Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Velorath]

What's the point of making a sequal that is far removed from its predicessors? The Diablo formula works, and fans of Diablo want more Diablo. I'd rather they deliver Diablo 3 than some other game set in the Diablo universe and labeled Diablo 3. If they want to make a wholly different game type they can make a new franchise or create a spinoff game. Diablo 3 should be like Diablo and Diablo 2, only better.

The counterpoint to that is that if you make a sequel that's too close to its predecessor the franchise becomes stale.  By the time Diablo 3 comes out, it will have been around a decade since Diablo 2 released.  What videos we've seen so far don't look like a decade's worth of improvements.  Right now it looks like something that could have been released 3 or 4 years after Diablo 2.  If all Blizzard has up their sleeve is a slight improvement over Diablo 2 (and I'm aware that the release is still aways off and Blizzard could have a lot of surprises in store) than I'd have rather they just released more D2 expansion packs instead of putting this much time into developing a sequel.

The main thing Diablo has going for it right now is that there isn't a lot of competition in the genre, although that also means that there haven't been a lot of advancements that Blizzard can borrow and polish.

[Trippy]

The counterpoint to that is that if you make a sequel that's too close to its predecessor the franchise becomes stale.  By the time Diablo 3 comes out, it will have been around a decade since Diablo 2 released.  What videos we've seen so far don't look like a decade's worth of improvements.  Right now it looks like something that could have been released 3 or 4 years after Diablo 2.

No, they couldn't have. Translating Diablo into a 3D environment is no easy task. If you look at the current Diablo "clones" out there (which aren't really at all like Diablo except for the loot) like Titan Quest you'll see they all cheat by only having you fight a handful of monsters, if that, at a time, and as a consequence the combat in those games feels nothing at all like that in Diablo. You could of course add more monsters on screen by dramatically lowering the number of polygons used but then you lose the "look" of Diablo with its detailed pre-rendered sprites and environments and it becomes more like WCIII in appearence.

[rk47]

GTA 2 to GTA 3 was a major leap. The formula is the same with a major addition of 3rd dimension  and sbetter story telling. Jack a car, shoot things in a sandbox formula of GTA remains the same with more and more feature added.

I hope D3 will not fail to surprise.

[Ironwood]

The down side to all this is I'm currently playing d2 and thinking things like 'Curse this two button shit.  Where's my 4 other hotkeys to Curse, poison AND corpse explode ??!'

Sigh.

[Ratman_tf]

The counterpoint to that is that if you make a sequel that's too close to its predecessor the franchise becomes stale.  By the time Diablo 3 comes out, it will have been around a decade since Diablo 2 released.  What videos we've seen so far don't look like a decade's worth of improvements.  Right now it looks like something that could have been released 3 or 4 years after Diablo 2.

No, they couldn't have. Translating Diablo into a 3D environment is no easy task. If you look at the current Diablo "clones" out there (which aren't really at all like Diablo except for the loot) like Titan Quest you'll see they all cheat by only having you fight a handful of monsters, if that, at a time, and as a consequence the combat in those games feels nothing at all like that in Diablo. You could of course add more monsters on screen by dramatically lowering the number of polygons used but then you lose the "look" of Diablo with its detailed pre-rendered sprites and environments and it becomes more like WCIII in appearence.

I think that's really close to the mark. Blizzard could have half-assed a 3-D Diablo, but they waited until the average computer could run the graphics of having lots of decently detailed monsters. (And they're not uber detailed. Take a look at the monster entries from the D3 website.)

[Sunbury]

1997 called, it wants its isometric display back...

I'll never buy/play a game that enemies can shoot at you from 'off screen' when they should be trivally visible from your characters point of view.

I don't care about number of polygons in the mob models, I just want to see them, but not from a high overhead odd angle perspective.

[schild]

1997 called, it wants its isometric display back...

I'll never buy/play a game that enemies can shoot at you from 'off screen' when they should be trivally visible from your characters point of view.

I don't care about number of polygons in the mob models, I just want to see them, but not from a high overhead odd angle perspective.

I can't even think of that happening once in Diablo 2 unless you're running away from a boss and they've already attacked (diablo's ring attack comes to mind). They always run on screen and attack.

[Dr. Spoons]

1997 called, it wants its isometric display back...

I'll never buy/play a game that enemies can shoot at you from 'off screen' when they should be trivally visible from your characters point of view.

I don't care about number of polygons in the mob models, I just want to see them, but not from a high overhead odd angle perspective.

I can't even think of that happening once in Diablo 2 unless you're running away from a boss and they've already attacked (diablo's ring attack comes to mind). They always run on screen and attack.

