some people that would have bought the game otherwise.

[Starwulf]

What I meant was, they wouldn't buy the game anyways if it hadn't been pirated, not that they wouldn't have bought the game if it hadn't been online-only.

On the other hand, if the game wasn't online-only, then it would be much easier to simply download a hacked version of the game and play single player as much as you want, which would probably be used by at least some people that would have bought the game otherwise.

Wow, that's a fairly cynical view. I guess I can see a bit better where you're coming from now. On the other hand, I like to pretend I'm this terribly cynical/pessimistic person, but in reality, I actually tend to have more faith in mankind in general, and in this specific case, I'd more believe that the people who won't buy the game now because of no single player, were never going to attempt to hack the game. No, I stand firmly by the idea that the only people this decision hurts, are the honest, loyal customers who have enjoyed the previous two Diablo games.

[faceroll]

No, I stand firmly by the idea that the only people this decision hurts, are the honest, loyal customers who have enjoyed the previous two Diablo games.

If it weren't for CD keys and online play, I would never pay for a game.

[AgentPaper]

Wow, that's a fairly cynical view. I guess I can see a bit better where you're coming from now. On the other hand, I like to pretend I'm this terribly cynical/pessimistic person, but in reality, I actually tend to have more faith in mankind in general, and in this specific case, I'd more believe that the people who won't buy the game now because of no single player, were never going to attempt to hack the game. No, I stand firmly by the idea that the only people this decision hurts, are the honest, loyal customers who have enjoyed the previous two Diablo games.

I didn't mean to say they were the same people. What I'm trying to say is that people who would have pirated the game and used a hack to play online without paying, will now either not be able to play the game or have to pay for it. I suppose there's likely to be some overlap between the groups, but I didn't mean to say that everyone who can't play now were going to hack it.

To say that this only hurts honest, loyal customers is a bit of a stretch. Certainly it hurts a few honest customers, but it also protects the integrity of the game, which means it's also a boon to many other loyal customers. Blizz has always been about making the best games they can, and while it's important to them that as many people as possible can enjoy it, making the game better has to be more important than that.

Edit: Also, I do have to admit that I've pirated a game or two, though mostly old titles I couldn't have gotten otherwise. Still, I pay for most of my games, even though I know I could get many of them without paying.

[faceroll]

Still, I pay for most of my games, even though I know I could get many of them without paying.

The games "worth paying for" have DRM multiplayer that's worth paying for. Pirate Gears for like 10 hours of single player, or shell out the 50 bucks for hundreds of hours of multiplayer.

[Starwulf]

Edit: WOW! Not just a double post, but a triple post across time and space itself! Sorry about that. i"ll use this post to respond to your response(if necessary), and Imma delete the other double post

Yeah, my internet went haywire, and I was positive my post hadn't gone through, so I Just kept clicking it. Finally I got a message saying "This post is a duplicate of one you just posted 5 minutes ago". Got the thread to reload, and voila! 3 of one post. First time that's ever actually happened. Anyways....


I didn't mean to say they were the same people. What I'm trying to say is that people who would have pirated the game and used a hack to play online without paying, will now either not be able to play the game or have to pay for it. I suppose there's likely to be some overlap between the groups, but I didn't mean to say that everyone who can't play now were going to hack it.

To say that this only hurts honest, loyal customers is a bit of a stretch. Certainly it hurts a few honest customers, but it also protects the integrity of the game, which means it's also a boon to many other loyal customers. Blizz has always been about making the best games they can, and while it's important to them that as many people as possible can enjoy it, making the game better has to be more important than that.

Edit: Also, I do have to admit that I've pirated a game or two, though mostly old titles I couldn't have gotten otherwise. Still, I pay for most of my games, even though I know I could get many of them without paying.

I actually don't have as much of a problem with people who pirate decade or older games that are completely out of print, and cost upwards of $75 or more on e-bay to snag a copy of and can't be found on GOG or what not. I don't do it, but that's just because I'd rather own an actual, original copy of the game, but I don't fault people for using emulators for old NES or SNES games and the like.

I understand your point a bit better now after that explanation. I guess I still feel/believe that by this Online only DRM bit they are snubbing their noses at long-time fans(Hell, I played Diablo(original) almost exclusively Single player 85% of the time, the hacking on the game was to outrageous to bother with multi-player, and Diablo 2 I played single player still about 20% of the time). I feel a sense of betrayal at that, and their callous words in the earlier linked to article. Combined with the RMAH(NOT A CAN OF WORMS I'M INTERESTED IN OPENING AGAIN!, Just mentioning it as something I don't like), and my faith in Blizzard and Diablo 3 has been seriously weakened. I'll still buy the game, and I"ll still play it, and almost certainly still enjoy it, but if they end up making another serious change to the game that feels like a FU to their old fanbase, I'll drop them like a rock. They have 2 strikes, I pray their isn't a third. I wouldn't even GIVE a third to any other company, I just spent so much time on Diablo and Diablo 2, that they have a large amount of goodwill built up from me.

[AgentPaper]

Edit: WOW! Not just a double post, but a triple post across time and space itself! Sorry about that. i"ll use this post to respond to your response(if necessary), and Imma delete the other double post

Funny how that happens. Also, ninja.

[Starwulf]

Funny how that happens. Also, ninja.

Oooh. That was cruel! lol. Well, I still edited my last post to respond, I guess I'll just use this one to call attention to that fact. Btw, isn't supposed to be Sword-saged around here instead of Ninja'd?

[Meta]

Oooh. That was cruel! lol. Well, I still edited my last post to respond, I guess I'll just use this one to call attention to that fact. Btw, isn't supposed to be Sword-saged around here instead of Ninja'd?

You aren't in Kansas anymore. By that I mean a DnD forum or subforum.

[faceroll]

Yeah, my internet went haywire, and I was positive my post hadn't gone through, so I Just kept clicking it. Finally I got a message saying "This post is a duplicate of one you just posted 5 minutes ago". Got the thread to reload, and voila! 3 of one post. First time that's ever actually happened. Anyways....

Wow, you're really passive aggressive. If you want to flame me without getting in trouble, have you considered sending nasty PMs?

[Starwulf]

Wow, you're really passive aggressive. If you want to flame me without getting in trouble, have you considered sending nasty PMs?

Edit:Actually, forget it, I'm scrubbing this post, and my last one where I initially responded to you. May be a bit to close to flaming for my own personal likes. Instead, I propose this: I'm going to ignore every post made by you that concerns Diablo 3, since we have completely opposite views on it, to the point where it's getting out of hand. In return, I ask you to ignore my posts(ie: not respond to them).

[AgentPaper]

Don't worry, once you buy the game, everything will be forgiven. At least, going by how much of the game I've been able to play, I can say with confidence that the game is a leaps and bounds ahead of Diablo 2, without losing any of the core appeal. If anything, it stays truer to the core concepts of the game than Diablo 1 or 2 did, if that makes any sense.


Edit:Actually, forget it, I'm scrubbing this post, and my last one where I initially responded to you. May be a bit to close to flaming for my own personal likes. Instead, I propose this: I'm going to ignore every post made by you that concerns Diablo 3, since we have completely opposite views on it, to the point where it's getting out of hand. In return, I ask you to ignore my posts(ie: not respond to them).

That's fine and I understand where you're coming from (though I don't find pirating as offensive as you seem to), but this is still an attack on another form member, which is not allowed no matter how justified you feel it is.

Edit: Haha, quote-ninja'ed.

[Starwulf]

Don't worry, once you buy the game, everything will be forgiven. At least, going by how much of the game I've been able to play, I can say with confidence that the game is a leaps and bounds ahead of Diablo 2, without losing any of the core appeal. If anything, it stays truer to the core concepts of the game than Diablo 1 or 2 did, if that makes any sense.



That's fine and I understand where you're coming from (though I don't find pirating as offensive as you seem to), but this is still an attack on another form member, which is not allowed no matter how justified you feel it is.

Edit: Haha, quote-ninja'ed.

Lol, woot! My first Ninja on this forum ^^ Though, I have to admit, I'm not really sure it was quite on the level of a personal attack, but yeah, the whole situation had gone way to far. I'm a very laid-back person by nature(have to be with two little girls, 8 and 3), and I was starting to not like how my own responses were going, so I figured I'd just call it quits and propose a decent truce ^^

[The Glyphstone]

Wow, you're really passive aggressive. If you want to flame me without getting in trouble, have you considered sending nasty PMs?


Great Modthulhu: Just to point something out, but the Forum Rules do not stop applying at the PM box. Someone receiving rule-breaking PMs can report them to the staff, and action can be taken as a result.

So play nice.

[Bunny of Faith]

Yeah, that's my point. Sure, true MMOs are really hard to emulate on private servers (unless you somehow can get 40 people on at the same time), but D3? Hmm... not necessarily.

Actually, when it comes out, I'll ask some of my friends in Asia how the pirated version is. :smallbiggrin:

Sorry if someone has already addressed this or the conversation was dropped, but I'd just like to point out that there are a number of private servers that have over a thousand players on at once.

[GungHo]

Do you have cell phone reception? My parent's house is in a similar situation, we were using satellite for a while, but now we've switched over to using wireless hotspot internet. If you have a smartphone, you can probably get it to turn into a hotspot, otherwise you can get a dedicated device like this (http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=5633). (which is what I use)
We have a lot of folks who use these for business travel and swear by them. No idea if the latency is tolerable for gaming, but they run LiveMeeting presentations through VPN with them all the time without screen painting issues.


