Quote :

"1. Orbs - the health orbs don't break anything since you can't spam potions. i think it actually makes it HARDER and more fun because you can't just rapidly spam potions as you get hurt. i've actually had to run away as a barb quite a few times to avoid dying."

As a former D1 and D2 junkie I will admit I got killed a few times before I realized this

5/17/2012 5:07:06 PM

really enjoying this game so far. played about 4 hours last night hit level 26... the leveling seems just right honestly. Not to tedious, but parts are pretty difficult if you just go manmode and dive in

5/17/2012 5:27:57 PM

^^^ yes, as a barb you use your weapon all the time.

^^ yes, me too. i was like....DEEEEEEEERP, DEAD.

5/17/2012 5:28:33 PM

Beat this bitch

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

5/17/2012 5:29:23 PM

Downloading now. zags.414 is my id.

5/17/2012 6:18:03 PM

Quote :

" severe lack of character customization due to the oversimplification of the skill system"

yah this is complete horsepoop written by someone that didn't play the game.

with elective mode and the runes, you can have extreme variations in your skill set. While that may not be as "different" as exchanging fire ball for ice blast

making my Heal turn into a nuke and causing my fists to aoe stun instead of apply a dot, is quite different.



there's a massive amount of combinations and the runes really make the skills feel different even though they're based on the same base model.


elective mode really adds variety as well, seeing as you dont have to use the basic skill set allocation. you can have 6 primary attacks if you want. For instance on my monk I have 1 primary 3 defensive and 2 mantras with no secondary abilities, cause the monk secondaries blow

5/17/2012 7:57:20 PM

Nightmare isnt too bad so far, but im only approaching the Act 2 boss.

I know Jay Wilson and the design team are probably sitting back and laughing at all the fuckwits that were complaining about skill simplicity and lack of customization.

It is by far more customizable and deep than D2 ever hoped of being. Sinking another 40 hours into a character because you cant undo skills isnt depth; its retarded.

For endgame players they have incentives to pick a build and stick with it for a playing session, so to get the best outcome you dont want to be swapping skills every time you run into a tough enemy.

This game is fucking awesome.

5/17/2012 9:56:05 PM

If I never played any of the other Diablo games, should I still play this one?

It seems like everyone knows exactly what they're doing and where they're going when they buy this game. I would be buying it blind. Mind you I know the gameplay and general style of the other games, just never played them for more than 30 minutes.

5/17/2012 10:15:55 PM

the tutorial is pretty thorough... you'll miss some inside jokes and references, but it shouldnt effect your enjoyment.

5/17/2012 10:21:28 PM

One thing I miss from D2 is hunting for RUnes to make Runeword items. I would LOVE to see items that had the crazy effects you could get from such an item. For those that did not play D2, go to this website and play around with it and see what kind of shit you could make with Runes and socketed items http://d2.t-monster.com/runes.php

5/17/2012 10:42:34 PM

I'm liking the leveling system more the more I play with it. I just wish you could still get multi-socketed items. And put skulls in them.

5/17/2012 11:26:29 PM

From my understanding at one point you had to find the runes that you added to skills. Thats what I was expecting. Still not sure how I feel about this game.

5/17/2012 11:28:37 PM

Yeah, it was mostly about raising skill points in D2.

5/17/2012 11:36:05 PM

im pretty happy with the leveling ... I played 4.5ish hours and hit 28.

and there are multi socketed items. My chest and legs both have 2 sockets

5/18/2012 1:59:46 AM

I prebought the game and was ready to go when the servers went live...

But I'm married now. My gaming experience is a bit different. The wife's out of town this weekend though.

Bring on the .

5/18/2012 3:28:37 AM

I don't understand how some folks are already done. I bought the game Tuesday and I've only managed to put 3 hrs in.

Sucks being grown up :/

5/18/2012 7:20:30 AM

So I bought it, and it's epic.

