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Diablo 2 Goes Gold
A number of people wrote with the press release from Blizzard that Diablo II has gone gold. I've been playing CowboyNeal's stress copy (Barbarian only) and it's really cool. (CT:Slashdot may be down the week those things hit the shelves ;)
Ah okay. I just hope they're not short ones like in Command & Conquer games :). I can't wait!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
As someone mentioned earlier, the game is more like Diablo 1.5. I've been beta testing it for a few weeks now and although the graphics and gameplay are the same, we really can't say for sure what it is like until it actually ships.
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Remember, this was the beta used to stress test the battle.net servers. We aren't beta testing the final product and as such we haven't seen half the quests, the areas, the monsters, etc. Just a small sliver of what is available. So until the game actually ships, to me anyway, it stays as Diablo 2 and I look foward to it.<br>
-Frijoles-
I'm a game developer so I'd like to chip in on this one:
Most game developers aren't lazy about their code. At least where I work, we strive to keep it as clean as possible - start to finish. It makes it easier for others to work on your code.
Optimization goes in two phases. First and most important - is the planning / design before much of the code gets written. This is the chance to figure out what's going in your game and what algorithms you might need; that sort of thing. Second, you optimize after you're almost done - this usually has limited scope.
What things contribute to bad performance? I'd say bad or overzealous design, tight deadlines, and 3rd party tools that are out of your control. Diablo 2 made the design decision to use a 2D engine. This helps performance in those large fights with hordes of creatures. They decided to limit the game to 640x480 which also favors slower machines. I would say these two choices account for a large portion of their good performance (although they've done some good work on reducing area-load times). Blizzard is not one to push a game out early, but I'd say this is more for gameplay reasons, and less for performance.
Other games may decide to go with a full 3D engine, or whatever. You weigh the pros and cons of each design choice. When you get to the end of the project, sure - a little extra time helps with optimization. But I strongly believe that good design is the key to good performance. At the end of the project, you are fairly limited in the optimizations you can make, regardless of your deadline.
Best regards,
SEAL
he was playing someones else beta!
bad taco!
bad cowboyneil! back to cuba with you!
*hugs*
,
faeryman
That's pretty cool that you'll go ahead and take a week off from telling everyone how cool linux is, how cool people who use linux are, and making money off of a lot of people who use linux - to play a fucking game that's only being released on windows/mac. I appreciate your support, Taco. Thanks, man.
Attention Blue Lang: this is internal support. We have detected a malfunction in your Humor Module: stand by for repairs.
We have also determined that you require updated versions of "Lighten the Hell Up" and "Don't be a Zealot". We recommend you download these into your Soul Kernel at your earliest convienience.
Supposedly it will be out by July 3-5. This is not news from Blizzard, but in their advertising contracts they are set to put out ads on the 5th I believe and they have no option in them to move that date. Of course they could always just advertise and not release, but at least it's a day to look forward to.
I've been saving up weeks of vacation for this....
Hehehe...
-Vel
I'm putting the shipping date in quotes, since it's not in stone, obviously, but I've read of certian web sites (you know, the kind with the rediculous 1-click patents) that are promising shipping on June 30th.
Blizzard has said they will have the game ported to Linux as soon as there are sales figures to support it ... How can you argue with that?
I can ask: if Blizzard is really sincere then why don't they cut a deal with Loki to do the port at Loki's expense, in return for which Loki gets a cut of the royalties? I don't know exactly how Loki's business model works but I imagine it's something like that. No risk for Blizzard. Hardly any risk for Loki either, because they know their market and their programming abilities very well.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Us lucky Stress Testers get to play pretty much right up until we have the retail version. I must go play Diablo II Stress Test now...
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Dear Battle.net Stress Testers,
We wanted to personally notify you that Diablo II has gone gold and the master CDs have been released to manufacturing. We
expect the game to begin shipping to stores worldwide as early as the end of June.
Even though the game has gone gold, the stress test will continue throughout the next couple of weeks. The optimization of
servers is completely independent from the game going gold, so you will continue to see network improvement up until
launch. We also will be sending out access keys to European and Asian gamers shortly, so we can fully test those local
servers prior to the game hitting stores as well.
We encourage you to continue playing over the next few weeks to help us test the servers as much as possible before the
game ships. We will email you prior to the stress test ending.
Thank you for the hours you have committed to playing Diablo II on Battle.net. We hope that you will enjoy the game.
Blizzard Entertainment
While I thought it was cool to get to be a tester, the game didn't impress me much. The servers were down a bunch and even now it's not uncommon to get booted off a game.
