Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[WayAbvPar]

There should be a decent supply of F13ers for every time zone. I think this is one of those games that damned near everyone will play.

[Ratman_tf]

Is this a poll? Because I certainly played Diablo 2 only single player and enjoyed it that way.

Diablo type games are SP for me too. I play some MP with friends, but that's a tiny fraction of my playing time.

[Mosesandstick]

I started off SP and then got hardcore into MP D2. Once I'd experienced everything I felt like I had to play with friends to keep things fresha nd fun.

[Merusk]

There should be a decent supply of F13ers for every time zone. I think this is one of those games that damned near everyone will play.

Not I.  Diablo bored the shit out of me then and it still doesn't intrigue me. I enjoyed Torchlight for a while but once I beat the end boss I never went back.   These games just aren't for me, so I figure I may as well save the cash instead of blowing it on this one.

[Malakili]

Does f13 have a lot of people who like the character design meta game? I know when Torchlight came out schild had an advance copy he was livestreaming and a bunch of us were in there, and some Runic guy came into chat with us, and we were remembering about some old pretty specific Diablo 2 mechanics (like optimal magic find, and so forth).  So it seems like there must be some of us around who like that part of the game. That is what keeps me interested long term.  Bashing monsters is of course always fun in and of itself which is why the Diablo series is so doubly addictive to me.  For those times when I'm in the mood to sit down and analyze stuff, I can do that, and when I want to just smash legions of monsters, I can also do that.  For the competitive part in me - hardcore mode works.  Scary levels of stickiness for me.

[WayAbvPar]

The concepts intrigue me, but the days of hours and days of free time to playtest and theorywank are far behind me. I do like to follow along and try out the proven goodies still.

[Malakili]

The concepts intrigue me, but the days of hours and days of free time to playtest and theorywank are far behind me. I do like to follow along and try out the proven goodies still.

It should also be less tedious now with the fact that you'll be able to respec in Diablo 3.  I suspect they will limit it or make it cost prohibative a bit more than in current WoW, for example, but maybe something on par with Vanilla WoW?  Either way, total speculation.  Anyway, I can see an f13 contingent playing regularly "together" even if that is solo play sometimes. (Hey, I found sword of X, anyone need it?, Hey, anyone have thoughts on this build, etc).   My point being that even those of you who enjoy playing solo will probably be able to enjoy "multiplayer" Diablo 3 with f13 folks.   That doesn't mean its looking for cow runz gogogogogoggo.

[Ratman_tf]

So. It appears that battle.net didn't become the Facebook integrated Live ID paradigm that B. Kotic wanted. What does this bode for D3? Are they going to back off from superflous shit that no one cares about? Or is it going to be SCII, part 2. Revenge of the social network!

[Malakili]

So. It appears that battle.net didn't become the Facebook integrated Live ID paradigm that B. Kotic wanted. What does this bode for D3? Are they going to back off from superflous shit that no one cares about? Or is it going to be SCII, part 2. Revenge of the social network!

I have a feeling they will try some more social networking stuff, but I don't really see the point.  Personally, I'd be happy for some kind of guild/clan support though.  A chat channel and calendar would be a nice start.

[Furiously]

Auction house....

[Malakili]

Auction house....

This implies gold will actually matter.  If it does, that'd be pretty cool.  Hopefully we won't need to trade SOJs as currency anymore. 

[Musashi]

You "I only play single player" people deserve your money's worth and everything.  But you're really not getting the whole experience.  What you are getting is certainly a incredibly good single player RPG.  But that's pretty much only half the game.  Of course you're not required to enjoy the meta-game that multi-player offers, and dealing with douche bags on the internet isn't for everyone.  But there be more to Diablo than single player.  Even if all you ever do is play single player on the ladder, it's worth it for access to trading shit.

[Simond]

So. It appears that battle.net didn't become the Facebook integrated Live ID paradigm that B. Kotic wanted. What does this bode for D3? Are they going to back off from superflous shit that no one cares about? Or is it going to be SCII, part 2. Revenge of the social network!

Prediction: A fuck-ton of DLC (including overpowered loot and new classes), and seperate D3 releases (as a full-priced game) for each Act.

[Paelos]

You "I only play single player" people deserve your money's worth and everything.  But you're really not getting the whole experience.  What you are getting is certainly a incredibly good single player RPG.  But that's pretty much only half the game.  Of course you're not required to enjoy the meta-game that multi-player offers, and dealing with douche bags on the internet isn't for everyone.  But there be more to Diablo than single player.  Even if all you ever do is play single player on the ladder, it's worth it for access to trading shit.

