Originally posted by Thane

this game STARTS at lvl 60. i bet that's about where torclight ends ^^

Interesting bit here...so what exactly do you do from levels 1-59? Is there anyway to skip that? Afterall the game STARTS at 60.

All I see in this thread are assumptions and people jumping to conclusions and making themselves look a bit foolish.

Let's talk about this after the game goes to market and sells millions upon millions of copies, and then again when we start seeing RMAH numbers a year down the road, and then again when the first expansion sells said millions and millions of copies and then you guys can tell us all about how Blizzard has lost its touch.

This game is going to be pretty damn epic, but I will just say that is my opinion and you guys are too quick to jump on Blizzard because hating on WoW is the cool thing to do around here.  I don't like WoW either all that much, but it is a good game and a ridiculous success. 

Originally posted by Foncl

They have removed every form of important permanent choices from the game such as stat points, permanent skill choices etc, it may appeal to some players but not to me. You are limited to only 6 spells and many of those will be buffs/pets/crowdcontrol/long cooldown spells for efficient builds, so you're left with 1 or 2 spammable spells. I don't like the resource mechanics with "resource spenders" and "resource generators" since of the few spells you have you are forced to use a "resource generator" alot of the time.

 

Followers have some ridiculously powerful spells like "Rush to the aid of wounded ally, knocking back enemies within 15 yards and healing the wounded ally for 4651 Life" for example, when you get in trouble the follower jumps in and saves the day. There's no way of creating and naming your own games something like "Act2 take it slow" or "Act2 speedrun" etc, being able to name games means you can play with others who like to play the way you do. I met many DII friends due to being able to name games and meeting others who enjoy playing at a similar pace or in a similar way as myself.

 

Healthorbs instead of potions is an inferior game mechanic imo, I would have preferred an evolution of the potion mechanic, Path of Exiles potionmechanic is great for example. It's hard to make a final judgement on it since we have only seen/tried normal mode yet but I am skeptical of how well healthorbs will function to make the game challenging long-term, I find it less fun than managing potion drinking that's for sure.

 

I could go on and on but here's some things I don't like and I'm very much against the RMAH aswell, paying for power doesn't belong in games imo. I realize much of it is personal preference but to me Diablo III is a dumbed down and simplified game compared to Diablo II.

The permanent choices concerning skill and statpoints is a recurring one, but it's moot if you think of it. The only thing that Diablo 3 does differently is that you can change you skillset on the fly, with just a short cooldown. Any game that feature a skilltree or something like that, in combination with an option to respec, is pretty much the same. The way I see it, Blizzard cut out all that tedious points distrubution and give the player the whole skillset to play with. About the skillsystem, it's more complex then Diablo 2 if anything, because you have 6 skills to work with. You can probably make a build that features pretty much no cooldowns at all. Diablo 2 was all about the left and right mousebuttons, with some akward keybinding mixed in to switch some skills. Yes, potentially more skills at one time to play with, but not functional in the least.

I haven't checked out the follower skills yet, as I'm not planning on using one. The ress function sounds a bit like handholding to me, but I hope it's balanced with some long cooldown or something. Not something that bothers me that much, unless you can always rely on being saved by your follower. Same goes for the multiplayer portion. I only played with some friends, but I'm planning to play the game mostly on my own. It's just how I enjoy playing these type of games, at my own pace. Not being able to give a name to your public game would be a downer for some I guess. Bit strange too, but then again, I haven't checked out the multiplayer part as a whole. However, that you can reset your quest progression is a pretty neat feature.

Healthorbs and the PoE flask system both solve the same problem, the chugging down of potions. Diablo 3 does it with the healthorbs and a cooldown on the potion themselves and PoE with limited charges and the need to murder your enemies to replenish them. Both work pretty well I believe, just a matter of preference here. The difference is that you need to look for the specific flasks you want, but the healthorbs will stay the same (I guess, perhaps a difference in the amount of healing per difficulty or something). I wouldn't call it inferior though, the only consistant healthorbs that dropped were from the elites or (sub)bosses. The rest seemed pretty random.

