So that's what D3 looks like to the rest of the world.

I like the game. You can switch to elective mode so that you can change up all your skill bindings. The comment about someone stealing the better trousers is false since each person gets there own seperate loot drop. I dont agree with yahtzee on this review then.

Saying normla mode is easy is because it is normal mode. Its just meant to get you through the first run through since you dont have the cool items or cool skills yet.

Hold the phone. The dungeons are randomly generated? I played through it one and a half times and they didn't seem any different to me.

It was better the second time through, though, when it let you select a difficulty that isn't ridiculously easy--and I don't normally play these sorts of games. Anyways, I liked it though. Probably the best time killer ever made bar Windows Solitaire.

*nsfw

Video is already flagged NSFW - ignoring nsfw request by ant.

>> ^AeroMechanical:

Hold the phone. The dungeons are randomly generated? I played through it one and a half times and they didn't seem any different to me...


It should be like in the original Diablo games.

How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

Normal mode is ENTIRELY too easy in Diablo 3 TBH.

Maybe because some people actually like single player games.

And maybe he's the guy who doesn't need 15 people to go "hey nice backswing on that axe you got there" 50 million times like some attention seeking whore.

Or there like me and don't want their entire party to sudden scream like banshees if I decide to get up and take a leak or grab a snack or simply decide I don't want to play through the entire campaign in a single night.

That's not to say I don't enjoy Multiplayer I simply enjoy not having it shoved down my throat like D3.

>> ^Thumper:

How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

I cant say as I'd really want to play Diablo 3 multiplayer either. It doesn't strike me as that kind of game. If I had friends who also played it, which I don't, and they happened to be playing at the same time I happened to play, which would be unlikely, it might be fun if you could just jump in and out of games, but I certainly have no interest in playing on public servers with random people because, well, I'm sure you know why.

I can surely understand other people wanting to play it multiplayer though, but it ain't for me. This is why all the logging in and dealing with things like lag and dropped connections is ridiculous. I can't, for instance, play it while I'm waiting for a file to download (which it would be IDEAL for) because then I get a 500ms ping and it's effectively unplayable.

So, anyways, that part of the whole deal is unequivocally and in the most politically incorrect sense of the term possible, retarded.

End of the day, doesn't matter much whether you play it with friends or not since the gameplay is so fucking boring. Not that I don't ever play dungeon crawlers, sometimes I quite fancy mindless button pressing where the only real incentive is the next level or the better item, but I don't kid myself into thinking its a good game. Sometimes I watch truely terrible movies just for the fun (which also happen to share the characteristic of only being really enjoyable when watched/played with friends) but again, lets not pretend they are good movies.

Anyway, I'd like to see Blizzard develop a new game rather than these sequels. Diablo3 must be the safest money they've ever made, even SC2 had more innovation, how about taking some risks?

I do however agree on the absurdity of the extent of worthless items being spewed at your level. There is literally no reason to stop and compare because now you tend to get one drop that ends up being so semi-God like that you don't switch it out for an Act or more. I'm sure in higher difficulty this will change and this may be an artifact of the design for the endgame here. It just seems it could have been micromanaged a bit better.

>> ^Jinx:

End of the day, doesn't matter much whether you play it with friends or not since the gameplay is so fucking boring. Not that I don't ever play dungeon crawlers, sometimes I quite fancy mindless button pressing where the only real incentive is the next level or the better item, but I don't kid myself into thinking its a good game. Sometimes I watch truely terrible movies just for the fun (which also happen to share the characteristic of only being really enjoyable when watched/played with friends) but again, lets not pretend they are good movies.
Anyway, I'd like to see Blizzard develop a new game rather than these sequels. Diablo3 must be the safest money they've ever made, even SC2 had more innovation, how about taking some risks?


Blizzard was NEVER about innovation. They have always been about taking existing gaming mechanics and polishing them to a level of quality that no other company can match. They do an excellent job of NOT reinventing the wheel and retaining the qualities that makes their games so successful in the first place.

