Whimyshire is champagne comedy.

Harder-core-than-thou-emo-kiddies: "WAAH!! WAAH!!! WAAAAAHHH!! Diablo 3 is all CARTOONISH and KIDDIE-ISH!!!"

Blizzard: Cartoonish? Kiddie-ish? OHO we'll give you cartoonish and kiddie-ish, s0n, TAKE THAT! WHIMSYSHIRE IN THE FACE!!

Look! More hidden footprints.

Originally posted by Panthien

Originally posted by Kaynos1972

5-the AH is nice, however it's far from perfect (especially the search engine).  The RMAH should have never been introduce.

It pains me to have to say this.. but the RMAH always existed.. even in Diable 1, diablo 2 definately had it. I agree it should NOT even exist but the sad truth is it alwayd DID exist.

Only difference is, its controlled and secure now. Instead of 3th party sites with high risks of scams.

 

 I really... really... really hate it when people try to rationalize RMT this way, almost as if to justify it, without actually saying it.

No. The RMAH did not exist in Diablo 1 and 2. Illegal RMT outside the scope of the game's and BNET's TOS existed. People buying and selling items directly to/from one another existed, and was prohibited by Blizzard.

None of it was part of the game design. It was an unintended side-effect of the way items could be traded. People simply found a way to buy and sell with real money rather than using in-game gold.

There was no central auction house where people could exchange real money through the game itself. It had to be exchanged outside the game. Items could not be bought through a "middle man" interface allowing anyone to buy something even if the seller wasn't online. Both players had to be online, and they had to meet in a pre-determined "game" to make the exchange. People could be, and were, scammed using the methods in D1 and D2, there was no third-party maintaining the items to ensure that it was successfully delivered to the person who payed for it.

The only similarity before was that items were being exchanged for real money. That's it. There was no Auction House system involved, making it all possible, scammer-free, and/or profitable - least of all for Blizzard (which I wouldn't be surprised to learn was their real issue with it).

Please do not try to lump illegal RMT in with RMAH in order to legitimize the latter. It's a poor over-simplification that just doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Well you were really reaching on this one.  Trying to find anything good about companions is a real stretch.   At least companions in Diablo II were somewhat useful, in this game it is like they don't even exist, they most certainly can't even kill an average NPC.  Attempting to put a good spin on one of the worst features of the game is certainly not going to be very popular.

I will bet that 80% of the people playing the game never even heard of Whimseyshire.  

Diablo II was still fun years after it's release, this game I am struggling to bother to get a avatar to 60.

D2 mod + multires is more d3 than d3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G23IGBPsVG8

Originally posted by Z3R01

THe AH takes away from the game. Having the ability to look for level appropriate items with the exact stats you want make damn near every drop you find worthless. Sure you can ignore the AH but its really hard when its so easy to spen 100k gold and completely twink a leveling character.

I honestly would rather trading go back to shady sites and Ebay... It could easily be ignored.

 

As for the story, It falls short at the end. The ending cinematic was so anticlimactic, literally a 30 second cinematic bit and you get a Thanks for playing screen...

 

I agree on the companions, i think they were a nice addtion.

 

I agree with you about the ending cinematic.  It was very pretty, but fairly boring and anticlimactic. 

For me, the story was just ho-hum and a bit contrived.  I don't really remember much from it at all, which points to it being lackluster and pointless.  Only the Tyrael cinematic stands out to me as a defining aspect to the story.  But on that note, I would rather have just watched an hour long Diablo movie done in it's cinematic style.  

I mean, Diablo 3 isn't horrible, but isn't the game I thought it would be as I find myself not jonesing to play it now that I've beaten it a few times on normal mode.   It's lacking severe replayability for my playstyle.  I look at Path of Exile as having a much better replay aspect due to the depth of character progression and skill choices.

Since you listed your 5 things they did right here is my 5 things they did wrong.

1. Untested product. Jay Wilson admitted that they never really tested Inferno difficulty and thus all the people screamed over this. It then  made grouping and ah required in order to advance content.

2. Made the entire game gear dependant, unlike in d2 where it was skill dependant.

3. Useless skills and runes for skills that do little or nothing and do not have any lasting impact to later game play. Example zombie dogs and gargantuan zombie for the WD.

