Review: Diablo 2.75: Titan Quest

[MrHat]

I just don't pick anything up anymore.

On a side note, I've got wolves and a lich!

[schild]

Yea, the lich king is all the awesome. I think I'm gonna dual with protection as the vast majority of it is passive. If we play multi with some people, i'm gonna go straight rogue me thinks.

[Strazos]

I like the innate ability to gate to town whenever you want. It really helps to offset the agonizingly small inventory space.

[schild]

Yep and nothing needs to be identified.

[Trippy]

Edit 2: Where the fuck is my stash?

DAMN I knew I forgot something. ON THE OTHER HAND, the inventory gets extra bags that are sizeable as you get levels. it looks as though it happens every 10 or 12 levels. With so many towns I thought it was quite well paced really. Remember, this game has roughly twice the amount of loot that Diablo 2 had. So be careful to manage the inventory well. I actually love the inventory management aspect created by dumping the stash.

No, "inventory management" fucking sucks. I spent more time managing my inventory in Dungeon Siege II than killing things (yes I'm a fricking pack rat).

Edit: forgot the comma

[Broughden]

So there is no inherent multi-player system akin to Battlenet that Diablo used?  :-(
It runs through Gamespy or something you said? How does it compare to Battlenet if it compares at all?

Battlenet and the ease of finding and popping into multi-player games was a big part of the enjoyment of Diablo for me.

[schild]

Having finished Chapter 1 and having installed FRAPS (I need to tinker with it more for better screenies of chapter 2), I've added a...

...smallish gallery.

[Mr. Right]

I"ve read than the boss had no aggro management at all.  Meaning than you can run in circle while your pets kill the boss.  Anyone had this problem?  It sound like an *almost* deal breaker if you aways have a free way out of boss fights.

[schild]

Hm. My pet really didn't do enough damage for that to be viable.

But I also went in with 50 potions and 50 energy.potions which resulted in me spamming heal. Sort of like the first time you hit chapter 3 Travincal in Diablo 2. But ptopns have a timer on them in Titan Quest, so it's not bad and there's still the threat of death. The other problem is that I think nobody here has finished the game yet so no one can reall speak for the two harder difficulties. I know I won't be able to for at least a week or so.

[Xilren's Twin]

Edit 2: Where the fuck is my stash?

DAMN I knew I forgot something. ON THE OTHER HAND, the inventory gets extra bags that are sizeable as you get levels. it looks as though it happens every 10 or 12 levels. With so many towns I thought it was quite well paced really. Remember, this game has roughly twice the amount of loot that Diablo 2 had. So be careful to manage the inventory well. I actually love the inventory management aspect created by dumping the stash.

Um, is it me or is there no Auto Arrange of inventory items.  Im finding myself manually moving shit around that i have total inventory space for but is non lined up....

Xilren

[Signe]

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[Yoru]

Hm.. I tried the demo out last night and it was okay; pretty much 3D-ified Diablo2++. If someone other than Schild starts gibbering insanely, I might be convinced to pick it up in a few weeks.

[Strazos]

I thought the game was good. I went through the demo again as a caster....is it just me, or do the fire nukes Suck? The first one you can get is just weak and has a very limited AoE, while the big fireball works like artillary - it might be good in group play, but solo it is just too slow to use a lot. I ended up mostly just using my ranged staff attack with the buff you ca get in the earth/fire tree.

[Yoru]

I thought the game was good. I went through the demo again as a caster....is it just me, or do the fire nukes Suck? The first one you can get is just weak and has a very limited AoE, while the big fireball works like artillary - it might be good in group play, but solo it is just too slow to use a lot. I ended up mostly just using my ranged staff attack with the buff you ca get in the earth/fire tree.

Yeah, I tried a fire dude in the demo but had to end up as some kind of weak-ass hybrid melee-mage mostly beating things to death with a stick.

A fire stick, thanks to that buff. I occasionally used the artillery nuke on large crowds from a long distance.

Maybe it's me, but I'm not particularly fond of the spellcasting method of hotkey-then-LMB, but the spells recharge too slowly to actually use them as your primary means of attack... maybe getting one of those ranged zappy staves is necessary?

[Xanthippe]

Re: loot collection, why can't devs let people target and collect just by using keys?

I hate pointy clicky.

[schild]

P&C gives that whole hand of god feeling.

[Lantyssa]

Couldn't a real god make the loot come to them?  I would rather the hotkey of god.

[Yoru]

Point and click makes baby repetitive-stress-injury Jesus cry.

[Signe]

I have to say, I'm finding it just okay.  Maybe the whole Diablo thingy wore off.  Maybe I'm just in a pissy mood. 