To expect Blizzard to change a formula that brought them millions of fans over the years, to alienate their core audience just so they can appease someone like you, who never loved dungeon crawlers in the first place, is ridiculous.

And while I'm not a big fan of Diablo, I don't pretend that they are terrible games just because I find them repetitive and boring.

>> ^Darkhand:

Normal mode is ENTIRELY too easy in Diablo 3 TBH.


To me that's the single biggest problem with the game, it's even worse than the constant online nonsense. A 12 hour tutorial per character is tedious and insulting. But even with the system they have now it would be so easy to provide another starting difficulty. The difficulty already scales as more players are added, so they've already implemented a way of making the game harder without making any change to their loot/leveling progression.

This is entirely inaccurate. It isn't pants, it's crossbows.

Not playing it how Blizzard intended for it to be played is exactly why there is such an uproar over the game in the first place. Everyone wants to have their way with their Blizzard game and Blizzard ain't complying. Yeah the DRM sucks but there isn't all that much different in Diablo 3 than any other recent Blizz title. It's a scheme. Anyone who has played any of their games since War3 knows that the games are multi-tiered so what at first seems like a simple, boring, repetitive game ends up being finely tuned & crafted in the end. By ACT III on Nightmare mode it becomes apparent and if one doesn't get that far into the game then they really shouldn't be giving it a review because they should just know better from the get-go.

It's got some of the best multiplayer aspects that I've had in recent memory, running relentlessly across vast floors trying to avoid pools of Hell, or encountering impossible zombie mobs moving 50% faster than normal. It's a lot of fun. Blizzard is a different company than they were back in the day, I don't like it as nearly as much as the first Diablo, for sure... but it's still fantastic. It's still Blizzard. Great mechanics - for what it is - better art direction than most games, great sound and the absolute insanity of it on the more difficult modes where it really comes together. Yeah there are a lot of things that piss me off about D3...

I must admit it seems to me like Blizz didn't give it their all on this one... maybe so they can make sure people go back to their cash cow
The levels are barely random, what the ^%$# is up with the lag? There is too much loot like Yahtzee said, the normal mode IS too easy, nightmare & normal are light/day... don't waste our time. The art direction is great... but not as great as I'd expect from Blizz, muddy textures, accesses the hard-drive too frequently, some of those "cut-scenes" are whack, on Hell mode the random encounters are more difficult than the main quests, no in game auction house? Why the hell is that loot popup menu always there? The story is dumb as fuck. But, regardless that is what the Diablo series is - not much innovation here except in chaos and mechanics and that is good enough for me. We can't compare every Blizz game to WoW... and that is exactly why D3 is great, it's like WoW-ultralite meets Left For Dead, nothing wrong with that.

@lv_hunter

Normal difficulty compared to D2 simply feels far too easy. I recall D2 Act 1 was also quite easy, but from Duriel, really through to the end of normal, the game picked up substantially. I found almost the opposite here, while it is fair for them to ease players in early on, for me the difficulty spiked towards the end of Act 1, maybe early Act 2. From there the game was just a complete steamroll through to Nightmare.

Sure you get to replay it 3 more times, but plunging through the game at this pace for first impressions really ruins the gravitas of the stakes the story is trying to paint.

@mentality

I've heard this notion bandied around, but combining ideas from multiple games and perfecting them is still a form of innovation. And even on that measure they played it far too safe on D3.

D2 felt like a huge leap on D1. Randomized dungeons, huge increase in class and especially item variety, introduction of a vast swathe of new environments. In comparison critically looking at D3, while it does have an expanded skills system, at the end of a prodigious 11 year development cycle, D3 has far less item variety at launch, and arguably simplified gameplay mechanics on a number of levels.

Personally, I happen to also think the story is a let down, the tone of the game has been inappropriately been made cartoonish (art design non-withstanding).