4. Nerfing of a mechanic that litterally cost the sum of all the players hundreds of trillion in gold. IAS nerf.

5. Destroyed money generation in the game for the casual player in order to combat against botting, Also increased repair cost by 300% to prevent corpse running in order to clear through areas just to get to objective. All these actions have now forced many players to actually bot when they sleep just to be able to afford to play the game.

Rofl! this post is a epic fail! every single comment is negative. If i were you MMORPG i would just stop trying to post positive feedbacks about D3, seriously just stop, you are making your community angry with this non sense. Your reviewers didnt played the game enough to talk about it.Wasnt the D3 review with 200 negative comments enough? Wtf are you doing? D3 is not a mmo...why are you talking about a game in a site that is entitled as MMORPG!? 

Activion is watching you. Lmao...

Originally posted by Methos12

There is no question that Diablo III's story is far and away the best of the three. And it's not just that there -is- a story. It's actually a good story. Blizzard's writing team has far exceeded my expectations with the game's lore. I haven't played Diablo III so much for the action and adventure, though clearly those are there, but because I want to find out what happens next, to see what will be revealed around the next corner.

I'm dying to know if you wrote this one with a straight face. If anything, writing is abysmal and unintentionally brings down a good chunk of the game experience with it. Twists you never saw coming? Yeah, maybe if this is someone's first RPG or something.

All 3 Diablos stories are rather dumb, it never was the point of the games anyways.

D1 is the dumbest but also the simplest and had few holes in the plot (well, with that little plot it was hardly room for any holes).

D2 totally rewrote the story and world of D1 and Blizz N said with a straight face that the world always were like that (kinda like my Forgotten realms DM, he always change his plots as well).

And D3s story feels like a Hellblazer comic when the writer felt lazy.

They are all silly. But Diablo was never made to be a roleplaying game, people didn´t call D1 & 2 RPGs. It is just that RPG games have become dumber and dumber since so many people suddenly don´t see the difference.

Story is not really one of the 5 thing Blizz did right, it wasn´t a good story. It isn´t one of the things they did wrong either, they could have skipped the story altogether and just have us kill mobs through a whole bunch of level and end with Diablo, almost all of us would have been as glad with that too.

Saying that you play Diablo for the story is like saying you buy Playboy for the articles.

I think marketting was what Blizzard made best, followed by animations (I like those whatever you guys say).

I have to say I've never seen an article on this site I disagree more profoundly with.  Many legitimate counter points have been stated and actually feel bad for even replying, like I took the bait.

I'll agree with others, stick to MMORPG posts please and I pray 'bobby bucks' had nothing to do with this one.

You sure this isnt the list of 5 things blizzard did wrong?

A good story? Seriously? You have some pretty low expectations on story then. Its filled with plotholes, poorly fleshed out characters ect. Now the cutscenes where amazing, but that doesnt make a story. Not to mention someone like me called the whole freaking story before/as it happened. Watched some streams/highlight of Diablo lore nuts and they where calling the story before the game was even launched and calling twists before they happened. Thats POOR writing.

The companions are near pointless. Sure they have some witty one liners. But that gets old after you hear the same 4-5 lines repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. The only good thing about them is to be warned of elite packs offscreen before you can even see them.

I think I understand what you mean about Leah, Kain, and Adria. Except Leah is one of the most anoying and poorly written characters ever in a blizzard game. I wish I could go into the flaws of Kains part but I wont spoil it just incase there is actually someone intending to play that hasnt. Adria was well done though.

Of course most of what blizzard does right or wrong is opinion based. So while it seems I'm presenting my opinion as fact, I know its not, its simply my opinion. I just wish if someone was going to say "I liked the story" they wouldnt add "it was well written" or something to that effect. By writing standards it was NOT written well. Thats not an opinion. It the same with Bioware's ME3 story. Writing majors actually got involved, pointing out every major flaw in the writing. D3 suffers some of the same issues.

i can let the other points slide but to me, D3 has probably worst story ive seen in few years and most uninteresting characters in the whole franchise. all the baddies have horrible disney approved evil laughs and lines, music at somepoints are decent but sometimes very underwhelming ... all the possible plots are very used and some pretty much cliche, nothing in the story became as a surprise, except the death of one character in act1 which was done by most boring character in the game... and there was nothing epic or legendary about the death itself, it was not something that would make your heart miss a beat or making you to stop breathing for a second ...  it was just just about as memorable/moving moment than me taking a dump

i like the gameplay though, and so far ive spend about 150 hours on this game, for one character alone. classes seem decent too, and i dont mind how you build up your character in this game, its pretty ok.

