Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

[undetz]

And what does any of that have to do with only allowing 4 people into the same game?

So now it's the maximum amount of players per game session? Have you read Blizzard's official post about why they designed it that way? It was originally five players, now it is down to four players.

No, not "now", that's what it started with. Then Havoc made a retarded comment to which the only sensible reaction was stupidity of a different kind. If you were capable of removing your head from your rectum for 5 minutes and reading the thread before posting you might even have noticed it.

[costi]

Edit -- Official Post by Blizzard on Skills and Runes. You gotta love what they're doing ... Skill Runes are being resolved to not take bag space. Excellent feature.

LOVE? You must be joking... dunno if you noticed, but there are no "runes" anymore, just unlockable perks. Sorry, not unlockable, as that implies choice or player action - they just unlock themselves on a given level. Basically, each character of any given class will be exactly the same, since all the skill and "runes" unlock automatically with levels - there's no choice or customization here.
The only thing that makes you character different from others, and the only random element left to the game, is gear.

Where is the fun in that?

[Tatsujin]

And what does any of that have to do with only allowing 4 people into the same game?

Because Bioware showed that a successful party can be made of 4 players instead of 5.
1 tank, 2 DPS and a healer is more than enough.

Though I didn't read on their motivation to this decision, I feel that the more players the better. But sometimes that rule can be inaccurate.

If more classes would be added to the game later on, and probably will, this could be increased to 5, but very unlikely.

The decision for Blizzard wasn't for "tank dps healer" shit for hack and slash games. All classes have offensive, defensive, tactical and energy generators and spenders.

Edit -- Official Post by Blizzard on Skills and Runes. You gotta love what they're doing ... Skill Runes are being resolved to not take bag space. Excellent feature.

LOVE? You must be joking... dunno if you noticed, but there are no "runes" anymore, just unlockable perks. Sorry, not unlockable, as that implies choice or player action - they just unlock themselves on a given level. Basically, each character of any given class will be exactly the same, since all the skill and "runes" unlock automatically with levels - there's no choice or customization here.
The only thing that makes you character different from others, and the only random element left to the game, is gear.

Where is the fun in that?

I'm okay with that. There's a lot of other things to worry about. They may as well just have you pay to reinstate a Rune Skill or have you do a quest to achieve it or get specific items to unlock it at a certain level. But I'll have to agree with their decision. Your bags would be full of different runes at some point.

And what does any of that have to do with only allowing 4 people into the same game?

So now it's the maximum amount of players per game session? Have you read Blizzard's official post about why they designed it that way? It was originally five players, now it is down to four players.

No, not "now", that's what it started with. Then Havoc made a retarded comment to which the only sensible reaction was stupidity of a different kind. If you were capable of removing your head from your rectum for 5 minutes and reading the thread before posting you might even have noticed it.

This is what I was replying to:

Inferno doesn't scare me.

And you followed with:

So you agree with Havoc then and are gonna tickle them to death.

I did miss on the player cap, but you didn't need to be such a fucking asshole about it. Right?

Everytime Blizzard changes something about their game while it is still not out, people bitch and whine about it. Yet, in the very end, your money is going to go in their pockets.

The one thing I hated about Diablo 3 in the previous patches was the fact that you had to salvage almost everything you carry, had to go back to town to change skills and not able to sell things you wanted (specifically those lower than magical items). They fixed all three so I'm happy about that.

[costi]

I'm okay with that. There's a lot of other things to worry about. They may as well just have you pay to reinstate a Rune Skill or have you do a quest to achieve it or get specific items to unlock it at a certain level. But I'll have to agree with their decision. Your bags would be full of different runes at some point.

Well, that's where the player storage and auction house come in. As it stands now, the variables (ie. randoms and things left to player choice) in the game are almost non-existent:
D1: Stats points, skill books, spell levels, gear, elixirs/quest rewards, shrines.
D2: Stats points, skill tree, spell levels, gear, gems/runes, elixirs/quest rewards, charms/inventory items.
D3: Gear, gems.

I also don't understand the decision to allow free mapping of skills as an option - do they consider players to be so dumb they need to hav free choice hidden, so they don't select a wrong build and then whine in the forums? Seriously...

