Thoughts on Diablo III?

[Double A]

I think games were more fun when I was 12 and didn't know what I was doing. They were too hard to finish but more interesting overall.

Anyway, I never played the first two Diablos, Torchlight, or any other game from the town-on-a-dungeon genre. Also not a WoW player. A recommendation of some kind would be nice.

 

[GrayingGamer]

Yeah, I call BS on anyone saying they finish any Diablo game at any setting in 5 hours. 10 hours is still hard to believe for any one except a cracked-out, over caffeinated ex-gold farmer who will be the next headline for dying while on a 3 day gaming binge.

Check the achievements - there are several for finishing each of the acts in 1 hour. Obviously that's meant more for people to go back when they out-level and out-gear them, but it's not hard to believe at all that the hardcore players are doing it already.

 

[attackfighter]

What a surprise - no one has posted a single informative line since my last post. Just a bunch of circle jerking over the length of the game "it's 500 hours if you play it 500 times!" Bobby Kotick would be proud.
Moderator Action: Is this really necessary? Please try to be more civil in your discussions at CFC.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

True opinions from a true RPG fan:
1. Story is a bunch of juvenile crap. Battle between good and evil, where the good are big tough G.I. Joe wannabes and the evil are transexual lizards who growl at you.
2. Art style is like Diablo 1 - if it were an anime made with MS paint. Expect oversized weapons, blurry textureless terrain and no sense of direction whatsoever. Basically it's like any other modern day RTS.
3. Sound - ohhhh I don't even want to get into that.

Maybe if you could get psyched up for the non-existent mods coming up you'd have something to look forwards to... but Blizzard has announced that they will perma ban anyone who has the audacity to think they can improve an already perfect game. So don't get your hopes up.

 

[Double A]

Because attempting to destroy one of the main draws of the PC market is going to go over so well for a company that makes PC games.

 

[Eat_Up_Martha]

I'm enjoying it. Played a witch doctor until, I think, just about the end of act 1. The new skill system is certainly working out for me. I like having the option of a number of skills of (relatively) equal utility available to me. Compared to previous incarnations, where I would basically sink all my points into one or two skills and use them exclusively, I now have the option to play in a number of different styles depending on my mood. I wasn't crazy about the system when I first saw it, but it's working for me.
I can't speak much to the plot, seeing as how I'm not even done the first act, but so far I'm not disappointed. Obviously, as an action-rpg, a person can't reasonably expect Hemingway-tier plot and characterization. Keeping this in mind, I find that the plot is certainly serviceable. And I actually chuckled at some of the character banter as well; the voice-actor for the Witch Doctor is surprisingly good. Admittedly, I was drinking a beer or two while playing (Driftwood Singularity, I highly recommend) so I may have been a bit more receptive of an audience.
I am really enjoying the art. The environments (so far) are beautiful and there is a real feeling of physical connection when you land blows on an opponent. The skills are (at least for the Witch Doctor) quite inventive and entertaining. Anyone who solves disputes by throwing jars full of spiders at people is good in my books.
The most obvious and aggravating problem with this game is the always-on requirement. I lack the writing skill to accurately convey how massively frustrating it is to die because of lag in a single-player game, or not be able to play at all because the servers are down. It's ridiculous! I understand why they did it, but I sure as hell don't support it. Blizzard should have found a better way to work this out, or just drop the real-money Auction House altogether. This is a fun game, and I'm going to keep playing it despite this issue. But I need to say that this one feature alone is almost a complete dealbreaker on one of the (otherwise) most fun games I have played in a long time.
@Double A; if you've never tried an ARPG before, this might not be your best choice. I'd recommend Torchlight or Torchlight 2 (coming soon). They're cheaper and simpler options than Diablo. And you won't have to deal with the always-on BS.

 

[Thrawn]

What a surprise - no one has posted a single informative line since my last post. Just a bunch of circle jerking over the length of the game "it's 500 hours if you play it 500 times!" Bobby Kotick would be proud.

True opinions from a true RPG fan:
1. Story is a bunch of juvenile crap. Battle between good and evil, where the good are big tough G.I. Joe wannabes and the evil are transexual lizards who growl at you.
2. Art style is like Diablo 1 - if it were an anime made with MS paint. Expect oversized weapons, blurry textureless terrain and no sense of direction whatsoever. Basically it's like any other modern day RTS.
3. Sound - ohhhh I don't even want to get into that.