Why? What exactly does Diablo offer in multiplayer that it doesn't offer in single? Trading? Was that even actually supported?

[Ice Cream Emperor]

It mostly offered 'actually being able to complete sets in a timeframe remotely reasonable to using them' and 'getting value out of neat/rare drops without having to roll a completely new character'.

Or such is my impression -- I only ever played SP.

[Malakili]

You "I only play single player" people deserve your money's worth and everything.  But you're really not getting the whole experience.  What you are getting is certainly a incredibly good single player RPG.  But that's pretty much only half the game.  Of course you're not required to enjoy the meta-game that multi-player offers, and dealing with douche bags on the internet isn't for everyone.  But there be more to Diablo than single player.  Even if all you ever do is play single player on the ladder, it's worth it for access to trading shit.

I suspect there will be no such thing as true "single player" Diablo 3.  There will be playing alone, but I don't particularly expect offline and online play per se.  I mean, you could play single player alone on the old battle.net too...just make a game and password it, done and done.  Then you could have access to trading and such if and when you wanted it.  I imagine with B.Net2.0 being "always on" they'll just cut out the offline part altogether.

As for what did multiplayer Diablo 2 offer that single player didn't, I would say trading was a HUGE part of it.  I mean yeah, there were scammers and dupers, and that sucked, but if I wanted an item, I liked being able to hit up a trade channel and wheel and deal instead of farming and hoping.   I recall trading unique items for chipped gems just because I was trying to transmute a colossus blade to have the cruel modifier (massively increased damage).   It would've taken me forever to get that many gems by myself, or would've just been impossible to reasonably craft that sword.   I also played a ton with 2-3 friends (like, mutliple nights a week for years), we tried new builds, put tons of time into crafting, fiddled around with getting optimal gear sets, etc.  You can do all that alone, but its more fun with people *shrugs*  Hell, half the fun of theory crafting is bouncing ideas off your friends and then hashing it out with testing.


Edit; If all you cared about was beating the game i.e finishing the content and killing the final bosses, then yes, there is no reason to play online.  The meta game is what makes multiplayer Diablo  awesome, not the game itself, IMO.

[Paelos]

Ah yes, trading and theory-crafting.  

Yeah, I don't feel like I was missing much. Honestly, I wonder why the people that dig that hard into a game don't take that insane drive to strip a system down to it's parts, and apply it to something infinitely more useful. Like an investing system.

[Reg]

Malakill's posts actually make me want to play even less.

[Malakili]

Ah yes, trading and theory-crafting.  

Yeah, I don't feel like I was missing much. Honestly, I wonder why the people that dig that hard into a game don't take that insane drive to strip a system down to it's parts, and apply it to something infinitely more useful. Like an investing system.

Because its only fun when it doesn't *actually* matter.  Its fun to pretend it matters though, like sports.

[Merusk]

Yeah, stop having fun wrong!

Again!

 

[Malakili]

Yeah, stop having fun wrong!

Again!

 

I don't care if people play Diablo 3 solo, they asked what was the advantages of multiplayer, I said what I thought they were. *shrugs* Its well known at this point that I take the games I play generally speaking more seriously than the average f13 poster I think.  I'm getting tired of explaining myself though to be honest.

[Paelos]

I can at least make money theory-crafting sports, and people can make money by being the best at them. It would be a much better solution than applying the mentality to video gaming.

Honestly, every time I hear posts about theory-crafting and optimization in a game, I mentally check out. Also, you don't have to explain anything, Malakili. We know you're batshit nuts about the BE ALL YOU CAN BE gaming. My only question was why not roll that psychosis of yours into something that could make you independently wealthy? Then you can tell us all to go to hell because you can buy and sell our sorry, casual asses.

[Ratman_tf]

So. It appears that battle.net didn't become the Facebook integrated Live ID paradigm that B. Kotic wanted. What does this bode for D3? Are they going to back off from superflous shit that no one cares about? Or is it going to be SCII, part 2. Revenge of the social network!

Prediction: A fuck-ton of DLC (including overpowered loot and new classes), and seperate D3 releases (as a full-priced game) for each Act.

I admit, that's my worst case scenario. If that kind of shit goes down, I'm sticking with Torchlight 2.

