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:

Spoiler

Show

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

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. ) 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. ) 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.

[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.

Yay! Spelunky!

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.