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Diablo 3 To Be Released On May 15th
Blizzard announced today that Diablo 3 has finally gotten a release date: May 15th. "After many years of hard work by our development team and months of beta testing by hundreds of thousands of dedicated players around the world, we’re now in the homestretch," said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. This comes after significant changes to the skill and rune systems in the beta, and news that the PvP system would be delayed so that they could focus on finishing the campaign. The game will be available for Windows and Macs, either via a DVD or as a direct download through Battle.net. For those interested, a skill calculator is available to get a feel for what different abilities do, and many of the skills have videos showing how they work.
So am I the only one who read this as the PvP won't be ready at launch and the skill and rune system is so fucking annoying you have to watch a video and use a calculator to figure out how the damn thing works?
ACK
... but will it be as good as NetHack?
UnNetHack: NetHack Improved!
yes
I spent countless hours playing the first two games in the series, but I'm not so sure D3 is shaping up to be a worthy successor. D2 got annoying when they began tweaking things every patch so an awesome character with an amazing set in one patch is suddenly next to useless a patch or two later. Rather than just balancing, they mixed it up far too much. Hopefully the demo (I'm assuming there's a demo) will help me decide whether or not to buy it now or wait for the price to drop in a few years.
They selected their target market as different from the target markets of Diablo and Diablo II. Rather than trying to make the best gaming experience they can, they're looking to maximize profits through real money item trading. So their current target markets are the players who want to buy success, and the professional item farmers who supply them. I do not want to play with either type of person, and even having them around takes all the fun out of the game for me.
Please note: nowhere in the press release does it say may 15th 2012. :)
Just saying
I'm in the beta, there's been a lot of tweaking of the skill system. In the current iteration its pretty straightforward, with the skills broken down into a handful for each spell slot. Runes aren't complicated, each spell has a few runes that unlock as you level and you can choose your spell power-up effect. What I'm seeing in the beta looks promising for the final game.
You WILL have to be online to play single-player, which is annoying, but I'm getting the game for free because of my WoW subscription so I can't really complain except for when our connection goes down. I guess with the quick switch from single into multiplayer as well as the access to the Auction House and chat channels this makes some sense.
Let me preface by saying, I played D1 and D2 to the exclusion of most other games on the market for YEARS. Everything blizzard (not in the warcraft universe) has me from day 1 till long after the fervor dies down. D3 is horrible.
They limited multiplayer to 4 players per game, 8 player just wasn't working. If that continues to production, wow, what a blunder.
The (very simple) skill system doesn't require/allow you to make any hard choices
The stat system doesn't allow you to make ANY choices
The rune system provides the illusion of skill choices in the form of yet another item hunt
Gear is the only way to differentiate from one player of the same class to another (since you don't really controll stat or skill.
So basically you are left with the late game of DIablo 2 from day 1: Constant item hunt/grind.
Not to mention, if you ever start to forget you are playing a game, there is something blatant to pull you back out. In-line tutorial messages like"don't forget you have a right-click attack too!" to "You have found new lore!" the random floating health orbs from kills make it feel like either all players are soul eating demons, or you are playing an 80s platformer.
It honestly feels like a browser game trying to mimic Diablo2 late game (aka once a character was no longer fun to play), except with really really good graphics.
It's like they are trying their very hardest to be different from the core engagement of diablo 2 (aka building and experimenting, not late game item grinding), like they can't even remember that had something like 1.5 Billion in sales with that game.
Granted this is beta, but I just don't see them changing the fundamentals by may.
*click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*
God, I'm so glad I've got my own place now. Two of my previous roommates played Diablo II, and it's easily the most fucking annoying thing on the planet to listen to. Then you go look at it to see if maybe there's some depth there to explain why they're playing. Nope! Click click click. Then, you try it out to see if maybe there's something not apparent just watching over their shoulder. After all, they've been playing it all day every day for the past month, must be something Nope! Click click click click click.
*click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*
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What reading are we getting from the Rape-Your-Customers-O-Meter?
The needle seems to be pegged on "incessant whining but still a roaring success".
Torchlight 1 scratched my Diablo itch in such a perfectly and satisfactory way that I now find myself looking forward to its sequel more than Diablo 3. And I'm not the only one. I doubt the makers of Torchlight will require me to have a constant internet connection just to play a single player, offline game.
Newsflash: Activision bought blizzard. The company focus has changed. MONEY is now the reason to make new games, not FUN.