[Fargull]

Schild,

Really like the format of the review.  Picked it up tonight.  Will meander a bit with it this weekend if I have the time.  Got my damn Diablo demon sitting on my shoulder saying PLAY IT FOOL!

[Broughden]

I have to say, I'm finding it just okay.  Maybe the whole Diablo thingy wore off.  Maybe I'm just in a pissy mood. 

No, its because you miss ganking 14 year old kids on Battlenet playing Burritozons....and the cow level.

Atleast thats what I miss.

[stray]

Need to know how to build up to a Thane. My Stormcaller is getting his ass kicked at lvl 6.

[edit]

Nevermind. Toughed it out.

I intentionally gimped myself by only training up Storm Mastery and Storm Nimbus (the passive Aura dmg thing). Mainly killed shit with a crappy wand. Nukes suck in this game (as far as I can tell), so I'm not even bothering.

Gonna keep on training Storm passives, and climb up one of the Warrior trees as well.

[Xanthippe]

Wait a minute, I'm confused.  Can you play with random idiots or not?

[Righ]

8/8 Onslaught on your left mouse button is pretty sweet stuff. A lot of folks on various boards were saying that they were having problems with Conqueror (Warfare + Defense) implying that they didn't work well together... so I thought I'd try and prove that wrong first. At Delphi so far, level 10, got my first blue set item - a Theban helmet.

[Signe]

Wait a minute, I'm confused.  Can you play with random idiots or not?

Yes!  You can play with idiots you know, idiots you might live with and random idiots that you meet on the random idiot multiplayer screen.

I have an awesome shield.  It looks like a very sharp pinwheel.  It's better than my weapon.

[Broughden]

random idiots that you meet on the random idiot multiplayer screen.

Yes, but is it as easy and effective as Battlenet was for Diablo? No one's really answered that question, and that would be the key factor in buying any Diabloesque game for me (and probably many others?).

[schild]

You pick a server in this game the same way you would an FPS. Press refresh, and pick one with an open spot/low ping.

Who gives a fuck though? Would you play with random idiots now if this were on BNet? No? OK THEN.

[hal]

Just saying, Its like Battlenet without the chat room. Its in game but no doubt its gamespy, some games are real fun, if its not its easy enough to leave and try another.

[Tebonas]

Bought it, love it. There can't be enough Kudos for allowing to switch to the English language in the German version of the game. That should be mandatory.

I get the same warm fuzzy feelings playing it I got with Diablo 1. I always liked Diablo 1 more than Diablo 2, so that is a compliment.

[schild]

Beat it.

Ended up being better than Diablo 1 & 2, or even 1+2. At its heart, it really is Diablo 3. Wish you could rotate the view, but I'll cope. It felt expertly crafted tne the final area, well, the final area makes both Diablos look like amateur hour.

Edit: I'll talk about Epic mode in the multiplayer thread in PC/Console Gaming.

[Broughden]

You pick a server in this game the same way you would an FPS. Press refresh, and pick one with an open spot/low ping.

Who gives a fuck though? Would you play with random idiots now if this were on BNet? No? OK THEN.

Actually yeah I did and would. Except for PVP challenges and tournaments set through the Diablo forums, most games were just with random people in cow lvls to quickly level up my new barb build, or for joining an 8 man game to farm loot from bosses (Mephisto & Diablo).

[Strazos]

Farming and Grinding?

And that was fun?

[Tebonas]

Finally we know at whom MMOG developers target their games. I didn't know it was an actual person instead of an abstract concept.

[schild]

I question Broughdens farming methods. It's much more efficient to farm from the council members in Travincal then hit up Mephisto, and then take the waypoints to Chapter 5 and take out Pindleskin. Or just run Pindleskin a thousand times. The loot from Diablo is actually pretty bad.

[Broughden]

I question Broughdens farming methods. It's much more efficient to farm from the council members in Travincal then hit up Mephisto, and then take the waypoints to Chapter 5 and take out Pindleskin. Or just run Pindleskin a thousand times. The loot from Diablo is actually pretty bad.

Do you remeber how fast 8 man cow games went with a few lightning javazons in them?

Yeah you could get to Pindleskin pretty fast, but otherwise the quickest bosses I could get to solo while others were killing cows were Diablo and Mephisto.

Farming and Grinding?

And that was fun?

In Diablo2 X-Pac? Hell yes!
Farming was fun because it was all about finding that ultra-rare completely random loot drop.
Grinding? a) You were killing cows! That is uber fun and b) You could go from 1-99 (max lvl) in about one day...so it wasnt like grinding took all that long.