I think Thumper was saying that Diablo 3 is clearly a multiplayer focused game and that Mr. Yathzee Esq. should not expect it to be excellent in single player. Being a games reviewer surely he should have given more attention to the multiplayer as this was the intent of the game etc. I really don't think that Diablo 3 can be blamed for shoving stuff down your throat. That's more your desire to play Diablo 3 shoving it down your throat.>> ^Auger8:

Maybe because some people actually like single player games.
And maybe he's the guy who doesn't need 15 people to go "hey nice backswing on that axe you got there" 50 million times like some attention seeking whore.
Or there like me and don't want their entire party to sudden scream like banshees if I decide to get up and take a leak or grab a snack or simply decide I don't want to play through the entire campaign in a single night.
That's not to say I don't enjoy Multiplayer I simply enjoy not having it shoved down my throat like D3.
>> ^Thumper:
How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

I just think it would have been a better game if they had simply separated the single player from the multiplayer. That way you have a choice in the matter. Gamers like choices and hate it when you take those choices away. D3 isn't a MMO no matter how hard Blizzard tries to convince people it is. The only reason they made it into this forced co-op game is they were greedy and figured that was the only way they could stop piracy.
Problem is the people who were gonna pirate the game weren't ever planning on paying for it in the first place. So they weren't going to lose a dime to those people. Notch said something to that effect about Minecraft piracy I don't remember the exact quote but Notch could care less if you pirate Minecraft, hell he gives away the beta snapshot versions for free.
And if they hadn't forced multiplayer to be always on all these hackers wouldn't be exploiting that very same system to steal items and gold from people so they can then sell them for cash in their idiotic real money auction house. Which will be a disaster if they ever open it because the hackers will flood the market.
And then even though people paid $60 bucks for the game they expect you to shell out another $10 for a physical authenticator in order to hopefully keep your account secure. Even though they don't allow strong passwords on Battle.net.
Which is a moot point because these hackers aren't even hacking passwords in the first place there stealing session id's or forcing themselves onto buddy lists somehow that's why people can still log into their accounts after they have been jacked for everything their worth. But Blizzard is suspiciously in denial when someone brings that up.

All in all their choice to force online access to play their game has resulted in one of the most embarrassing disasters in the history of gaming. Which is sad because it really is a good game. It's just run by greedy idiots.

>> ^lampishthing:

I think Thumper was saying that Diablo 3 is clearly a multiplayer focused game and that Mr. Yathzee Esq. should not expect it to be excellent in single player. Being a games reviewer surely he should have given more attention to the multiplayer as this was the intent of the game etc. I really don't think that Diablo 3 can be blamed for shoving stuff down your throat. That's more your desire to play Diablo 3 shoving it down your throat.>> ^Auger8:
Maybe because some people actually like single player games.
And maybe he's the guy who doesn't need 15 people to go "hey nice backswing on that axe you got there" 50 million times like some attention seeking whore.
Or there like me and don't want their entire party to sudden scream like banshees if I decide to get up and take a leak or grab a snack or simply decide I don't want to play through the entire campaign in a single night.
That's not to say I don't enjoy Multiplayer I simply enjoy not having it shoved down my throat like D3.
>> ^Thumper:
How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

I literally sold my entire battle.net account to a friend because I hated having to be online to play single player.

Forget D3. What is the song from the Max Payne 3 commercial?

Saying normla mode is easy is because it is normal mode.


Many people will only ever play it once. Those people have to play normal, and for many of those players normal sucks and they knew it was going to.

For someone like me, it meant that the first time I saw the content it was in fast forward mode (trying to escape the mindless, challenge-free boredom of normal mode), which ruined what might have been some more enjoyable content.

And it's ridiculous that I can't start a new character on Nightmare (just make him level 30 with no gear... whatever). This means I can't reasonably play with a friend who's behind me in levels (he's 30, I'm around 50) without doing another 10 hour slog. And I can't try another character without a 10 hour slog.

I don't want to do any slogs. Just let me play the fun parts of a game, please.

Also, they should have made "elective mode" either default or a little more noticeable (because the game is much worse without it).

The skill system means gear is the only way your character is actually different than others. It works, but it takes something away from the game. The way difficulty scales is really unsatisfying. It doesn't feel like your skills are tested; it feels more like your gear and stamina are being tested. Skills and item balance were not well tested before launch. I don't know how this was done so poorly by a company with so much experience.

