Hell is not frozen yet! (Diablo 3)

Well Blizzard's explanation (as expressed by Bashiok anyway) for the online-only thing is the same as their explanation for pretty much everything, seemingly: their player-base is dumb.

It appears that having separate, offline-only characters will confuse and/or frustrate players if they decide they want to play online. Because, y'know, they're too dumb to understand a simple warning that offline characters are strictly offline and Bnet characters are strictly online.

And they removed skill-trees because their testers were dumping all their skillpoints into a couple skills and respeccing constantly... so they couldn't figure out a way to discourage the point dumping and respeccing except to get rid of the system entirely and make skills auto-level.

And there will be a Real Money Auction House... with Blizzard taking a cut of the action there, of course.

Hell has indeed frozen over...
 
Kyuu said:
Well Blizzard's explanation (as expressed by Bashiok anyway) for the online-only thing is the same as their explanation for pretty much everything, seemingly: their player-base is dumb.

It appears that having separate, offline-only characters will confuse and/or frustrate players if they decide they want to play online. Because, y'know, they're too dumb to understand a simple warning that offline characters are strictly offline and Bnet characters are strictly online.

And they removed skill-trees because their testers were dumping all their skillpoints into a couple skills and respeccing constantly... so they couldn't figure out a way to discourage the point dumping and respeccing except to get rid of the system entirely and make skills auto-level.

And there will be a Real Money Auction House... with Blizzard taking a cut of the action there, of course.

Hell has indeed frozen over...
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While I won't be buying this game due to constant battlenet connection and no mods, I'm wondering where you got that information about the skilltrees from?
 
several reviews which playtested the game made that claim. It seems like the completely reworked the skill system. Particularly those with the points about strength and such. It seems now that you will require more "items" to get a passive increase like runes for magic and armor/eqluipment for the rest of your stats. The only thing you get with a level up is more access to spells/skills and increasing them over time. No clue if that is how it really will work though.
 
Meh. Impressive how effective they are at killing off interest in a game. They should've skipped respeccing instead.
 
When you level up, your stats automatically increase (it's not like stats were ever important in D2, everyone poured all points in Strength and Vitality anyway because the two others were useless save for Amazons and Dexterity) and you eventually get more skill slots (so that you have more skills ready). You can use runes to upgrades skills (ie make summoned zombie humans into zombie bears), however, and they say each skill has 6 possible upgrades. Doesn't seem like that much of a dumbing down to me, D2 had way too many cookie cutter builds if you ask me. I won't complain if they can put some variety.

Now, the permanent connection and auction house, that's another matter. I fully expect the auction house to delve into madness very soon (with Blizzard making a tidy profit) and the permanent connection even for single-player seems like overkill. My internet has some hiccups sometimes, it happens, nothing I can do about it. When I played AC2, said hiccups disconnected me half the time, it was hugely frustrating. I hope it will let you lose your connection for a few seconds before booting you, or no purchase for me.
 
Ilosar said:
Now, the permanent connection and auction house, that's another matter. I fully expect the auction house to delve into madness very soon (with Blizzard making a tidy profit) and the permanent connection even for single-player seems like overkill. My internet has some hiccups sometimes, it happens, nothing I can do about it. When I played AC2, said hiccups disconnected me half the time, it was hugely frustrating. I hope it will let you lose your connection for a few seconds before booting you, or no purchase for me.
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Yeah, the AH in WoW shows the same deal. Some people will corner the market to make money of of rare items and so on. It's bad enough in WoW, but with real money? Feck me gently.

From what I remember in WoW you got booted even with just a second or so of internet glitching out, and from what I've heard from my mates that still play it still the same deal. I doubt they'll fix that any time soon really.
 
Wow what's up with all of this sudden explosion of strictly shitty info about this game? Real money auction? I have to stay connected to play the single player? You have got to be shitting me. What's going on??!?!?!?!
 
Most likely this is caused by management shifts in the company. You know, *cough*, Activision and so on. I personally stopped being interested in the game when they showed the first screenshots of World of Warcraft alike sceneries. Which is a shame, since I really dig the atmopshere of Diablo I (this one especially) and Diablo II.

(And seriously, my heart is bleeding each time I remember that Boyarski is working on this game. Such a huge pile of wasted talent...)
 
I've been playing Diablo 2 since release.

The AH is actually a great idea, because much like the booming gold selling business in WoW, people are always going to want to buy in-game items with real money to get ahead. They're going to do it regardless, and this AH effectively shuts down all of those item selling websites as why go through a shady website when you can simply do it all in-game with zero risk to you? I also find the prospect that I'll be able to sell items for cash a nice one.

The most amazing part is that it will completely replace the horrible trade system from Diablo 2 which was fucking horrible, and nearly impossible to find a buyer or seller of a specific item. Not having to use D2JSP to find a trade in a reasonable amount of time will be lovely.