If it wasn't for the loot you might as well run a script to play for you, since everything else is predetermined. Hopefully they will do something to add some variety here, but I'm commenting on the current status.

BTW. this one actually got me thinking with regards to the new system and interface:
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5962/easymode.png

[Havoc10K]

Looks like torchlight ...

[SeventyX7]

I'll admit, I'm a little worried they might fall into the "streamlining" trap of making the game so stupid it isn't any fun.  COUGH COUGHDragonAge2COUG H COUGH

[SilverDash]

Mmm 4 players... Reminds me of Diablo I. It's probably because of the physics I guess. Physics are always a problem for multiplayer games. Personally I'll skip on D3. Mostly money wise but also because I don't think it's anymore what I liked about D1 and D2. I can always buy it in 5 years for 10$ to make it up hehe. But I'm not really satisfied with the latest Blizzard games compared to the early days of Blizzard. They must first 'make it up with me' before I'll buy a Blizzard game again I think.

Btw, for those that liked Diablo 1, try playing Diablo I - The Hell mod. Even on the first 3 levels you will probably die. It's the mod that really makes Diablo 1 (REALLY) hard and fixes the most annoying things and bugs the original one had. Using Tunngle you can even multiplayer it. There are still people playing it.

[newy]

BTW. this one actually got me thinking with regards to the new system and interface:
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5962/easymode.png

Weren't these "innovations" obvious from the moment they "improved" the skill system the very first time? Every change had console written all over it... and the latest "improvement" lets me tend to wait for budget. Although I played with the thought to pre-order the CE...

[Havoc10K]

Visual Improvement at the cost of content amount degradation.

(click to show/hide)

This is what is being served to us this past decade.

Not going to hold my breath anymore. Blizzard is strong enough to release their own games. But after WoW Burning Crusade, everything is just crap. Starcraft II stood up to being what it used to be, but there was hardly anything to break, all elements were there from start, and improving visuals was a given.

Diablo 2 was an excellent game in terms of skill variety and gameplay styles, allowing for some real hardcore experience during gameplay, lots of fun, and lots of building up your power to defeat weak and stronger enemies.

Diablo 3 is just going to deliver a somewhat fulfilling story that was technically started in D2. After shattering the stone the gates between demonworld and human world opened allowing free access to both sides. Now we just have to do something about it. The last remaining Horadrim is still alive, even though so much time went by, he should be a walking skeleton for a century already. Proving again that he is not a Human. And what will the end of Diablo 3 give us ?

Another unfinished game, because the Expansion will deliver it.

Who is to blame in the seriously retarded game industry ?
Players that want things to be easy to move around, but then complain the game is too easy, and when that is changed, they complain they can't do squat because their dead brains can't do a thing without cheating or exploits once they find out about them.

Games like Diablo will always be either too easy or so hard (for the retards) that they won't touch them.

At least people are calling total failures games of the year even though the year just started. Blizzard waits for god knows what even though we know they will make 30+ patches for the game to fix what is not broken and break what is working perfectly well.

So a blue poster says the changes will improve gameplay ? how many times we heard that from Blizzard employees ? and how many times it turned out to be the opposite ?

New innovative systems are not innovative at all, challenging enemies are not challenging as well.
Gaming industry is in a stagnant state and everyone who knows how to heal it is being ignored because rich corporations want to be richer by providing easy, expensive excuse of entertainment to the masses that have no idea what true gaming entertainment is. And it's not because everything that's enjoyable has already been used.

You all got used to nice cutting-edge quality graphic designs, high definition details, beautiful landscapes and incredibly well done effects you all forgot what gaming entertainment really is.

This is why I continue to play old games from Snes, gameboy advance, PS1 and PS2. Some old games for PC as well (while they still work). Because the stories in those ugly games are 10 million times better than the table leftovers being thrown at your feet you call "awesome games!" are.

It'll be several decades before a real innovative game developer shatter the minds of little and huge corporations like Squaresoft did decades ago with their new Snes games and later on with their vision of Final Fantasy 7 and Legend of Dragoon that triggered development of games on a whole new dimension.

