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| jeeeeohn United States. May 27 2012 06:58. Posts 882 | Profile Blog # |
I was originally considering a video review, but I didn't want to go through the hassle.
I've had a love-hate relationship with the ARPG genre. For me, it started, as it did with most people, with Diablo 2. I loved the immediacy and the impact of combat, and the artwork and atmosphere kept me engaged maybe more than anything else.
However, it was too hard for me. As a tender young lad of twelve, I didn't understand why all my gear and gold dropped when my avatar died. Frustrated, I abandoned it until just three short months ago, when I decided to give it another go.
As a summoner Necro, I only died twice in normal mode, once to Duriel (because I didn't know that you'd just freaking drop right next to him), and once to Mephisto. Diablo himself would have killed me, but I refused to engage him with anything less than a full army of skeletons. With the pressure of completing the game done, I'm having a blast trying different characters and leveling up my necro on nightmare difficulty.
The reason why I wanted to try Diablo 2 is because Diablo 3 completely underwhelmed me.
First of all, let me address some common complaints:
-It's too much like WoW: I keep hearing about the damn hotbar. Gather around children, as I tell you the tale of Titan Quest. Titan Quest is an ARPG released circa 2006. It had a hotbar. Diablo 3's hotbar didn't copy WoW. Diablo 3's hotbar was pioneered by Titan Quest. People who complain about a "WoW-like hotbar" are dumb.
In terms of visuals, the comparison is completely justified. Diablo 2 manages to creep me out to this day (unless I'm on my necro, in which case the cold company of skeletons keeps my nerve up). Diablo 3, on the other hand, was decisively "meh." Torchlight's artistic style turned me off because I couldn't take it seriously, and here I have a Diablo game, in my hands, trying to ape that cartoonish style? Why?
Because millions of people play World of Warcraft. Look at an in-game model in WoW and an in-game model in Diablo 3 and tell me you don't see similarities. Hell, Diablo 3 models look more like Warcraft 3 units than anything related to Diablo.
-The "DRM:" Again, completely justified. This has been harped about on and on and on. I consider it on the same moralistic plane as bitching about Fox News. Millions of people still watch Fox News, so obviously people enjoy the product or just don't care. Millions of people still play Diablo 3, therefore no one gives a shit. I'm not saying the online-only DRM was correct or just or even makes sense (it doesn't), but apparently the detractors are either in the minority or have bought the damn thing anyway. Minus 60 DKP for the consumer.
-No character development: This turned me off more than anything. The argument can be made that everyone does the same build anyway and blah blah blah--but that's not true. The hardest of the hardcore will have the same builds, but everyone else is going to do whatever the hell they want to do. And if it works? Great, awesome! My point is that normal Diablo 2 was easy enough for "weird" builds to work.
Diablo 3 is not an action-roleplaying game; it's just an action game. The moment there's no character development, a game ceases to be an RPG. The goal is MORE diversity, MORE builds, MORE classes, MORE skills--not fucking less. Titan Quest had like 8 or 10 masteries and you could combine two of them. That made for an incredibly diverse game--and this was SIX years ago.
You think a company of Blizzard's magnitude, with a basically limitless budget, would be able to innovate and improve upon the old formula, not take several steps backwards. This is not Diablo. This is, like, the approximately billion adventure-action games that have gone by the wayside since the dawn of time.
I personally think they did it for the sake of "balance." Ever since Brood War, Blizzard has been known as the company that "balances shit." That mindset has effected every game they've released since.
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Now that the common complaints are out of the way, let me delve into my biggest issues.
-Combat: Yeah, you heard me. I have a problem with combat. There's too much shit going on at all times, and more often than not I ended up just spamming whatever ability I had been preassigned and hoped that those bright blobs would fall over. I can't make heads or tails out of what's going on during a fight. I blame this on the artistic style more than anything. Diablo 2 and Titan Quest are crisp, smooth, and there's never a moment where you're not sure what's happening. Diablo 3's fights feature giant swirly blobs and not much else.
