so this game is not as good as SWTOR? riiiight. Your logic continues to amaze me.

Fair score.  I hate giving half scores though so I would have come in at an even 8.  Game is starting to lose it's appeal to me, but I'm not one for grinding for loot.  Same problem with WoW, love the game up to and including a little bit of endgame but once I have to repeat the same thing over and over for no purpose other than bragging rights and better loot, then the game is no longer a game to me and becomes work.  

Still, for what it offers, the same with WoW, it's fun every now and then but isn't the game I think about when I'm doing other things.  Right now that's TSW and GW2, hehe.  And most any FF game.

Viceral combat and 10/10 value 9/10 longevity - I don't agree with those. There is no challenge, hence it cannot be viceral. You have to be the type that likes playing a lot of the sameish stuff on more difficult replay modes to say it has really good longevity or value.

D3 is far too easy and simplistic. The first play through is a joke but with a decent story. If you don't play through again or make more characters the game will not hold much value.

I know, Blizzard games are not my thing. Thier goal to appeal to their massive WoW fanbase will always alienate me.

atuerstar, all of those games are not COMPUTER games, those are VIDEO games.  Also, Angry Birds selling 12m copies for $2 a pop = $24 million, D3 selling 6.3m for $60 a pop = $378 million, I'd rather have the $378 million and to me that is the definition of the best selling game, total revenue, not copies.

Originally posted by oddjob

Originally posted by Redemp

[mod edit]

To be fair, the reviewer played the game till level 30 or so, and at that level it is still a fun game. What I find a bit absurd is rewieving a game based on playing maybe 10% of the content. 

 

Really?

Surely thats not the case ..... I absolutely pray thats not the case.

Originally posted by Redemp

Originally posted by oddjob

Originally posted by Redemp


[mod edit]

 

Really?

Surely thats not the case ..... I absolutely pray thats not the case.

 

 

" I made it a bit above 30 for our review and unfortunately, I never felt challenged while playing the game" From the review.

Originally posted by mmoguy43

Viceral combat and 10/10 value 9/10 longevity - I don't agree with those. There is no challenge, hence it cannot be viceral. You have to be the type that likes playing a lot of the sameish stuff on more difficult replay modes to say it has really good longevity or value.

D3 is far too easy and simplistic. The first play through is a joke but with a decent story. If you don't play through again or make more characters the game will not hold much value.

I know, Blizzard games are not my thing. Thier goal to appeal to their massive WoW fanbase will always alienate me.

Visceral has nothing to do with challenge.  It has to do with how combat "feels" or character feedback.  Like swinging a sword and feeling it connect with the target on a satisfying level.  That is Visceral.

Challenge or how hard something is, is another word entirely. 

This review is a poor one. I'm not talking about opinion based parts either.

Lets start with the cut scene. Yup you are 100% correct. I dont think I have seen anyone say anything bad about it. How about you talk about the TERRIBLE plot hole filled story though. I'm not even a fan of the Diablo "lore". The story though? 3/10 tops. Its just full of plotholes are characters you go "who the fk is that?" and they are gone. Not to mention it was predictable as hell. My friends actually got pissed at me because I called everything, Litterly everything as we played through. Ok I admit after you play through the game once you dont care about the story anymore and just want the phat lewts. Still no excuse to put such a poor story in the game, minus the cut scenes which Blizzard is amazing at.

The characters you travel with are a joke as well. I would much rather have the old henchman system than have to hear "Look at that monter over there!" or "We make a great team!" one more time. BTW no we do NOT make a great team. The henchman spend more time dead starting in late NM than they do alive. I tihnk the enchantress is attracted to arcane sentries. If any of you have seen the TGS podcast and seen Jesse Cox and Dodger making fun of Leah then you know just how poor the writing for characters are.

Combat is pure opinion based. Personally I enjoy it alot more than D2.

Ok now to the first thing that made me laugh. Polish 8.5/10? Seriously? Broken class specs, bugs that litterly broke the game for people, a horrible server setup that is STILL causing people major lag problems, an AH that still doesnt work in some parts and has some severe lag delays for people (blizzard has admitted its on thier end) among other things. I'm so sick and tired of developers getting a pass on such piss poor polish. I would have struggled to give it a 5 or 6/10 even at this point. Its getting there. They are working on fixing stuff that should not have been a problem in the first place. In paticular the servers. I would give a newer company a pass sure. But Blizzard has no excuse. They have been running online games with millions of people for a long time now.