Yes, but it's kind of stupid that they are making a game entirely online only, when in the last 2 games, it had a perfectly fine single-player.
In Blizzard's defense (not that they need defending), the industry (and the company) has moved quite a ways down the road since 2000. The current regime at Blizzard is very interested in moderating "the experience" that people have while playing their games. They may lose some people because of it, but that's their business model. They want to be able to control the content of their games. They want to be able to control who plays their games. They want to be able to control how those people play their games. They want to be able to control all transactions that may occur involving those games. Whether they want to do this because they think they can "ensure fun" better than anyone else or whether they want to make sure they can track (and tax) all transactions doesn't really matter... they have control either way.

[Karoht]

Been in the Beta for a while.

Love:
-Full Voice Acting, Single Player is very compelling for this and many other reasons.
-Ease of access, I start an invite only game, I can do whatever I want from there, no issues, no risk of ganking, nothing.
-Loot system, separate drops for each player. I don't even see what the person dropped, they can share with me if they want to, they can be private if they want to, and I have the same rights. Awesome.
-Crafting system, ease of getting materials, no gathering profession.
-Shift on the fly customization. Now, I hope that you can't do it in combat once it goes live, but being able to stop, change your ability focus, and keep going quickly, is a good thing. Diablo 2 stepped up the pacing of combat, Diablo 3 needs to keep up, so the fact that a 'respec' doesn't take me a load of time is ultimately a good thing. The fact that I'm not bound to one and only one build is great, it really is the ultimate freedom of a character.
-Witchdoctor. Yes.
-Barbarian is good, looks like it will feel better once more slots and abilities are open.
-Wizard sort of feels a bit disjointed at times, but once you get Disintegrate, the awesomeness just goes up to eleven. No, wait, not eleven, eleventy-one!
-Monk is a solid class, feels very versetile, I have lots of fun with it.
-Single player is entirely viable and fun, but playing with a good friend is really good fun. The ease of which other players can enter is great. I invite, person accepts. Where am I? Click my banner to come right to me. I honestly can't wait to see what a full 8 person party looks and feels like.
-Runestones, the fact that there are 6(?) for each ability, literally means that there are 6x the number of abilities for each class. In WoW when they brought out glyphs, they weren't really a choice, there was one, maybe two that affected an ability. 5-6 for runestones? Wow! Plus, think about the expansion pack material available. If they bring out even 1 runestone per ability per expansion (on top of anything else they bring out), that is huge. It also means that if they bring out a new ability for a class, they're really giving you ability * #of Runestones, rather than just 1.
-King Leoric, if he is the end of the first major questline, wow. What a great end. If they're all as good or better, that really excites me to finish off the single player quest. And the buildup through various means, it all works so well.


Meh:
-Crafting feels very gated. The rate at which you get training pages isn't great. And I don't think you get any experience for crafting stuff. On the other hand, not having to craft (re: invest/dump materials) to get crafting experience is decent as well.
-Demon Hunter I was just not interested to play going in, and after clearing the Beta content I just could not get excited about this class. Not a dislike, more like an 'I do not care' issue.
-Auction House. I'm more the kind to filter my unused items to alts and my friends list. In all honesty, I wish there was an easier way to do that. List all my items, but only for my friends to see, so they can grab what they need. The Real Money portion amuses me though. I can't wait to actually make money from the people who feel the need to pay real money for items.
-Point Distribution. I know, it's kind of a relic, but it's a standard at the same time. The thing is, I liked point distribution in most other games, and Diablo 2. But, I liked it in specific instances. Charged Bolt on Sorceress being my favorite. That was my big bad lighting spell. I had 20 points dumped into that ability, and about +15 in +all skills gear. I loved having a billion bolts go flowing across the screen. So when I saw Witchdoctor and Rain of Frogs I was overjoyed. Then I see that there is no way to increase the number of Frogs per cast. Oh. Sadface. I see other cool features though. It's not a dealbreaker, but still a sadface moment.


Dislike:
-Online Play Only. I don't hate the feature, I hate the fact that EVERYONE and their dog complains about this on the forums. Yes, we don't like the feature, we get it, can we maybe have a discusson about other features of the game? I'm also rather amused at how closed minded people are about this feature. They won't even try the game because of it. How narrow minded.
-Ease. Yeah, I know it's only the beta, they aren't testing difficulty yet, but I do hope it isn't this easy. Yes, I'm aware it's also the first quest so it doesn't speak for the whole game, but I really hope it gets stepped up a bit. I was looking for an equivelant of the /players 8 trick but could not find one. Again, beta, probably not implimented.
-Difficulty. The people who claim the game is too hard. Bwah?

[TamerBill]

I honestly can't wait to see what a full 8 person party looks and feels like.

You'll be waiting a while, given that the party cap is four.

[Starwulf]

Don't worry, once you buy the game, everything will be forgiven. At least, going by how much of the game I've been able to play, I can say with confidence that the game is a leaps and bounds ahead of Diablo 2, without losing any of the core appeal. If anything, it stays truer to the core concepts of the game than Diablo 1 or 2 did, if that makes any sense.



That's fine and I understand where you're coming from (though I don't find pirating as offensive as you seem to), but this is still an attack on another form member, which is not allowed no matter how justified you feel it is.

Edit: Haha, quote-ninja'ed.

Realized I left an important part of your post un-addressed last night. Of course I find pirating offensive. It's pirating that has gotten us into this new age of "Online-only/all-the-time" DRM that has sparked the majority of this threads debate. If pirates weren't as prevalent as they are, we would still be in the days of CD-Keys, and one-time activations.


Dislike:
-Online Play Only. I don't hate the feature, I hate the fact that EVERYONE and their dog complains about this on the forums. Yes, we don't like the feature, we get it, can we maybe have a discusson about other features of the game? I'm also rather amused at how closed minded people are about this feature. They won't even try the game because of it. How narrow minded.


As I said, I still plan on playing the game regardless, but have you actually read some of the peoples comments over the last few threads who said they weren't going to play the game because it's online only? Off the top of my head, several people claimed to have incredibly dicey internet that disconnects at a whim, which would make an Online-only game very frustrating to play. Another person travels all over the world, and is often in zones where he has no internet available to him. That's NOT narrow-minded, that's just being flat-out unable to play the game in anything BUT single player mode. Granted there are other people who have just said they don't plan on playing it all because they prefer single player, but that's not really narrow-minded at all. They know what they like, and what they don't like. They've liked previous Diablos because they were very fun games, and had single player. They aren't going to like Diablo 3 because it forces them to go online, and they just don't want to deal with any people at all.

Other then that, thanks for the review. While I've been arguing non-stop about Online-only, and the RMAH for the last three threads, little tidbits like yours, and the other beta tester that posted in this thread, have been making me absolutely salivate at the idea of playing D3. especially that one bit about Just ONE CLASS having over 1trillion possibilities for skill set-ups. That's just freaking insane.

[AgentPaper]

There's still singleplayer in the game. You just have to be online to play it.

[Suichimo]

-Loot system, separate drops for each player. I don't even see what the person dropped, they can share with me if they want to, they can be private if they want to, and I have the same rights. Awesome.

This is probably the biggest thing on your list for me. I was perpetually poor, item wise, in Diablo 2. The best I ever managed to find in MF runs by myself was a Dwarfstar. So I was very much dependent on charity for good equipment. Group made it worse because I'm not the quickest when it comes to scooping up drops. So when a unique or set item would drop, I was almost guaranteed to lose out on it.

This also means stuff like Torches can't be stolen from you, assuming something like that ever gets added.

[Karoht]

Granted there are other people who have just said they don't plan on playing it all because they prefer single player, but that's not really narrow-minded at all.This. The people who complain about being forced to play online, with their beef primarily revolving around being forced to play with other players.

Tip (not directed at poster)
Create game. At the game creation screen, click "Invite Only", then start the game. This means that the ONLY people who CAN join your game are the ones YOU invite personally. In fact I think it's actually the default setting, but don't quote me there.
Meaning that you can Single Play as much as you want. No other player matters, ever, unless YOU want them in your game.
So for people who find the above entirely too complicated to understand, by all means continue to claim incorrectly that you're forced to play with other people against your will.


@Dicey Internet (also not directed at poster)
Then complain at the internet providers who aren't reinvesting into their infrastructure. Demand better service. That's an issue with the internet provider, not the creators of a game.



Other then that, thanks for the review. While I've been arguing non-stop about Online-only, and the RMAH for the last three threads, little tidbits like yours, and the other beta tester that posted in this thread, have been making me absolutely salivate at the idea of playing D3. especially that one bit about Just ONE CLASS having over 1trillion possibilities for skill set-ups. That's just freaking insane.Yeah, check out the main site, click game, then click skill calculator, and just pick a class to investigate, it's got all the runes and abilities in there. Demon Hunters have some party-wide heals for example. Monk's party-wide heal can also do damage. Witchdoctors can choose to detonate their summoned dogs to deal damage, the detonation then heals the party, and resummon for free. These are all crazy things that can be done with Runestones on various abilities. And this is just some of the healing options. Let alone some of the defensive options of Monk. Or the Nuking options of Wizard. Barbarian is just remarkably flexible in their breaking of people over their knees.