:)
:(
The lag is terrible (even with dual-channel isdn), although funny to watch. The thing that might change my mind is if they make it so "going hostile" has to be done by both parties. Once you hit level 9, you can go out in a group only to have some level 14 person come in and go hostile and you have to decide whether you want to back to town and turn off hostile or hope they don't find you
(And lag really hurts here, I once got killed and never even saw the guy who killed me, he was off the screen one second, and I was dead the next, never saw a single swing...
OMG that's a cool page! Gonna hafta give it a try...
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Absolutely, I was one of the closed testers also (look for Seth Bokelman in the game credits :) ) and it was a much more enjoyable experience than the stress test. I've been telling all of my friends that the game is easily worth buying the day it comes out, I wasted numerous hours just playing as the Paladin character class, I never even had time to get into the other four!
There's much more that varies between the character classes than there were in the first game. The skill trees have some really unique stuff to them, I can't wait to see the really high-powered spells that the sorceress and necromancer classes have.
This is a sequel, much like Microsoft's Age of Kings, which is truly much better than it's forebearer, it's not simply a glorified expansion pack, or a couple new features, but a completely new experience, using all of the elements that made the first game a giant success, yet improving every aspect of the gameplay in a logical and much-appreciated manner.
Go Blizzard, I've gotta order my copy now, it's too bad we closed beta folks didn't get a free copy, but TANSTAAFL...
I do wish they hadn't made the closed list public, I got e-mail from people I didn't know asking me if they could get my CD Key, etc.
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Actually, no, not 4, 3. Originally it might have been 4 CDs.. But take a look at this post by Blizzard employee Geoff Frazier.
"70-minute original score of ambient music"
Why did they bother with 70 min?!?! It's ambient music for goodness sake! It could have been 10 min and I wouldn't have noticed a difference.
I'm just going to be playing my mp3s anyway.
Have to find a mouse with super-heavy duty microswitches... :)
...when Diablo II comes out, how many of us would even notice for at least a week? :-)
Yep, I think the single player only installation is smaller.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Oh boy, one of these again..
here's the problem, see Blizzard is a small company. They make what, one game a year at most? (Granted Starcraft was on the top 10 list for over two years which goes to show you how good it was, but ok...)
They don't have the kind of money to make linux versions of the game if the sales aren't going to be there to support it. They've said several times "Show us the sales, and we'll port it." No one to date has been able to show them anything even remotely resembling strong sales of Linux games. The market just isn't there.
A tiny but growing market is still a tiny market. As soon as they think there is money to be made by porting to Linux, you can bet they'll do it.
So far as the "well they never innovate" nonsense, well if you really want to believe that, thats just fine. Personally, I always try to figure out how truly godawful games like anything made by Westwood manages to do so well when stacked up against a masterpiece like Starcraft in the sales department. Of course Tiberian Sun totally died off after a month, so I guess in the end things worked out.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Far too often, outrageous system requirements are a result of the programmers being [too lazy | under too much pressure from Marketing] to take the time to write good, clean code. Hell, if I didn't care about optimisation, I could write my own version of Pong that would need a PIII to get more than 1 fps. (For that matter, the later versions of ZAngband don't run too well on my P200...)
And if length of development were the only thing contributing to system requirements staying low, then Daikatana should be able to run on ENIAC. Blizzard used that time for (among other things) making sure that the engine didn't get out of hand and force the system requirements up too much. The only change from the projected requirements was from a P166 to a P233, and I've heard more than one stress tester report that it runs decently on a P200 (64 meg RAM), and one on a P166 (32 meg). How many games these days can be played reasonably well on less than the "minimum" system? (How many can be played reasonably well on the "recommended" system, for that matter?)
Aero
We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
Diablo 2 goes gold
Oh, come on! It's not even April anymore!
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Blizzard has said they will have the game ported to Linux as soon as there are sales figures to support it. Considering they're a small company and don't have free sources of income (ala Ion Storm), they probably can't afford to port the game if they won't make any money off the port.
How can you argue with that? Once there's enough Linux users who don't just go out and buy the Windows version but instead hold out for a Linux version to make the port profitiable, there will be a port.
Asking a Corporation to deliberately loose money to support an Operating System is pretty silly, you certainly can't expect them to do that unless they think there is PR to be gained from it that will outweigh the cost.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Says who? Kind of arrogant that you speak for the ENTIRE slashdot population and determine that every single one of us uses linux all the time for everything...
I don't think so.. it seems Blizzard has never expressed any interest in supporting Linux
Tell my folks I love 'em, and my work that I'm sick. I'll be playing D2. :)
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+&x
Now, all of my loser friends are going to be playing this game. And, you're telling me that I won't even have Slashdot?!?!?
What kind of a cruel world is this?
I'm going to have to sit around and READ BOOKS while you guys play this damn game.
I will go cry now.
No comment at this time
Yes, the servers went down often. Yes, it may be laggy at times, but what exactly is a stress test?