Spoiler :

On topic, normal's been cleared in about 12.5 hours, which isn't really a surprise as it's designed to be pretty easy. Guess we'll have to wait and see what the later difficulty levels are like, although blizzard have "promised" that you will die. Alot.

I've only played for a few hours, but I'm enjoying it at the moment. Never managed to finish Act 1 of D2, although I think part of that might be because I always feel like I have to explore everywhere and pick up everything, and there was never enough inventory space to carry all that loot without porting back to town every 5 minutes!

Seems to be a bit more space in D3 though, so that's not so much of an issue. If I hadn't gotten it for free via the WoW annual pass I likely wouldn't be playing it right now, as I've got other priorities for spending my money on and not alot of free time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G5Ww7kaQ6y8

They have only killed the Skeleton King at this point. Do note that up to the Skeleton king is only part of the first act and they still have lots of the game to go till they complete act 1.

Another point to be made is that this is a group of fully co-ordinated, skilled, dedicated and hardcore gamers who have been playing regularly since the moment of release. It will take quite a while longer for the average player and even most seasoned gamers to reach this point. That being said, it's amazing to see the speed in which they have reached this stage of the game, but remember that the hardest is yet to come...

Source.

 

[Double A]

@Double A; if you've never tried an ARPG before, this might not be your best choice. I'd recommend Torchlight or Torchlight 2 (coming soon). They're cheaper and simpler options than Diablo. And you won't have to deal with the always-on BS.

Said town-on-a-dungeon. I believe the real term is Diablo clone. ARPG is a huge genre, and depending on what you think one is, I've played quite a few or like two.

 

[blasto]

Check the achievements - there are several for finishing each of the acts in 1 hour. Obviously that's meant more for people to go back when they out-level and out-gear them, but it's not hard to believe at all that the hardcore players are doing it already.

Okay, starting to believe it now.

 

[Tecknojock]

If you wish to add me, my battletag is TecknoJock#1833

 

[Luckymoose]

Said town-on-a-dungeon. I believe the real term is Diablo clone. ARPG is a huge genre, and depending on what you think one is, I've played quite a few or like two.

The Torchlight team is the original Diablo team, so I'd say it is their style above all else.

 

[MoonFlare]

Another fail from blizzard. They have a huge team and they spend a lot of time on everything they do. For what? Just to tell me they know what "I" want better that i do? I definitely don't want that always online DRM! It's by far the worst DRM ever made. Ubisoft (compared to blizzard) is just a little -----y girl that needs to be slapped across her ugly face. Just imagine the possibilities if their DRM becomes popular...endless rants from fans who will forget to mention that they supported it in the past.
A simple solution: To hell with them!

 

[Calis]

Well, I really like it. The new skill system is very interesting. Crafting is nice, and there are some (smaller) improvements over D2 that really make me happy.

But right now I am stll in act 1 (after ~5 hours of playing). This is mainly the setting of D2, so I am interested how it moves on.

And the sort of flaming, attackfighter and Moonflare are practicing here, is less than poor.

 

[MobBoss]

Ok, pre-ordered the game, and took Tuesday off in expectations of play the game. I live in the Pacific time zone so was trying to log on at 1201 am. Didnt get on till about 1:30 and played the game stable for the next 3 hours. Got tired, went to bed, and got up the next morning about 9 am and logged in again with no problem and played for about the next 6 hours straight.

So basically, I was online roughly about 80 to 90 percent on first day of release. Game runs flawlessly on my system and I have a dual-core Pentium with a fairly nice video card. All settings to high, and vsync and AA set to about 4x and game runs at 1680 very nice. No lag or stuttering at all.

Overall, the game is a marvel to play. Playing as a wizard, so being able to destroy the terrian is awesome. Cut scenes are awesome, storyline is compelling, and I find myself trying to squeeze in time to play every chance I get. Toon is now up to level 25 and i'm midway in Act II. Joining friends games or having them join mine is flawless, with no issues found after the first 24 hours after release.