5/18/2012 8:34:30 AM

Raiding the AH for yellows almost feels like cheating.....almost. Seriously, do it. Full yellows + Glass Cannon = lol wizard. Magdha was a joke.

5/18/2012 8:44:56 AM

yeah, buy rares on the AH. they really help. and get ones with your primary stat. as a lvl 40 monk, i'm stacking dexterity and my listed dps is about 1k.

Quote :

"I don't understand how some folks are already done. I bought the game Tuesday and I've only managed to put 3 hrs in. Sucks being grown up :/"

you gotta prioritize, man. i've logged about 30 hours. but i took a day off work for release. and i've been warning my wife about this since the game was announced a few years ago. she's been prepared for the abandonment.

5/18/2012 9:07:54 AM

Installing Torchlight 2 beta right now.

5/18/2012 9:18:21 AM

shrug, i played about 10 hrs with friends over a few nights. skipped part of act 3 (the beginning), but am done.

that said, id feel like using the auction house would be no fun to me. the whole point of the game is finding lewtz with your buddies.

starting nightmare last night was interesting. since i was playing with a wiz, i decided to swap my barb to a tanky build using a shield and all stun / dmg reduction moves. i dont kill things fast, but i can keep them off him plenty well.

5/18/2012 9:18:34 AM

I sold some loot in the Auction house already! For friggin gold obviously, but still it was exhilarating!

5/18/2012 9:26:28 AM

So.

Suppose you're a ~1999 era stubborn diehard gamer. You despise the current condition of video gaming with the rise of the casual (console) market, and the massive dumbing down of your favorite genres all across the board. You loved Diablo 2 and you concerned that 3 has succumbed to the same fate. You very rarely purchase video games anymore unless they're a sure thing. You are on the fence as to whether or not you want to purchase it.

Well I took the plunge, so if you're like me, this review is for you.

It's...pretty good. Certainly not D2, but it's pretty good, and is worth it. Buy it.

Things you won't like:
- Obviously the art direction, a long standing joke during development. It absolutely feels like a candyland version of Diablo, and it's very disappointing.
- Must be online for single player, but that's an error with the product delivery, not the product itself.
- Cooldowns. Extremely annoying, and a sloppy game design bandage, as they have always been in almost any game that uses the concept.
- Substantially less involvement in building your character - stats are out of your hands.
- Quests and story delivery are shockingly bad, especially for a Blizzard game.
- The first two hours. For two reasons: 1) Adjustment to the interface, 2) SLOW and boring content. But I committed to stick with it because 2 hours isn't a fair shake...and then almost all in one moment, it clicked, things got real, and...

Things you will like:
- You sure do get that battle frenzy clearing out packs at a time, just like the old days. It is definitely there.
- Just as D2 used a brand new skill system from D1, so too does D3 from D2. It is a solid concept, and as far as using skills in the game, well implemented. I like it. Minor point though - How skills relate to your equipped weapon takes a LOT of getting used to, as it's totally nonsensical at first. Actually, from a flavor standpoint it still is. But mechanically you will get used to it.
- Cinematics are top notch as usual.
- Sound quality outstanding.
- Nostalgia factor and proper treatment of the established lore.
- Although it looks like Candyland, it's Candyland with the bloody chunks of your enemies exploding all over the goddamn rainbow road. They spared nothing for violence. Good stuff. Again, that Diablo "battle frenzy."
- Loot. Still there, still copious. Bazillions of item types and qualities. Blue, yellow, and I presume green (set). Don't know what "Legendary" is yet.
- Auction house. Actually the AH ended up being mandatory for me toward the end of Act I because I simply had no better wands dropping, so I had to buy one.

