New Blizzard game to be announced at Blizzcon?

[bhodi]

If it has loot, I will be there.

[WindupAtheist]

Right about what part?  That it will suck due to cockblocks?  Seems obvious to me.  Did I miss someone disagreeing?

Schild's Diablo love is interfering with his MMO hate.

[Yegolev]

Schild's Diablo love is interfering with his MMO hate.

Yeah, I missed that part.  Still missing it.  I mean, it's either going to be Diablo 3 or World of Diablo.  One of those is guaranteed to have visible stink lines radiating from the retail box... but Diablo 3 just might not suck.  Schild loves Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, but he won't love a reskinned GuildWars or WoW.

[schild]

Actually, Guild Wars could have easily been Diablo Online with minor tweaks and less kekelol. It's the only MMOG of this generation that I've maxxed out and kept playing.

Diablo is Diablo. Diablo Online would just have to be super heavily instanced - or best case, server costs. I'd pay who knows how much if they made a Persistant centralized Diablo type database, but people ran their own servers and paid per user bracket. Man. Shit. I'd love f13 ladders.

[Paelos]

Diablo got it right in the fact that you never had to have a healing class. Why can't other MMOGs figure out that people don't enjoy playing a healer en masse? Just give us enough potions to deal with what we're fighting and get the hell out of my way.

[ajax34i]

So are we talking about a Diablo Franchise, where you, too, could be a Diablo Server Owner/Operator, then?

As far as enough potions to deal with whatever we're fighting:  "You can drink during combat and it will heal you or restore your mana, and you don't have to wait until out of combat like it is with WoW.  However, downtime will consist of needing to take pee breaks after each fight, proportional to how much you drank during the fight.  For the sake of Realism."

[Paelos]

Well I mean hell if we're going for realism, classes of robed people tossing ethereal mending spells on my person while a huge monster doesn't seem to notice at all doesn't exactly strike me as spot on.

[Chimpy]

Well I mean hell if we're going for realism, classes of robed people tossing ethereal mending spells on my person while a huge monster doesn't seem to notice at all doesn't exactly strike me as spot on.

If we are going for realism we would not be playing 99.9% of all video games ever made.

[Yegolev]

Actually, Guild Wars could have easily been Diablo Online with minor tweaks and less kekelol.

Eh, well I'm glad you liked it.  The first sin was lack of loot.  I spent far too much time burning things to just get bug shells.  The second was being boring.  Maybe I should have tried the PvP but that wasn't why I signed up.  As soon as my level-ups slowed down, I started to get suspicious.  When I found myself performing the equivalent of camping on the orc highway but without the respawn mechanic in order to get skills, I just stopped.

As for potions, I never liked that mechanic too much but it is better than the alternatives I suppose.

[UnSub]

Diablo got it right in the fact that you never had to have a healing class. Why can't other MMOGs figure out that people don't enjoy playing a healer en masse? Just give us enough potions to deal with what we're fighting and get the hell out of my way.

Some people do enjoy having healer capabilities; I'd wager that only a small proportion enjoy being a dedicated healer.

[Alkiera]

Although I guess I could go back and finish Titan Quest instead...

I've been doing that.  The only real failing of TQ, to me, is the static areas.  The enemies at least are somewhat random... but the terrain that isn't random is just killer on replay value.  I recently picked up the expansion, which added a number of useful features to the game; caravan as 'bank' available at larger cities, including a space to trade equipment across, enchanter to separate relics from equipment (one or the other is destroyed in the process), etc.  There's also a new act that goes after the defeat of the last boss, that seems pretty decent.  I'm halfway through it or so with my Slayer.  I'm melee spec'd, spear/shield, with onslaught for primary attack, and TakeDown and War Wind for accessory attacks.  It's done pretty well, though a lot of the bosses seem to have a different feel that Diablo... even as a melee character, you can't tank the final boss... his magic just rips you up if you don't dodge, so you spend a lot of the fight running in circles, skirmishing with him.

--
Alkiera

[Xanthippe]

If it has a Horadric Cube, I'll be there.



When I found out WoW's JC did not come with a Horadric Cube, my  .. What a lost opportunity!

[Yegolev]

I see crafting in GW as "Horadric Cube gone bad" so please be careful what you wish for.  Unless I am the only one that didn't like GW crafting.

