Hopefull some will fail on their own, but really, hopefully, they will ramp of the difficulty of events that don't fail every so often, both so that the challenge is greater, and so that everything feels fresher and we see the consequences.

Very interesting idea, but it would promote PvP in the world, and this would go against the design of the game. Maybe some other game with DEs could do something like this.

Got it, love it. I do obviously have some problems with it, not least the requirement of being online, and the related awful servers being down issues.

I also felt like progression was sort of set to autopilot, but I think that will go away after we've gotten higher up. I actually like the way early progression is done, because it encourages players to try different skills as they become available. This lets players get a feel for the class in a gradual way. I think the runs might become annoying after a while, but so far I like the concept and it's implmentation.

All in all, I think this was a well-reasoned partial review. Hopefully you can play long enough to give us a full one soon. If you like hack and slash action RPGs, you need to try DIablo III because it has some new things worth looking at.

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

 

He has several misconceptions/biases about D3.

 

1) He seems to think the scene can hack the game to be playable offline.  That's an absolute joke.  The best they can do is make it easier to connect to a server emulation once they are written.  I don't think he even grasps server/client relationships.

 

LMAO!  Under what kind of rock have you been living?

They already managed to hack the closed beta client and ran Diablo III on a private server infrastructure.

These hacks are readily available, including private server code to set up your own private server lol!

They are working on the Retail Version Server emulator right now. Won't be long till it will be available.

You really naive to think that making an online only DRM will stop piracy!

If history hasn't learned you anything, then any form of DRM has exactly the total opposite effect! It gives hackers even more reason to hack! As the whole point of being a hacker is the challenge and brag about it, when you managed to crack it!

DRM, like gun and drug laws, or any regulation of that nature, only affects the people who obey the rules. The players affected by DRM wouldn't have pirated in the first place, and the pirates won't be bothered by DRM since they will end up hacking it. It's nonsense, and everyone should be able to see it. I don't know why companies keep doing this.

I have to add my voice to the "agree" set. He's pretty much right most of the time. (I hated his views on Dear Esther, but that's for another time.) But really, it isn't a review. He gives his impressions of games, which is, I guess, what a reviewer does, but he isn't trying to say what everyone else should think. The reason many people listen to him though, is that he is entertaining while also being well-reasoned and accurate in most cases.

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Originally posted by Lobotomist

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Originally posted by sgel

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Originally posted by FrodoFragins
If you want a simple single player hack&slash and aren't that interested in the genre, like Total Biscuit, then definitely buy Torchlight 2 for $20.  But don't take his review as being a well informed critique of the genre or the game.

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Excuse me?... why would I buy Torchlight 2 if I wasn't interested in the genre? You diss TB for not liking Diablo 3 as much as you do but then go and critique a game that isn't even out yet. The fact that Torchlight 2 can compare with a game created by the richest company in the business and with such a ridiculous development time, says loads about it :)  

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Except ... it cant T2 is great game. I mean i love it! I finished Torchlight 1 , over 3 times + grinded the endgame random levels to no end. I still play it to this day (and i bought it on first day it was launched) And Torchlight 2 (judging from beta) is many times better ! And with all this said and done Torchlight can barely lick boots of Diablo 3 ... its so so far away in quality

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This just makes me angry. It isn't far away in quality. An argument could be made that Torchlight 1 is on par with Diablo III's level of quality, or very near it. When considering how much time it took them to make each game, and the amount of money they are able to put into each game, this says a great deal. Blizzard has the "productions values" with things like lots of cinematics, and they do have a couple more classes, which is good, but it would be easy to compare the two, and Torchlight is going to come on top on many issues.

But, did you know, and this is incredibly important. The people who made Torchlight and are making Torchlight II are the very same people who made the first Diablo games. That's right. The reason Torchlight games are so good and why many people think Torchlight 1 is even better than Diablo III is that the people who made Torchlight made Diablo I and II. They are the ones who know what they are doing.

That the OP would say one should get Torchlight II is one is not interested makes no sense, since I'm not buying a game in a genre I don't like in the first place, but the obvious implication is that Torchlight 2 is nowhere near Diablo III in terms of quality, and that's simply not true. You might not like some of the choices they have made, that they have made in an attempt to progress the genre past what they did with Diablo, but it is definitely a top notch game.

I mean, it has a metascore of 83, while Diablo III has a score of 87. So that's not a big difference between the two games in overall perceived quality or enjoyability. Of course, compare that with Torchlight's user score of 8.4 and Diablo III's 3.6. We know which company is perceived as giving a shit about the players, and it sure isn't Blizzard. Just look at people's (including TB's) rants about the online-only nonsense. Many people don't like it, regardless of why the decision was made.My point is twofold.