All of us will be probably dust by that time, but saying that this shit being given to us right now is awesome just because it has graphics on a super high level is just being silly.

Tatsujin, go ahead and defend your Diablo 3 experience, your Final Fantasy XIII-2 and your FF Versus. But you should know that all this has nothing to do with what those titles were that made them all so popular. These games you call great and amazing that you cling to right now are nothing else but a dead shadow drooling over the brains it eats from people that have no idea what real games are about.

It's really not that hard to make an excellent game, I could write dozens scripts and design game's elements and battle systems, character growth and enemy design and abilities. But what use it would be if in the making someone on top would just say it's taking too long and costing too much, release as is of make it stupid because we want money?

Many great idea have been dumped or changed to unimaginable levels and released as complete crap opposite to the original concept.

Why do you think "Alice: Madness returns" was developed completely in a foreign country by a studio that was not fairly well known and people that you never heard of ? and why it took so damn long ? Because McGee couldn't stand his american dream shattering his own work for profit. The game battle system was never important in both games, just the story counted. And it delivered one that was incredibly good. Gameplay, although flawed, was still fun and in many places challenging. But it was not received well by console players. And why ? because their dead brains couldn't solve half the puzzles.

Every 10 years you can count on the fingers of your hand the amount of really good games that deliver a good story, and a fair gameplay. But the past decade only had around 5 of them, and this decade is 2 years in, and doesn't have anything really outstanding.

I'm prepared to take responsibility for this post. But don't tell me cutting off character customizing which in this kind of game is the only thing that separates you from other copies of yourself something good.

[blubart]

i haven't followed the news around diablo3 for a while: would someone mind explaining to me how forcing spells into specific categories and associated keybindings makes the game any better or coherent than a simple list where i can choose my spells from?

it seems like if i (as a mage) now would want to have arcane orb as my primary attack, frost nova on my second mouse button and Electrocute on 1 i would have to: activate "elective mode" in the settings, open the skills window, enter the primary window, switch in the primary window to the secondary spells, select arcane orb, go back to the skills window, enter the secondary window, switch in the secondary window to the defense spells, select frost nova, go back to the skills window, enter the defense window, switch in the defense window to the primary spells, select electrocute, close the defense window, close the skills menu.
that sounds horrible in comparison to: open skills window, select spell1, select spell2, select spell3, close window.

[SeventyX7]

Has anyone seen the videos IGN posted of GW2?

http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1219059p1.html

Honestly, I'm more excited for GW2, now.  It looks SO much better than D3.

[Havoc10K]

i haven't followed the news around diablo3 for a while: would someone mind explaining to me how forcing spells into specific categories and associated keybindings makes the game any better or coherent than a simple list where i can choose my spells from?

it seems like if i (as a mage) now would want to have arcane orb as my primary attack, frost nova on my second mouse button and Electrocute on 1 i would have to: activate "elective mode" in the settings, open the skills window, enter the primary window, switch in the primary window to the secondary spells, select arcane orb, go back to the skills window, enter the secondary window, switch in the secondary window to the defense spells, select frost nova, go back to the skills window, enter the defense window, switch in the defense window to the primary spells, select electrocute, close the defense window, close the skills menu.
that sounds horrible in comparison to: open skills window, select spell1, select spell2, select spell3, close window.

Hardcore players have a use for nearly all spells, for instance:
In D2 frost mage:
chaining attacks like in frost orb+icicle + frost orb + frost bolt, and so on.

In D3, you can hardly call chaining attacks chains when you only have so little attacks. We like varieties but we aren't given any choice. All players will be using generic characters and the only difference is going to be in gear.

It's sad.

[SilverDash]

Visual Improvement at the cost of content amount degradation.

(click to show/hide)

This is what is being served to us this past decade.

Not going to hold my breath anymore. Blizzard is strong enough to release their own games. But after WoW Burning Crusade, everything is just crap. Starcraft II stood up to being what it used to be, but there was hardly anything to break, all elements were there from start, and improving visuals was a given.

