Blizz failerd with shallow system design, and lack of bind on equip items. AH is merely symptome of it not the cause. Every D3 player that actually plays it knows it. Jay Wilson never know what he was saying and doing and remains as such.

As for RMAH, that's hardly a new thing. GW2 has it, EVE has it, DDO will have it and probably more that I'm not even aware of. Truth be told Blizz is least greedy of those as player at least gets a cut and deal is quite straighfroward - 10$ for XYZ gold(aka what item is worth), without some in game currence or even in DDO case two to hide as much real money value. Other companies takes it all, house always win.

So in other words this is actually worse version of Blizzard RMAH, that everyone and their dog hated so much?

At least in D3 you could get some cash out of it too, here only Turbine gets it all, as I assume that you can't use those shards outside the game? Not to mention it's an MMO unlike D3 where you can solo 100% content(so there is zero influence on you whether someone buys gear for $ or not). Not that I care much about either, just note that in this case company is even more greedy then Blizzard.

Now this isn't new "feature" as some big and successful MMOs have it as mentioned EVE or Guild Wars 2. Guess it feels more fair there as GW2 has no monthly fee(and no premium accounts) and in EVE you  can play for free that way, so you can understand that those companies want a some profit too. Here it's more obvious cash grab.

Now whether it's P2W or not depends on gear you that you can buy on such RMAH and whether the game world is persistant(I assume yes as it's MMO). If you can buy same gear as you can find in game in some reasonable time(2-3 hours/2-3 dungeon runs) I don't care. But if you can skip say weeks of  gameplay aka buy the current best raid drop, that's  too much. At least that's how I see it.

Originally posted by HcRpger

 because there is no AHs you will actually FIND the loot YOURSELF, wow, there is a shocker for a Diablo game.

Tbh I can't actually grasp this one...What in the world stops you FINDING the loot YOURSELF in D3 on PC? It's as simple as not clicking AH you hate so much. Voila you have self funded D3 experience.

However...let other people play as they like, selling gear they don't need and buying the one they want. Whole issue with AH is result of bad itemization they acknowledged and fixing atm.

Anyhow there is nice game called Path of Exile for D2 diehard fans. Free, with skillpoints and skilltrees, trading in chat and forums, scrolls, managing inventory, shared loot in multiplayer, potions.

Also there is a drama with some modder(well he became evil hacker fast aka damage control) basically saying that SimCity servers doesn't calculate anything, they just give some raw numbers of basic values in neighboring cities, which could be easily done offline by any PC capable of running the game.

Which means that actually difference between always online and offline mode is few lines of code that allows saving on your disk instead servers and reading data about neighboring cities from memory. This perfectly shows that whole "advanced" simulation done by their servers was one big sham.

Originally posted by tawess

Metacritic is useless... No it really is because the "footsloggers" claim that gaming sites are bought andfor the user score 8/10 times only people not happy with a product choose to put in a user score.. And of those most acre just little bubbles of spite and angre.

 

So... Tell me again what good a metacrit link is.

 

 

 

My point was to show quite huge group of annoyed and unhappy customers and metacritic and amazon are good examples of those. However feel free to link other better sites if you are unsatisfied. As for reviewers there are honest and ones in developer pocket. Impossible to distinguish...

Even people claiming to be outside industry blew on that one. I remember vid when reviewer was so astonished by so complex and advanced simulation. Then I've read on reddit and RPS how dumb and straightforward AI is. Makes you really wonder about honesty of every professional reviewer(I'm sure there are good ones too, apologies for generalization).

So I'd rather go with regular people opinions and keeping this game as always online angered many, yo have to be blind to claim otherwise. And then I hear some PR nonsence how people love it...

So we have this from Lucy Bradshaw: "But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality."

And from EA CFO Blake Jorgensen declared that, “The next and much bigger piece is microtransactions within games… We’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level, to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be, and consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business.”

So yeah they know it better, consumbers love always online, enjoy microtransactions. But if we check user reviews:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simcity

or

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-41018ted-Edition2-SimCity/dp/B007VTVRFA

A completely different picture emerges. Shame on you mmorpg.com for supplying us with just one side of the story, PR propaganda...