And lastly that I feel is not opinion based. How in the hell can you possibly give an overall 10/10 when NOTHING you listed was a 10/10 prior? Overall should be an average of the scores you gave. You simply cant say "Well nothing is perfect" and then say "But we are giving it a perfect score anyway". What a joke. I dont want to buy into these reviews being paid. But something like this makes me wonder.

Basically what I just saw was "See that girl over there? Yea the one with no boobs, no butt, no teeth and smells funny. Yea her! She's definitly a 10".

Edit: Forgot to add that I'm really enjoying the game. Been playing WAY to much of it. But this review was a joke.

Originally posted by xenogias

This review is a poor one. I'm not talking about opinion based parts either.

Lets start with the cut scene. Yup you are 100% correct. I dont think I have seen anyone say anything bad about it. How about you talk about the TERRIBLE plot hole filled story though. I'm not even a fan of the Diablo "lore". The story though? 3/10 tops. Its just full of plotholes are characters you go "who the fk is that?" and they are gone. Not to mention it was predictable as hell. My friends actually got pissed at me because I called everything, Litterly everything as we played through. Ok I admit after you play through the game once you dont care about the story anymore and just want the phat lewts. Still no excuse to put such a poor story in the game, minus the cut scenes which Blizzard is amazing at.

The characters you travel with are a joke as well. I would much rather have the old henchman system than have to hear "Look at that monter over there!" or "We make a great team!" one more time. BTW no we do NOT make a great team. The henchman spend more time dead starting in late NM than they do alive. I tihnk the enchantress is attracted to arcane sentries. If any of you have seen the TGS podcast and seen Jesse Cox and Dodger making fun of Leah then you know just how poor the writing for characters are.

Combat is pure opinion based. Personally I enjoy it alot more than D2.

Ok now to the first thing that made me laugh. Polish 8.5/10? Seriously? Broken class specs, bugs that litterly broke the game for people, a horrible server setup that is STILL causing people major lag problems, an AH that still doesnt work in some parts and has some severe lag delays for people (blizzard has admitted its on thier end) among other things. I'm so sick and tired of developers getting a pass on such piss poor polish. I would have struggled to give it a 5 or 6/10 even at this point. Its getting there. They are working on fixing stuff that should not have been a problem in the first place. In paticular the servers. I would give a newer company a pass sure. But Blizzard has no excuse. They have been running online games with millions of people for a long time now.

And lastly that I feel is not opinion based. How in the hell can you possibly give an overall 10/10 when NOTHING you listed was a 10/10 prior? Overall should be an average of the scores you gave. You simply cant say "Well nothing is perfect" and then say "But we are giving it a perfect score anyway". What a joke. I dont want to buy into these reviews being paid. But something like this makes me wonder.

 

Basically what I just saw was "See that girl over there? Yea the one with no boobs, no butt, no teeth and smells funny. Yea her! She's definitly a 10".

 

Edit: Forgot to add that I'm really enjoying the game. Been playing WAY to much of it. But this review was a joke.

 

The overall is 8.5, not 10.

Some comments on the main forums about the poor itemization in D3:

• "I introduced a new friend to D3 who hadn't played Diablo before. After a few days he said to me, "Items have no substance, they are just pictures with stats on them". Theres nothing special about shoulders vs belts vs boots vs chest etc. They are just stat panels. They add nothing to the game."
• "This game has not longevity as long as the items suck. On a game built on the idea of trading fun items, this game fails."
• I mean honestly, items are the whole point of D3's monetization, charging us not just $60 for the game and $40-60 for each of 2 expansion packs and maybe DLC and microtransactions along the way, but expecting us to shell out $$$ for items in game- yet what are the items even adding to the game right now? They're just raw meaningless statistics. This game could exist without items at all and probably be more fun to play. Which isn't a good thing.
• simply adding more zeros to things is lazy game design.
• Game just feels like it was just Changed so it'd be more familiar to the 'current' blizzard crowd (WoW Players mostly), and not Diablo 2 Fans. 
  