-The auction house. Diablo is a single player experience. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that's how I've always felt about Diablo. The auction house is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. You see, they needed to monetize the game so they could pay for their servers. But that wouldn't have been necessary without the retarded DRM. They just topped off their unnecessarily-retarded cake with an unnecessarily-retarded cherry. Get gold from the auction house or get gold from a vendor? This ain't a fucking MMO. There's no persistent world in the usual sense. You can get a billion gold from just playing the damn game.
-The writing. Pretty atrocious. Like Starcraft 2 but with more voodoo. I think Tyrael and Raynor could be best friends just exchanging one-liners over dinner. What baffles me is that the writing in WoW is significantly better. There are some truly great quests and quest chains in that game (well, before Cataclysm herped the world, that is). Why can't that ever transfer to their single player games? I don't even remember what the story is about, only that there's a bitch-titted Diablo with high heels at the end.
I can't say that Diablo 2's story was more memorable (it was). But at least there wasn't that cliched urgency that pressures the player into the saving the world RIGHT THIS MOMENT. Even in Hell, Tyrael was just like, "get around to killing that demon sometime this week, kk?" And it was all good in the hood. It didn't take itself too seriously. Diablo 3, on the other hand, dangles a carrot in front of you and beats you over the head with a 2-by-4 with nails.
-The price. I'm a cheap bastard. I waited 5 years to get Sins of a Solar Empire so that I wouldn't have to pay full sticker price--and I payed for a used copy! (#worththewait) Diablo 3, for the product it's worth, should be about 40 dollars. You know what drove the price up? Their DRM. In terms of the retarded cake metaphor, that's like the icing. I played my friend's copy. I'm not paying full price for a game that treats me like a criminal, and takes several steps back in genre evolution and pretends it's all grown up too. lol. Fuck that. I don't know how long I'll have to wait to buy Diablo 3 at a reduced price (probably when someone makes a drunken Craigslist post), but at the moment I wouldn't touch this thing for 50 bucks, let alone 60.
The ARPG genre is not technically demanding nor philosophically demanding nor challenging design-wise. You beat stuff and that stuff drops stuff. tada, you've now made a game! Blizzard overcomplicated themselves technically and are now forcing consumers to pay for their mistakes.
End of rant: Even still, Diablo 3 is the fastest selling PC game in history. I hate to say it, but Diablo now joins the ranks of the Call of Duties, Battlefields, God of Wars, and any franchise that sacrifices evolving the art form for milking the cash cow. Blizzard is in the best position to truly revolutionize the games industry. Instead, they took a giant leap back and shoved retarded cake in my mouth.
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| | "Never forget the Cheer Cannon." (MLG Orlando, 2011) IdrA / HuK / INcontroL, On November 17 2011 07:41 iNcontroL wrote:[i]The pleasure was all mine[/i] / BoxeR / Ret / Stephano ("Napoleon") / Machine / Artosis: I am not a doctor. (Dreamhack Winter 2011) |
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| Lyter United Kingdom. May 27 2012 07:21. Posts 1934 | Profile Blog # |
| Can't really be bothered to talk about most of your points, but I will say people whining about the price tags of games are the dumbest motherfuckers anywhere on earth. 60 dollars? HOLY SHIT NO WAY, thats cheaper than a game cost for the PS1 back in the nineties, not including inflation, if games kept up with inflation you'd be looking at like 100 a game so quit complaining |
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| FluffyBinLaden United States. May 27 2012 07:28. Posts 317 | Profile Blog # |
I must say that the combat complaint may just be a style difference. Personally, I enjoy the complexity and large amount of things happening all at once. It makes it more challenging, which is what I like. Yes, it's just hitting things over and over, but sometimes, just hitting things is fun!!! Game price: shit happens. It's just something that's gonna happen. Personally, I think it's worth the cost, but oh well.