First, the people who made Diablo I and II made Torchlight and are making Torchlight II. Second, while you and the OP might not like the design choices in Torchlight, it cannot be argued that it isn't a AAA game. Both Diablo III and Torchlight are well-designed and of the highest production quality. Not liking one doesn't mean it is so far away in quality. Learn the difference between quality and preference.

Edit: All that said, I prefer Diablo III for one reason. Scrolls of identification and town portal. I hate them. They are an annoying, dated concept. I hate them. They waste my time. I hate them. They waste bag space. I can't state enough how much I hate them. Obviously, this is my opinion, and it might seem petty, but it just kills my enjoyment of a game after a while.

Hell, it's about time.

Did I miss something on the lore side? Can someone point me in the right direction? I was under the impression that the three brothers were the only demon lords who mattered at all. Where did these other two come from, and why are they causing trouble?

I had an interesting problem when taking high-resolution screenshots. They would be oddly corrupted and divided into squares so it looked like it saved different parts at a time. The lower res shots look amazing. The game looks amazing. My CPU was running as fast as it can, and my GPU was taking a leisurely stroll. When they get that cleared up, this thing is going to run like a top. I was already getting more than 50 fps when there weren't tons of things around.

Anyway, yes. It looks stunning on ultra graphics.

I have a question sort of related to this for some MMORPG.com savvy people. I want to upload some great shots I have. The upload tool says it has to be less than 2 MB in file size and a smaller resolution than 175 x 132. I have seen photos in the galleries that seem larger than this. So my question is twofold: Why that size limit (by which I mean the resolution size, which seems arbitrary, not the size limit, which obviously makes sense), and is there a way to upload larger photos to this site, or should I use other ones?

Originally posted by neorandom

Originally posted by Chrisbox

Originally posted by neonaka

622 Error 37 screens later and I am going to bed.

I would just like to thank blizzard for the time it took me to drive across town for the midnight release party to stand in a long ass line to get the game.

I would also like to thank blizzard for the long ass drive back home to install the game.

I would like to thank blizzard for the few hours wait I had to anticipate playing the game before you opened the servers up.

and last....

I would like to thank blizzard for the 622 Error 37 screens I had to endure from 3am to 4am to not be able to play the game I just shelled out money for.

THANKS BLIZZARD YOU ARE THE BESTEST GAME COMPANY EVER!!!!

 

no seriously... go fuck yourself, I am cancelling wow also.

LOL mad.

i sense a disturbance in the force, this one is strong in the "dork" side

It is as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in nerdrage, and were suddenly silenced.

Blizzard releases are always like this. Even expansions. They obviously don't care. And it won't be an issue once everyone isn't trying to log in simultaneously. The best solution is for everyone to wait ten minutes between log attempts. That way we spread out the load on the authentication server, and we can all get in sooner.

Blizzard releases are always like this. Even expansions. They obviously don't care. And it won't be an issue once everyone isn't trying to log in simultaneously. The best solution is for everyone to wait ten minutes between log attempts. That way we spread out the load on the authentication server, and we can all get in sooner.

I don't think they were sadistic or anything. I am not sure why those were the ideas that first got started, but once they become the mechanics of popular games became the mechanics, people didn't think or bother to change them.

I mean, mob tagging made sense on the face of it, with basic loot tables and rolls. Resource nodes were easier to write such that they vanished, and phasing wasn't a thing. I am sure there were good reasons for these mechanics in the beginning, but I am also glad Anet is moving the genre forward.

I think those things are ridiculous as well, but we shouldn't be angry at the past, but instead hopeful for the future.

Now the people who made Darkfall, there are some sadists.

It took me just over an hour to quit. It was the combat that did it for me. I quite liked the story, though the writing and the voice acting were both utterly atrocious. Could have been a fun story, but I couldn't deal with the gameplay.

Yes.

Originally posted by Aori

Originally posted by Leodious

Originally posted by dzoni87

Originally posted by rammur65

Just a little info of the day torchlight is headed by the orginal guys from the original diablo games matter fact they were in the process of making diablo 3 but because it didnt meet the expectations of vivendi they were let go where they ran off and created flagship games then they got canned because main guy left or something like that now they started up on runic games.

Just reminded me on this article

http://kotaku.com/5761172/this-is-what-diablo-iii-looked-like-a-long-time-ago/gallery/1

Article and couple of Screenshots of what could be Diablo 3 by, today's Runic games...

This is what bugs me the most about this issue. People mock Torchlight and say DIII is the best because a tiny two-bit team like Runic couldn't make a game as good as the old Diablo games.

 

 

Except they did.

Not sure what you're on about with this comment. I don't recall within the last couple months anyone saying Runic was a 2bit team and they couldn't make a game as good as the old diablo.

So you've not been reading this thread? In which multiple people claim Torchlight is a joke when compared to Diablo III?

Originally posted by Jayaris

Originally posted by colddog04

You pretty much gave one example of a game that failed and then said that all the other MMORPGs that were hyped have failed. Which is false. 

