Diablo III

[Cookie Monster]

Here's some new artwork:

Spoiler: Beware, this will destroy a 56k

 

[Hisako]

A lot of those came out when the website was formed,

 

[Ghost X]

Though I haven't exactly looked, I can't say I have seen positive reviews. People seem fairly critical thus far. Complaints about the easiness, shortness, server issues, dumbing-down of the skill tree etc. What do you guys playing it think?

 

[Cthulhu]

I'm not sure yet, I only played the public beta and an hour or so this afternoon, . When people mention short, how short is short? Say, single player, first playthrough on normal difficulty?

But iirc this game is all about the replay value; play it once, then play it again and again on the higher difficulties, online, grind better gear, etc etc etc. Just like an MMO, . I'm also pretty sure - and, if Blizzard is smart, they will - that there's going to be lots of DLC. They should do more - and smaller - content updates / additions than with, say, Starcraft 2 though, those take forever.

 

[Hisako]

Blizzard always take fucking forever to add their new content, it's their modus operandi.

 

[Cthulhu]

And I don't get it, . Where do they spend all that time on? Or is their development team the size of 5 people? Fuck's sake [frustration mode on], there's wanting to make the best, highest-quality games ever, and there's overdoing it - and Blizzard is. Even after five years of developing, they fail at the initial release, there's critical bugs in the game, and in all likelyhood there's going to be a bazillion patches to come to fix balance issues and add features that have been stripped from the release on purpose because they're not done yet (i.e. the 'real moneyz' auction house and PVP). At the moment, I can't see where they put all that time into, . Take the CGI scenes, name, and maybe some of the finer graphics (such as the various environmental and enemy animations / effects) out, and you've got an indie Diablo clone like the other dozen that came out in the years since D2.[/frustration mode]

 

[Ghost X]

Apparently some Koreans completed it in 7 hours, others claim they've done it in 12. Neither claims I could find a source for admittedly.

 

[Joe]

I strongly suggest you all give Harcore Hero a try with friends.

For those that haven't seen it yet, creating a hardcore is pretty similar to making a regular one. The difference is that when a hardcore hero dies, they're dead. Gone. Kaput. The only way you can ever see them again is by viewing your archive of dead characters.
It really does bring something fresh to gaming. Caution. You want to play well and you want to be cautious. Obviously the further into the game you go, the harder the game gets. I also have to guess that the further in you go, the more thrill you can get out of the game. You're gambling all your progress and hard-spent time each time you step out of the hub.

Obviously it won't be for everybody but it definitely adds a different layer to the game.

 

[null]

I tried that in D2 and both my hardcore attempts ended in death by lag. It's definitely a risk w/out a proportional reward imho.

On the other hand, browsing the hardcore graveyards is pretty funny.

 

[Cthulhu]

Apparently some Koreans completed it in 7 hours, others claim they've done it in 12. Neither claims I could find a source for admittedly.

Read the same thing, but I'm pretty sure that's normal difficulty and the like. According to Blizzard, it's going to take months before the first people finish the game on the hardest difficulty, . Although I've read that they got past the Skeleton King on the highest difficulty already.

 

[Interslicery]

How do these people survive with no jobs?

 

[Ghost X]

I was thinking more along the lines of how do these people survive, period =p.

 

[Joe]

It's amazing how much nutrition can be found in a 16gb RAM laptop.

 

[Cthulhu]

Blizzard pushes back the release of the 'real money' auction house a week; everyone moans over other reasons, such as the regular AH being broken itself.

In other news, six+ years of development aren't enough, apparently.

 

[ForceStealer]

I really hate always-online crap in games that either are single player or that I'd rather play single player. I have a stable connection and all...I just don't like the notion that I have to connect to your server to play a game by myself. Why can't it just be like Diablo II where you have an online character and an offline character?

 

[Cthulhu]

''It'll take months to beat inferno, if it even happens.''

European team beats Inferno 4 days after launch. Okay sure, they exploited the shit out of the game, died and resurrected each other hundreds of times, skipped most of the mobs, etc. Blizzard has already announced they are going to fix some of those exploits, such as the ability to resurrect someone while taking damage - something that was on the todo list, apparently. Of course, beating it on Hardcore still needs to be done - and as you can die only once / can't resurrect then, they can't use those particular exploits. But somehow I don't think that'll take long either.

This game is funnay, . On the one side, getting good gear by farming is pretty hard / takes a long time. On the other, you can buy excellent gear for the last bit of Normal difficulty for just a few thousand gold in the auction house - and you have that kind of money already at the start of the game, . There's just a huge shitton of good / rare gear to be found in the AH right now, and prices vary widely because nobody actually has a clue what's worth what - of course, with the huge amount of stuff being put in there, the value is rather low. I'm sure that'll happen with the real money AH too, shittons of stuff being sold for cheap, with the occasional overpriced stuff that poor fools will fall for (and complain about).

 

[Xelazander]

I'm at level 52 Barbarian atm, on Hell difficulty - shit gets hard on Hell, Inferno must be insane. But it's all gear based, if you speed through the game you're not gonna have to gear to survive. Things 2 shot me until I buy new gear on the AH.

The top ranked group atm is Method, a sponsored WoW guild that come in the top 10 of heroic bosskills.

I'm looking forward to the PvP.

 

[Cthulhu]

I'm close to the end of Act 3, level 30 monk. I wanted to go and finish the game today, but the european servers decided to bum out today, .

 

[Joe]

I'm playing Wizard but my alt is a Monk and I'm not sure which I like best.

 

[Xelazander]

I'm playing Wizard but my alt is a Monk and I'm not sure which I like best.

Ziad's starting a Wizard, level a monk with him


Oh and servers are apparently back up!

 

[Cthulhu]

Woo . I took that opportunity to beat the game. The final boss was doable, if one plays normally; of course, that is with gear from the auction house. I should do a playthrough using just the equipment I manage to gather; I'm sure lots of farming will occur, since only about 0,5% of everything you find is usable / better than what you have. Seriously, Blizzard should have an option to just either automatically recycle magic (blue) weapons into essence / crafting mats, or not drop them at all. Same with the broken and normal items; one only uses those at the start of the game, i.e. about five minutes, for the remainder of the game it's just useless clutter you accidentally pick up and toss.

 

[Xelazander]

Yeah, or give them some actual vendor value, 3 gold for a level 50 white is silly.

 

[Cthulhu]

 

[Joe]

This is me.

All these server complaints are going over my head.

 

[Xelazander]

'Cause you never log on