It's a good game.. but not nearly as good as I expected, with very little innovation, and with a few really questionable decisions. I'm pretty much done with it.

>> ^RedSky:
@mentality
D2 felt like a huge leap on D1. Randomized dungeons, huge increase in class and especially item variety, introduction of a vast swathe of new environments. In comparison critically looking at D3, while it does have an expanded skills system, at the end of a prodigious 11 year development cycle, D3 has far less item variety at launch, and arguably simplified gameplay mechanics on a number of levels.
Personally, I happen to also think the story is a let down, the tone of the game has been inappropriately been made cartoonish (art design non-withstanding).


D1 had randomized dungeons. Item variety in D2 was very limited because there often was one set of unique item that was 'THE' item for a specific build. The expanded environments in D2 were also very cartoony compared to the dungeons of D1, and calling D3 cartoonish with levels like the Halls of Agony is outright ridiculous.

The fact of the matter is that the grass is always greener, and we all look at the past with rose colored glasses. History repeats itself, but it seems like few people remember all the problems, controversy and bitching surrounding Diablo 2's launch.

He never played diablo 2 (fail), and he played diablo 3 in single player and on normal mode.

This is a review of the EZ mode blizz puts in for the little kids. Play some inferno big boy. Oh yea and your loot table is not shared in multi play. No pants to split here.

