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Blizzcon Begins, Diablo 3 Wizard Class Unveiled
The trailer illustrating the new class showed actual gameplay demonstrating the Wizard's spells and abilities, some of which hearken back to the Sorceress in Diablo 2. Attacks such as Meteor and Chain Lightning seem to be returning, and several new spells were seen, including one invoking a spherical shield that seems to alter the flow of time within it, allowing the Wizard to dodge projectiles and approaching enemies with ease. Another spell sends tornadoes storming through the room. Here's Blizzard description of the class from their press release: "The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time."
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It doesn't get any better than this!
The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time.
Sounds a little like... I don't know... a sorceress? Except for that cute "pockets of space outside the normal flow of time". That sounds like Star Trek.
I guess you can't really get away from the spell-flinger archtype in a fantasy RPG. I wonder why they're so keen on changing the classes?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
What I found coolest about Blizzcon so far was something very simple: a container of nickelodeon-style slime with a Hydralisk inside.
Your very own zerg unit, complete with matching creep. I thought it was an excellent example of how Blizzard is very good at taking simple ideas and making them work very well.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Blizzcon, no link provided.
Because if you don't have the bookmark, you must be a noob. Right?
The trailer illustrating the new class showed actual gameplay demonstrating some of the Wizard's abilities -- including the casting of spells
The hell? Can't Blizzard keep any of their lore consistent? Next thing you know, they'll have a "Fighter" class that uses melee weapons or some crazy shit like that.
Worlds largest game developer (arguably) throws a convention where they are profiling their biggest titles (starcraft/warcraft/diablo). Yes, this gets attention.
Quick math:
10,000,000 world of warcraft subscriptions equals:
10,000,000 copies of wow @ $40 a pop = $400,000,000
10,000,000 active subscriptions @ $15 a pop = $1,800,000,000 per year.
We're over 2 billion dollars for 1 game for 1 year (it's been out for 4 years now AND has 1 expansion out with another releasing).
This isn't some rinkidink little company, they ARE the mmo scene AND the RTS scene (arguably).
It makes news, sorry.
P.S. Did you not get to go to Blizzcon? If that was just a rant, there is still time to fly down for tomorrows show.
Yes, but you'll have to learn to run through walls to even get on the train that takes you there.
Places that teach magic:
http://www.chiropracticschools.com/
http://www.ncnm.edu/
http://www.homeopathyschool.com/
woowoo! all aboard the woo woo train.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He's AC for obvious reasons.. But food for thought. People paying money for something they want isn't a new concept. Some people spend wayyy more than that a month on booze and/or cigarettes.
Why bash someone for paying a nominal amount of money for entertainment?
"Starcraft 2 was not yet ready for beta"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tim5nU3DwIE
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Agreed, and I used rough numbers all around. Fact of the matter is that WoW is a billion+ dollar making game which was put out by a company that puts out #1 ranked titles year after year.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/94051-ride-out-the-recession-with-activision-blizzard
"For the full year ended March 2008, Activision had revenue of $2.8 billion, operating margins of 16.55% and operating income of $479.61 million. For the calendar year 2007, Blizzard's revenue was $1.2 billion, up 58% year-over-year. Operating margins at Blizzard were estimated at 40% in the Vivendi press release announcing the spin-off. The combined company reported revenue of over $1 billion in the June quarter and according to this BusinessWeek article, Activision Blizzard is projected to have annual revenues of nearly $4.5 billion."
Check the link.
A: Any shut-in, fat virgin would be lucky to grind some pants.
Speaking of which... it's all , including game trailors.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Oblivion also had dynamic dificulty, that could easily be abused.
Yep. Oblivion's auto-scaling was on a whole different level of crapola. Let me count the ways:
* When your skills increased, you increased in power. When your level increased, the enemies increased. If you simply avoided sleeping, the game became easier and easier. I normally don't mind obscure "exploits" in single-player games (I tend not to actively seek them out), but this was ridiculous.
* Certain missions (like the Kvatch mission) had NPCs that didn't scale up with the monsters. When I first played the game, I ran around and leveled up quite a bit before that mission. The enemies scaled up so bloody far above the guards it was an absolute massacre. I eventually realized one NPC was unkillable, so I hid in a corner while he fought, died, and was resurrected about a thousand times over the course of few hours.
* Since enemies (and rewards) level up with you, there's absolutely zero point to running around the world, delving into dungeons, and getting more powerful.
* Bandits eventually are routinely seen wearing *glass armor* (most expensive and best light armor in the game, worth many thousands of gold). Yet they still stop you and demand 100 gold, just like when they were wearing rags earlier in the game.
The point is, it's easy to say "scale difficulty with the player", but I think it's actually fairly hard to do in practice without potentially causing other issues. Oblivion just happened to be the poster-boy for this sort of system destroying an otherwise really cool game for me. I really wish they had just used the following simple rule to scale difficulty in the game: the farther you are from civilization, the harder the enemies get and the greater the rewards dropped.
At least I'm pretty certain Blizzard would never do anything this boneheaded...
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.