[Ratman_tf]

I can at least make money theory-crafting sports, and people can make money by being the best at them. It would be a much better solution than applying the mentality to video gaming.

Honestly, every time I hear posts about theory-crafting and optimization in a game, I mentally check out. Also, you don't have to explain anything, Malakili. We know you're batshit nuts about the BE ALL YOU CAN BE gaming. My only question was why not roll that psychosis of yours into something that could make you independently wealthy? Then you can tell us all to go to hell because you can buy and sell our sorry, casual asses.

Man, that's just retarted. Anyone can point at anything and say "Why can't you be doing something more worthwhile?"

Anyway, I'm personally not interested in the meta game of Diablo. More powar to those who do. I used to be a pouty pussy over raiding in MMORPGs, but after actually trying it, and enjoying it, I certainly understand.

[Malakili]

I'm not going to take up the thread explaining my personal financial choices, so I'll just ignore that bit.  However, I will say that the meta game is definitely fun for a lot of people who aren't exactly like me in terms of gaming habits, so maybe someone else can chime in here.

[Paelos]

Man, that's just retarted. Anyone can point at anything and say "Why can't you be doing something more worthwhile?"

Sure you can. The real question is can something be a waste of time in entire experience that is supposed to be a waste of time? That's a thinker.

I just like giving Malakili shit b/c he's so srs bzns about everything. 

And yeah, I totally judge people who take gaming that seriously. I also judge my friend who strategizes for his church softball playoffs like it's game seven of the world series. Judging other people's fun is my fun. Don't shit on my playstyle.

[Ratman_tf]

And yeah, I totally judge people who take gaming that seriously. I also judge my friend who strategizes for his church softball playoffs like it's game seven of the world series. Judging other people's fun is my fun. Don't shit on my playstyle.

Oh. My bad. Carry on. 

[Malakili]

I just like giving Malakili shit b/c he's so srs bzns about everything. 

Yeah, thats fine.  I get that from my real life friends as well.  I am what I am.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Well I already gave my opinion, and while I'm fairly obsessive about Diabloesque games I don't worry a lot about optimization or take it 'seriously.' But it's still a hell of a lot more fun to play these games with friends, even if the only trading you are doing is distributing the party loot according to who can use it and therefore tripling the odds of both a) getting cool stuff for yourself (which is nice) and b) making use of the random drop that made you go 'oooh' when you saw it hit the ground (which is much nicer.)

Especially given how most of these games have their drop rates tweaked for multiplayer -- i.e. nerfed to all hell if you are solo -- it is really nice to be able to actually use the cool stuff you find, since you are going to find it so rarely. I don't think 'finding awesome loot and using it to be awesome' is some kind of esoteric, only-for-the-hardcore metagame element. It's more like... 85% of what the game is about. Multiplayer usually means that you actually have an okay chance of being able to equip your character as you play through the content, instead of constantly offloading stuff to your second or third characters if you want it to actually be as powerful as its rarity suggests.

[Lantyssa]

Diablo only mattered in a LAN setting.  Battlenet is a crutch for you D2 fanbois.  This internet-only version will be a travesty.

[Azuredream]

I always played multiplayer because I felt like my character mattered more than my single player characters. I had other people to show off my awesome gear/build/skills to, much like sitting next to the mailbox in Dalaran on a Frost Wyrm or a similar equivalent.

[ezrast]

I theorycraft anything with stats I can get my hands on, and get annoyed when the system is too opaque to do it properly, but it's not because I'm super-dedicated, it's just because that's what I think is fun. I'll do all sorts of optimization math on a character, and then never complete any particularly difficult content. I can't count the number of builds I've statted out for Diablo II and City of Heroes and then never made because, meh, in practice I'd rather just dink around with another firewall sorc. I just like exploring the theory more than the ding-grats instant gratification with most games (though it is a class call with Diablo specifically). I guess most people on my side of the spectrum are the super-hardcore types, but I think the relationship is correlative more than causal.

Ye gods, I should be playing the stock market.

[Azazel]

Diablo only mattered in a LAN setting.  Battlenet is a crutch for you D2 fanbois.  This internet-only version will be a travesty.

What the ex-panda said.

[Ironwood]

I'm with the ex-panda anal girl too.

[Tebonas]

I remember playing Diablo 1 over Lan with two other people once, and that was an distinctively fun evening as well.

So its hard to disagree with her.