Opinion: Blizzard wasnt prepared for the amount of people logging into their servers in the first 24 hours, but in to the 2nd day and beyond servers have been stable and log ins have been flawless. No bugs found in game so far, and it runs great. Having a lot of fun. Been looking at the various skills looking for different synergies, and every level it seems some new ability is unlocked which might change a primary skill in some fashion and change your build. This means there is an absolutely HUGE choice in character builds for one to take part in.

Bottom line. Blizzard definitely dropped the ball the first 24 hours of release, but reacted and recovered well after the first 24 hours. Game is a blast and very fun if you like this genre of gaming. Worth it as a purchase.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Thanks for your in depth look at the game and your experience MB.

 

[GrayingGamer]

The game was okay when I started it, and started getting really good around act 3. I'm now halfway through act 3 in nightmare and I'm having a blast.

It's gorgeous (people who whine about the graphics boggle my mind - the graphical presentation of the game world and the fighting is amazing), the mobs are highly varied, the characters are incredibly diverse (I can already tell it's gonna take me a long time to really figure out all the things I can do with my wizard, let alone the other 4 classes), and it's definitely got the fun factor (for me at least). It's got some rough edges, but nothing game breaking. Even some of the little lag rubber-banding that bugged me the 1st day seem to have largely gone away.

 

[Dell19]

Didn't get the game until Wednesday so missed the main login problems although for the first couple of days there were a few times when the frame rate would drop. Yesterday I played a lot and I think the same thing only happened once maybe.

I do like the characters and after getting lots of items its kind of funny to go to the main screen to see how stupid your character looks with mismatched armour all over the place. The graphics are nice. Some minor criticisms would be that the followers don't really seem to do much when playing single player and it would be nice if there was an easy way to compare two sets of item configurations mainly for when switching between 2 handed plus off hand and 2 one handed weapons.

Played through nightmare with a few friends and that was a lot of fun. We had two Demon Hunters with two monks (I was one of the Demon Hunters) and there were lots of good battles where the two demon hunters would be at the back of the fight and then more enemies would come from behind meaning that the battle field would change a lot. We often needed healing by the monks which is why I have the concern about followers not doing enough if I had been playing on my own. Another minor criticism is that its possible to complete nightmare and not be level 50 as I'm currently level 49.

 

[Quackers]

I'm only a level 7 Barbarian but so far the game is meh. I spend most of my time wacking creatures over the head with my sword and after the 2nd time of that the novelty wore off. I will continue playing it though because i'm only level 7 and i really enjoy thoroughly searching everything in every dungeon, trying to uncover every little secret and kill every single special monster Thats what I like about it so far. Also the storyline is quite good.

 

[Disgustipated]

Damn, you guys lured me in.

Okay, downloading now. I haven't used Battle net in ages, so I created a new battle net tag, but it puts this #1973 at the end (which is my birth year coincidentally) So I change it and put a 3 at the end, now it's 3#1973. Sigh. It won't let me change it again. Anyways, once I get up and running, I'll put my tag on here I guess.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

The barbarian always seemed like the most boring choice of a character, i can't really imagine why it's so popular.

and i really enjoy thoroughly searching everything in every dungeon, trying to uncover every little secret and kill every single special monster

I do this too. But from this point of view the game is the most disappointing one of the series. When you exit the game, the non-town & non-important areas get "un"explored and "re"generated.

But by far the worst thing about the game is geting lag during a huge fight and waking up dead or getting disconnected or loosing all your gear because someone hacked your account or because of server glitches. These are exactly the reasons why i never play multiplayer of ANY game. I like to take my time when playing a game (enjoy the scenery, explore everything, goofing around etc) not play it as fast as possible because the server might hit the bucket. Hopefully this being online for singleplayer thing will be solved in the next few days ...

 

[Disgustipated]

sigh, only 11%. Damn slow internet. I guess I'll play early tomorrow morning.

Barbarians do tend to be the most boring, especially early on. I'm only judging from D2 since I don't have D3 yet. But most of the cool skills like whirlwind only came later. Starting out you had standard attack and bash. *yawn*

I'll play a wizard I think. I'm not sure what a demon hunter is (is it like a necromancer in D2?). Also if anyone can link the rules, that'd be great. I don't think I'll get a manual with the downloaded version of the game. I am looking for some tips how to best play the wizard. Can you respec at all? I'd like to play around, and not look up the best build. But if you can't respec, that limits playing around to experiment with different skills.