I don't like the idea of the ALWAYS CONNECTED internet shit, but I can understand why they did it. If you're always connected to the internet when you're playing, Warden is always running. They'll have a harder time creating bots/hacks when they can't test them out in single player first.

As for the no mods thing, it's disappointing (Median XL is much better than un-modded D2 in my opinion) but I get why they're doing it.
 
Well, if that's the case, looks one of the one of my most anticipated games will stay on their store shelves. Seriously, you already made millions with WOW, so why bother with another MMO? If you were going to make a Diablo MMO, then make one already, don't make these fake arse pretend single players.

I was all excited over nothing. :whatever:
 
Though isn't it nice from Blizzard that the "items" will be much more important for your characters since they push your stats now much more but at the same time there will be auctions/mini-transactions so baiscally pay to win ? :D

Would it be really wrong to assume some ulterior motives now ?
 
What puts me off about the whole auction thing is that they might adjust the game balance to force you to think about buying the loot instead of waiting for it to drop.

I am playing this tower defense type game on the iPhone right now and it is a completely free game and can be played without spending a dollar but at some points the difficulty jumps way up so you have to fail again and again to slowly accumulate enough gold to upgrade your units and be able to pass the level. The slow grind gets annoying and you wish there was an easier way to get the gold and there is (real money). I am afraid that Blizzard is going to create a similar flow to Diablo 3. They got that shit down with WOW to keep you coming back and want to go on. I am sure it's only natural to them by now.

EDIT:
Also, staying connected to play single player is fucking bullshit. I understand WHY they do it but fuck that. If they have a reason to, doesn't mean they should. It's fucking bullshit and it's too much assfuckery if you ask me. Pardon the language but this just pisses me off.
 
In theory, they could have separated them, like in D2, but in practice it gives hackers a testing ground for their stuff. Now, if you absolutely need to be online to play (and it will be hacked anyway, I am sure of it), you have less opportunities. I still don't like it, but at least it's not groundless like for CNC4 or Assassin's Creed 2.
 
Hm... Auction houses with real money? This is a perfect base for "gold digging", i already see thousands of hand rubbing gestures... Two days into the game and the auction houses will have most of the best items in the game. A rich 14 year old will cease the opportunity, buy the perfect set of destruction and run around like a dick while using annoying language and flashing his balls to other people. He then will get tired of these items and sell them to other players. In a month all the items will be rendered valueless - perfect opportunity for DLC! Rinse and repeat.

Also, no lan? No real single player? No mods? Permenant internet connection with permenant updates (updates dicatated by a bunch of whinny kids to nerf class upon class to no end?).

I don't know, this doesn't sound very appealing to me. Also, these constant little "improvements" by the industry is a very alarming tedency... Does anyone know any other industry (not a monopolian one) where the seller has so much leevay with its customers?
 
AskWazzup said:
Does anyone know any other industry (not a monopolian one) where the seller has so much leevay with its customers?
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Prostitution ? Theh. No seriously. No clue.
 
I have absolutely no doubt that this will be a huge seller, no matter how awful it is. It's impossible to overestimate the herd-following idiocy of gamers as a whole. They'll accept any level of exploitation to get their fix.

And they'll ridicule the people who won't accept it.
 
UniversalWolf said:
I have absolutely no doubt that this will be a huge seller, no matter how awful it is. It's impossible to overestimate the herd-following idiocy of gamers as a whole. They'll accept any level of exploitation to get their fix.

And they'll ridicule the people who won't accept it.
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Though to be fair Sonny did something like that long before Blizzad. So they are not doing something new just following a tradition here I guess ...

I have to say I really hate the "always online garbage" particularly with games that offer you a possibility to play singleplayer as well.

But I am somewhat torn apart if I should applaud or demonize (what a phun ...) Blizzard for their auction house.

I mean take it from that angle. Already with WoW and Diablo 2 you have a huge "market" for items and characters which people sell. Even though Blizzard never supported it in their games and even bans it. So it is very likely that even without those auctions by Blizzard it would still happen. Now it seems there is definitely a demand by their players otherwise it would not happen and be profitable. That way at least the gamer has a very easy and comfortable access to legal items without the risk that they might get deleted. I think that is a good decision.

Now there is the other side. Farming. Sweatshops as how they are called which use cheap chinese labor often enough involuntary teenagers from the street to play those games all the time so a some fat european or american kid can buy the best equipment for his characters. But that again is a sword with two edges. Who is worse ? The guy which buys those junk or the people which farm it ?

I guess nothing is always as easy how it seems.
 
ugh, ive only skimmed the last few pages, but if this is where gaming is going, ill be playing classics for a long time to come.

How greedy of these twats, they already make so much money off these games, microtrans really realllllly pisses me off.

Think about how much productivity the world has lost due to timesinks like WoW, and then this, and we need to pay more and more? This is a rape of society.
 
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