Hell is not frozen yet! (Diablo 3)

Some new screens on Diablo 3 were recently posted...

diablo3an81.jpg


That right there is what's got me hyped. These monsters look goliath. Totally bad ass shots.
 
Well it's pretty much just a screen of the final battle of the gameplay trailer, but it's still pretty awesome. Man, once I saw that fight was when I really got psyched for this game.
 
Looks cool. The only thing is that it looks like, if that monster lands a punch, it will liquify the PC and that probably isn't what happens. It probably results in a loss of a fraction of his health. Not that I want realism from this game but it might look weird.
 
i want to know whats replacing the bowazon...

it had better be worth it damnit.


like instead of calling it an amazon... how about Longbowman or Longbowoman

i like archers, sue me.
 
And thusly I practice thread necromancy.

Speaking of which, I'll miss the necromancer. I'm thoroughly uninterested in the witch doctor. The whole tribal archetype just never interested me. Anyway...

I thought I here I might find some actual halfway-intelligent discussion if I posted about Diablo 3, as opposed to the Bnet forums. Anyone else who has looked around there knows that trolls run absolutely rampant. They really need a big-time crackdown by the admins. But in any case...

So. Diablo 3. I'm definitely looking forward to it. However, I do have some concerns which I'm interested in hearing (halfway intelligent) opinions about. My concerns so far are:

1) Let's just get the big controversial one out of the way first: the graphical style. I'm NOT at all tripping out about there being color. Diablo 2 was almost absurdly colorful at parts, and Diablo (when you actually look at it) had some pretty vivid colors at parts. The only concern I have is making the whole atmosphere of the game... appropriate, for lack of a better term. Diablo should definitely have a dark, horror-esque atmosphere. The first Diablo did this much better than the second, and I hope they're looking to emulate that more in this iteration. Note, I obviously don't mean it should be hard-to-see, monochrome, or any other absurd straw-man people like to throw around.

2) Health globes. I'm not sure where to stand on this one. On the one hand, I understand that they weren't happy with chug-potions-like-crazy system from the first two Diablos. However, I'm not sure such an... arcadey system as randomly dropped globes is the right answer.

3) I've heard the lead developer Jay Wilson (least I think it was him) repeat the mantra "There's no such thing as too much power." Well, yes there is. Again, this is something Diablo did better than Diablo 2. Enemies, with some exceptions, were too throw-away in D2, and with a mantra like that (and from the gameplay trailers I've seen) Diablo 3 might be worse. In Diablo, on the other hand, if even 3 or 4 of a monster ganged up on you you could be in trouble if you didn't handle it right (assuming you weren't overleveled and/or decked out in absurdly good gear of course). Maybe it's just me, but I'd prefer to be at least somewhat challenged rather than just being able to hack through hordes of enemies with almost complete impunity. Can't really judge by the gameplay videos thus far I suppose, though. The characters are obviously deliberately overpowered and the game still has a lot of polish work ahead of it.

4) Skills. I'm really just worried that too much WoW influence is going to seep into things (I believe Jay Wilson has stated how much he loves WoW). WoW's gameplay is crap, really. The only thing that keeps a lot of people (including myself back when I played) in is the social aspect (asides from power-gamers whose very self-identity is based around attaining the best possible items and being the first to beat a new dungeon of course). Try playing WoW solo, or dual-boxing or whatever. It's terribly boring. I really don't want them to think that things they've "learned" from WoW can be applied to "improve" Diablo 3. The skill trees, after all the variations they've apparently thought of, resemble WoW's rather closely. Don't know enough to be terribly concerned just yet, but still.

5) Items. Again, worried about the WoW influence. I've even seen posters on Bnet actually concerned that their favorite WoW weapon won't have a parallel in D3. The item system from D3 could certainly use a bit of an overhaul (rares being worthless compared to uniques, static loot lists for bosses leading to boss farming, etc.), but emulating WoW is not the answer.

Feel free to bring up your own points if you don't feel like discussing any of mine.
 
Kyuu said:
3) I've heard the lead developer Jay Wilson (least I think it was him) repeat the mantra "There's no such thing as too much power." Well, yes there is. Again, this is something Diablo did better than Diablo 2. Enemies, with some exceptions, were too throw-away in D2, and with a mantra like that (and from the gameplay trailers I've seen) Diablo 3 might be worse. In Diablo, on the other hand, if even 3 or 4 of a monster ganged up on you you could be in trouble if you didn't handle it right (assuming you weren't overleveled and/or decked out in absurdly good gear of course). Maybe it's just me, but I'd prefer to be at least somewhat challenged rather than just being able to hack through hordes of enemies with almost complete impunity. Can't really judge by the gameplay videos thus far I suppose, though. The characters are obviously deliberately overpowered and the game still has a lot of polish work ahead of it.
Click to expand...

I heavily agree with this, Diablo 2 was mostly about the right skills and item load-out, the original was far more like the rogue-likes it was inspired from.
You often had to be well prepared and smart. I remember multi in the original Diablo was incredibly frantic, people would run into enormous mobs and even at the "appropriate" level you could only handle four or five of them. You had to set up little strategies where you would lure off the monsters, have one player bait them and the other meet up with the stragglers to pin them between the two players so they didn't get stunlocked from the enemy hits. Not to mention maneuvering monsters around in specific level geometry to cast scrolls (which were more common than learned spells since those were hard to find) like Firewall or Chain Lightning.

It really required a lot of coordination and team work.
I think that for all the steps they took ahead in Diablo 2, they kind of faltered on the team work part, sure it's more fun to play with friends in Diablo 2, and there are more skills that work with parties, but they're almost all entirely passive, auras and warcries just boost stats and skills, so the only teamwork that provides is "stand nearby a friend" which isn't saying much. Aside from that, there just isn't so much work involved unless you're under leveled, then you have to pull off some hair-brained schemes to kill a boss or certain enemies.

But because of Diablo 2's leveling system, you can easily just go grind and catch up, which wasn't the case in Diablo 1 because the better loot was absolutely mandatory in order to stand up to anything more powerful, and in order to get that loot you had to fight monsters that posed a real challenge to your level.
 
Did anything worthwile get released at E3?

I see Swedish PC Gamer will be writing about it in their July edition ...

Does anyone know anything?
 
They usually reveal stuff at their own convention, Blizzcon. Should be this August.
I'm looking forward to some PC specs. :P
 
It would be nice to see the difficulty stepped up a great deal. Seeing it hark back to more strategy, less grinding would be good. Unfortunately, I'm sure they're seeing WoW's success and might be inspired some by that.
 
This game can't come out soon enough.

I'd have to agree on style criticism though. Yes, Diablo 2 was very colorful at times but it was still dark in tone. I can't quite put a finger on it but something about D3 looks too cartoony. Even if you look at the feet of that beast on that image, something is off. I also blame the lighting, rather than colors.

Also, I love big bosses as much as the next guy but I don't like that there will be a lot of them. I liked the intimate dark setting of the first Diablo better. It's not an adventure game afterall.
 
Any Random guesses as to what the new classes maybe? My friend and I bantered around a few interesting ones like the martial artist and such.
 
Well obviously one of the remaining two unannounced classes is going to be some sort of bow-specialist. I'm secretly hoping for a return of the Rogue. The fact that the Rogue from the first Diablo was killed in the first act of Diablo II doesn't matter, she comes from a whole clan of Rogues. I'm sure they're going to try to go in some kind of new-ish direction, but still. I want the Rogue.

As for the fifth, I'm really not sure. Might be a sort of Knight class, akin to the Paladin, but without auras and the like. Or perhaps a melee specialist that relies more on agility akin the Assassin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top