The story wasn't memorable because, like in Starcraft II, the people who really enjoy the game aren't bothered too much about it. Sorry, it happens. :/ Personally, I love lore for all Blizzard games, but it's not the focus, and I enjoy the game's themselves too, so I endure. Diablo III is not the next CoD, because CoD players are a stereotype all to themselves. PC gamers will forever (hopefully) be more mature than the majority of console gamers. Maybe if you're speaking strictly market economy it's the next CoD, but... the assumptions about the players are much different.
Blizzard is still making giant leaps and bounds. Maybe not as much as they could, but hell, they made both BW and Starcraft II, and are bringing eSports to the forefront more than ever. In my book, they're still a damn fine company. |
| | Riddles in the Dark. Answers in the Light. |
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| juked United States. May 27 2012 07:45. Posts 623 | Profile # |
| In diablo 3 you can actually get destroyed by mobs. I felt diablo 2 was pretty easy and I'm enjoying the challenge of inferno and not being able to beat act 2 atm. I understand what blizzard did and I do have many complaints about the game and parts I don't like, but I still enjoy it more than anything else right now |
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 Glurkenspurk United States. May 27 2012 07:45. Posts 1847 | Profile # |
On May 27 2012 07:21 Lyter wrote:
Can't really be bothered to talk about most of your points, but I will say people whining about the price tags of games are the dumbest motherfuckers anywhere on earth. 60 dollars? HOLY SHIT NO WAY, thats cheaper than a game cost for the PS1 back in the nineties, not including inflation, if games kept up with inflation you'd be looking at like 100 a game so quit complaining
That doesn't make sense. Just because stuff was expensive means it should always be expensive? |
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| Eisregen Germany. May 27 2012 07:56. Posts 901 | Profile # |
For me the content is not worth the money... =(
But that is only me, hopefully the rest enjoys the purchased game |
| | Photo-Noob@ http://www.flickr.com/photos/eisregen1983/ |
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 Psychobabas United Kingdom. May 27 2012 08:02. Posts 1978 | Profile Blog # |
The problem is that Blizzard is kind of sitting on a monopoly right know as far as PC games are concerned. They can do whatever the fuck they want and people will still buy their shit. And yeah Diablo 3 is mediocre in my eyes too. A 5 out 10 at best.
I can't wait for Path of Exile and Torchlight 2. Hopefully they will show Blizzard how a A-RPG is done.
Also, you forgot to mention about the worst offender in diablo 3: How retardedly stupid it is that random elite mobs are harder than act bosses lolol |
| | WCS is like allowing Premier League football teams in the Korean football league... only, the other way around! |
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| myBattleship Korea (South). May 27 2012 08:05. Posts 41 | Profile # |
Some interesting points. I can agree on the auction house and the story in particular. These 2 are my biggest problems with the game, there are some minor ones too but nothing serious. First of all, the story like you say is god awful. The game is full of exposition and throwbacks to old james bond movies where the villain feels the need to tell the hero his exact plan just because he thinks that he has already won by that point. Just unbelievable amount of exposition, why do they tell us so many things and never show them. Fake drama inserted for the sake of .... more drama! A character we all know and love, dies and you feel absolutely nothing, nothing! I am not sure if Metzen had to do anything with the story here, but in any case, they should either promote him to some higher function where he just gets paychecks and has absolutely no input as far as games go OR they should limit his input. The writing in this game is much worse then in sc2 imo, at least starcraft had some good moments and overall the problem there was that the story was very thin, there were a lot of void and that was fine in context of rts but in diablo, there should be a simple but to the point story that just leads you from one battle to the next. In d3 they really try to make it too complicated, but it's still so predictable.
Your 2nd point is the auction house problem. Yeah it's a problem but I think it's only a problem because the itemisation in d3 is incredibly boring, the stats on items, the magic properties, the fact that blue and rare weapons have twice as much damage as legendary weapons. And I just don't see the point in having real money auction house when none of your items are interesting. And they have delayed RMAH yet again so, maybe they realised their own problem.
