Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Paelos]

I just find it amusing how many people point to graphics, or odd critiques, or supposed flaws in an unreleased Blizzard game like it's going to actually stop them from buying it or it being wildly successful.

I'll fully admit I'm a whore for this game. Very few other games got as much playtime on my computer as the Diablo series.

[Sjofn]

Pretty sure I never implied I wouldn't get it because Heels are Idiotic. I implied I'd be playing a dude one. 

[Fordel]

SC2's story is as shitty as SC1's story, it's just most people were very young when they played SC1 and didn't realize how retarded it all was.

At least in Starcraft 1 Raynor wasn't a bro.

Did Bro's even exist when SC1 was made? It was a loooong fucking time ago. 

[Azuredream]

I just find it amusing how many people point to graphics, or odd critiques, or supposed flaws in an unreleased Blizzard game like it's going to actually stop them from buying it or it being wildly successful.

I'll fully admit I'm a whore for this game. Very few other games got as much playtime on my computer as the Diablo series.

I've spent so many hours on Diablo I have to stop that reflex of automatically critiquing anything that comes out prerelease; because I care about it so much I want it to be PERFECT.

[Sheepherder]

Except now Diablo is getting more and more cartoony(it seems)

Pygmies.

[waffel]

Except now Diablo is getting more and more cartoony(it seems)

Maybe I'm wrong, but the PC gamer core 10+ years ago when D2 was released is a lot different now.

It seems to be a younger and younger generation (due to the proliferation of PCs in homes?) and less of the 'geeky' gamer core? Might be why things are getting more cartooy.

I could be wrong.

[Malakili]

Except now Diablo is getting more and more cartoony(it seems)

Maybe I'm wrong, but the PC gamer core 10+ years ago when D2 was released is a lot different now.

It seems to be a younger and younger generation (due to the proliferation of PCs in homes?) and less of the 'geeky' gamer core? Might be why things are getting more cartooy.

I could be wrong.

I'd wager that PC gamers are still on average older than gamers in general (probably due to cost).   But I can't imagine that anyone young enough to be really excited about cartoon graphics is going to be out of their mind looking forward to do Diablo 3.  Remember, D2 came out so long ago that the demographc you're talking about were toddlers when it came out.

Like others have said though, Diablo hooked me because of its mechanics, not because of its look.  For example - Torchlight is cartoony (more Cartoony than D3 even), and its a damned fine ARPG.  D3 will be the same.  Hell, they could go with nearly any graphical style at all as long as they did the style well and the mechanics would hold up just fine.

[Chimpy]

Pretty sure I never implied I wouldn't get it because Heels are Idiotic. I implied I'd be playing a dude one. 

I am going to laugh when the dude is wearing big ass platform heels too!

[Sjofn]

He's not! You can go see him on the site already. 


Even if he was, the class isn't in my "what should I play first?!" consideration. I prefer melee classes. I LIKE GETTING UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.

[Ratman_tf]

Like others have said though, Diablo hooked me because of its mechanics, not because of its look.  For example - Torchlight is cartoony (more Cartoony than D3 even), and its a damned fine ARPG.  D3 will be the same.  Hell, they could go with nearly any graphical style at all as long as they did the style well and the mechanics would hold up just fine.

Blizzard today isn't the Blizzard that made Diablo or D2. I hope they get the ARPG aspect right.
I have lost a lot of faith in Blizz lately.

[Malakili]

Like others have said though, Diablo hooked me because of its mechanics, not because of its look.  For example - Torchlight is cartoony (more Cartoony than D3 even), and its a damned fine ARPG.  D3 will be the same.  Hell, they could go with nearly any graphical style at all as long as they did the style well and the mechanics would hold up just fine.

Blizzard today isn't the Blizzard that made Diablo or D2. I hope they get the ARPG aspect right.
I have lost a lot of faith in Blizz lately.

Why? SC2 is great.  Cataclysm isn't bad mechanically, but you could make arguments against the difficulty curve or amount of content I guess.  The  mechanics are still strong though.

[Ratman_tf]

Why? SC2 is great.  Cataclysm isn't bad mechanically, but you could make arguments against the difficulty curve or amount of content I guess.  The  mechanics are still strong though.