@4 Players VS 8
Oh. Different. I think that goes in the 'meh' category for me. That will still be cool.

@RMAH
Nothing forces you to participate. With gold or with real money. Really. Nothing. Crafting gear is supposed to be really really good. As in, there are supposed to be Legendary quality patterns. How do I know this? There are Legendary Crafting Materials in the Beta right now. If there is a tier of quality above Legendary, and isn't craftable, I will be very shocked.
And if you don't want to participate, great. Don't. It most likely won't affect your play experience at all.


@Torches?
"This also means stuff like Torches can't be stolen from you, assuming something like that ever gets added."
Bwah?

[Starwulf]

Yeah, check out the main site, click game, then click skill calculator, and just pick a class to investigate, it's got all the runes and abilities in there. Demon Hunters have some party-wide heals for example. Monk's party-wide heal can also do damage. Witchdoctors can choose to detonate their summoned dogs to deal damage, the detonation then heals the party, and resummon for free. These are all crazy things that can be done with Runestones on various abilities. And this is just some of the healing options. Let alone some of the defensive options of Monk. Or the Nuking options of Wizard. Barbarian is just remarkably flexible in their breaking of people over their knees.


@4 Players VS 8
Oh. Different. I think that goes in the 'meh' category for me. That will still be cool.

@RMAH
Nothing forces you to participate. With gold or with real money. Really. Nothing. Crafting gear is supposed to be really really good. As in, there are supposed to be Legendary quality patterns. How do I know this? There are Legendary Crafting Materials in the Beta right now. If there is a tier of quality above Legendary, and isn't craftable, I will be very shocked.
And if you don't want to participate, great. Don't. It most likely won't affect your play experience at all.


@Torches?
"This also means stuff like Torches can't be stolen from you, assuming something like that ever gets added."
Bwah?

Can you tell me a bit about the monk? I think that is likely to be the first class I play, and will play primarily for a while.

Also, Torches: Diablo 2 item, dropped from Uber Mephisto in Uber Tristam. Gives 1-3 Skills, resists, experiance gained, and attributes. Unique item, 2 squares in inventory.

[Avilan the Grey]

@Dicey Internet (also not directed at poster)
Then complain at the internet providers who aren't reinvesting into their infrastructure. Demand better service. That's an issue with the internet provider, not the creators of a game.

At some point you have to stop catering to those that do not have good X. I am not necessarily saying the US is there yet, and this might be a too early decision from Blizzard, but eventually you have to. Companies has to, eventually, leave those behind that cannot follow, when there are few enough of them. It's bad for the people it happens to, but it is one of the ways you force progress to happen. Regardless of technology, be it phones, cellphones, computers, etc etc.

[Karoht]

Also, Torches: Diablo 2 item, dropped from Uber Mephisto in Uber Tristam. Gives 1-3 Skills, resists, experiance gained, and attributes. Unique item, 2 squares in inventory.Ah. Gotcha. Never played when Uber came out.



Can you tell me a bit about the monk? I think that is likely to be the first class I play, and will play primarily for a while.Sure.
You get Mantra's which are basically party buffs.
You have abilities which build up spirit, you have abilities which expend spirit. Spirit is not hard to acquire at all. If anything I have a hard time expending it rapidly. Your spirit generating abilities are punches, or rather punch kick combo's. They're lots of fun, good variety.
Spirit spending goes all kinds of directions. Healing, blinding/slowing/stopping opponents, doing big hits, all kinds of good fun. The Beta caps you at level 13 currently, so you don't get to try everything (yet) but what little you do get access to is pretty awesome.

I should also explain that you get active and passive abilities. Active abilities are just that, the 2-6 abilities that you have active. You start with 2 active slots and increase to 6 over time. I currently have 4 active slots open at level 12. You learn all the abilities in the game (no trainers, no point distribution), you just select which ones you want to use. Want to change it up? Get away from the action for a second, open up the skill window and change what you have active.
You also get 3 passive abilities. There are 20+ passives to choose from per class, and just like the active abilities, you can change them up as well.
My build? I've got a dash strike, an AoE knockback, a Mantra that increases my dodge by a truckload, a punch that pierces targets, and my passive gives me more dodge as long as I'm wielding two weapons.

Also, they brought back hirelings. Mine has a free heal he casts every so often, and a healing aura. But I could change his abilities to be more tank focused. Oh, and the Hirelings talk now. They'll ramble about random stuff, they'll also ramble about things going on in the story. Example, you're going to this basement to do something kind of gruesome. He says something specific to this situation. Not just a platitude or more random banter. This was in addition to my character's interaction which took place. And yes, the hirelings are voice acted as well, including their random banter, as is your character's reply to said banter.

Seriously, check out the main page, click game if you really want to learn more about all the cool stuff monks are going to get.

[AgentPaper]

Another interesting mechanic for monks: All of the spirit generating skills are three-hit combos. For example, the Fists of Thunder abilty does two quite single-strike hits and then a biger AoE blast. You can switch between these at-will, so for example you could do the first two hits of one skill and then the finisher hit of another skill.

[Starwulf]

Ah. Gotcha. Never played when Uber came out.


Sure.
You get Mantra's which are basically party buffs.
You have abilities which build up spirit, you have abilities which expend spirit. Spirit is not hard to acquire at all. If anything I have a hard time expending it rapidly. Your spirit generating abilities are punches, or rather punch kick combo's. They're lots of fun, good variety.
Spirit spending goes all kinds of directions. Healing, blinding/slowing/stopping opponents, doing big hits, all kinds of good fun. The Beta caps you at level 13 currently, so you don't get to try everything (yet) but what little you do get access to is pretty awesome.

I should also explain that you get active and passive abilities. Active abilities are just that, the 2-6 abilities that you have active. You start with 2 active slots and increase to 6 over time. I currently have 4 active slots open at level 12. You learn all the abilities in the game (no trainers, no point distribution), you just select which ones you want to use. Want to change it up? Get away from the action for a second, open up the skill window and change what you have active.
You also get 3 passive abilities. There are 20+ passives to choose from per class, and just like the active abilities, you can change them up as well.
My build? I've got a dash strike, an AoE knockback, a Mantra that increases my dodge by a truckload, a punch that pierces targets, and my passive gives me more dodge as long as I'm wielding two weapons.

Also, they brought back hirelings. Mine has a free heal he casts every so often, and a healing aura. But I could change his abilities to be more tank focused. Oh, and the Hirelings talk now. They'll ramble about random stuff, they'll also ramble about things going on in the story. Example, you're going to this basement to do something kind of gruesome. He says something specific to this situation. Not just a platitude or more random banter. This was in addition to my character's interaction which took place. And yes, the hirelings are voice acted as well, including their random banter, as is your character's reply to said banter.

Seriously, check out the main page, click game if you really want to learn more about all the cool stuff monks are going to get.

That sounds pretty sweet actually ^^ What type of weapons are there for the monks? Staffs, Knuckles? Able to go bare-fisted until you find a pair of knuckles?

Awesome to hear about the hirelings increased interaction with the character and the game in-general. I hope their pathing AI is a bit better then D2 as well, really got tired of my hireling getting stuck behind a wall, and not showing up for 3-4 screens before magically teleporting right next to me after I've already killed all the enemies ><.

I would load up the site, but unfortunately it's one of the sites I can't get to load at all anymore(since January). I used to be a pretty active participant on the D3 forums for a while, but they won't load anymore either. My only source of information is what I read here on the forums, or in game magazines.

[Volthawk]

That sounds pretty sweet actually ^^ What type of weapons are there for the monks? Staffs, Knuckles? Able to go bare-fisted until you find a pair of knuckles?


Handwraps, from what I've seen.

[Karoht]

That sounds pretty sweet actually ^^ What type of weapons are there for the monks? Staffs, Knuckles? Able to go bare-fisted until you find a pair of knuckles?You guessed it. It's all punchy/kicky type weapons that are monk only. You can also use some other weapons such as daggers, but I didn't goof around with those.



Awesome to hear about the hirelings increased interaction with the character and the game in-general. I hope their pathing AI is a bit better then D2 as well, really got tired of my hireling getting stuck behind a wall, and not showing up for 3-4 screens before magically teleporting right next to me after I've already killed all the enemies ><.Much improved. Never had a single pathing issue in some 20-odd run throughs.

[AgentPaper]

An unfortunate note on monk weapons: he doesn't actually any of them in combat. Whenever he attacks, they magically sheath themselves and he makes the attack with his bare fists. This is even true with the monk-specific daibo (staff) and fist weapons. The last one especially is almost certainly a bug, and the rest might be fixed before release, but that's how it is on the beta right now.

I actually made a video showing this off, which you can see here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHo8XRZ7J7g&feature=channel_video_title).

[Triscuitable]

There's still singleplayer in the game. You just have to be online to play it.

Then there's almost no point to the singleplayer. I'll tackle the multiplayer head on when it releases though. Until then, I'll play Borderlands, thank you very much.

[The Glyphstone]

Then there's almost no point to the singleplayer. I'll tackle the multiplayer head on when it releases though. Until then, I'll play Borderlands, thank you very much.

Er...they're the same thing. Singleplayer is logging in (online), creating a game that only you can enter. Multiplayer is exactly the same, except other people can be in your party according to varying levels of exclusivity.

[Suichimo]

Er...they're the same thing. Singleplayer is logging in (online), creating a game that only you can enter. Multiplayer is exactly the same, except other people can be in your party according to varying levels of exclusivity.