Diablo 2 was an excellent game in terms of skill variety and gameplay styles, allowing for some real hardcore experience during gameplay, lots of fun, and lots of building up your power to defeat weak and stronger enemies.

Diablo 3 is just going to deliver a somewhat fulfilling story that was technically started in D2. After shattering the stone the gates between demonworld and human world opened allowing free access to both sides. Now we just have to do something about it. The last remaining Horadrim is still alive, even though so much time went by, he should be a walking skeleton for a century already. Proving again that he is not a Human. And what will the end of Diablo 3 give us ?

Another unfinished game, because the Expansion will deliver it.

Who is to blame in the seriously retarded game industry ?
Players that want things to be easy to move around, but then complain the game is too easy, and when that is changed, they complain they can't do squat because their dead brains can't do a thing without cheating or exploits once they find out about them.

Games like Diablo will always be either too easy or so hard (for the retards) that they won't touch them.

At least people are calling total failures games of the year even though the year just started. Blizzard waits for god knows what even though we know they will make 30+ patches for the game to fix what is not broken and break what is working perfectly well.

So a blue poster says the changes will improve gameplay ? how many times we heard that from Blizzard employees ? and how many times it turned out to be the opposite ?

New innovative systems are not innovative at all, challenging enemies are not challenging as well.
Gaming industry is in a stagnant state and everyone who knows how to heal it is being ignored because rich corporations want to be richer by providing easy, expensive excuse of entertainment to the masses that have no idea what true gaming entertainment is. And it's not because everything that's enjoyable has already been used.

You all got used to nice cutting-edge quality graphic designs, high definition details, beautiful landscapes and incredibly well done effects you all forgot what gaming entertainment really is.

This is why I continue to play old games from Snes, gameboy advance, PS1 and PS2. Some old games for PC as well (while they still work). Because the stories in those ugly games are 10 million times better than the table leftovers being thrown at your feet you call "awesome games!" are.

It'll be several decades before a real innovative game developer shatter the minds of little and huge corporations like Squaresoft did decades ago with their new Snes games and later on with their vision of Final Fantasy 7 and Legend of Dragoon that triggered development of games on a whole new dimension.

All of us will be probably dust by that time, but saying that this shit being given to us right now is awesome just because it has graphics on a super high level is just being silly.

Tatsujin, go ahead and defend your Diablo 3 experience, your Final Fantasy XIII-2 and your FF Versus. But you should know that all this has nothing to do with what those titles were that made them all so popular. These games you call great and amazing that you cling to right now are nothing else but a dead shadow drooling over the brains it eats from people that have no idea what real games are about.

It's really not that hard to make an excellent game, I could write dozens scripts and design game's elements and battle systems, character growth and enemy design and abilities. But what use it would be if in the making someone on top would just say it's taking too long and costing too much, release as is of make it stupid because we want money?

Many great idea have been dumped or changed to unimaginable levels and released as complete crap opposite to the original concept.

Why do you think "Alice: Madness returns" was developed completely in a foreign country by a studio that was not fairly well known and people that you never heard of ? and why it took so damn long ? Because McGee couldn't stand his american dream shattering his own work for profit. The game battle system was never important in both games, just the story counted. And it delivered one that was incredibly good. Gameplay, although flawed, was still fun and in many places challenging. But it was not received well by console players. And why ? because their dead brains couldn't solve half the puzzles.

Every 10 years you can count on the fingers of your hand the amount of really good games that deliver a good story, and a fair gameplay. But the past decade only had around 5 of them, and this decade is 2 years in, and doesn't have anything really outstanding.

I'm prepared to take responsibility for this post. But don't tell me cutting off character customizing which in this kind of game is the only thing that separates you from other copies of yourself something good.

I Agree with some of that. It's just that I think that Starcraft II also failed a bit. It's well balanced but not what I expected. Maybe my expectations were too high. But yeah, most good games from roughly 15 years ago were much harder to beat, had usually smarter AI's and better level design. Now it's all about $$$$ and getting as much as possible of that.

[costi]

I wouldn't glorify AI in old games, it was usually non-existent and heavily scripted. There were a few notable exceptions, like the first Unreal, but generally it was scripts + a bit of unfair advantage.
Anyone remember the way Homeworld 2 worked?