At least they patched the game to autojoin you to general chat so the first thing you see when logging on is:

~~~{GOLD-4-U}~~~ 10k for $19.99 delivered ~~~{GOLD-4-U}~~~

It didn't feel like a Blizzard game until they did that.

My bad on D1 dungeons.

There will always be cookie-cutter builds. And besides, when you're talking about 'the' build, you're talking about the ideal items to have, the vast majority of people will never get there. Meanwhile, the options for 'best with what you have' varied heaps. I played D3 through with a Monk, and the entire time, the only stats that felt worthwhile chasing were damage, dexterity and vitality.

I'm not saying it didn't have dark elements, but vast portions of the story, dialogue and tone, particularly after Act 1 (which I thought was best part of the game), where juvenile and completely off for a Diablo game. I mean for christ sake, the game delved into damsel in distress territory multiple times. Anyway posted this elsewhere, going to just copy paste:

1. Story tone is horribly off for a Diablo game. Act 1, the tone is almost that right mix of dark, macabre & grim horror albeit with overly colourful graphics. Then, in Act 2 and especially 3/4 the game becomes flat out goofy. It's almost like different studios designed the two parts. Regardless, it's obvious the whole gothic, cheesy but serious tone of previously Diablo games has been thoroughly ditched.

It becomes obvious there is a reason that most of the prime evils were mostly mute & why your characters was kept to making sarcastic remarks and one liners in D2. Diablo beretting you with grating "if it wasn't for your meddling kids" dialogue completely ruins the game's tone. Overall the mix of occasional ultra-violence and the overt colourfulness and childish NPC banter gives it an almost surreal and contradictory theme. As if a design house was of two minds, fighting over dominance over the franchise's feel.

There was just no need to muck with what was not broken to the point that it's hard for me to NOT imagine Activision sitting behind the developers dictating them how well the WoW tone sits with target demographics. There is nothing wrong with WoW existing in its own space with it's own unique identity. There's a problem with creative variety between Blizzard games becoming non-existent because they've caught on to what sells best and decided to stick to that.

As for launch issues, I didn't play D2 at launch, but that's not what really bugs me. It is abundantly obvious though that foisting online-only is part of the reason they're having so many launch issues.

Here's my full bitch session - http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149543659

>> ^mentality:

>> ^RedSky:
@mentality
D2 felt like a huge leap on D1. Randomized dungeons, huge increase in class and especially item variety, introduction of a vast swathe of new environments. In comparison critically looking at D3, while it does have an expanded skills system, at the end of a prodigious 11 year development cycle, D3 has far less item variety at launch, and arguably simplified gameplay mechanics on a number of levels.
Personally, I happen to also think the story is a let down, the tone of the game has been inappropriately been made cartoonish (art design non-withstanding).

D1 had randomized dungeons. Item variety in D2 was very limited because there often was one set of unique item that was 'THE' item for a specific build. The expanded environments in D2 were also very cartoony compared to the dungeons of D1, and calling D3 cartoonish with levels like the Halls of Agony is outright ridiculous.
The fact of the matter is that the grass is always greener, and we all look at the past with rose colored glasses. History repeats itself, but it seems like few people remember all the problems, controversy and bitching surrounding Diablo 2's launch.

>> ^jmd:

He never played diablo 2 (fail), and he played diablo 3 in single player and on normal mode.
This is a review of the EZ mode blizz puts in for the little kids. Play some inferno big boy. Oh yea and your loot table is not shared in multi play. No pants to split here.


Here's a thought, how about making a game that's fun right from the start, rather than forcing people through as others have put it "a 10 hour slog" first. It's like, even after paying 60 bucks I still have to prove I'm worthy enough to start the actual game by playing 10 hours of BS, I'd say that the criticism is valid.

I had fun, seems like many others are too.

>> ^00Scud00:

Here's a thought, how about making a game that's fun right from the start

Ah the amusing valiant defense of a game with a mandatory mega-tutorial... yeah, pass on that, haven't even finished Torchlight, don't think I finished D1 either - the introductory comment was so succicnct.

Torchlight 2 should be interesting considering it'll be released for 20$ on the first day and also have multiplayer.

One thing that might hurt Diablo 3 in the long run is the inability to mod the game, due to the online nature. Unless of course Blizzard allows users to create a non-sanctioned clone version that can run along side it and not allow people to put their items up for trade, but still have to connect, but they can mod to their hearts content.

Modding really could open this game to a much broader and I would say better world of a gaming experience. But, BUT, we have to wait for the big blue names in the sky to make a decision on that.

Unless of course people make modded off-line versions that work... But, Blizzard would probably put a patch on your computer looking for these mods and ban your account if found knowing them... Oh well...

I have faith someone else will get the hack & slash RPG genre going in a good direction eventually; the Torchlight 2 guys have a good chance as they were the ones that did work on Diablo 2. And, now that they have money from the first Torchlight they can broaden their horizons. We'll see. Diablo 3 is still a decent game, but it feels like they held FAR too much back that will inevitably be in the expansion--which is probably almost done (as Diablo 2's expansion was almost already included with the original game; with the art and other resources ON the game disc!).

Ok this is how corrupt Blizzard has become. Someone started a petition for Blizzard to make an offline Singleplayer patch for Diablo 3. It had over a thousand votes so far. They posted it to the Diablo 3 forums, and even though it violated no rules of the forum that I know of Blizzard in all it's corrupted glory DELETED the post. No explanation no Blue post response just BOOM ban hammer delete.

That's just stupid it's like Canada trying to prevent people from protesting it just proves they know they are doing something wrong and they simply don't give a shit.

Blizzard: "What's that the players have a complaint about our game? Well that can't be our game is the embodiment of perfection incarnate. Just deleted it it simply has to be a mistake."

I have lost absolutely all respect for Blizzard now.

Here's the petition share this link with everyone you can think of.
http://www.change.org/petitions/blizzard-entertainment-diablo-3-offline-single-player-patch#

Augr, or how stupid users have become. The board rules say no petitions.. of any kind.

The online single play may be hurtful to some.. but as a range player, I prefer multi play matches with a melee class cause they can bunch up the mobs while I lay on the dps and crowd control. I am half way through hell mode now and always play multi.

As far as torchlight goes... I think players may be in for a surprise when while it may play very similar, it is plagued with cheating, item duping, and no online managed friends system for easy joining of games.

As someone who leveled alot of alts by playing single player WoW online, there are benefits that many of us prefer. There would be no auction house, and definitely no real money auctions possible if single play profiles were kept offline.