If the production is anything like the beta, it's even worse than you think. Yes, you have to be constantly connected and you sign in with your Battlenet account. This has obvious disadvantages, but it has the advantage of carrying your characters and settings around with you when you switch systems. I don't mind this so much. What really eats me is the fact that not only do you have to be connected to play, your actions in the game are communicated to and from the server. In other words, every time you press a button, there's a transaction with the server, just like in World of Warcraft. So unlike Starcraft where you could connect on any old shitty connection and then play single player just fine, in Diablo III you will lag even in single player if your connection is poor. It's been a huge problem for me during the beta. It's possible there's something that I don't understand about how to set up my game. Maybe I can avoid this somehow. But if you log in and hit "Start Game" on whatever character while your connection is poor, you'll find the game pretty much unplayable.
I'm truly sad to say that Diablo III just doesn't have me very excited. I put countless hours into both of the previous games, though I never did get much out of Battle.net in Diablo II for whatever reason. For me, it was all about LAN play. The first Diablo made this especially appealing due to its Spawn Installs. Diablo III has no local multiplayer, which is ridiculous in itself. If you want to play by yourself in singleplayer, it requires the internet. So much for playing while you're on the road. The various changes to mechanics, art style, and addition of things like a trading area make it seem like little more than a shadow of World of Warcraft.
Honestly, I'm much more excited for Torchlight 2. I like the first game well enough while on the road, but the non-existent story couldn't hold my interest for much more than that. Thankfully the sequel will have multiplayer (local and online!) and seems to be expanding to overworld areas much like Diablo II did in comparison to the first Diablo. I imagine it's no coincidence that the Torchlight series is spearheaded by all of the major players from the first two Diablo games' development.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Not just DRM.
They need the constant connection to ensure that no one applies hax that would allow them to flood the real money AH.
Remember, ActaVision is using the Blizzard name to normalize people's thinking about real money for gear in games like this. They may not be taking a cut this time - but this opens the door for all future games to have real money for gear all the time.
Check your premises.
ProTIP: When you type 'Derp' in a post, your post does not automatically achieve any sort of edgy or cool factor and undermines any credibility you may have otherwise brought to the discussion. Thanks for playing.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
They selected their target market as different from the target markets of Diablo and Diablo II. Rather than trying to make the best gaming experience they can, they're looking to maximize profits through real money item trading. So their current target markets are the players who want to buy success, and the professional item farmers who supply them. I do not want to play with either type of person, and even having them around takes all the fun out of the game for me.
You've got a serious case of head in sand. Massive hordes of Diablo II players purchased items from third party sites. You played with many of them. You can't fault Blizzard for wanting to make safe an activity that is guaranteed to occur anyway. Nor can you fault them for choosing to appropriate the profit for themselves rather than let some Croatian fly-by-night website have it.
Much the same can be said of a post starting with ProTIP:
Adding "Thanks for playing" falls into the same category.
Multi-player isn't ready, so instead of delaying another 3-6 months to get it just right, they're releasing it anyway. That would be unthinkable with the old (pre-WoW) Blizzard.
They didn't say multi-player isn't ready, they said PvP isn't ready. Cooperative MP is ready, and that's really the big draw of the game anyway. PvP in D2 was a joke, anyway. Considering that they weren't originally planning on PvP in D3 at all, I don't think it's a big loss.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
More likely that you simply are one of the original fans that helped make Blizzard great, and that company no longer exists.
Nah, the company still exists. You just had the wrong idea/expectation of them (or what most companies do)
See, companies only have loyalty to their "customers". They don't actually have a loyalty to *you* specifically.
In 11 years, their "customers" have gone from you, to the people who are 11 years younger than you (and I).
These people (who are 11 years younger than you and I) do not value LAN support as much as you do
These people would have no skill and are lazy in your eyes
These people actually think having a friends list and frills like medals and achievements tied to a single online profile is great for "customer experience", and the concept of DRM is probably beyond them.
You may think they're total idiots for liking any of these stuff, but that's Bliz's "customer" now.
Do you remember a time when you bought/liked something, but your parents or grandparents think there's something wrong with you to spend money on it?
Welcome to their side.
It's the first 12th of the game. I certainly didn't expect to get "hooked". But it's definitely enough to say "Yup, that's Diablo alright." Which it is.
Diablo 1 battle.net servers are still up 16 years later.
If they were only interested in short term gains they would have released Diablo 3 two years ago. And they'd be on the second expansion pack and working on Diablo 4.