I quit WoW due to Cataclysm.* I liked SC2, but disliked the social networking bullshit they almost rammed down our throats.

*And yes, I've been burned out on WoW before. This was different. This time, I knew I wouldn't be back. It's been months, and I don't miss it at all.

[Yegolev]

Blizzard today isn't the Blizzard that made Diablo or D2.

Torchlight II

[Hoax]

I wanted to like Torchlight. It wasn't even close. I wish people would stop mentioning it in the same breath as Diablo.

[Malakili]

I wanted to like Torchlight. It wasn't even close. I wish people would stop mentioning it in the same breath as Diablo.

You seem to be the outlier in that regard. 

[Ingmar]

I wanted to like Torchlight. It wasn't even close. I wish people would stop mentioning it in the same breath as Diablo.

You seem to be the outlier in that regard. 

I thought it was pretty weak overall as well. The talent trees in particular were pretty awful.

[Paelos]

I wanted to like Torchlight. It wasn't even close. I wish people would stop mentioning it in the same breath as Diablo.

You seem to be the outlier in that regard. 

I was not impressed either. It was the same game as FATE, and not as sticky. I never got the love here so I just didn't join in.

[Malakili]

I wanted to like Torchlight. It wasn't even close. I wish people would stop mentioning it in the same breath as Diablo.

You seem to be the outlier in that regard. 

I thought it was pretty weak overall as well. The talent trees in particular were pretty awful.

I actually disagree, the talent trees really expanded the number of ways you could play a given class, which was limited to only three.  The general skills (which is what I assume you are talking about since that is what I have heard criticized the most), allowed me to create stuff like ranged Destroyers or melee alchemists and have them be actually viable, I really liked experimenting with all those skills to create interesting builds. 

It wasn't as sticky as Diablo/2 because of lack of multiplayer and late game itemization, but I think the mechanics were generally speaking very solid.  I think Torchlight 2 is going to fill in both those gaps from what they've been saying, so I think it it will be quite good.

[Yegolev]

Of all the games which aren't actually DII:LoD, it's 2nd or 3rd depending on how much you like Titan Quest.  Unless I'm missing something, and if so please tell me.  Besides this you have some Blizzard North "i maed deablo" people working on it, which was my point really and so if you have a huge boner for DII your best bet is actually with Runic.  Torchlight 1 was obviously and openly admitted as a fast game designed to grab cash to fund the "real game" that now has the unfortunate title "Torchlight II", so I'm not giving a lot of attention to its shortcomings.

[Ingmar]

That wasn't really 'flexibility' for anything but your character model. All the classes played practically the same when you specced them into the same general skills. Blech.

[Yegolev]

I would like to see the Fate skill system implemented, but that's apparently not as awesome as fucking D2 skill trees.

[Malakili]

That wasn't really 'flexibility' for anything but your character model. All the classes played practically the same when you specced them into the same general skills. Blech.

This just wasn't my experience, and must be the source of our disagreement.  A ranged destroyer plays quite different from a ranged Vanquisher, for example in my experience.  Maybe not at like, level 5, but by level 15-20 they really start to branch out, but I think you could say that about most classes in most RPGs, so Im not really going to hold it against Torchlight in particular.

[Amaron]

Of all the games which aren't actually DII:LoD, it's 2nd or 3rd depending on how much you like Titan Quest. 

Agreed.   The only thing these two games really failed on was the multiplayer.

[Hoax]

Titan Quest failed on the fact that there was so much variation that many combinations were just unplayable because they were too bad and another set of combinations were no fun to play with because they were godlike. I did like Titan Quest.

Torchlight was bush league. The loot was bad. That's really all I feel I should need to say about that game.

Not that I don't think that Torchlight 2 might be good but I wish people would stop making excuses for a group that got the #1 most important part wrong (lewtz) and saying that for sure Torchlight 2 is going to fix everything add multiplayer and give Diablo3 a run for its money. That is some ridiculously wishful thinking.

[Amaron]

Torchlight was bush league. The loot was bad. That's really all I feel I should need to say about that game.

   The loot was the most authentic part of torchlight.   What exactly did you find wrong with it?

[Rendakor]

I didn't like Torchlight very much either, mostly because of the skill trees.