 

There are a lot of games out there, including GW1, which have healthy populations and are still fun for a lot of people. 

 

There are not only two options. It is not "BEST BIGGEST MOST AWESOMEST GAME EVER" or "FAIL GAME."

 

If any of the games were hyped to the level I'm talking about I assume I might've heard of it, I'm more specifically talking about WAR, Age of Conan, Aion etc.

Are you sure? 'Cause I've been on the internet a while and 90% of the people I see seem to believe so.

WoW. KOTOR. Zelda. Halo. CoD. Etc.

You're right. All the games that get a lot of hype do badly.

Originally posted by dzoni87

Originally posted by rammur65

Just a little info of the day torchlight is headed by the orginal guys from the original diablo games matter fact they were in the process of making diablo 3 but because it didnt meet the expectations of vivendi they were let go where they ran off and created flagship games then they got canned because main guy left or something like that now they started up on runic games.

Just reminded me on this article

http://kotaku.com/5761172/this-is-what-diablo-iii-looked-like-a-long-time-ago/gallery/1

Article and couple of Screenshots of what could be Diablo 3 by, today's Runic games...

This is what bugs me the most about this issue. People mock Torchlight and say DIII is the best because a tiny two-bit team like Runic couldn't make a game as good as the old Diablo games.

Except they did.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by p_c_sousa

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Kalfer

 

you can create a topic on offical forum about that but most of people will not support you because cash shop is reaaly good and have no influence in gameplay.

even if keys were a rarity (and is far  from that) who cares? the boxes content are a crap.lol

pvp server / fly mounts / significant changes on cash shop. this will not gonna happen because as you said, arenanet listen the players, and the majority dont support that. 

The Gem Shop had a forums all to itself for the last BWE.

It was quite different from these forums. Players made many suggestions and most received good feedback. There was much less of a "shut up this game is perfect" vibe.

This is the real problem I see. Here, either the game is perfect or it's doomed and terrible. There is some, but very little, discussion of how to make things better.

On the official forums, there were tons of suggestions, criticisms, and discussion about what could make the game better. People recognized that it was an amazing game, but could still be improved. And that's what Anet wanted out of those forums.

Of course, I doubt they are looking here much anymore, if they ever did, since they have a treasure trove of good ideas (and some bad, imo) over on their forums. There are tons of suggestions and requests from people who actually played the game. So all the whining and rage is just sound and fury.

I don't get it. Even with loading screens, I can get from anywhere to anywhere I've been before a great deal faster than any other MMO I've played. Most use the flight path system. I still have to go to the destination on foot before I can use the fast travel. I still have to pay money to use the fast travel. It's seamless, but I have to sit and wait.  Teleportation is rare in those games, and then you still have a loading screen, or a frozen screen while the game loads.

Yes, there are portals to separate zones to help with memory. But If you see them more than a few times, you aren't using a great system implemented in the game. This won't cost us time, it will save us time. Lots of it.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by Yamota

I agree with the OP. The idea that you cannot make an open ended MMORPG similar to Skyrim is nonsense. Ultima Online was that kind of game so was Asheron's Call and SWG. So it is possible but it then it would not be catering to the WoW/ThemePark crowd, which is why it probably is not being made that away.

Its not that it cant be done because it has in those you mentioned.  What gets me so so freaking mad is they would have the gall to actually say it cant be done because anyone with a semi-working braid knows what they are doing is nothing short of a cash grab.  What amazes me is that any company could look at the market and see it littered with failed WoW clones and think to themselves:  "You know what the MMO genre needs, is another WoW clone".  Its fu*king ignorant and stupid to believe anyone could believe something but then again look at the financial markets and the state of the economy so I guess it should come as no surprise.

Pretty Much This ^

Pretty much this. 

I guess the idea is that flooding the market with the same old shit is better than trying to hit a niche market, because you are more likely to siphon off sales than you are to reach a large enough portion of an already small base. I think it's wrong, but I can see how investor might make that argument.

What I can't fathom is how, with TES, when you have a very large, established fan base that clearly prefers a certain set of things in their games (which you can see not only with sales and reviews and critiques, but also with mods), and you plan to make a MMO of that franchise's world, you take the MMO in a totally different direction in every fathomable way from the single-player version.

Hell, TESO might end up being a great game if that's the kind of game you are into. But it won't be like a TES game, not really, And when it is so patently obvious that they deviated so widely from the design philosphy of the single-player franchise, it should give us pause.

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Originally posted by musicmann

I can't understand why these dev companies keep insisting on these NDA's. They keep so much secret, like it's a national security secret and end up creating something that people hate. Honesty, openess and public feedback  from the first day of creation is what's needed. A room full of investors and secret playtesters are what's ruining this genre the most. I find it funny that developers think that other companies are gonna steal their ideas, when in fact every title plays the same.

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Quoted for truth and sorrow.