This really just proves that there is not in fact a market for these mid 90s style games. These developers have simply found an alternate avenue for funding the development of games for this extremely niche market. Maybe.
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.
It was a pretty amazing game for a 12 month dev cycle, and I think if they had gone for a full production cycle instead of the accelerated one, they could have ironed out those balance issues through iteration. In fact, those very kinds of polish/balance issues are precisely why Diablo 3 was in a semi-finished beta state for nearly 2 years.
Personally, I could not even finish Torchlight because of the lack of fun in the skills and the poorly developed item system. Hopefully all that extra time spent polishing Diablo 3 will pay off.
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.
You could have just clicked the link and saw how simple the skill system really is. It's even more simple when you gain 1 skill every couple levels and can try them out for a few minutes to decide if you like them (and switch off of them on the fly if you don't) rather than being presented with all 240 or whatever at once (which is actually more like 40 with 6 variants, most of which are as simple as "more damage" or "slightly different trajectory" or "wider area") on a web page with no in-game context.
On the one hand you say bots ruin the game, and on the other you complain about Blizzard shutting down WoW Glider. Well, which is it? Should they support botting or not?
It took ~6 years for WoW server emulators to get to a decent place in emulating the world, and frankly they still suck. Diablo 3 is a bit less complex of a game though, I think, so maybe it won't be as bad.
Actually, the majority of people who buy CoD games do so primarily for the single player. Hard to believe, but true. Having said that, pretty much 99% of gamers are online 24/7 anyway. They gain a very strong anti-piracy tool, clean up their user experience by removing the online/offline split that existed in D2, and add a bunch of features players enjoy and are accustomed to with existing platforms like Steam, PSN, and Xbox Live like "secure" achievements, cloud saves, online presence awareness for friends, etc. It's a lot of wins for the company and the vast majority of users for one very small loss for a few unfortunate souls.
>Complaints like yours are the reason why we get systems like WoW's, where you can click on damn near any random combination of abilities and have a perfectly viable character, and all you have to do to win in combat is press 1-2-3-4.
Unless your definition of "winning" is "reaching the level cap solo and quitting," then this statement is not, and up until this point, has not ever been true about WoW. In the current iteration of the talent system you can still fail to select absolutely critical talents and create a completely unviable build if you truly select at random, assuming you want to complete any raid or dungeon content worth doing or defeat anyone in PvP.
Next expansion you'll be correct about the talents, though. But not about the "clicking 1,2,3,4". Even arcane mage, the epitome of the 2 button class, if you play in raids or PvP instead of just leveling or doing easy dungeons, there is a substantial difference between a player who just hits 1 until they run out of mana then hits 2 and then resumes hitting 1 again and one who actually knows when and how to use their mana return cooldowns optimally, especially adjusting for specific encounter mechanics. I'm talking about doing literally 10x more damage between the first player and the second.
The skill system is actually a lot more simple and intuitive than D2's. Some people just like doing math and deconstructing game systems. They've been doing that since Diablo 1 (and way earlier, like in AD&D and chess).
Slashdot Mirror
This really just proves that there is not in fact a market for these mid 90s style games. These developers have simply found an alternate avenue for funding the development of games for this extremely niche market. Maybe.
The colloquial meaning of harassment is a lot softer than the legal meaning. If they really thought they were legally being harassed they'd be suing.
Stop posting this dumb, paranoid, conspiracy-minded bullshit. EA doesn't actually give a shit about a Consumerist internet anti-popularity poll.
They've specifically said they were planning to add some same-sex relationship options in a future patch.
He'll eat fine when there are 20+ million other people perfectly willing to buy, as will be the case with Diablo 3.
The article states that it also weakens the defenses of blood cells, but that the mice's bodies produced enough replacement blood cells to compensate.
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.
Diablo 1 battle.net servers are still up 16 years later.
It was a pretty amazing game for a 12 month dev cycle, and I think if they had gone for a full production cycle instead of the accelerated one, they could have ironed out those balance issues through iteration. In fact, those very kinds of polish/balance issues are precisely why Diablo 3 was in a semi-finished beta state for nearly 2 years.
Personally, I could not even finish Torchlight because of the lack of fun in the skills and the poorly developed item system. Hopefully all that extra time spent polishing Diablo 3 will pay off.
Bingo. You nailed it for the Slashdot crowd.
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.
You could have just clicked the link and saw how simple the skill system really is. It's even more simple when you gain 1 skill every couple levels and can try them out for a few minutes to decide if you like them (and switch off of them on the fly if you don't) rather than being presented with all 240 or whatever at once (which is actually more like 40 with 6 variants, most of which are as simple as "more damage" or "slightly different trajectory" or "wider area") on a web page with no in-game context.
On the one hand you say bots ruin the game, and on the other you complain about Blizzard shutting down WoW Glider. Well, which is it? Should they support botting or not?
It took ~6 years for WoW server emulators to get to a decent place in emulating the world, and frankly they still suck. Diablo 3 is a bit less complex of a game though, I think, so maybe it won't be as bad.
Actually, the majority of people who buy CoD games do so primarily for the single player. Hard to believe, but true. Having said that, pretty much 99% of gamers are online 24/7 anyway. They gain a very strong anti-piracy tool, clean up their user experience by removing the online/offline split that existed in D2, and add a bunch of features players enjoy and are accustomed to with existing platforms like Steam, PSN, and Xbox Live like "secure" achievements, cloud saves, online presence awareness for friends, etc. It's a lot of wins for the company and the vast majority of users for one very small loss for a few unfortunate souls.
What idiot anticipates GW2 in mid May?
>Complaints like yours are the reason why we get systems like WoW's, where you can click on damn near any random combination of abilities and have a perfectly viable character, and all you have to do to win in combat is press 1-2-3-4.
Unless your definition of "winning" is "reaching the level cap solo and quitting," then this statement is not, and up until this point, has not ever been true about WoW. In the current iteration of the talent system you can still fail to select absolutely critical talents and create a completely unviable build if you truly select at random, assuming you want to complete any raid or dungeon content worth doing or defeat anyone in PvP.
Next expansion you'll be correct about the talents, though. But not about the "clicking 1,2,3,4". Even arcane mage, the epitome of the 2 button class, if you play in raids or PvP instead of just leveling or doing easy dungeons, there is a substantial difference between a player who just hits 1 until they run out of mana then hits 2 and then resumes hitting 1 again and one who actually knows when and how to use their mana return cooldowns optimally, especially adjusting for specific encounter mechanics. I'm talking about doing literally 10x more damage between the first player and the second.
The skill system is actually a lot more simple and intuitive than D2's. Some people just like doing math and deconstructing game systems. They've been doing that since Diablo 1 (and way earlier, like in AD&D and chess).
Didn't you go on that ride they used to have at Disney? Passenger space craft will have lasers to blow up the space debris.
That was my first thought, too. Reading the codex, someone put a LOT of thought into what real space combat with real physics might be like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IzNKIHhp0
I didn't click the link. I was responding directly to this sentence.
Pedantry. It's still nearly nothing compared to the mass of the earth.
It's not the mass of the earth that's being increased 1C, it's the mass of the air near the surface.
>180, you stupid, spaghetti-slurping cretin - *180*! If I did a 720, I'd go completely around and end up back where I started!
Can't tell if this is a *whoosh* or not.