Originally posted by Suzie_Ford

 

There is no question that Diablo III's story is far and away the best of the three. 

Is this a joke?

Are we talking about the same game? Cause the Diablo 3 I played has a bland story and worst dialogues I ever seen in a game.

This video says it all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcJ_XT3oWtY

From a certain point of view I agree on all accounts. The story isn't really very good at all compared to a good novel or a story-driven game. But if you compare it to the previous Diablo games and their clones, it's pretty stellar.

Like so many others ill bite..

Great story? ehh what??

The lord of lies truthfully telling you his every move all the time is so dumb im sure my IQ droped from completing act 3..

Wow, after reading this -sorry- drivel, I am "sitting there with [my] mouth hanging open."

Firstly: Point 2 and 1 really are one point, not two. You just split them up so you could get five points, seems to me. Huh. really that little good to say about an 8.5 game?

Secondly: The only thing that made my mouth hang open story-wise was how utterly predictable and cheesy it was. I felt like I was spoon-fed a children's book. So, I'm sorry, Miss Ford, but if you really and honestly were awed by that story, may I presume you haven't watched TV for the last 20 years nor have read a book? I would like to apologize if I sound rude, but your wording really left my mouth hanging open. Most people I know didn't feel like the story and its presentation were good, let alone tolerable. "waffles" on reddit puts it thusly: "Literally everything in this game screams that it was purposely created to be easy to understand for the mentally slow."

Just three short stops you might find worth reading/watching:

http://www.gamefront.com/diablo-3s-story-what-went-wrong/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G4lX-MKrgI

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4211013554

To iterate: No, the story/presentation is really not something D3 did right.

Thirdly: You laud the companions. But what do you laud about them? Yes. The lines they get. And I admit it, some of them are pretty funny (others are just annoying, though). Everything else you write about them makes them sound not like something the game did right, but what it did wrong: They're basically useless in late game, and only are a source of amusement/frustration. But they're not what they were designed to be: Helpful. So how can you write that up as "Something D3 has done right"?

Fourthly: The Auction House? Really? Yes, you limit this to "the ingame gold AH only". But I would argue that any AH destroyed the core concept of Diablo or any Rogue-like: Finding gear yourself. Sure, there were always 'black-market' ways of obtaining that stuff. But you know what we gamers called that? Cheating. So how is practically 'legalizing' cheating a good move, particularly so when it destroys the soul of the game?

I won't get into Whimsyshire, since that depends very much on one's personal taste.

All in all, this article reads as: "None of the things D3 did right, but one that is up to personal preference and four that it got woefully wrong."

I'm really looking forward to reading about what you come with for the five things D3 did wrong.

You could argue every aspect of this game and how inferior it is but the main point is, it's just not a good game.

Originally posted by Axxar

From a certain point of view I agree on all accounts. The story isn't really very good at all compared to a good novel or a story-driven game. But if you compare it to the previous Diablo games and their clones, it's pretty stellar.

This was exactly what I meant. I didn't say it was a work of literary art, simply that it's the best story of the three. ;)

Originally posted by Psychow

Originally posted by Z3R01

THe AH takes away from the game. Having the ability to look for level appropriate items with the exact stats you want make damn near every drop you find worthless. Sure you can ignore the AH but its really hard when its so easy to spen 100k gold and completely twink a leveling character.

I honestly would rather trading go back to shady sites and Ebay... It could easily be ignored. 

 

 

You know that button on the character select screen labled "Auction House"...don't click it. Problem solved.

 

I do agree that buying items on the AH defeats the purpose of the game. Getting that upgrade drop is what makes these games fun. If it was just a matter of beating the boss...we'd all be done after completing normal mode.

I did say it could be ignored... I personally ignore the AH but not everyone could hold out when its so easy to buy upgrades.

Not to burst your bubble but Diablo 3 actually has the largest amount of story/lore in the game. What story did Diablo 2 have? There was very little story in Diablo 2. Diablo 1 was even worse. There were two stories they told you plus a few books.

All the Diablo lore came from the books.