Considering all that social features could be easily put into multiplayer mode, without affecting core solo gameplay which is building cities so they can support each other, this sounds like poor PR spin.

They basically enforced multiplayer by limiting city size and freezing time for cities not played by anyone. Get rid of one or the other and voila you have a perfect single player game. But they know it better...

...Blizzard learned that hard way and now D3 dev team are listening players closely, but that won't bring all people back. At least D3 have one truly online feature - trading between people, which can't be done without enforcing it server side. However that was still bad excuse from not having offline mode.

PoE is really solid game and although slow combat doesn't cut it for me I'd recommend trying it, especially if you were diehard Diablo 2 fan but didn't like changes in D3.

Still registered numbers cliche is old, doesn't really show anything if game is F2P and is pretty much useless bragging...

Originally posted by BillMurphy

I have to disagree with those who spout hatred towards the game merely for the DRM complaint. That's just bogus, especially coming from MMO players. Everything we play has "DRM", but you won't moan about buying the next big MMO.  

If Sim City was indeed online game from design people might be okay with always online part. But it's a single player game with few social features that could easily be tossed into multiplayer mode instead annoying people with broken servers. Whole "feature" of forcing people to make multiple cites and freezing them in time if you play alone is feels really artificial and tailored towards DRM.

DRM was tossed so guys in suits can present 90% less piracy and 99% less used copies sold. Who cares about customers, just pour money on advertisment and they'll buy it anyways. Sadly works so far...

Path of Exile is definitely game for D2 fans, which thought D3 wasn't worthy successor. D3 despite being thought as innovative, changed core system in comparison to it's previous part. No skilltree, no potions(as in important healing/mana source), no stats required for gear. That's very important(and gamebreaking for some) changes.

Now looking at PoE, it really rehashed quite few D2 ideas - scrolls, skilltree, stats requirement for gear, potions, life/mana as resource, sockets or even controversial stuff like no AH, inventory managment(item size!) or other more friendly trading system and way multiplayer loot works. That's not something bad as those worked nicely for many people, but not really innovative, even if changed slightly.

Of course there are some new ideas - active skill gems like materia from Final Fantasy, orbs as currency and crafting system at same time and some very nice and interesting ideas with gear(armor/evade/energy shield and special secondary stat for various weapons). As for maps idea was it TL first or PoE?

Passive tree it's really nice, however it makes different classes more a skin then completely different experience.

As for PoE flaws - biggest one is combat feeling, it really feels slow and stiff. Also going back to spam chat and forum browsing as main trading system also feels old and annoying.

Anyways for a game that's free without some sort of intrusive cash shop it's definetely worth trying!

Originally posted by Iselin

Well I don't really have anything to say about what Anet should have done proactively to prevent botting. That's just Monday morning quarterbacking. And yes, over the past 8+ years Blizzard has gotten rid of the majority of obvious bots... The ones that anyone can spot in 5 seconds. Over the past 2 months Anet has as well. As someone else said above, my server Jade Quarry, is almost totally free of those obvious bots now.

 

But the bots this article is talking about are the ones that are much more sophisticated and nearly impossible to detect. Some of which have live support (the subscription based one I won't name but is very easy to find by googling.) these are not the ones generally used by the pro gold farmers that swarm any new MMO like locust. These are used by the dedicated individual cheating hobbyists. They are a small minority of gamers who get off on cheating and hacking every game they touch and who think the rest of us who play them normally are rubes.

I'm pretty sure the sophisticated bots do exist now and will be roaming in the future. However on my server Gunnar's Hold I see very same jhsadkklj 6+ bear rangers running in circles. To be honest each time I see more of them. Not even bothered to report them anymore. Bots are HUGE problem in GW2. Considering I spot 10-20 of them I one zone, I can only wonder how many are hidden in rarely visited spots and how many are simply well programed so I won't reckognize them by just passing by. Probably 100s of them in each map.

As much as I love GW2 and all the work put into it(including awesome halloween) they failed badly with bots/hacks.