The Glooms from Act IV can blast you with lightning from a screen or two away but I believe they are the only mob that can do that.

[Hawkbit]

The down side to all this is I'm currently playing d2 and thinking things like 'Curse this two button shit.  Where's my 4 other hotkeys to Curse, poison AND corpse explode ??!'

Sigh.

You can hotkey skills to the F1, F2 and such - the downside is you need to r-click to cast as you load the new skill.  

I hope D3 goes with a WoW hotbar approach, where all 10 of my skills are castable at anytime without needing to load them.  

[schild]

Being able to only cast a limited amount of spells at any given time was one of the charming things about Diablo for me. I don't play Diablo to be a superhero. There are no superheroes in hell.

[ahoythematey]

You can hotkey skills to the F1, F2 and such - the downside is you need to r-click to cast as you load the new skill. 

Or you can go one further like I would do, reconfiguring the keys so that qwer asdf zxcv are where you hotkey your skills for quick and natural-feeling use(well, natural anyways to fps players used to WASD).

Being able to only cast a limited amount of spells at any given time was one of the charming things about Diablo for me. I don't play Diablo to be a superhero. There are no superheroes in hell.

Agree almost completely.  Though you can fudge it with certain stuff like flashing paladin auras, I think this was one of the big reasons pvp was so fun for me.  D2 pvp still feels more strategic to me than a lot of other stuff.

[Nija]

I'm replaying D2 now.

Level 40ish trap assassin. I created the character after the announcement.

TQ is pretty sucky, are are the rest of the clones.

Mythos actually has TOO MUCH loot, especially since the crafting patch, and it's in a transitional stage with their crazy world-vision or whatever-the-fuck they're trying to do.

Maybe they're trying to do something extraordinary with the title so they can get some cashflow, one way or another, so HGL doesn't sink the entire ship.

[trias_e]

I personally think TQ is underrated a tad.  It's slow but it has a ton of class combinations which can be fun to mess with. Certainly fun for those who like character building.  I just bought immortal throne on steam, and while the beginning is very bland, it's starting to become a lot of fun. 

I loved my gimpy trap/claw hybrid assassin in D2.  My strategy was to put down traps and then nightcrawler it up all over the place.  It worked great until hell/nightmare (whichever is the third difficulty), at which it was total crap.  It was the only character I really enjoyed in D2...my paladin and 'zon were total meh.

[Nonentity]

To be fair, I ultimately think the the change to the inventory system is fine - you'll just get pickier about what you pick up, since even the smaller items are on the same page as the large items. Playing Tetris in your inventory was somewhat fun, but after a while it just gets tedious. It allows bags to be a sought-after loot type.

Also - charms will only fill up one slot, which is pretty neat-o.

[Ironwood]

The down side to all this is I'm currently playing d2 and thinking things like 'Curse this two button shit.  Where's my 4 other hotkeys to Curse, poison AND corpse explode ??!'

Sigh.

You can hotkey skills to the F1, F2 and such - the downside is you need to r-click to cast as you load the new skill.  

I hope D3 goes with a WoW hotbar approach, where all 10 of my skills are castable at anytime without needing to load them.  

[SurfD]

Im surprised that no one has commented on the way the Siege Breaker boss at the end of the gameplay movie BIT THE BARBARIAN'S FUCKING HEAD OFF when it killed him (and then punted his body around for kicks).

[Draegan]

Im surprised that no one has commented on the way the Siege Breaker boss at the end of the gameplay movie BIT THE BARBARIAN'S FUCKING HEAD OFF when it killed him (and then punted his body around for kicks).

With half the body still hanging our of his mouth.

[Shrike]

There is a keyboard configuration utility in D2, you know. Two button shit doesn't get it done, as a few seem to have discovered. What I do is use the ASDF buttons for the belt slots then the four keys above and below as left and right mouse button bars, respectively. They're simply bound to those buttons. So, as an examply, Q would be normal shot, W would be strafe, E is multishot, and R is guided. Right button only and yet another attack are the ZXCV keys. I keep the third mouse button bound to the right bar in case you need something else for some unforseen situation. Generally, you don't need anymore than that.

The only other game, in my opinion, that came close to the feel of Diablo was Sacred. It had its issues (boy, did it have some issues) but the gameplay and loot-happiness was the most similar. The dungeons mostly sucked and the overall story was steeped in bland, but the characters were interesting and played in reasonably different fashions. And the fights. Man, it had fights. Murder and mayhem on a Diabloesqe scale, which is what I want in these games. Hell, it even had giant enemies. The only thing that surprised me was that it never came out on a console. The control scheme reeked of consolitis, but I suppose we'll see that "rectified" in Sacred 2.