I don't think AH is a bad thing in itself, it creates an economy in a SP game, that's kinda fun, and you don't have to use it if you don't want to. |
| | Freedom is the most contageous virus known to men. |
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| myBattleship Korea (South). May 27 2012 08:07. Posts 41 | Profile # |
On May 27 2012 08:02 Psychobabas wrote:
The problem is that Blizzard is kind of sitting on a monopoly right know as far as PC games are concerned. They can do whatever the fuck they want and people will still buy their shit. And yeah Diablo 3 is mediocre in my eyes too. A 5 out 10 at best.
I can't wait for Path of Exile and Torchlight 2. Hopefully they will show Blizzard how a A-RPG is done.
Also, you forgot to mention about the worst offender in diablo 3: How retardedly stupid it is that random elite mobs are harder than act bosses lolol
the bosses are scripted and the random elites are random. You have elite combination that are easier than bosses and take no longer than 30 seconds to kill. Yes, even on inferno.
Blizzard didn't want you to just run diablo over and over and over. I can see their point and I can kinda agree with it. I don't think it's a bad thing at all. |
| | Freedom is the most contageous virus known to men. |
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| GoRushKinG May 27 2012 08:11. Posts 6 | Profile # |
We should all get better at starcraft and not play diablo 3, amirite?
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| 1Eris1 United States. May 27 2012 08:14. Posts 5797 | Profile # |
On May 27 2012 07:45 juked wrote:
In diablo 3 you can actually get destroyed by mobs. I felt diablo 2 was pretty easy and I'm enjoying the challenge of inferno and not being able to beat act 2 atm. I understand what blizzard did and I do have many complaints about the game and parts I don't like, but I still enjoy it more than anything else right now
Yeah, it's really fun running around kiting elite mobs for 5 minutes -___-
@OP. I definetely agree with a lot (not all though) with what you said. I thought the story was really disapointing and that's honestly one of the big things that keeps me coming back to play the game. And yet with D3, well, I figure once I've tried all the characters out and beaten inferno at least once, I probably won't touch it again. Where as with something like D2, I could easily go back and reroll a character whenever I was bored.
I don't think the AH is all that bad in idea (in D2 at least, you had to grind mobs for hours and hours for specific drops and if the wrong one dropped for the wrong character...blah), but the interface for it is pitiful.
As for gameplay itself, ehhh. Some of the character abilities are really cool, but I'm really frustrated with the mobs. Elite mobs>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>bosses in difficulty? Inferno mobs requiring you to kite them for half an hour or to sneak around them? The game loses a lot of it's fun pretty fast when you're not actually shooting things.
oh and I really dislike the item/stat design. yay for blues with +XXX intelligence and +XXX vitalityLast edit: 2012-05-27 08:15:43 |
| | Known Aliases: Tyragon, Valeric ~MSL Forever, SKT is truly the Superior KT! |
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| Psychobabas United Kingdom. May 27 2012 08:15. Posts 1978 | Profile Blog # |
| I actually cringed during that cutscene where Leah becomes Diablo and makes that unbelieavable bad laugh. Im pretty sure its at the end of act 3. So bad.. Last edit: 2012-05-27 08:16:17 |
| | WCS is like allowing Premier League football teams in the Korean football league... only, the other way around! |
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| Holytornados United States. May 27 2012 08:24. Posts 633 | Profile # |
On May 27 2012 07:45 Odal wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 27 2012 07:21 Lyter wrote:
Can't really be bothered to talk about most of your points, but I will say people whining about the price tags of games are the dumbest motherfuckers anywhere on earth. 60 dollars? HOLY SHIT NO WAY, thats cheaper than a game cost for the PS1 back in the nineties, not including inflation, if games kept up with inflation you'd be looking at like 100 a game so quit complaining
That doesn't make sense. Just because stuff was expensive means it should always be expensive?
