Originally posted by ibn_Cartwell

Diablo never really held the throne, unless you count D2 ladder, which was a pitiful throne indeed, consisting of 1) players using bots to farm for items, to sell to companies, to sell to players, 2) players using bots to macro baal runs.

 

Only good thing about D2 was its mods, and dueling.

If you were measuring diablo 2's success by ladder accuracy, yea, you may as well say you hated it. I don't know many people that even looked at the ladder after the first few months the game was out. For every person botting there were more than enough real players to play with.

I do agree with you about dueling being fun, and that players would farm items to sell to companies was pretty lame as well.

I don't know about the whole Diablo killer thing.  I do know however POE really feels like Diablo3, more so than Diablo 3 does.  They did so many things right with this game.  From the passive skill tree to the easily removed gems that level up as you do.

Excellent game that I recommend you give a shot.  So much so that heres a beta key for someone to enjoy for a day:  SHMPQ-YU2CP-C9XEY-QJ2N4  I know It's open beta tomorrow and a free to play game but it'll give you a day of playing.

What is ironic is that the customization of your classes abilities are pretty good but the appereance is not as some classes (maybe all?) are gender-locked. So if I cannot even customize the gender of my avatar then the customization levels for appearence is extremely low. That is pretty bad and I hope they will change this in the future.

I've been in closed beta a long time and the devs have done alot of things to improve the game so far. There are still things that can be improved and the devs have mentioned several things they want to do but what this small studio has done so far is really impressive imo.

It's free to play and they have been very open about never wanting to sell power/advancement in the cash shop, give it a try and judge it for yourself.

The skill tree with mostly small stat boosts and effects is a lot more complex than it needs to be, to the point of hindering creative building more than inspiring it, imo. 

Outside of that, the materia... ahem the skill gem system sounds fun.

OH yea it is! I've been playing Diablo 3 since the night it came out. BOY was I blown away when I played POE today!

Talk about the spiritual successor to D2. It's everything that D3 SHOULD have been. I'm totally impressed by GGG.

Gonna go play now. (GF gonna be maaaad and IDGAF!) hahaha

Blizzard should take a long look at Path of Exile (PoE), and should come away deeply embarrassed and ashamed.

Unlike Blizzard and Diablo 3, the Path of Exile game -

• took less time to develop;
• took less dollars, effort, and people to make (presumably);
• has more innovation in its game mechanics;
• is free to play;
• stayed clear off pay-to-win PvP;
• avoided alienating and angering members of its fan base during its development; and
• enhanced its company’s image and community goodwill.

As far as Blizzard, the Diablo 3 situation saddens me greatly.  Has a beloved gaming franchise ever been so mishandled?  Perhaps Final Fantasy XIV?  At least the president of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada, took responsibility and a new game will launch soon.  That’s the kind of adult behavior that can be redemptive and restore a community’s good will.  To compare, Blizzard’s Rob Pardo seems to have woken up from his 2 to 3 year coma, is now strongly defending Diablo 3, and unconvincingly describes the great, great fun he, his friends, and family having playing it.  It seems like Diablo 3 is heading more toward Star Wars NGE at this point.

My trust in Blizzard is over.  Their “we release when it’s ready” gold standard is a farce. 

Anyway, let’s all do what truly is fun right now, and not a promise to improve later in a $30 D3 expansion pack.  Having played in PoE’s closed and open beta, I strongly recommend this game to ARPG fans.

Originally posted by Zekiah
Diablo 3 dethroned Diablo.

Diablo 3 killed itself. Its pretty much got polish as its benefit. Take away the polish and its quite a mess, a very big mess at that.

Path of exile isn't perfect by any means, Desync is quite an issue (particular masocists like me who do hardcore) which needs to be addressed still and there can be some issues in terms of stuff not balancing out right, but its likely only a matter of time for things to be fixed and even then your likely to see characters able to take stuff considered 'week' and suddenly make a build that works wonderfully with it.

Just dismiss Diablo 3 if you want to compare to a good ARPG. Diablo 2 would be your best comparison and in that regards its a step up from it and games like titan quest that just wasn't able to match up in success. Being F2P will likely only boost the game more in popularity. 

Originally posted by Alalala

Blizzard should take a long look at Path of Exile (PoE), and should come away deeply embarrassed and ashamed.

 

Unlike Blizzard and Diablo 3, the Path of Exile game -

• took less time to develop;
• took less dollars, effort, and people to make (presumably);
• has more innovation in its game mechanics;
• is free to play;
• stayed clear off pay-to-win PvP;
• avoided alienating and angering members of its fan base during its development; and
• enhanced its company’s image and community goodwill.