Originally posted by fenistil

This game nowadays is like mixture of mall and tolkien world.

QFT. LOTRO changed from immerssive game where you explored Tolkien world into welcome to Tolkien Mall sponsored by WB/Turbine!!! Store buttons are nearly on every screen you can push them in, promotions, unlocks, premium content, P2W items(potions, scrolls, keys) and of course designing game around the cash shop(i.e. legendary items). Those slowly killed game for me. I wanted just to play it without all marketing and nickle and dime, sadly I couldn't as every new nice feature is...store only. 6th bag, premium wallets, xp lock and whatever new thing they'll add.  To think people complained so hard about RMAH in D3...

Anyways now in GW2, a B2P game(just like you have to buy expansions for LOTRO) I'm finally free from buy in store this, get in store that. I can play, immerse and explore huge, beautiful, full of hidden features world, that LOTRO stopped being long time ago(when they made it for gamers not for $).

Originally posted by Silok

You see if you take the time to test the skills, you will not need to cheat. You wait until you have 3 skill points, after that you put these 3 points in the skill you want to try. If you dont like it you go respec these 3 last points in town and try another skill until you are satisfieed.

Except every skills get additional effect at 5, 10 and 15 points spend. And then after spending 15 in skill A you discover it's not really good compared to skill B with 15 points. Reroll? I'd expect such attitude from more hardcore D3, rather casual TL2. Put option there, for some meaningfull amount of gold and done. No one force you to use it if you enjoy rerolling, just don't force others to do it.

Want to highlight one thing. Torchlight predecessor is game series called FATE, NOT D2. Google it and you'll see same pet system, fishing and fame. Don't want to take away credit from Blizz North guys as TL 1 & 2 are fun and polished games but it's Runic under previous name ?Encore Software? who made tons of work for TL series.

TL 2 is a fun game for more casual players. Played it enjoyed it but I'll be back with D3 after 1.05 patch.

I love lack of trinity and requirement of paying attention to enemy, fellow players and skills in order to be successful. It so refreshing after being dps, standing in spot X and pressing 1-3-4-2-2-5 in order as it's best rotation.

As for rewards/difficulty ANet is still balancing them. I remember duo-ing Caudicus Mannor story at lvl 43 bout 2 weeks after launch. Then I went there much later with 5 peeps and it was nightmare, with mobs much stronger and with many annoying skills. Folks say it's actually more difficult than exploration mode. So experience may vary...

While LOTRO graphics are astonishingly good considering it's 5 year old game, it's engine fails badly compared to almost any new MMO out there. LOTRO struggles with 10 mobs battles, which made ma already feel meh during Isengard book chapters, where rohirrims fought orcs. I mean those 4 orcs attacking me and 3 NPCs is meant to be an epic battle?

GW2 for example has 50+ mobs fights(NPCs + enemies) and this feels awesome - chaos, being a part of something big and those freaking siege machines. This I feel is what LOTRO will really lack during epic battles upcoming(Helms Deep and Minas Tirith)

Also hardware requirements for LOTRO are way too high for the result. Reason as I'd guess is engine being old, unoptimised with all new code added. I mean LOTRO can get choppy on PCs that would be powerhouses 3-4 years ago. And those loading times...

As a reminder I'll say that Torchlight is continuation of Fate series ARPG(pets, fishing, fame) rather than Diablo 2.

As for the topic, I'd say it's nigh impossible to actually compare those two games. Why?

Torchlight is single player game from design. Coop is something extra, they don't care about hackers, botters, class balance, loot droprates and such. As such, this game can be and is more fun but also more shallow. A game for more casual player, with community made mods.

Diablo 3 is multiplayer lobby game from design. Single player is something extra, itemization and drop rates are global, making good drops very rare, especially if you use AH. Blizzard pays attention to hacks, bots, exploits, class and skill balance which can be both positive and negative(skill/content changes aka nerfs). While casual can easily play D3 I think the actual depth of build/farming/itemization is actually for more hardcore people.

Anyways with 2 expansions and moeny behind it the longevity of Diablo 3 with it's huge community will make it superior game in time.