Which was also, basically, the same thing that Diablo 1 and 2 did.

[The Glyphstone]

Which was also, basically, the same thing that Diablo 1 and 2 did.

Well, minus the 'offline' capability of true singleplayer, but that's been discussed to death.

[Starwulf]

Well, minus the 'offline' capability of true singleplayer, but that's been discussed to death.

never!!! The true value of singleplayer is entirely proportional to the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....rofl.

[The Glyphstone]

never!!! The true value of singleplayer is entirely proportional to the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....rofl.

*keels over dead*

[AgentPaper]

*keels over dead*

Glyphstone has turned into a horse! Quickly, everyone start beating him!

[Suichimo]

Well, minus the 'offline' capability of true singleplayer, but that's been discussed to death.

Hence the "basically" part. :)

[Meta]

I think it's more worrisome that an Eldritch Horror actually died . Nastiness is afoot.

[faceroll]

An unfortunate note on monk weapons: he doesn't actually any of them in combat. Whenever he attacks, they magically sheath themselves and he makes the attack with his bare fists. This is even true with the monk-specific daibo (staff) and fist weapons. The last one especially is almost certainly a bug, and the rest might be fixed before release, but that's how it is on the beta right now.

I actually made a video showing this off, which you can see here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHo8XRZ7J7g&feature=channel_video_title).

Have you informed blizzard/posted on the forums about this? Has there been any talk about this? It seems kind of odd that you just carry sticks around for +stats and don't actually use them

[ZeltArruin]

-King Leoric, if he is the end of the first major questline, wow. What a great end. If they're all as good or better, that really excites me to finish off the single player quest. And the buildup through various means, it all works so well.

I thought I killed that guy.

[Avilan the Grey]

I thought I killed that guy.

No we didn't. We destroyed him, he was already dead. With the meteor causing the dead to rise anew, he collects his bones and starts being annoying again.

[Tankadin]

Have you informed blizzard/posted on the forums about this? Has there been any talk about this? It seems kind of odd that you just carry sticks around for +stats and don't actually use them

Well, there is an established in-house precedent with the Druid class from WoW...maybe the monk is really a Night Elf shapeshifted into a human monk form?

[ZeltArruin]

No we didn't. We destroyed him, he was already dead. With the meteor causing the dead to rise anew, he collects his bones and starts being annoying again.

The warmth of life has entered my tomb. Prepare yourself mortal, to serve my master for eternity.

[AgentPaper]

Have you informed blizzard/posted on the forums about this? Has there been any talk about this? It seems kind of odd that you just carry sticks around for +stats and don't actually use them

There's been a number of threads posted on the monk forum, so yes I'm pretty sure they're aware of it.

[Karoht]

An unfortunate note on monk weapons: he doesn't actually any of them in combat. Whenever he attacks, they magically sheath themselves and he makes the attack with his bare fists. This is even true with the monk-specific daibo (staff) and fist weapons. The last one especially is almost certainly a bug, and the rest might be fixed before release, but that's how it is on the beta right now.

I actually made a video showing this off, which you can see here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHo8XRZ7J7g&feature=channel_video_title).

I think that's a beta only issue for the time being. Placeholder graphics and whatnot. If you look closely at the Barbarian, there isn't a weapon in his hands when he uses cleave. Or at least there wasn't as of 2 weeks ago. Again, strikes me as a placeholder graphic kind of thing.

And yes, it's also been discussed to death on the official forums.


@Offline-mode Dead Horse
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.
*deep breath*
So, who wants tea and biscuits?

[Starwulf]

I think that's a beta only issue for the time being. Placeholder graphics and whatnot. If you look closely at the Barbarian, there isn't a weapon in his hands when he uses cleave. Or at least there wasn't as of 2 weeks ago. Again, strikes me as a placeholder graphic kind of thing.

And yes, it's also been discussed to death on the official forums.


@Offline-mode Dead Horse
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.
*deep breath*
So, who wants tea and biscuits?

Only if it's green tea with a spot of honey, and we can talk about the lack of an offline single player mode while enjoying our biscuits :)

I've been wondering about the whole Leoric thing, I was wondering how in the hell he had came back. It's a shame they are bringing him back, but not the butcher! "Fresh Meat!" will forever be one of the scariest, yet awesome phrases ever uttered by any video game villain.

So, how did you get into the closed beta? Just sign up for it and get lucky enough to be chosen? How many did they take for it? Are they taking any more?

[Karoht]

I've been wondering about the whole Leoric thing, I was wondering how in the hell he had came back. It's a shame they are bringing him back, but not the butcher! "Fresh Meat!" will forever be one of the scariest, yet awesome phrases ever uttered by any video game villain.Actually, that isn't entirely ruled out yet. You don't play through all of act 1, you literally deal with one major questline that ends with the defeat of The Skeleton King. Seeing as this questline was about 8 parts long, covered several dungeons, gave you loads of info on The Skeleton King and his origins, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Lazaarus either. Or the Butcher for that matter.



So, how did you get into the closed beta? Just sign up for it and get lucky enough to be chosen? How many did they take for it? Are they taking any more?Log on to battle.net, update your beta profile. They don't announce how many are in the beta, nor do they announce if they are or aren't taking more for the beta.
As for me, lets just say I have great friends in great places. I don't pay for my World of Warcraft account, if that gives you any hint as to what I'm saying.

[The Glyphstone]

You're Chris Metzen in disguise?

[faceroll]

Are there any classes that wear chunky armor? I'm going to miss running around as a paladin in kraken shells and balrog skin.

[Karoht]

You're Chris Metzen in disguise?How did you know?!!!
*Slaps you with an NDA*



Are there any classes that wear chunky armor? I'm going to miss running around as a paladin in kraken shells and balrog skin.Can't tell just yet. Again, 1-13 is all the leveling you can see. The leather gear looks reeeeeeeeeeaaally good on Barbarians. I don't know if you'd call it chunky at that point. Again, see the D3 website for such details, they've got some of the armor types up (as high as level 60 required, some of the lengendary and set gear), and it's very easy to navigate. Armor is also a lot less class specific this go around. My Wizard is running around in leather for example, as is my Witchdoctor. I think the only requirements on armor this time is just level, but I could be wrong, some of the unique/legendary stuff might have special requirements. There are still class-only weapons, so it stands to reason we might see class-only armors and other such items as well.

[AgentPaper]

Armor is also a lot less class specific this go around. My Wizard is running around in leather for example, as is my Witchdoctor. I think the only requirements on armor this time is just level, but I could be wrong, some of the unique/legendary stuff might have special requirements. There are still class-only weapons, so it stands to reason we might see class-only armors and other such items as well.

It should be noted, however, that the armor looks different for each class. In later levels especially, one piece of armor could look like a huge suit of plate-mail (barb), but for every other class it looks like a small breastplate, or leather armor with metal plates, or something like that.

[Psyren]

Diablo armor was never class-specific, barring specific item sets. The only thing keeping you out of a given outfit was your Strength score.

Even the class sets simply applied an adjustment to the strength requirement so you could wear them as a caster, e.g. Trang's (necromancer set) being... Chaos Plate? and Tal Rasha's (sorceress set) being Lacquered Plate.

[Morty]

Indeed. It doesn't sound like Diablo III armor is actually any different from Diablo II.

[faceroll]

Putting full plate on a sorcerer or barbarian in D2 looked a lot different than full plate on paladin. I just don't imagine the barbarian will ever look like a knight in plate.

[Meta]

Oooh, Shiny!:

http://igamek.com/2011/09/diablo-3-beta-the-newest-video-of-leaked-armor-screenshots/

[Karoht]

Putting full plate on a sorcerer or barbarian in D2 looked a lot different than full plate on paladin. I just don't imagine the barbarian will ever look like a knight in plate.
Right, but for that Sorc, dumping points into strength in order to wear the plate armor would be somewhat silly (unless it was just that darned good), whereas it is actually a good idea for the Barb.
Seeing as there do not appear to be strength requirements or specific stat requirements in order to equip things... well, alright, it wasn't class specific before, but it certainly feels less class specific now given the lack of stat requirements.

I also found that every piece I put on changed the appearance just a little. Maybe it was just me, but not many pieces changed my appearance all that much in D2, D3 my appearance feels like it's changing much more often.

[Psyren]

I would expect a wider variety of changes, given that D2 used sprites :smallsmile:

How appearance worked in D2 - you would have the basic <class> sprite, then the "<class> sprite wearing quilted", "<class> sprite wearing leather, "<class> sprite wearing heavy leather" etc. What's more, the lower-grade armor sprites were created by taking the heavier armors and removing bits. So heavy leather looked like something medium (chain mail?) with the legs and sleeves removed. Then studded leather reversed it, looking like chain in the legs and nothing on the chest. Breast Plate looked exactly like you would expect - plate on the chest and nowhere else. Finally, they would tint your sprite based on the set's color - Disciple had a dark blue tinge, Trang had a striking gold, Tal Rasha was deep purple, Sigon's was nearly bone-white etc. Then they would recycle these depending on tier - Gothic Plate = Lacquered Plate, Light Plate = Mage Plate, Gothic Helm = Winged Helm etc.

In D3, I expect they've moved on to specific item models, a la WoW. They may still have some recolors and other similarities, but you should be able to achieve a much more distinctive look from mixing and matching pieces than you could in D2.