Things you'll be on the fence about:
- No mana potions. Each class having its own auto-refilling skill-driving substance is very neat flavor-wise. And this is a rare instance where I actually approve of the auto-regen concept in a video game. You just might be left wishing they'd done just a little more with it, to add that one more thing to keep track of when you're playing.
- The interface is clunky and very busy. More than it needs to be, and not organized as well as it should be. And there's eight billion words and numbers flying all over the place during fights that no person would ever be able to read - I think they put it there for the WoW kids. However, you can disable almost all of that stuff, which I did. You'll probably want to do the same.
- Control. D1 and D2 worked on a grid system. You could reliably pick items up and just have a solid feel for where you character was. D3 is a true free environment (I think...), and it just feels a little less...crisp. It's not a big deal though, and you get used to it.
- Graphics. And this feeds into those first two hours - - when you first start playing, you might actually chuckle out loud at how very dated the graphics are...for 2008. Yeah, they're not good. But, after those two hours, when the action gets going, you will totally stop caring.
- One of the classic elements that made Diablo Diablo has been removed - potion loadout is no longer part of your town trips because they're basically for dire escape situations only. This eliminates one of the technical skills a player needed to have in D1/2. Health orbs on the battlefield look, feel, and play like a game design bandage. You'll hate it at first. You'll hate it less as time goes on. I'm hoping eventually I'll stop caring.
- In previous games you were basically a silent stranger. Here, your character speaks. A lot. It serves to detach you from the experience. But it's not a big deal - more of an annoyance.

TL;DR

Buy it. The things that are right with it outweigh the things that are wrong with it.

5/18/2012 9:41:13 AM

^ I agree with almost everything stated above.

It's a departure from D2, but the changes unexpectedly grow on you.

5/18/2012 10:05:24 AM

Quote :

"You despise the current condition of video gaming with the rise of the casual (console) market, and the massive dumbing down of your favorite genres all across the board"

5/18/2012 10:13:41 AM

^ May not be you. Probably isn't. But there's a lot of us, and surely someone else is lurking this thread on the fence, as I was. Just reaching out to them.

5/18/2012 10:18:06 AM

Battle net down?

5/18/2012 10:18:51 AM

Thanks Wyloch.

[Edited on May 18, 2012 at 10:21 AM. Reason : -]

5/18/2012 10:20:57 AM

I think the skill system is really only dumbed down in that its more effective across the board. In d2 there were set specs that everyone who played alot knew to use. You could gimp your character if you chose wrong which is really kind of shitty, and doesnt really require any skill or thought to work around. Whereas with the new skill system you can use the stuff suggested by the game, or you can rearrange it to fit your playstyle or specific fights (like switching from aoe to single target dps for a boss fight).

plus i've heard the high end difficulties are seriously hard and if they've been ballanced against the idea of dynamically changing your skills for different fights then it really brings a new level of challenge that wasnt in the original.

So while its definitely more accessible for casuals, its more along the lines of removing bad design ideas instead of straight making it for idiots (i.e. like consoles.).

re: art direction: i think its fine. If anything about the graphics is disapointing its the character models, not the color palette.

5/18/2012 10:33:45 AM

good writeup

I ended up getting the game last night, and I agree with pretty much every point.

5/18/2012 10:37:05 AM

Quote :

"re: art direction: i think its fine. If anything about the graphics is disapointing its the character models, not the color palette."

I appreciated the art direction as I was slogging through the candyland torture chamber streaked with corpses and pools of blood.

5/18/2012 10:46:43 AM

how much are rares on the AH?

like lvl 10-20 stuff.

5/18/2012 10:54:40 AM

^ heh. The economy's so young it's hard to say.

I posted some lvl 13 rares for buyout at around 8000, and they sold.

5/18/2012 10:57:05 AM

yeah it also doesnt help that named legendaries can have randomized stats.

5/18/2012 11:10:14 AM

I got a rare belt off the skeleton king last night. Does he drop rares on a pretty regular basis or what?

5/18/2012 11:12:10 AM

gauranteed on the first boss kill for each difficulty, after that the drop rate seems to be about the same percentage as the other special mobs all over the world.

seems to me like they want to discourage the boss only farming that happened in d2. everyone only did baal and mephisto runs

5/18/2012 11:23:17 AM

so, what does everyone thing will be the focus of the first expansion in a couple of years? lol

5/18/2012 11:34:59 AM

Got a nice set of magic find armor (+36%). Dough is rolling in...