  They Essentially made World of Diablocraft. This is not an Insult to WoW Players, Its just a simple truth, the game was suppose to appeal to you more than anyone else. Art style shows it too. There's a video out there on youtube that explains it very well. 
  
  Weapons really do just boil down to "Which has the best DPS"... Its been said before, But in Diablo II, weapons and armor all have uses that can transcend their level, In this game items will always be replaced by something 1-2 levels higher. Its MMO mechanics. 
  
  Frankly, Whoever took the design this way was dumb. If i wanted to play an MMO, I'd play an MMO. Diablo III should have built and improved on Diablo II's gameplay and itemization. It was a good system, could still be improved, But good. I mean, how arrogant does one have to be to think they can improve on a system that has almost legendary addiction status, even over a decade later.
• You know, I hadn't even given any real thought to that, but you're spot on, completely right. Diablo 3's elemental damages are totally meaningless. Maybe cold slows, but otherwise theres no difference between them. All the rare weapons just wind up being 1 random elemental damage and 4 affixes or whatever, but which elemental damage is irrelevant, whereas in Diablo 2 there was a huge subtheme to each to make them specific and identifiable- like you say, lightning had a big damage range, cold slowed, poison was DoT, magic was rare and pierced everything, etc
  
  And heck, even in D2, it was an underdeveloped part of the game. The differences between elements were mostly statistical- lightning coming in 1-99, but no reason it couldn't be +50 damage straight up. What was different between Fire, Lightning & Magic damages? (Poison & Cold had their own things of course) If I were going back and designing the game from the ground up, I'd give each elemental damage its own mechanic- something that Runic is doing in Torchlight 2 I know (Fire damage sets enemies on fire, for example)
  
  I'd say something like- Fire deals AoE damage, Cold slows, Poison deals DoT, Lightning deals highly variable damage that can pulse to hit with aftershocks
• No, this is no nostalgia, items in D3 feel irrelevant in any but numerical terms. Might as well have no equippable items and just 14 charm slots, wouldnt make any difference.
• Patch 1.0.3 will not address a single issue listed here
  Nor will the future patch where legendaries are made "stronger"
  
  Nobody cares how "strong" the items are in the game, thats purely relative to the other numbers in the game. They could be +50 damage or +50,000 damage, it wouldn't matter if the enemies were 50 hp and 50,000 hp. What matters is that this game blows hard on a fundamental level, with incredibly flawed design that can not be easily fixed
• Items today are just numbers.
  
  I hope they notice this, it's the first time I play a diablo game that makes me concern about "how these numbers will raise my dps or my defense capabilities".
  
  I wanted to get an item which shoots grenades randomly while casting spells, or summons a floating orb like that of wizards, and stuff.
• The D3 crew really doesn't have an excuse for why this game is lacking such basic features. Even a 12 year old should know better than to create unique items with affixes like "+372-573 cold damage, +27% enhanced damage, +0.3% chance to stun for 0.00347 seconds"
• I've been playing d2 on and off for years, and never once got tired of remaking expired characters on closed bnet. It was completely due to those mechanical features mentioned in the very memorable unique items, and how they affected my gameplay.
  
  It's all now a grind to get a higher number in *only* dps, vit, armor, and resist all. And the grind is mainly for getting gold to get those numbers raised from AH -_-.
  
  Was holding judgement until I reached end game, and now that I'm here, can say I'm disappointed in the variety and significance of individual pieces of gear and will wait for some improvement to this part of the game before I'm willing to jump back in. 
  
  but in the meantime, I'm feeling buyer's remorse -_-

Originally posted by oddjob

Originally posted by IrishChai

I keep forgetting the AH even exists . I think I'm just one of the few that got some great drops early on but now I'm stuck and not finding anything better. I'll have to take a look at the AH and see what everyone is talking about.

 

When you reach Inferno, or maybe even Hell, you can't progress without using the AH unless you are extremely lucky. And when you visit the AH for the first time, and buy that real sweet weapon with high DPS and just the right stats, and you kill mobs with ease....you will feel all the fun drain out of the game. 

I think I disagreed with a lot of people due to me just being lucky because I've been playing just fine with my monk in inferno, but now every drop hasn't been worth anything for about a week now, playing every day.  So yeah, I think you're right. If I keep getting such a ridiculously low chance at an upgrade, there isn't much fun in an ARPG without good loot. I might as well be playing an RPG without story or a FPS without guns. They need to adjust something there (and I think they are in the next patch).

Watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI4peeO3yzY

Wow. What a fantastic review. This hits my own experiences almost exactly.

Not only pointing out those areas where the game excels, but those where it falters.

Well, done. It's nice to see an imparial review of this game, it seems hard to find (or I'm just out of touch with gameing)

Just a reminder that off-topic posts will be removed. The topic is the Diablo III review (and the game), not our overall editorial policy and it's certainly not attacking the staff here. If you wish to discuss editorial policy, we have a thread in the Site Suggestions forum for that discussion. There are ways to disagree with someone's arguments and opinions without resorting to personal attacks.

Originally posted by elocke

Originally posted by mmoguy43

Viceral combat and 10/10 value 9/10 longevity - I don't agree with those. There is no challenge, hence it cannot be viceral. You have to be the type that likes playing a lot of the sameish stuff on more difficult replay modes to say it has really good longevity or value.

D3 is far too easy and simplistic. The first play through is a joke but with a decent story. If you don't play through again or make more characters the game will not hold much value.

I know, Blizzard games are not my thing. Thier goal to appeal to their massive WoW fanbase will always alienate me.

Visceral has nothing to do with challenge.  It has to do with how combat "feels" or character feedback.  Like swinging a sword and feeling it connect with the target on a satisfying level.  That is Visceral.

Challenge or how hard something is, is another word entirely. 

Ok maybe not. For some reason I was thinking visceral was more about intensity than feel.

You can have that one.

This game is rated way, way too high in some areas especially value and longevity. I would give this game a 7.0...at the most. A good game but not near what it could have been and actually rather disappointing in some areas. Least the review was semi-reasonable. Still way too high of a score though overall and in some areas mentioned in the review.

Originally posted by oddjob

Watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI4peeO3yzY

Great video. I hope Blizzard is watching. I took one look at the auction house and saw what he's talking about. I'm not going to spend gold or real money to get an upgrade that is the point of playing the game to begin with. I might as well be paying for someone else to play for me if I just want to buy the best loot. I'm just going to play it to find a good drop, but if I get bored of that due to terrible drop %s then I'll just play something else until they adjust it. After seeing the AH and watching that video, I think they just should've left the AH out of the game completely. It's apparently making the whole play-for-loot ARPG design trivial to many people that just buy their way towards easy upgrades. One can definitely blame WoW for that.

@ -- Mods or Staff ;

How do we constructively request a new review to be done? Not to belittle Mike B  , but if he only got to a little above level 30 I personally don't feel that was an adequate level to review the game. How about a differing playstyle review? Perhaps have one of the more "hardcore" gamers who didn't just get to level 30 review the title?

I absolutely believe Blizzard needs to feel the dissatifaction with this game ... and since user reviews are getting ignored; professional reviews have to step up.

Originally posted by SlickShoes

*snip*  --  infact I have no desire to start an alt now because I don't want to play through the game twice on difficulties where it's almost impossible to die unless you are afk.

 

 

I'm right there with you.   I love many many aspects about D3, and I'm personally having a blast, along with ALL of my friends (the ones that game anyway)  --

Unfortunately, I can not bring myself to play any alts seriously.   I have a barbarian in Inferno mode, and I want a Wizard too, but when I switch characters and it says "normal mode" and I think about far I have to go just to get to (i hate this term)  "The Good Stuff", it ruins my enthusiasm to play, and I just switch back to my barbarian.     

Feels like they should have made some version of the acts in harder modes but with lower scaled mobs.    For instance, Level 1 Wizard, Act I, set difficulty to Nightmare or Hell mode or whatever you've unlocked, (in this case, let's say Nightmare) and begin.   The mobs will now start at level 10 or something, against your level 1.    

I'm sure the scaling would be a bit more thought out than what I spat out but, I hope some of you get the idea.    Anyways,  love the game still.   I have my complaints, but I'll save those for one of the rage quits when I'm mad about a pack I can't kill in Inferno.   ;P

I actually really liked diablo 3 up til lvl 31 or so when i beat normal. Of course, this was like 3 hours into the game. How can you possibly review the games "longevity" and "value" based on that? Ridiculous reviews here.