[Trippy]

I hated it. The item icons were so ugly (yes I know that's an odd thing to complain about), there wasn't nearly enough storage, as usual, and the salvage kits were too expensive.

[schild]

These things seem fixed with the expansion (especially storage. Dropped to $20 today.

[fnddf2]

Diablo got it right in the fact that you never had to have a healing class. Why can't other MMOGs figure out that people don't enjoy playing a healer en masse? Just give us enough potions to deal with what we're fighting and get the hell out of my way.

Some people do enjoy having healer capabilities; I'd wager that only a small proportion enjoy being a dedicated healer.

I guess that's what they were sort of attempting with the paladin, but it never really worked out.  Most paladins were just specced to kill things as fast as possible or for crowd control, just like the other classes.  Diablo always respected the single player in that sense, and I enjoyed that too.  In MMO's, you always get hit and you compensate by healing.  In Diablo, the goal is not to ever get hit because you heal very slowly.

Whatever they decide, I just hope that they don't break the single player portion of it (assuming they retain it).  I don't like being forced to play with other people.

[Typhon]

Diablo got it right in the fact that you never had to have a healing class. Why can't other MMOGs figure out that people don't enjoy playing a healer en masse? Just give us enough potions to deal with what we're fighting and get the hell out of my way.

Or waiting around/begging for someone else to play one.  Preach on brother!

[MrHat]

So I'm thinking Blizzard is going to flunk out on the 8th and just announce the WoW expansion we all know is coming.

[Xerapis]

I hope not.  Even though I really enjoy WOW, I hope they have something better to announce.

Actually, I hope it's not Diablo or Warcraft or Starcraft.  Sure, they're doing well in those.  But I think it's way past time for Blizzard to step out of their comfort zone setting-wise.

[Velorath]

I hope not.  Even though I really enjoy WOW, I hope they have something better to announce.

Actually, I hope it's not Diablo or Warcraft or Starcraft.  Sure, they're doing well in those.  But I think it's way past time for Blizzard to step out of their comfort zone setting-wise.

World of Lost Vikings?  Blackthorne: Ghost?

[Nonentity]

All signs point to at least a Northrend expansion for World of Warcraft.

I'd love to see a Diablo game to compete with Hellgate, though.

[schild]

Northrend is an expansion.

They've been saying it's a new game.

An expansion is not a new game.

[Simond]

I hope not.  Even though I really enjoy WOW, I hope they have something better to announce.

Actually, I hope it's not Diablo or Warcraft or Starcraft.  Sure, they're doing well in those.  But I think it's way past time for Blizzard to step out of their comfort zone setting-wise.

World of Lost Vikings?  Blackthorne: Ghost?

Rock 'n' Roll Racing Online.

[Calantus]

Diablo got it right in the fact that you never had to have a healing class. Why can't other MMOGs figure out that people don't enjoy playing a healer en masse? Just give us enough potions to deal with what we're fighting and get the hell out of my way.

My favourite playstyle of all time is pure support. Damage is a mug's game.

[Margalis]

Support is not the same as healing though.

[Phred]

Just as an exercise, I'll try and think of what the common aspects were between Diablo I and II that an MMO usually doesn't have.

*as mentioned, fighting lots of monsters at once, and lots of loot dropping
*dodging/aiming (fully controlled, real dodging - not done through "rolls") is important
*not getting close to your enemies or surrounded by your enemies is usually important

These traits, I think, will be passed on to the next Diablo.  I would hope that Blizzard would want to keep Diablo III unique in its own way, and not make it too MMO-ish.

I don't remember d1 having a dodge key and I'm pretty damn sure I remember a dodge skill on d2 on my amazon so not sure what you are talking about here.

[UnSub]

"WoW: The Lich King Bringeth Wrath" has been announced.

EDIT:

1) It's actually called "Wrath of the Lich King", but mine is better.

2) It's got Death Knights in it. And Inscribers!

3 Here's the press release

[fnddf2]

Just as an exercise, I'll try and think of what the common aspects were between Diablo I and II that an MMO usually doesn't have.

*as mentioned, fighting lots of monsters at once, and lots of loot dropping
*dodging/aiming (fully controlled, real dodging - not done through "rolls") is important
*not getting close to your enemies or surrounded by your enemies is usually important

These traits, I think, will be passed on to the next Diablo.  I would hope that Blizzard would want to keep Diablo III unique in its own way, and not make it too MMO-ish.