[Paelos]

Torchlight was bush league. The loot was bad. That's really all I feel I should need to say about that game.

   The loot was the most authentic part of torchlight.   What exactly did you find wrong with it?

The fact that is was all about enchanting and not about finding anything?

[waffel]

Torchlight was bush league. The loot was bad. That's really all I feel I should need to say about that game.

   The loot was the most authentic part of torchlight.   What exactly did you find wrong with it?

The fact that is was all about enchanting and not about finding anything?

This. It's about 50x more fun to kill a monster and see a fancy unique item drop off it than it is to craft in town. Yawn.

[proudft]

Titan Quest is pretty good.  I like the class system and if you really do screw up your guy into uselessness you can always pay to respec, and gold is pretty easy to come by.  The main flaws for me are that the terrain isn't random, and the game is really really damn long.  

It took 35 hours for us (conquerer & ranger duo) to finish the first difficulty level with Immortal Throne - I am not really eager to pounce on the second difficulty now, or play through with another character.  That was really enough Titan Quest for some time.   But I liked it much better than Torchlight, which I played for a couple of evenings and was just done with.

[Merusk]

Funny, Torchlight was the only RPG Beat-em-up that's ever grabbed me.  Still haven't finished D2 after all these years. Titan Quest? Didn't like the look at all.  Even the console ones like D&D for the PS2 wound up in the "meh, fuck this" bin.  

Torchlight, on the other hand, I blazed through in a few days and even did some of the "bonus" dungeons.  Dunno why y'all didn't like it, but it seemed to grab those of us who don't usually like them.

[Malakili]

Torchlight was bush league. The loot was bad. That's really all I feel I should need to say about that game.

   The loot was the most authentic part of torchlight.   What exactly did you find wrong with it?

The fact that is was all about enchanting and not about finding anything?

This. It's about 50x more fun to kill a monster and see a fancy unique item drop off it than it is to craft in town. Yawn.

So, you never played past the first week then?  Seriously though, that wasn't viable as a long term loot solution after they patched it, and that was really early on.  A bigger (legitimate) problem was the lack of itemization above level 50 though.  I only got one or two characters that high though, a large part of which is because I played almost exclusively on hardcore mode after my first character.  Then again, maybe that was a bigger part of it, hardcore mode adds boatloads of replayability (if you like it, of course)

[Sjofn]

Torchlight was fine, but still not quite ... what I want. You know? Same with Titan Quest. Both games had stuff I really liked about them, but other parts that I was completely meh on.

Skill trees being semi-meh and no multiplayer in Torchlight and Titan Quest being REALLY FUCKING LONG and no random element to their maps, mostly. More the random maps part for Titan Quest, I almost always lose interest before the end of these games because I want to try a different class or whatever. Never actually finished Diablo 2, either.  

[Teleku]

Yeah, I liked Torchlight, but after playing it awhile I realized it was just missing something...  I think that whole mechanic of Enchanting your own items, which were better than most drops, hurt it.

Never finished the game.

[Amaron]

The fact that is was all about enchanting and not about finding anything?

Ahh they fixed that before I played it.  It was most definitely about finding phat lewts to me.  By the way that was partly a bug.   The enchanting was based off character level incorrectly so you could enchant low level items to absurd levels.

[Yegolev]

Oh, no, Torchlight itemization was not fleshed out.  No no no.  I found better loot in Mythos.  But guess who made that?

Not that I don't think that Torchlight 2 might be good but I wish people would stop making excuses for a group that got the #1 most important part wrong (lewtz) and saying that for sure Torchlight 2 is going to fix everything add multiplayer and give Diablo3 a run for its money. That is some ridiculously wishful thinking.

You are correct here.  I'm not considering Torchlight II to be a Diablo 3 beater, but it does come out some months before and I'm a Diablo-clone whore.  I would love to be pleasantly surprised about Torchlight II but I'm not going to sit here and believe that Runic is somehow going to use all the good ideas from Diablo/DiabloII/Fate/Mythos and toss out the bad.  As for Diablo 3, I'm trying hard to not have high expectations but everyone is making it hard on me.  My saving element here is the knowledge that it's a different dev team.