[Tatsujin]

Looks like torchlight ...

In the name of God. I order you to stop talking about that shitty game.

Mmm 4 players... Reminds me of Diablo I. It's probably because of the physics I guess. Physics are always a problem for multiplayer games. Personally I'll skip on D3. Mostly money wise but also because I don't think it's anymore what I liked about D1 and D2. I can always buy it in 5 years for 10$ to make it up hehe. But I'm not really satisfied with the latest Blizzard games compared to the early days of Blizzard. They must first 'make it up with me' before I'll buy a Blizzard game again I think.

Btw, for those that liked Diablo 1, try playing Diablo I - The Hell mod. Even on the first 3 levels you will probably die. It's the mod that really makes Diablo 1 (REALLY) hard and fixes the most annoying things and bugs the original one had. Using Tunngle you can even multiplayer it. There are still people playing it.

You need to spend more time watching Youtube videos and following on what this game is all about. I've already explained how physics work in the game few pages back. If it's about money, then that is not a problem.

Has anyone seen the videos IGN posted of GW2?

http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1219059p1.html

Honestly, I'm more excited for GW2, now.  It looks SO much better than D3.

I am also psyched about Guild Wars 2. Looks really, really good. Have you seen the character creations? Absolutely mind blowing. I was carefully looking through the videos and seeing if any of the character's body parts would go through their skin - specially their hair. So far, none. I hope there will be none while playing in-game.

Visual wise compared between D3 and Guild Wars 2 - they're both different games. I'll have to play both games to judge them. Physics, ability and animation wise is pretty bad ass in Diablo 3. I can't comment on Guild Wars 2 until I play it myself. Are there any gathering and crafting professions in Guild Wars 2?

i haven't followed the news around diablo3 for a while: would someone mind explaining to me how forcing spells into specific categories and associated keybindings makes the game any better or coherent than a simple list where i can choose my spells from?

it seems like if i (as a mage) now would want to have arcane orb as my primary attack, frost nova on my second mouse button and Electrocute on 1 i would have to: activate "elective mode" in the settings, open the skills window, enter the primary window, switch in the primary window to the secondary spells, select arcane orb, go back to the skills window, enter the secondary window, switch in the secondary window to the defense spells, select frost nova, go back to the skills window, enter the defense window, switch in the defense window to the primary spells, select electrocute, close the defense window, close the skills menu.
that sounds horrible in comparison to: open skills window, select spell1, select spell2, select spell3, close window.

Hardcore players have a use for nearly all spells, for instance:
In D2 frost mage:
chaining attacks like in frost orb+icicle + frost orb + frost bolt, and so on.

In D3, you can hardly call chaining attacks chains when you only have so little attacks. We like varieties but we aren't given any choice. All players will be using generic characters and the only difference is going to be in gear.

It's sad.

I want you to show me proof of what you just said. I am very, very serious.

I've played 4 different classes - haven't and will never play Witch Doctor until the game releases, and it will be the very last class I'll play and level. With all 4 different classes, everything you mentioned Havoc is the complete opposite.

You're given limited choices. You can chain your attacks. You build your energy through the generators, release them through the spenders. You have defensive abilities to use - every class has a unique defensive ability that is not the same as the other classes. Tactics - they're all different, barely any of them are the same. Offensive - Different attacks, barely any of them are the same.

Do not guess or comment on something you have yet to have any knowledge on or even try, please.

@blubart Your primary skill, which is your left click on your mouse, is restricted with or without Elective Mode to choose on offensive attacks. Anything that buffs, debuffs or otherwise is a tactical skill won't be chosen on your left click - makes sense. Right? Everything on your Secondary (right click) and buttons on your keyboard between 1 to 4 can be changed to whatever you desire providing that you enabled Elective Mode.

Also, given that you can't choose more than 6 abilities in a single time is a smart way to select the necessary abilities and play intelligently. It makes the game more interesting. You are able to swap skills on the fly including Rune Skills, but it will set a 15 second cooldown only on that new skill (or rune skill) that you swapped in.