5/18/2012 11:44:54 AM

The pros definitely outweigh the cons for me, but some of the cons just grind me.

-Only 4 players in a game? I guess I'm lucky my core group is 4.

-After an act finishes I can't go back to it? WTH were they thinking. Like we had just finished Act 1 Nightmare and had jumped to Act 2. We took a 30 minute break before continuing. I got back early and wanted to do the Jar of Souls from Act 1 but couldn't port there. Okay...

-Companions only for single player. What?

5/18/2012 11:52:43 AM

Can you join friend or public games from previous acts?

5/18/2012 12:26:21 PM

yes. its just once you are IN the game that you can't port backwards.

5/18/2012 12:28:15 PM

Then it isn't the end of the world. Though it is a minor inconvenience.

5/18/2012 12:29:46 PM

Jesus christ Izual refuses to drop the plan for me. Did it 7 times, 3 times someone else in my group got it. Its mostly annoying because i never die on that fight and other people alllllways do

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

5/18/2012 1:46:15 PM

Companions do shit for damage.. is anything but the Templar good? He has ~2 heals, some sort of stun, and saved me a truckload of gold randomly healing me between bouts of fighting.

I like the Rune variation but some runes just seem completely useless. Would like to see them balance 'unused' spells and runes.

Started Act III and am hoping the story picks up. It's not as bad as SC2, which was just every movie one-liner in history, (I swear to god if they say 'you must look within' in another game I will lose it) but its not THAT hard to make an adequate story. After most of WoW, I don't even care about good, I just want adequate.

5/18/2012 2:01:46 PM

I pretty much kept the enchantress only because i never switched from her lol. I kept the templar until i got the scoundrel, then kept him until her.

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

5/18/2012 2:11:59 PM

Quote :

"Obviously the art direction, a long standing joke during development. It absolutely feels like a candyland version of Diablo, and it's very disappointing."

this is an incredibly annoying complaint.

There is nothing candyland about it. If you actually LOOK at the textures and the models.

D1 and D2 were dark because they had to be or they would have looked even worse than they did. They were drab and uninteresting.

This game has some of the best art direction that ive seen in a game.

The biggest problem with this game is the absolutely retarded UI system they put in. It does nothing well. The biggest thing is that they had the skill UI working great, then changed it to the abomination it is now. Presumably to make it portable to a console.

Also the story is a bit derp.

5/18/2012 2:16:50 PM

i don't suppose anyone knows of a way to still get the collector's edition for $100?

5/18/2012 2:39:06 PM

Quote :

"The biggest problem with this game is the absolutely retarded UI system they put in. It does nothing well. The biggest thing is that they had the skill UI working great, then changed it to the abomination it is now. Presumably to make it portable to a console."

It seems like the idea was to limit the number of skills available at any given time during combat. The thing is, it seems like a very artificial limitation. There's nothing stopping someone from swapping out skills between fights, but doing so is a pain in the ass. I think they should open up another action bar and give people a chance to fully utilize their skills.

5/18/2012 2:48:20 PM

It may be "artificial" but it prevents you from stacking a whole bunch of defensive cooldowns that you could just rotate and be essentially invincible. I think they'd have to seriously increase the cooldowns for wizards if you didn't have to pick and choose between defensive and offensive abilities.

5/18/2012 3:05:23 PM

Quote :

"this is an incredibly annoying complaint. There is nothing candyland about it. If you actually LOOK at the textures and the models. D1 and D2 were dark because they had to be or they would have looked even worse than they did. They were drab and uninteresting. This game has some of the best art direction that ive seen in a game."

Agreed. For a game designed to run on as wide a range of hardware as it is, D3 delivers extremely well in the art department. I would really like to understand what people feel is Candyland about it, b/c after playing through it twice, I think it's delivered beautifully.

Does anyone know when blacksmithing/jewler recipes start dropping?

5/18/2012 3:10:36 PM