[Karoht]

I would expect a wider variety of changes, given that D2 used sprites :smallsmile:

In D3, I expect they've moved on to specific item models, a la WoW. They may still have some recolors and other similarities, but you should be able to achieve a much more distinctive look from mixing and matching pieces than you could in D2.Pretty much, and the difference is noticable even in just the low levels.

I might make a stop motion animation type thing with my first character. Level 1 appearance all the way to 'just killed last boss' and literally get some kind of picture or vid cap from the character select screen (the part with the nice close-up of the character) and splice it all together in Sony Vegas.

[AgentPaper]

Pretty much, and the difference is noticable even in just the low levels.

I might make a stop motion animation type thing with my first character. Level 1 appearance all the way to 'just killed last boss' and literally get some kind of picture or vid cap from the character select screen (the part with the nice close-up of the character) and splice it all together in Sony Vegas.

That sounds pretty cool, actually. I'd suggest having it be a new frame each time you equip a new item, then just take a screenie of yourself right where you got that item. Just make sure that the character's position is the same in each one, and you'll see the environment changing around him as he gets more and more items. If you get multiple drops from a single boss, then you take one screen for each one you put on, too.

[Karoht]

That sounds pretty cool, actually. I'd suggest having it be a new frame each time you equip a new item, then just take a screenie of yourself right where you got that item. Just make sure that the character's position is the same in each one, and you'll see the environment changing around him as he gets more and more items. If you get multiple drops from a single boss, then you take one screen for each one you put on, too.The character select screen zooms in on your character when you pick characters. If I video cap that screen for less than 5 seconds every time I get something, it should give me the full frame range, I can just pick out frames from that, it will look quite a bit more organic as the character will still be breathing/moving naturally, but still in a fixed position more or less.

[AgentPaper]

The character select screen zooms in on your character when you pick characters. If I video cap that screen for less than 5 seconds every time I get something, it should give me the full frame range, I can just pick out frames from that, it will look quite a bit more organic as the character will still be breathing/moving naturally, but still in a fixed position more or less.

Ah, I guess that works too, though I like the idea of taking the pic where you got the item, just zoomed in and having the character face right at the screen. Should give mostly the same effect, except that you can see the environment changing around him as he progresses as well.

[Suichimo]

Right, but for that Sorc, dumping points into strength in order to wear the plate armor would be somewhat silly (unless it was just that darned good), whereas it is actually a good idea for the Barb.
Seeing as there do not appear to be strength requirements or specific stat requirements in order to equip things... well, alright, it wasn't class specific before, but it certainly feels less class specific now given the lack of stat requirements.

I also found that every piece I put on changed the appearance just a little. Maybe it was just me, but not many pieces changed my appearance all that much in D2, D3 my appearance feels like it's changing much more often.

In Diablo 2, unless you used a shield, the only stat you took beyond absolute minimum was Vitality, just look at the name of the thread. Bare minimum strength, after the rest of your equipment and charms, to use your equipment. Absolutely no one should put any points in energy, you'll get all the mana you need from +mana and mana drain. If you have a shield, Dex is a good stat to pump, but only enough to get that 75% block rate , which is still a lot especially if you're not a Paladin. Vitality is the default stat and benefits everyone.

[AgentPaper]

In Diablo 2, unless you used a shield, the only stat you took beyond absolute minimum was Vitality, just look at the name of the thread. Bare minimum strength, after the rest of your equipment and charms, to use your equipment. Absolutely no one should put any points in energy, you'll get all the mana you need from +mana and mana drain. If you have a shield, Dex is a good stat to pump, but only enough to get that 75% block rate , which is still a lot especially if you're not a Paladin. Vitality is the default stat and benefits everyone.

Well, I think there was that one build where you used mana shield, and maxed energy instead of vitality. Yeah, not the most interesting system ever, once you learned what it actually does.

[Starwulf]

Oooh Oooh, question! Are they still going with the non-manual stat placement? Ie: You don't get to choose what points get put into Dex/Str/Energy/Vit?

[Inarius]

Oooh Oooh, question! Are they still going with the non-manual stat placement? Ie: You don't get to choose what points get put into Dex/Str/Energy/Vit?

Still automatic point assignment at level up. They actually renamed most of the stats and rolled some of them into one stat. Its now Attack (boosts damage for all classes), Precision (crit rate and crit dmg for everyone), Vitality(hp), and Defense (damage reduction). The only real way to choose what stat points you get is via gear and buff selection now.

[Psyren]

Once you got the Insight merc you could literally stand there with an empty belt and rain elements/hammers/arrows etc. all over everything without ever needing to recharge.

At least, until Gloams showed up - f***ing gloams.

[Starwulf]

Still automatic point assignment at level up. They actually renamed most of the stats and rolled some of them into one stat. Its now Attack (boosts damage for all classes), Precision (crit rate and crit dmg for everyone), Vitality(hp), and Defense (damage reduction). The only real way to choose what stat points you get is via gear and buff selection now.

Sigh. That sucks. Another one of their decisions I disagree with. I know the reasoning, they don't want everyone to become vit whores who only put minimal points into other stats, but hell, I never did that! Only the people who PVPed a lot did that, or at least in my circle that's how it was.

[tyckspoon]

Sigh. That sucks. Another one of their decisions I disagree with. I know the reasoning, they don't want everyone to become vit whores who only put minimal points into other stats, but hell, I never did that! Only the people who PVPed a lot did that, or at least in my circle that's how it was.

Pretty much everybody who planned to ever play in Hell did it, in my experience. The exact amount of actual Str/Dex might change based on what kind of items you had available to you (Diablo 2 build guides rather notoriously assume the answer is 'everything', and hence you can get enough stats from gear alone to wear pretty much anything) but once you hit the point of being able to wear what you need to everything else you can do with your stat points is wildly outweighed by your skills and items. Hit accuracy, weapon damage? On your weapon and in your skill bonuses. More mana? Insight on your aura merc and/or mana-steal on your gear. The only thing you can do with your stat points that you don't fairly readily get on your gear is.. health.

[Avilan the Grey]

Personally I think the new system sounds extremely innovative and fun. And despite the fact that you can't place those points yourself, you will have about a billion ways to make your character unique.

[AgentPaper]

Personally I think the new system sounds extremely innovative and fun. And despite the fact that you can't place those points yourself, you will have about a billion ways to make your character unique.

Yeah, I was a bit skeptical at first, as to whether the skill slot system could really replace the skill tree, but now that I've gotten to play around with it a bit, I can confidently say that not only does it replace it, it far exceeds it with the amount it allows you to customize your character.

People talk about how characters were so diverse in D2, but really when it comes down to it most people only ever used one, maybe two abilities, because that was simply what the system encouraged you to do. And since the higher-level skills were so much better than the lower-level ones, you were also encouraged to not spend any points at all until you had already cleared much of the game's content. Really, looking back, the system as a whole is just hopelessly antiquated.

[Starwulf]

Yeah, I was a bit skeptical at first, as to whether the skill slot system could really replace the skill tree, but now that I've gotten to play around with it a bit, I can confidently say that not only does it replace it, it far exceeds it with the amount it allows you to customize your character.

People talk about how characters were so diverse in D2, but really when it comes down to it most people only ever used one, maybe two abilities, because that was simply what the system encouraged you to do. And since the higher-level skills were so much better than the lower-level ones, you were also encouraged to not spend any points at all until you had already cleared much of the game's content. Really, looking back, the system as a whole is just hopelessly antiquated.

Well, yeah, on one character, otherwise the character just wasn't as efficient in varoius hell level activities, but I had at least 2 accounts full of playable characters. Trapsin, Bowazon, javazon, Shapeshifting Druid, Summoning Druid, Bone Spear/Spirit Necro, Corpse Explosion Necro, Hammerdin, Zealadin, Martial Arts Sin, etc etc etc. Really, that was half the fun for me ^^ And this new system isn't going to stop that, I'll still have one every character, and probably two of every character if I get into PvPing this time around. Not to mention any equipment that Binds on Equip, and is worth keeping + putting runes into. That alone means I"ll probably end up making a few dozen different characters in the long run, to test out various builds with certain equipment and rune combinations.

Again, I never did understand the "Put everyting into VIT" concept. Course, I only optimized maybe three of my 15-20 characters, the rest were just for the hell of it, so I never bothered to min-max them, and I still had a ton of fun, and they were still able to do what I wanted them to do. I can see doing that if you were building an Uber Killer or something, or PvPing though, but otherwise...ehh. But, I do understand many people weren't like me, or my group of friends, despite how much I wish they were, LOL. I just hate having my sense of choice being taken away from me :-(

Edit: Also, btw(and this is merely to reminisce, not to show "omg, you're wrong" or anything), there was ONE class that had an extremely useful low level skill that was still used at high level ^^. I LOVED my Charge Bolt Sorc. At level 90 with pretty decent equipment, she was a beast :) Just got better when I got a merc equipped with that one Aura that lowers resistances ^^

[faceroll]

Right, but for that Sorc, dumping points into strength in order to wear the plate armor would be somewhat silly

I'm not sure what you're saying. Regardless of armor being worn, character classes still looked like they're character class. A necromancer wearing chainmail looked all gnarly with his bone pauldrons, but when a paladin put that breastplate on, he had a great big cross on his chest and looked shiny and righteous.