Your opinion of the resource system is pretty subjective. In my case, I like it, it makes sure every champion feels different from eachother, next to using another skillset. Some games features everyone using the "mana" system, even for shooting arrows or doing a sweeping sword attack, which I personally find immersion breaking. Like you said, it's a matter of preference.

It all boils down to preference I think. I really like the aesthetics of Diablo 3 and while at first I thought the game held my hand all the time with the handing out of skills at every turn, I quickly noticed how much fun that was. Perhaps it's not the best system ever, but at least it's a step forward, because if you are already planning to implement repecs, you can just as well go all the way, which is what Blizzard did in Diablo 3. Otherwise do the Diablo 2 thing and make every choice permanent. I didn't like saving up points then and I certainly won't stand for that bullshit now.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

This is something that really has to be asked.

Diablo is legendary game franchise. Probably one of most popular ones on PC.

Even if the game is not more that decent, diablo 3 would be bought by millions of people.

Blizzard is brimming with money and talent. And I dont doubt huge budgets were invested in this one...

What can go wrong after all ?

 

I think unbelivable has happened. Blizzard is about to release their first bad game ( i am not counting WOW expansions)

What happened ?

Did all the talents leave Blizzard ?

Its really hard to answer this one...

 

Yes. I canceled my preorder. 

No Blizzard has not lost thier touch, I played D3 for many months and still enjoy it.  I can't say that for any other title on the market at the moment.  Nothing is good enough to keep you playing more than a month or two tops right now.  D3, I have been playing longer than that so it is a good sign for me and many other like minded gamers.  Blizzard has the 8 ball in the pocket still.

From what has been told, most of their talent is working on Titan.

Frankly I have my doubts Titan even exists.

As for D3 im gonna wait for the reviews before I purchase this game.

Originally posted by Betaguy

No Blizzard has not lost thier touch, I played D3 for many months and still enjoy it.  I can't say that for any other title on the market at the moment.  Nothing is good enough to keep you playing more than a month or two tops right now.  D3, I have been playing longer than that so it is a good sign for me and many other like minded gamers.  Blizzard has the 8 ball in the pocket still.

No matter how much I liked the first 13 levels, I would get bored after a week or two, max. I almost admire you for this.

Originally posted by wormywyrm

Diablo 2 is the pinnacle of a genre.  There are opinions about positive changes that could be made to D2 for sure, but in many ways it is a game that is not improvable.

Fanboy detected.

Diablo II was most definitely very, very improvable. We're talking about a game released on a badly adjusted graphics engine, where everything was completely unbalanced (and never fixed), where most players hated 2 of the acts, and nobody had anything to do in the end but kill Baal over and over. If you seriously think DII was not improvable you're completely delusional. It was one of the most broken games I've played, and that actually wasn't as widespread back when it was released.

And it seems like a lot of DII fans honestly believe this. You really have some problems there. To a normal player, who was not crazy about DII, it was actually a pretty badly polished game in many ways. Was it a good game for its time? Sure. But one that was easily replaced? Yes.

DIII is looking like it's going to be a solid product for a change.

Originally posted by MikkelB

Originally posted by Betaguy

No Blizzard has not lost thier touch, I played D3 for many months and still enjoy it.  I can't say that for any other title on the market at the moment.  Nothing is good enough to keep you playing more than a month or two tops right now.  D3, I have been playing longer than that so it is a good sign for me and many other like minded gamers.  Blizzard has the 8 ball in the pocket still.

No matter how much I liked the first 13 levels, I would get bored after a week or two, max. I almost admire you for this.

I was in a similar boat.  I haven't been held by an MMO more than a month or two in so long.  I clocked in somewhere over 75 hours in the D3 beta with just 13 levels and a small part of Act 1 and would still be playing if they didn't end it.

Something about this game really clicks with me and it didn't come until after I had cleared it a couple times.  Really a good sign that so many people wanted to play the beta demo over most games out there over such a long period of time and so many wipes.

I think its a great game, loved the beta and can't wait to play launch! Best Diablo game yet, so you can stop talking like your opinion is fact.

All I know is I had fun in beta and Diablo 3 is shaping up to be one of the best games I've ever played in my 24 years of gaming.