His point was that it isn't expensive in comparison. |
| | I need your love like a boy needs his mother's side. |
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| Mementoss Canada. May 27 2012 08:26. Posts 2489 | Profile Blog # |
The complaint about the cost is ridiculous. I'm sure there are many other games you bought for the standard price of 60$ and would play a lot less than diablo 3, or at least the majority of people. Say you beat the game on normal and it takes 12 hours. Then you beat normal with each class. Right there is 60 hours of content. Then add all the other difficulties and other things.
You are paying a dollar an hour. 0_o. Any game with a play to cost that good. Is definitly worth the price. |
| | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu96xMwFVXw |
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| jeeeeohn United States. May 27 2012 08:33. Posts 882 | Profile Blog # |
On May 27 2012 08:26 Mementoss wrote:
The complaint about the cost is ridiculous. I'm sure there are many other games you bought for the standard price of 60$ and would play a lot less than diablo 3, or at least the majority of people. Say you beat the game on normal and it takes 12 hours. Then you beat normal with each class. Right there is 60 hours of content. Then add all the other difficulties and other things.
You are paying a dollar an hour. 0_o. Any game with a play to cost that good. Is definitly worth the price.
There are so many games in this genre that match Diablo 3's amount of content it's silly. Not only that, but they innovated and added stuff to the genre.
Torchlight
Din's Curse
Titan Quest
Fate
Depths of Peril
Kivi's Underworld
Hinterland (you build a town while you slay monsters)
You know how many of those games are 60 dollars? None of them. Titan Quest was 40 dollars at release in 2006.
The only reason Diablo 3 is 60 dollars is because of it's technical flourish--which is more bullshit than anything. It's server upkeep, period. That's where the extra 30 dollars are going to. |
| | "Never forget the Cheer Cannon." (MLG Orlando, 2011) IdrA / HuK / INcontroL, On November 17 2011 07:41 iNcontroL wrote:[i]The pleasure was all mine[/i] / BoxeR / Ret / Stephano ("Napoleon") / Machine / Artosis: I am not a doctor. (Dreamhack Winter 2011) |
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| Gofarman Canada. May 27 2012 08:45. Posts 514 | Profile # |
I love how the end of your post disqualified your opinion on the game.
Go suck a bag of Dicks.
User was warned for this post |
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| surfinbird1 Germany. May 27 2012 08:55. Posts 999 | Profile # |
On May 27 2012 08:45 Gofarman wrote:
I love how the end of your post disqualified your opinion on the game.
Go suck a bag of Dicks.
Bwahahaha, funniest post I've read in a while. Good job, sir. 5/5 just for the irony. |
| | life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery |
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| Zombo Joe Canada. May 27 2012 08:56. Posts 850 | Profile # |
Its not 60 dollars for server upkeep.
Its 60 dollars because they can charge that and people will still buy it. |
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| Psychobabas United Kingdom. May 27 2012 08:59. Posts 1978 | Profile Blog # |
On May 27 2012 08:45 Gofarman wrote:
I love how the end of your post disqualified your opinion on the game.
Go suck a bag of Dicks.
Wow look at these people getting genuinely upset for not being able to justify their spent money on this mediocre game 
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| | WCS is like allowing Premier League football teams in the Korean football league... only, the other way around! |
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| GARO United States. May 27 2012 09:10. Posts 1593 | Profile Blog # |
On May 27 2012 08:24 Holytornados wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 27 2012 07:45 Odal wrote:
On May 27 2012 07:21 Lyter wrote:
Can't really be bothered to talk about most of your points, but I will say people whining about the price tags of games are the dumbest motherfuckers anywhere on earth. 60 dollars? HOLY SHIT NO WAY, thats cheaper than a game cost for the PS1 back in the nineties, not including inflation, if games kept up with inflation you'd be looking at like 100 a game so quit complaining
That doesn't make sense. Just because stuff was expensive means it should always be expensive?
His point was that it isn't expensive in comparison.
Except almost no PC game ever cost that much even when the 360 first made the $60 pricetag for a game commonplace. |
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