Video demonstration on Elective Mode - I made it, enjoy.

[blubart]

@blubart Your primary skill, which is your left click on your mouse, is restricted with or without Elective Mode to choose on offensive attacks. Anything that buffs, debuffs or otherwise is a tactical skill won't be chosen on your left click - makes sense. Right? Everything on your Secondary (right click) and buttons on your keyboard between 1 to 4 can be changed to whatever you desire providing that you enabled Elective Mode.

Also, given that you can't choose more than 6 abilities in a single time is a smart way to select the necessary abilities and play intelligently. It makes the game more interesting. You are able to swap skills on the fly including Rune Skills, but it will set a 15 second cooldown only on that new skill (or rune skill) that you swapped in.

Video demonstration on Elective Mode - I made it, enjoy.

i'm not sure if you read my post, but i'm perfectly aware how the system works atm, especially with elective mode (you could've guessed from the fact that i precisely described the process on how to set up those skills).
my question was how this new interface with arbitrary categories (wizards "arcane" that does not include arcane orb, etc. pp.) that are bound to specific shortcuts is supposed to be an improvement over the single list where you could pick 6 active skills from a single window popping up to the right, displaying all of them?
that's neither smart, nor intelligent, nor interesting. it's just a huge waste of time clicking through crappy named categories (once you use elective mode - which any decent player probably would) and sub sub menus as far as i can tell.

[Tatsujin]

@blubart Your primary skill, which is your left click on your mouse, is restricted with or without Elective Mode to choose on offensive attacks. Anything that buffs, debuffs or otherwise is a tactical skill won't be chosen on your left click - makes sense. Right? Everything on your Secondary (right click) and buttons on your keyboard between 1 to 4 can be changed to whatever you desire providing that you enabled Elective Mode.

Also, given that you can't choose more than 6 abilities in a single time is a smart way to select the necessary abilities and play intelligently. It makes the game more interesting. You are able to swap skills on the fly including Rune Skills, but it will set a 15 second cooldown only on that new skill (or rune skill) that you swapped in.

Video demonstration on Elective Mode - I made it, enjoy.

i'm not sure if you read my post, but i'm perfectly aware how the system works atm, especially with elective mode (you could've guessed from the fact that i precisely described the process on how to set up those skills).
my question was how this new interface with arbitrary categories (wizards "arcane" that does not include arcane orb, etc. pp.) that are bound to specific shortcuts is supposed to be an improvement over the single list where you could pick 6 active skills from a single window popping up to the right, displaying all of them?
that's neither smart, nor intelligent, nor interesting. it's just a huge waste of time clicking through crappy named categories (once you use elective mode - which any decent player probably would) and sub sub menus as far as i can tell.

Oh that. I agree. I'll make a post and see if they'd give us an option to go back to the simpler one-screen tool to use.

[Havoc10K]

i don't need to prove anything because you just said it. choices are very limited and everyone will just use the best skills making online game with the same character classes pretty much identical and that is typical for games that receive very limited set of choices.
 
what is so bad about torchlight? its not perfect and its not hiding it but its made by exblizzard so maybe you overreact a little

[undetz]

I want you to show me proof of what you just said. I am very, very serious.

I've played 4 different classes - haven't and will never play Witch Doctor until the game releases, and it will be the very last class I'll play and level. With all 4 different classes, everything you mentioned Havoc is the complete opposite.

You're given limited choices. You can chain your attacks. You build your energy through the generators, release them through the spenders. You have defensive abilities to use - every class has a unique defensive ability that is not the same as the other classes. Tactics - they're all different, barely any of them are the same. Offensive - Different attacks, barely any of them are the same.

Do not guess or comment on something you have yet to have any knowledge on or even try, please.

You know... what Havoc was complaining about was that every character of any given class will be virtually the same, not that all classes are the same. Reading comprehension certainly isn't your strong suit.

[costi]

In the name of God. I order you to stop talking about that shitty game.

What was wrong with Torchlight? It was a very fun game that ran on practically everything.

BTW. you might want to get out and breathe some fresh air, you're getting incredibly worked up over nothing.