I liked that way of modeling things, personally, as opposed to how, say, WoW does it. Classes look like their class, regardless of the gear they've got on.

also:
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/sets/sets6.shtml#najsancientvestige
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/sets/sets7.shtml#talrashas



In D3, I expect they've moved on to specific item models, a la WoW. They may still have some recolors and other similarities, but you should be able to achieve a much more distinctive look from mixing and matching pieces than you could in D2.

Yeah, and end up looking like a chump if you're wearing trash whites and yellows. I didn't like that aspect of WoW. New expansion out? Everyone's wearing trousers they got from a space boar!

[Runestar]

Again, I never did understand the "Put everyting into VIT" concept.

The idea was that gear would pretty much take care of all those needs. Str is only as useful as the highest gear prereq you need, dex for max block (or dump it if you opt not to rely on blocking), while magic eq would give you all the mana you need. Thus, the only stat left was vitality, and just as well, since you can never have too much hp. :smalltongue:

You know something is wrong when this is recommended even for the sorc, who traditionally should benefit from a huge mana pool.

[GungHo]

Well, it's not like it's Fallout where you'd need INT, WIS, or PER to help you with a puzzle/conversation. Stabby, Ouchy, Dodgy, and Chance for Hard Stabby works if the only point of the game is to stab people inna face.

[Karoht]

@Vit Stacking
Funny Story.
I like challenges. Back in Diablo 1 I solo'd my way through normal and nightmare difficulty with no equipment on with my Warrior. Yeup, I punched things. A lot. And it carried me pretty far. My friends and I used to call it "Bruce Lee Mode"

So in Diablo 2, I tried this with my Sorceress and my Amazon.
Alone, no equipment (except for my bow and ammo on my Amazon) I walked through Normal and Nightmare mode without issue. Hell Difficulty?
Hell Difficulty took me all of a full 2 days to full clear. Act 5 got very very slow, with more hit and run tactics being required.
Baal on Hell? At /players 8?
Pot spammed with my Amazon. My Sorceress never had her mana shield break, even with his mana burn curse. I also want to point out that teleporting would run me out of mana pretty darned quick so I didn't bother, and just ran from everything.
Both took about 30 minutes to kill. Hell Diablo gave me more trouble. Hell Duriel killed me about 8 times on my Sorc before I managed a decent entrance into the room, and kited successfully.

I had points everywhere. I didn't Vit stack. I also had very unfocused skill builds on both characters (I like having a wide variety to work with).
So yeah, the arguement that Vit stacking was required for Hell? Sorry, I don't buy that. Highly recommended? Sure. Required? Nah.

The really scary part of this story? A friend of mine did it with nothing but a single weapon, in the hands of his Leap focused Barbarian. And he killed Hell Baal in under 5 minutes.

@Stat Distribution
I would like to have some choice, and more choice than 'stack Vit' is better than none. On the other hand, I also rather enjoy the idea that just about every build in D3 for a given class will be viable from one character. And quickly too. I'm willing to give up Stat distribution (including with skills, yes, I'm over it) for that kind of flexibility.



People talk about how characters were so diverse in D2, but really when it comes down to it most people only ever used one, maybe two abilities, because that was simply what the system encouraged you to do. And since the higher-level skills were so much better than the lower-level ones, you were also encouraged to not spend any points at all until you had already cleared much of the game's content. Really, looking back, the system as a whole is just hopelessly antiquated.
This. Emphatically. Amazing how many 'antiquated' people are moaning about it on the forums. Oh well.

[Psyren]

People talk about how characters were so diverse in D2, but really when it comes down to it most people only ever used one, maybe two abilities, because that was simply what the system encouraged you to do. And since the higher-level skills were so much better than the lower-level ones, you were also encouraged to not spend any points at all until you had already cleared much of the game's content. Really, looking back, the system as a whole is just hopelessly antiquated.

I agree with your first conclusion but not your second. After that one patch (1.10?) when synergies were introduced, a lot of the lower level stuff became extremely powerful; Necros suddenly became able to take Diablo on with their skeleton horde (or even head to the cow level with them), Paladins were Smiting the crap out of Duriel, and of course Sorcs were flooding the screen with powerful Charged Bolts. Even builds that relied on a high-level skill (like Orbsorcs or Bonemancers) had a lower-level skill to synergize it (Ice Bolt, Teeth) and could therefore sink points into that while leveling. The days of hoarding your points for 40 levels while being rushed through everything were over; not spending your points on the lower synergy skills actually made your mainstay weaker once you finally got it.

[AgentPaper]

I agree with your first conclusion but not your second. After that one patch (1.10?) when synergies were introduced, a lot of the lower level stuff became extremely powerful; Necros suddenly became able to take Diablo on with their skeleton horde (or even head to the cow level with them), Paladins were Smiting the crap out of Duriel, and of course Sorcs were flooding the screen with powerful Charged Bolts. Even builds that relied on a high-level skill (like Orbsorcs or Bonemancers) had a lower-level skill to synergize it (Ice Bolt, Teeth) and could therefore sink points into that while leveling. The days of hoarding your points for 40 levels while being rushed through everything were over; not spending your points on the lower synergy skills actually made your mainstay weaker once you finally got it.

This is true, though it came with it's own problems. As soon as you put a point into one skill, you're pretty much locked in to max out every single other skill that has synergies with it, or with the skill you eventually plan to use.

[Psyren]

This is true, though it came with it's own problems. As soon as you put a point into one skill, you're pretty much locked in to max out every single other skill that has synergies with it, or with the skill you eventually plan to use.

Nah, not really. It optimizes your damage with that skill, but doing so is not necessary to be viable and can actively hurt you if the element you're maximizing is easily resisted.

For example, no dual-element sorc builds can maximize all their synergies with both key skills. For a Meteorb build for instance, you will at a minimum want max Orb and max Meteor (with 1 point in Cold Mastery), then go on to Fire Mastery, then max Fireball, and finish up with a few more points in Cold Mastery (not maxed - it has diminshing returns). However, Meteor has another synergy (Fire Bolt) which you are forced to ignore if you want decent cold damage. Doing so hurts the damage of your meteor, but the payoff is that you do decent damage with two elements instead of overwhelming damage with one and becoming useless against half the enemies in Hell.

Bottom line is that it depends on your build. Some builds rely on magic damage (e.g. bonemancers and hammerdins) which few enemies are immune to, while others have two elements built right into their synergies (e.g. Wind Druids, who deal massive cold and physical damage with the same build.)

[Starwulf]

@Vit Stacking
Funny Story.
I like challenges. Back in Diablo 1 I solo'd my way through normal and nightmare difficulty with no equipment on with my Warrior. Yeup, I punched things. A lot. And it carried me pretty far. My friends and I used to call it "Bruce Lee Mode"

So in Diablo 2, I tried this with my Sorceress and my Amazon.
Alone, no equipment (except for my bow and ammo on my Amazon) I walked through Normal and Nightmare mode without issue. Hell Difficulty?
Hell Difficulty took me all of a full 2 days to full clear. Act 5 got very very slow, with more hit and run tactics being required.
Baal on Hell? At /players 8?
Pot spammed with my Amazon. My Sorceress never had her mana shield break, even with his mana burn curse. I also want to point out that teleporting would run me out of mana pretty darned quick so I didn't bother, and just ran from everything.
Both took about 30 minutes to kill. Hell Diablo gave me more trouble. Hell Duriel killed me about 8 times on my Sorc before I managed a decent entrance into the room, and kited successfully.

I had points everywhere. I didn't Vit stack. I also had very unfocused skill builds on both characters (I like having a wide variety to work with).
So yeah, the arguement that Vit stacking was required for Hell? Sorry, I don't buy that. Highly recommended? Sure. Required? Nah.

The really scary part of this story? A friend of mine did it with nothing but a single weapon, in the hands of his Leap focused Barbarian. And he killed Hell Baal in under 5 minutes.

@Stat Distribution
I would like to have some choice, and more choice than 'stack Vit' is better than none. On the other hand, I also rather enjoy the idea that just about every build in D3 for a given class will be viable from one character. And quickly too. I'm willing to give up Stat distribution (including with skills, yes, I'm over it) for that kind of flexibility.



This. Emphatically. Amazing how many 'antiquated' people are moaning about it on the forums. Oh well.

Lol, I actually did the same thing in Diablo, but I did it with the Hellfire Expansion Monk character. Speaking of, how many people here played the Hellfire Expansion? How many played it with that one fan patch that added in about 500 different uniques, and upped the normal difficulty level to that of nightmare, nightmare to hell, and hell to ultra-hell? Ahh, such fond memories of that ^^

Yeah, I probably should have phrased better. I understand Vit Stacking, I just don't "get" it. Always seemed cheap to me unless I was building a very specific character that truly required it(Uber-killing Paladin, pvp).

I don't know, even with all the builds being viable, I would still prefer having control over my own stat placement. I guess there is a reason why my favorite type of games are D&D types or Open World Sandboxes like Morrowind, where I have full control over my character. I guess that's what drew me into the Diablo Franchise in the first place(well, that and the classic "Fresh Meat" Line when I first saw the game being played by a friend). Regardless, as you've said, I'll be able to live with it, especially if the rest of the game is as fun and diverse as has bee indicated.

[Karoht]

Yeah, but when those attribute points are just stats, it's academic to me.
Skill points I'll probably miss for a little while, because there is where it feels like real choice. But the active skill system in D3? It feels like real freedom to me.