 

As far as Blizzard, the Diablo 3 situation saddens me greatly.  Has a beloved gaming franchise ever been so mishandled?  Perhaps Final Fantasy XIV?  At least the president of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada, took responsibility and a new game will launch soon.  That’s the kind of adult behavior that can be redemptive and restore a community’s good will.  To compare, Blizzard’s Rob Pardo seems to have woken up from his 2 to 3 year coma, is now strongly defending Diablo 3, and unconvincingly describes the great, great fun he, his friends, and family having playing it.  It seems like Diablo 3 is heading more toward Star Wars NGE at this point.

 

My trust in Blizzard is over.  Their “we release when it’s ready” gold standard is a farce. 

 

Anyway, let’s all do what truly is fun right now, and not a promise to improve later in a $30 D3 expansion pack.  Having played in PoE’s closed and open beta, I strongly recommend this game to ARPG fans.

Wholeheartedly agree man. This is a company I will be following for a long time regardless of what genre they make. The big guns when it comes to game companies/franchises have all failed and failed hard lately. Its the little guys my faith will be put in now.

Who knows how much diablo 3 cost to make. Blizzard has what 5k people working for them (I have no exacxt figure). And does anything they spent actually show that they care in the least for any of their players?

You mentioned goodwill. GGG has developed good will and word of mouth like I have seen very few companies do. Its deserving to say the least. What I know about POE is that is cost less than $4 million to make. They have at max 18 guys I believe on their dev team though it all started with 2 guys in a garage using their savings. $2.2 million was raised through their own presales and supports packs. For those who don't know those packs ranged anywhere from $10 to $1,000. As of two weeks ago they had sold 176 $1,000 supporter packs the vast majority were upgrades from other minor packs to get the beta to try the game out first. It speaks volumes to how the community feels about these guys, their vision, and their future.

PoE is a decent game but unfortunately it's a deceptively simple one. Ironically at its core is has the same issue D3 has, what I like to call "super character syndrome", the skill gem system even means you don't have to commit to anything at all just like D3. In the end its just another slot machine game, you punch mobs till the perfect super items fall out.

That probably reads more negative than I intend, if you're a fan of ARPGs then PoE is definately worth a look.

I agree with many here here, sadly big companies lately are more interested in just the $$$ and are not willing to take chances, they are too scared to lose on their $100 million dollar investment (and rightfully so I guess )

so heres to all the guys making games for 1-10 million and williing to try something new ( such as POE and The Repopulation)

Although not a true mmo for sure, for the price this game is sure a lot of fun.

Originally posted by zymurgeist
It's funny how everyone wants to talk about D3 when POE comes up. It's like the only reason they think it exists is to not be D3. When POE sells six million plus you can start the dethroning bandwagon. Until then do the world a favor and talk about POE when you're talking about POE.

A tad harsh but well said.

POE looks like the next evolution in hack n slash dungeon crawlers and to me that's great. But like Zymureist said, how about we start talking about it as its own game and stop continually placing it in the shadow of that "other game".

The game is open beta tomorrow and I'll be playing it. I hope it will be a fun long term gaming experience. Beyond that I really don't give a shit.

I like the game. There are certain things in D3 I really enjoy as well. Only have two complaints or gripes as you will about D3. First it's the Auction House and secondly  randomization of levels. Other than that I really enjoyed the character classes. I would say between D3, TL2, and POE D3 has the better classes. However Who knows what might happen when they finally release the full TL2 mods. I know synergy has a necromancer and other very nice additions. I love TL2 because of the modding and might actually mod some things myself when the full tools come out.

PoE I think is a pretty solid game. Love the atmosphere, music, etc. I don't really have any gripes with the game. You just have to take your time with it you know, because you can easily make a mistake and mess up your character. I personally enjoyed it a lot just did not like my character being wiped. So now that beta begins tomorrow I look forward to making a new one and seeing where it takes me.

Currently waiting for the Marvel Arpg and Grim Dawn.

Oh also I think PoE or any Arpg has a long way to go to unseat Diablo. Simply because it's Diablo. Nostalgia keeps people hoping and wishing for that game to be better than it is. If Blizzard actually made a great expansion I could see all past things being erased. Personally I don't see that happening.

The biggest turn off for me was in the beginning with the lack of a currency. however the more i play the more i like it. It basically means i wont be picking up every item and running back to town to sell everything. the more i play it the more i prefer it over D3 (kinda obvious really) my ranger is currently built to be the main tank of the group. This is why i love the game. you can generaly do anything with it.

Ill be playing it, im even trying to get acouple friends to play with.