I don't remember d1 having a dodge key and I'm pretty damn sure I remember a dodge skill on d2 on my amazon so not sure what you are talking about here.

In both Diablos, you have to move around a lot to dodge projectiles.  In WoW, moving around makes no difference in dodging projectiles because it's all just stat-based.  I meant that I missed the days when you actually had to move around your character to avoid being hit, instead of it being all stat-based as in WoW.  Having it not stat-based means that twitch matters.

[Calantus]

Support is not the same as healing though.

True. Actually I've been thinking that healing is a broken mechanic lately. I think restricted damage/invuln shields for "healing", then making support about short term buffs/debuffs would make a much better mechanic. That way you get rid of the possibility of infinite fights without having to use the shitty "lol the fight went X seconds so you can't do anything now have fun" mana mechanic.

[Fordel]

But how are 'shields' not healing but with a different name? If I put a barrier up that stops 100 damage, and I toss a heal for 100 damage and give them both a 5 second cool down, there is very little difference in terms of 'how long will this thing live'.

[Calantus]

It's different because it preserves damage already done. If damage gets through it stays on and so if any damage is getting through that person will eventually die. With healing the damage done has to be greater than the healing done in order for them to die, which is why mana becomes necessary so we don't have infinite fights. I also said limited shields for a reason; ideally you wouldn't be able to keep someone shielded permanently. Basically without damage/invuln shields or healing everything is just assist train the squishiest or highest DPS person until everyone is dead and the unlucky people to be targetted first just get to do nothing the whole fight. You need a way to deflect that strategy and make it more about catching the support offguard with fast switches or abusing windows of opportunity to get kills. Failing that at least the damage will eventually kill someone so they can't just rely on turtling up.

[Fordel]

Still sounds your just replacing heals with shields. Any limit you put on the shields, can be placed on the heals and the end result is the same in terms of stuff dieing or not.

The system you've described already exists in GuildWars, and the game doesn't have finite mana, but it has plenty of healing spells and plenty of shielding spells. It's all about 'catching the support offguard with fast switches or abusing windows of opportunity', simply trying to purely burst something down fails, often comically  . You can actually get "infinite healing" in Guildwars.

I just don't think healing itself is broken. Lack of things to heal yes, being totally dependent on others yes, having to conserve a finite resource pool that you can't readily replenish, yes, those all are broken.

But the actual healing? I have my doubts about that being the culprit. If anything, I think everyone should be able to heal/shield, themselves and others.



What was this thread supposed to be about again?  :-D

[Calantus]

Still sounds your just replacing heals with shields. Any limit you put on the shields, can be placed on the heals and the end result is the same in terms of stuff dieing or not.

The system you've described already exists in GuildWars, and the game doesn't have finite mana, but it has plenty of healing spells and plenty of shielding spells. It's all about 'catching the support offguard with fast switches or abusing windows of opportunity', simply trying to purely burst something down fails, often comically  . You can actually get "infinite healing" in Guildwars.

I just don't think healing itself is broken. Lack of things to heal yes, being totally dependent on others yes, having to conserve a finite resource pool that you can't readily replenish, yes, those all are broken.

But the actual healing? I have my doubts about that being the culprit. If anything, I think everyone should be able to heal/shield, themselves and others.



What was this thread supposed to be about again?  :-D

The most interesting threads are the ones that derail. :P

The infinite healing is basically my only problem with healing. It's the same reason why I rage up whenever I'm forced to WSG often enough, battles need an inevitable end because endless battles (where victory is the objective) suck horribly. The problem is that with healing you're always going to run into the possibility of infinite battles unless you impose an artificial end-point, mana being the most common. With shields you just have to make sure a person can't be shielded 100% of the time and they WILL die. It may take a while but at least that inevitability is there. With the same restrictions on healing you still leave the option of that person playing defencively until they can be healed again.

[Big Gulp]

Or waiting around/begging for someone else to play one.  Preach on brother!

*shrug*  I enjoy playing healers, with the caveat that I only enjoy them when I'm consistently playing with people I know.  If not, I'll just play a solo class and go the lone wolf route.  I don't search out friendships/guilds in MMO's.  Either they come pre-existing, or I just don't join in.

[Megrim]

Don't know if this has been posted yet. Bets on Schild going berzerk? I'm taking 3/1 odds here people.