And if 6 Active's and 3 Passives with boat loads of combo's isn't enough for me, maybe one of the expansions will include an extra Active/Passive slot or something.

Can't wait until Blizzcon, when released dates and major announcements (for quite a few things actually) are highly anticipated.

[Starwulf]

Yeah, but when those attribute points are just stats, it's academic to me.
Skill points I'll probably miss for a little while, because there is where it feels like real choice. But the active skill system in D3? It feels like real freedom to me.

And if 6 Active's and 3 Passives with boat loads of combo's isn't enough for me, maybe one of the expansions will include an extra Active/Passive slot or something.

Can't wait until Blizzcon, when released dates and major announcements (for quite a few things actually) are highly anticipated.

Mmm, Blizzcon. I was going to go there last year with a buddy who was Stationed over in Japan, but he couldn't get leave to fly over here, and I didn't feel like driving from Maryland to Cali by myself >< I really hope they give a definite release date for it, finally. Also hope they say it's this year! Will give me 3 primary games I want between my birthday(November), and Christmas. Skyrim, Skyward Sword, and Diablo 3. Not sure how I"ll give all 3 games the attention they deserve though! Maybe I'll research a way to split myself into 3 people(naruto Shadow Clones!), buy a second computer, and play all 3 at once!

I also wonder if they will finally do more then one expansion for a change. First Diablo was ok with just Hellfire(it was really more of a stand-alone anyways to be honest), but Diablo 2, even with LoD, felt a bit incomplete. Hopefully, since they've been in the "multiple expansions" mode lately, what with WoW, and kind of SC2(not sure if you can call the other 2 games being released expansions, they are all just SC2 as a whole, just so big they required their own games), they'll be open to making a 2nd expansion for D3 instead of just one :) Especially given how much more of the Diablo universe is going to be open to us this time. A LOT more room for them to explore various areas in expansions.

[Karoht]

I also wonder if they will finally do more then one expansion for a change. First Diablo was ok with just Hellfire(it was really more of a stand-alone anyways to be honest), but Diablo 2, even with LoD, felt a bit incomplete. Hopefully, since they've been in the "multiple expansions" mode lately, what with WoW, and kind of SC2(not sure if you can call the other 2 games being released expansions, they are all just SC2 as a whole, just so big they required their own games), they'll be open to making a 2nd expansion for D3 instead of just one :) Especially given how much more of the Diablo universe is going to be open to us this time. A LOT more room for them to explore various areas in expansions.

Hellfire was not released by Blizzard. Just saying.

D3 is planned to have 2 expansions at minimum, and possibly some patched in content as well. Going on sources I've seen (which so far have been very accurate), as well as sources I can't discuss.

Patched in content might be serious stuff as a means of gating progression, or it might be silly stuff such as additional 'secret' levels (the new one is ponies instead of cows, seriously) or other optional content, uber modes/zones, etc.

I've even heard rumor of a custom content creator in the works, but that one really is just rumor mill.

[Starwulf]

Hellfire was not released by Blizzard. Just saying.

D3 is planned to have 2 expansions at minimum, and possibly some patched in content as well. Going on sources I've seen (which so far have been very accurate), as well as sources I can't discuss.

Patched in content might be serious stuff as a means of gating progression, or it might be silly stuff such as additional 'secret' levels (the new one is ponies instead of cows, seriously) or other optional content, uber modes/zones, etc.

I've even heard rumor of a custom content creator in the works, but that one really is just rumor mill.

hehe, yeah, Hellfire was by Sierra ^^ Still a fun add-on, even if it didn't really do anything for the main story(again, not that there was much left needed to be said).

Awesome to hear that we are going to get at least 2 expansions for Diablo 3, and even some other content on top of that! Hilarious about the ponies as well, rofl :) I'll be surprised if they actually give us mod tools though to make our own custom content, that would be more indicative of a single-player for the most part(not always, but usually. SC is an exception, but those aren't entire scenarios, just single maps released by people. Making an entire scenario, and having it be downloadable by the public at large and played online would require a lot of extra effort on blizzards part I would think(I could/likely am wrong though, I know nothing about coding unfortunately). Regardless, happy to hear that they have a lot of stuff planned for us. Maybe there won't be such a massively long drought in between Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 like there was between 2 and 3 ^^.

[Karoht]

hehe, yeah, Hellfire was by Sierra ^^ Still a fun add-on, even if it didn't really do anything for the main story(again, not that there was much left needed to be said).

Awesome to hear that we are going to get at least 2 expansions for Diablo 3, and even some other content on top of that! Hilarious about the ponies as well, rofl :) I'll be surprised if they actually give us mod tools though to make our own custom content, that would be more indicative of a single-player for the most part(not always, but usually. SC is an exception, but those aren't entire scenarios, just single maps released by people. Making an entire scenario, and having it be downloadable by the public at large and played online would require a lot of extra effort on blizzards part I would think(I could/likely am wrong though, I know nothing about coding unfortunately). Regardless, happy to hear that they have a lot of stuff planned for us. Maybe there won't be such a massively long drought in between Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 like there was between 2 and 3 ^^.

The words I heard used were "Campaign Creator" in relation to Diablo 3. DnD night but with Diablo maybe? Build your own quests, set up the environment, fill in text bubbles, add in monster types, select dungeont type to randomize (pick the environment, it randomizes the map as normal) invite your friends and go to town. Thats the sort of thing it immediately brings to mind.



Making an entire scenario, and having it be downloadable by the public at large and played online would require a lot of extra effort on blizzards part I would thinkWhen the Battle.net market place goes live (eventually) this is the sort of thing it's built to pass around. SC2 is already doing this, just with less information. Remember, the terrain types and textures are already on your computer when you get the game. It's not like you have to re-download them with every map or scenario or dungeon or whatever.

[The Glyphstone]

No Cow Level? Whaaaaaat?:smallamused:

[Gamerlord]

No Cow Level? Whaaaaaat?:smallamused:
I looked at what were supposedly MPQ files of a leaked version of the US client, and if it wasn't an incredibly elaborate troll, it appears there might be a pony level.

[ZeltArruin]

No Cow Level? Whaaaaaat?:smallamused:

thereisnocowlevel

[Karoht]

I like fast Monks and slow ponies.

[ZeltArruin]

I like fast Monks and slow ponies.

Next thread title, if we get that far?

[Karoht]

Next thread title, if we get that far?
YUS!


For anyone who needs a bit more explanation on that, it's a reference to the film Sherlock Holmes as well.
"Mr So-and-so took it. Insurance scam. He likes fast women and slow ponies."

Equally cool are fast barbarians and slow ponies. That one's a bit more messy though.

[gooddragon1]

For those having a hard time surviving hell difficulty, here is a character build with a decent chance at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeLVpX7FTMw

[Starwulf]

So, sadly, Blizzard has decided to not release Diablo 3 this year, instead delaying it until 2012, due to them feeling that the game is just not ready :-(. Le'Sigh. was hoping might get to play it this Christmas, but alas, twas just a pipe-dream.

[ZeltArruin]

So, sadly, Blizzard has decided to not release Diablo 3 this year, instead delaying it until 2012, due to them feeling that the game is just not ready :-(. Le'Sigh. was hoping might get to play it this Christmas, but alas, twas just a pipe-dream.

That is old news, isn't it? I thought they said Q1 2012 since the summer?

[Nargan]

So, sadly, Blizzard has decided to not release Diablo 3 this year, instead delaying it until 2012, due to them feeling that the game is just not ready :-(. Le'Sigh. was hoping might get to play it this Christmas, but alas, twas just a pipe-dream.

Welcome to Blizzard, inventors of Soon(TM), the widely used developers fragrance for men.

[AgentPaper]

Just finished playing the PvP beta at blizzcon, and it was a ton of fun. The combat was fast, brutal, and very visceral. Importantly, despite the rapid pace, I never felt like I wasn't able to do anything unless I was outnumbered 3 to 1. even then, I could at least escape most of the time. There was also a very fast respawn of 3-4 seconds, so I was never out of the fight for long. My favorites to play were the barbarian and monk, and the sorceress seemed solid, though not really my style. The witch doctor and the demon hunter seemed kinda lackluster though. They could put out pretty decent damage, but it didn't really feel like they brought enough to the fight compared to how squishy they are. Even the wizard had her diamond shield at least.

[Dhavaer]

Got a message half an hour ago that the collector's edition had been announced, and google got this (http://geek.pikimal.com/2011/10/21/blizzcon-2011-diablo-iii-collectors-edition-announced-teased/). Looks nice to me, but I hope the Diablo 2 on the soulstone is compatible with Windows 7.

[Kesnit]

Looks nice to me, but I hope the Diablo 2 on the soulstone is compatible with Windows 7.

Don't see why it wouldn't be. I have the Diablo Battle Chest (from pre-Win7 days) and can install and run Diablo 2 on my Win7 system.

[The Glyphstone]

So I watched the newest cinematic trailer...is it just me, or does the new big bad look a whole lot like the endboss of Act 2 in D2?

[Suichimo]

So I watched the newest cinematic trailer...is it just me, or does the new big bad look a whole lot like the endboss of Act 2 in D2?

He does look a lot like Duriel but, IIRC, that is Azmodan. Since there are four others beyond Azmodan, hopefully that means a base of five acts. And who knows how the angels are going to factor into all of this.