Regardless, Diablo was just a confluence of gameplay elements I personally really liked. I'd like to see more. Simple as that. Oh, and I want to see what has really happened since Tyriel put paid to the Worldstone....

[Nija]

My biggest problems with Sacred, TQ, and even Darkstone, was that I beat them too quickly and right at release.

I have a knack for picking the most overpowered classes in every game I play. I breeze through the game while it's totally unbalanced and it kills the replay value of the game for me.

TQ and Sacred were very, very broken when they each released. Hell I still have some TQ videos up on youtube.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=57NNvWJtFf4

[Mrbloodworth]

Also, there are to many games already out like this. I am sure it will be a success for blizzard...

[schild]

Also, there are to many games already out like this.

Wrong.

[Mrbloodworth]

Also, there are to many games already out like this.

Wrong.

I didn't say there couldn't be another... Just that there are already lots of games JUST like it. Sorry man.

[schild]

There aren't any JUST LIKE DIABLO. That's the problem :( :( :( :(

[Mrbloodworth]

There aren't any JUST LIKE DIABLO. That's the problem :( :( :( :(

Yeah, but to people other than yourself ( who has a high standard, and love for this IP ) they really are. It doesn't matter, the fact that its the big daddy IP that started all the clones, remakes ETC will ensure that its successful.

I did enjoy the footage and what seems like a larger range of movement than before, and the environment has gotten a nice boost in regards to dynamic nature (little guys crawling up the walls from bellow ETC..). Pound for pound, its fundamentally the game, in this case thats a good things. People want an updated D2.

D1 and 2 were serious titles however, i wonder how much thats going to hurt them in acceptance, with diablo clones with much more humor in them.

I'm just rambling thoughts....

[eldaec]

D3 MMO

The difference between D3 and something that everyone would recognise as a MMOG is a graphical lobby, the ability to pull more than 8 people into your dungeon, and a subscription fee. All of which always seem bizarre things to think of as core to what a MMOG is, but nvm, that's another thread.

Some of the comments on the developer panel suggest that at least one of those might happen in D3.

[MrHat]

I swear, if one of the classes is a monk, it might be too much joy for me to handle.

[Shrike]

There's a fair amount of humor in D2. Black humor, but humor nonetheless. Cain's remarks involving Zakarum priestesses and Larzuk's backhanded reference to one of the Amazon's more obvious visual characterisics are cases in point.  Diablo itself was about as funny as a butcher knife, but that's one reason I did like it.

Here's hoping for a very serious and nasty storyline for D3. From the bits and pieces I picked up on in the trailers, I think that's what we'll be getting.

[Hawkbit]

One could reasonably expect something along the lines of WoW's enchanting in this iteration.  Breaking down loot for parts, and such. 

[Ingmar]

The down side to all this is I'm currently playing d2 and thinking things like 'Curse this two button shit.  Where's my 4 other hotkeys to Curse, poison AND corpse explode ??!'

Sigh.

This, with a dash of "let me freaking respec please."

[Ironwood]

Amen.  Why do I even have to TAKE Skeletons ?

[Ragnoros]

Watching the gameplay video it looks fun, but I'm not so sure it looks Diablo...

Like whatever happened to all the cool monster death animations? I remember in D1 one of the best parts was the death animations and sounds.
Remember Hidden? How they would get their heads loped off and slump backwards in a shower of blood and gurgling sounds? That was so awesome.
The little acid splitters, with their murloc like sounds, and how you would get a big spawn of them and have to find a way to kill them off without getting gibed by their uber spit.
Lightning Demons and Doom Knights exploding into nothingness. And the satisfying sound of skeletons cracking into a pile of bones and dust.

To be fair the death animations in D2 were also lacking but D3 is just sad from what I see, mostly things just fall over, or explode into chunks. It sucked in Dungeon Siege it sucks now.

More bitching to come!

[schild]

Start bitching about things like polish when the game is, you know, less than 2 years away?

[Margalis]

I just played a little Diablo 2 for the first time - boring as hell.

At least as Barbarian 5 minutes into the game you've experienced everything it has to offer.

[schild]

I just played a little Diablo 2 for the first time - boring as hell.

At least as Barbarian 5 minutes into the game you've experienced everything it has to offer.

Needless to say, you're doing it wrong.

[Ragnoros]

Why does everyone on F13 who does not like Diablo feel to need to come the the thread for D3 gushing and hate?

Maybe someone can make a thread for people who don't like Diablo to talk about how much it sucks?