It's made to stress, even CRASH the servers. With the stress test, Blizzard makes sure it handles a proper load, and this is accomplished through coding and modification of their servers. They WILL take it down in order to do this. People think this will happen in the final version of the game, and believe me, IT WILL NOT happen as often, if at all!
I was a CLOSED beta tester and it wasn't down as much as the stress test! In fact, the closed beta test was awesome! Tons and tons of gameplay (much more expansive than the stress test) and only on about 1/3'rd the game!
IMHO Diablo 2 will be one of the most polished games to ever reach shelves! Don't believe disgruntled stress testers, they just don't interpret what 'stress test' really means!
BTW: for the curious: it seems Blizzard is using SunOS (Solaris?) for their servers. Go Unix..
Depends what you define as reasonable. It still lists windows as a requirement.
Diablo is gonna be a great game, as all Blizzard's games are, and of course they're gonna make a mint =), BUT it's not really doing much to forward the technology of gaming. I've been watching the evolution on Neverwinter Nights for awhile now, and I have to say that Bioware is doing some revolutionary stuff over and above what everyone else is. The biggest Gee Whiz feature of their new system is the Toolkit/Editor that'll allow all you D & D fans to recreate that perfect dungeon from your childhood. I say Bout time. Gaming shifted awhile back from linear, single shot experiences into long-term Unreal and Quake community type of user supported products with full mods. Much like linux, a creative department consisting of a huge user base is far superior to any single or team of artists. By providing the ability for added user-created content, they're prolonging the life and value of the game considerably. Very cool for those on a budget. Plus, they've announced full support for linux, which is an unusual step for a company making PC games. Hopefully, they mean full support at the same time as the Windows release, and not a year later, but hey, we'll take what we can get right? Check it out here:
_ page_856_1.html
http://www.dailyradar.com/features/game_feature
-o Disclaimer: My employer doesn't even agree with me about C indentation style. o-
Everyone gets down on Blizzard because their release date has slipped on Diablo II. They may not make ship dates, but they have been very persistient in trying to release quality games. They have also gone a long way to fix battle.net code to eliminate cheating, all the while keeping battle.net a free service. I think in the end they have given their fans and users great games that have become instant classics.
There might be some trainers, but nothing like what was seen on the first Diablo. That game pretty much worked by hooking four computers together, and with complete trust. If one computer told another, "I just tapped your character witha broken dagger, and I did 999999999999 points of damage!" The second computer would reply, "Oh, okay!" and precede to kill the character. Diablo II works on a completely different way. Closed Characters will live on Blizzard's computers. Calculations are done there. The only way someone could really cheat is to figure out how to hack into Blizzard's computers and control them. That's a ton harder than figuring out how to just talk to another computer. I suppose there could be some trainers, but they won't do much more than things like auto-attack, or display the map, or some small things like that.
With the mulitple character classes, the quest based episodes, and the addition of skills, I certainly think it earns the 2.0 distinction.
The minute to minute gameplay is virtually identical thought (walk around, click on the bad guys, look for loot).
How many people complained that Doom 2 wasn't different enough from Doom 1?
"It's just the same old Malibu Stacy with a new hat."
"But she has a new hat!"
-B
Most client-server games do some calculations on the client side to :
:)
a. reduce server load - this solution scales better.
b. reduce latency and bandwidth
While I know nothing about the internals of D2 I would be very surprised if everything was calculated on the server - or I would expect the game to be laggy to play on a modem.
Even if this is the case, it's still possible to cheat through other means :
a. display game information the client is not supposed to know - but is sent over the network anyway. For example if a player shouldn't see behind a wall this calculation is usually done on the client side.
b. bots can preform repetative task that make a little money and make the player rich.
c. borgs, ala quake
Personally, I'd like to see an online game that *only* bots can play. Then programmers can write all sort of AIs to play against other AIs... and the world is persistant - so the programmers have to concentrate on how to program in dynamic environment. If your program dies - your character dies.
-- Virtual Windows Project
"Nearly 25 minutes of motion picture quality cinematics and a 70-minute original score of
ambient music."
Is it me or is this 25 minutes of motion picture cinematics too short? The introduction is already like 7-8 minutes long. 3 CDs too! Hmm!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
In Diablo II, players return to a dark world plagued by evil forces. After possessing the body of the hero who defeated him, Diablo resumes his nefarious scheme to shackle humanity into unholy slavery by joining forces with the other Prime Evils, Mephisto and Baal.
-For a minute there I thought that was "Doubleclick" not "Diablo".
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Starsucks
At least one good thing came from the long length of time it took to create this new addiction : very reasonable system requirements. This goes to prove that you don't need bleeding edge (and expensive) hardware to play a great game.