[Starwulf]

He does look a lot like Duriel but, IIRC, that is Azmodan. Since there are four others beyond Azmodan, hopefully that means a base of five acts. And who knows how the angels are going to factor into all of this.

Wasn't Azmodan the Big Bad in the Diablo 1 expansion "Hellfire" by Sierra?

[hamishspence]

Nope- that was an all-new demon called "Na-Krul".

From the D1 manual, there were only 7 "Great Evils" (4 Lesser, 3 Prime) - the 4 Lessers were Andariel, Duriel, Azmodan & Belial.

Andariel & Duriel both make appearances in D2.

[Avilan the Grey]

Okay, so what classes will you play first?

I am really excited about the Demon Hunter (I loved the D1 Rogue) but after that I don't really have a favorite so far. The only one I am NOT interested in is the Monk, for some reason.

[faceroll]

So I watched the newest cinematic trailer...is it just me, or does the new big bad look a whole lot like the endboss of Act 2 in D2?

I did at first, but then I realized he reminded me more of Mannoroth from Warcraft 3. Duriel looks more like a hydralisk. Kinda serpentine or insectile, as opposed to toadlike


Nope- that was an all-new demon called "Na-Krul".

I thought Hellfire was kind of silly compared to Diablo. It just didn't feel as serious or something. I was a little disappointed in it, to be honest. Tomes of Apocalypse were pretty sweet, though the Apocalypse nerf kinda ruins it (can't hit targets behind walls).

[Karoht]

He does look a lot like Duriel but, IIRC, that is Azmodan. Since there are four others beyond Azmodan, hopefully that means a base of five acts. And who knows how the angels are going to factor into all of this.
And don't forget, 2 planned expansions. 5 acts at launch would be awesome, I admit, but I'm not holding my breath. Could happen though.

[Psyren]

I thought Hellfire was kind of silly compared to Diablo. It just didn't feel as serious or something. I was a little disappointed in it, to be honest.

Understandable, since Sierra made it rather than Blizzard.

[Karoht]

Understandable, since Sierra made it rather than Blizzard.
And made the Monk class in that expansion to be gamebreakingly awesome/faceroll easy.

[Khosan]

Rampant plot speculation!

So the idea that Leah is Belial isn't exactly new, it just hasn't had anything to support it except, again, rampant speculation. Black Soulstone does add a fair amount to its case though. The way Azmodan speaks to her certainly does support the concept.

"You thought you were so clever. That you'd outwit us all. One by one, our brethren fell into your trap. But not me. I defy you."

Now, I'm not exactly 100% up to date on Diablo lore, but I know Belial is the Lord of Lies and has been one of the driving forces behind the whole series of events that led to the Diablo games. He and Azmodan started the war in hell that led to the three Prime Evils being exiled to Sanctuary. Given that he's the Lord of Lies, it makes sense that he'd try to be more clever than some of the other Evils, working through plots and schemes, not all out war and that his ultimate scheme has been to take out the other evils, take their power (or take something so powerful that it gives him an edge) then conquer heaven.

Honestly, those few sentences lend a lot of support to the idea. And the fact that Azmodan is speaking at all. If Leah is Belial, then Azmodan has a reason to speak. To let his brother know his plans have failed and there's not a damn thing he can do to fix them.

[Karoht]

Rampant plot speculation!

So the idea that Leah is Belial isn't exactly new, it just hasn't had anything to support it except, again, rampant speculation. Black Soulstone does add a fair amount to its case though. The way Azmodan speaks to her certainly does support the concept.

"You thought you were so clever. That you'd outwit us all. One by one, our brethren fell into your trap. But not me. I defy you."

Now, I'm not exactly 100% up to date on Diablo lore, but I know Belial is the Lord of Lies and has been one of the driving forces behind the whole series of events that led to the Diablo games. He and Azmodan started the war in hell that led to the three Prime Evils being exiled to Sanctuary. Given that he's the Lord of Lies, it makes sense that he'd try to be more clever than some of the other Evils, working through plots and schemes, not all out war and that his ultimate scheme has been to take out the other evils, take their power (or take something so powerful that it gives him an edge) then conquer heaven.

Honestly, those few sentences lend a lot of support to the idea. And the fact that Azmodan is speaking at all. If Leah is Belial, then Azmodan has a reason to speak. To let his brother know his plans have failed and there's not a damn thing he can do to fix them.

I'll see your rampant plot speculation and raise you a tinfoil hat theory...
...as soon as I think of one...

Ah haa!
Tyrial is Belial. Has been all along. Tricked the heroes into breaking the Soulstones, which for life of me I can't figure out why that would stop them other than 'because Tyrial/The Horadrim believe it so.' There's also his fishy placement in Tal'rasha's tomb.
Or Belial takes multiple guises, and is involved with Tyrial and Leah.

[Avilan the Grey]

Rampant plot speculation!

So the idea that Leah is Belial isn't exactly new, it just hasn't had anything to support it except, again, rampant speculation. Black Soulstone does add a fair amount to its case though. The way Azmodan speaks to her certainly does support the concept.

"You thought you were so clever. That you'd outwit us all. One by one, our brethren fell into your trap. But not me. I defy you."

Now, I'm not exactly 100% up to date on Diablo lore, but I know Belial is the Lord of Lies and has been one of the driving forces behind the whole series of events that led to the Diablo games. He and Azmodan started the war in hell that led to the three Prime Evils being exiled to Sanctuary. Given that he's the Lord of Lies, it makes sense that he'd try to be more clever than some of the other Evils, working through plots and schemes, not all out war and that his ultimate scheme has been to take out the other evils, take their power (or take something so powerful that it gives him an edge) then conquer heaven.

Honestly, those few sentences lend a lot of support to the idea. And the fact that Azmodan is speaking at all. If Leah is Belial, then Azmodan has a reason to speak. To let his brother know his plans have failed and there's not a damn thing he can do to fix them.

I don't buy it. There is no need to keep the mask on in that situation. I agree with Karoht, I have never trusted that guy. Not even the first time I saw him in Diablo (the first one).

[Karoht]

Put soulstone in kid in tristram, makes diablo come out.
Put soulstone in warrior from tristram, makes diablo come out.
Put soulstone in Tal'rasha. Contain's Baal.
Pull soulstone out of tal'rasha in the tomb, makes Baal strong enough to break his bindings and eventually Baal emerges.
And what of Baal's soulstone after LoD?

Yeah, somethings were seriously messed up there.

And if smashing the Soulstones was a solution from the start, why didn't they do that as soon as they had trapped the 3 in the soulstones?

Or am I completely misremembering things? Which is entirely possible as well.

[Runestar]

I don't buy it. There is no need to keep the mask on in that situation. I agree with Karoht, I have never trusted that guy. Not even the first time I saw him in Diablo (the first one).

Tyreal appeared in D1? :smallconfused:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

For those having a hard time surviving hell difficulty, here is a character build with a decent chance at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeLVpX7FTMw

Not really. Using hacks does not equal beating the game to most people.

[Khosan]

Put soulstone in kid in tristram, makes diablo come out.
Put soulstone in warrior from tristram, makes diablo come out.
Put soulstone in Tal'rasha. Contain's Baal.
Pull soulstone out of tal'rasha in the tomb, makes Baal strong enough to break his bindings and eventually Baal emerges.
And what of Baal's soulstone after LoD?

Yeah, somethings were seriously messed up there.

And if smashing the Soulstones was a solution from the start, why didn't they do that as soon as they had trapped the 3 in the soulstones?

Or am I completely misremembering things? Which is entirely possible as well.

As I understand it Soulstones, like the Worldstone, have a kind of dampening property to keep whatever's contained within in check. The Worldstone was meant to keep the Nephalem, the offspring of angels and demons, in check. Soulstones are made of the same stuff, so the intent was to trap the Three in the soulstones. Problem was Izual told them how to corrupt the soulstones.

Diablo and Mephisto, since they didn't break theirs in the fight with the Horadrim, were simply locked away until they'd both fully corrupted their soulstones, then sort of called out to someone who they could fully possess. Diablo caught the prince first, but then just stuck around in an attempt to attract a hero who could provide for him a stronger body. Mephisto lucked out and was situated near a group of easily corruptible priests with pretty significant amounts of power on their own.

Baal managed to shatter his soulstone during the Horadrim's fight with him, so they couldn't fully contain him which is where Tal-Rasha came in. This is the weird part. My guess is that the soulstone shard retained its dampening properties, but Tal-Rasha himself had to function as the thing containing Baal which might've meant Baal couldn't corrupt the soulstone as he'd intended. When Marius removed the shard, Baal could finally make full use of his power.

Baal's soulstone never really contained him entirely, I'd guess just a small part of it, which is the only reason he carries it around. The dampening aspect might only work when it's inserted into someone's skull, which is why he carried it around his neck.

EDIT: As for why they didn't just smash them to begin with, I'd guess that maybe that just releases their soul back into where ever. At the point where you're destroying them, those soulstones are corrupted and keeping them around is far more hazardous than just releasing the three back into where ever.

[Psyren]

For those having a hard time surviving hell difficulty, here is a character build with a decent chance at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeLVpX7FTMw

Meh, I'd probably do that once for the novelty of curbstomping TorchD/round up a million cows and nuke them all, but the fleeting satisfaction isn't worth risking all the wonderful "passengers" such hacks usually contain.