Thoughts on Diablo III?

The game play could actually be decent but they've piled all this other crap onto it. After all, would you eat a five course meal if they sprinkled sewer water all over it?

Sewer water to one person could be perfectly clean water to another.

I can kind of see the points about no mods and not choosing skill points etc, although in this day and age requiring you to have an internet connection doesn't really seem like a valid complaint tbh. Sure if your internet goes down, or the servers go down you can't play, but you can't play if your power goes out either. Or your computer breaks. Given my experience with battle.net 2.0 through WoW and SC2 I have a feeling it'll be fine, might be a few hiccups in the first few days when the servers are likely getting slammed, but it won't be anything like what happened with AC2.

As for the real money ah, others have said it in probably better words than me on other forums, so I'll just quote them.

Spoiler :

I'm 50/50 but there's a lot of misinformation going around here. so I'll try to address it. I am worried but I don't think it'll necessarily impact my ability to enjoy the game, and if i end up making a few $$ from it so be it, if not, okay, whatever, I do see potential for abuse, and seeing it "ruining" the game, but I don't want to cry the sky is falling just yet. It can be implemented in a way to not completely ruin everything.

1) d2 had no real ingame currency anyways, first it was SoJ's then they were unstable, and it became just a literal fudgfest of people trying to figure out what currency was for what since in game gold was worthless, d2jsp ended up creating it's own virtual currency which worked, but nothing in game, was self contained economy, it was horrid, so I dunno if there was a "better" solution for this but I don't inherently think having no "real in game currency" automatically destroys the game.

2) It shouldn't change priorities, very few items, namely quest ones, will be soulbound. That means if you find a cool item and you want to use, it use it, then when you don't need it anymore, put it up on the auction house. There is no "just like new!" unless you socket it, or alter it with their various methods, it's no different from equipping it and using it, than from picking it up, and selling it. So I fail to see how this affects your priorities at all. Misinformation perhaps?

3) It doesn't lessen anything, if you want to get an item by farming it cool, if you can farm other items you don't need, to make some $$ that you throw back into the shop to buy the item you DO need, how is this a bad thing necessarily? Sure someone who comes in and buys all the best gear with money will obviously kind of rub you the wrong way, but he'll not have enjoyed the game the same way you did, and also he has to reach level requirements to use a lot of it anyways, so he can have fun not knowing how to play his class/etc while he tries to level his ass through to get to the appropriate level for X/Y/Z gear that he forked up $$$ for.

4) While slightly concerned, Diablo wouldn't work with a pay to play model like wow, so there has to be a way to maintain the servers and security licenses that they'll inevitably have to instill to ensure fair gameplay, this isn't necessarily cheap, and dealing with customer service, and coming out with potential patches/content/fixes costs time and money too. So having some means to generate revenue in a continued basis is required to maintain the game at a high level. Also, often from a business standpoint, you never "just have enough", activision is probably throwing up a 10% increase in revenue as a challenge/goal for blizzard this year, and you can't rely on just game sales alone anymore to meet these goals, so they have to find other alternatives to generate steady revenue.

5) I agree, it's scary to think about farming companies/etc, but we haven't heard anything about policies or rules about this, maybe there will be a limit to how many auctions you can create in a set time, botting will still be illegal, and if they make the game difficult/fun enough, it may not be profittable to do farming as a job, and therefore, not worth it for gold farmers. I don't like the thought of using real money for in game gold since that obviously is not a thing blizzard allowed in WoW, but this was because people were making Money OFF of blizzard property, something that you agree to in the ToA when you log in, this just makes it so if you want to do it, you do it through legal venues and not through shady 3rd party systems, that often lead to hacks or losses of accounts that BLIZZARD has to resolve and fix often times. Like I said I'm skeptical but it's not inherently game over.

6) It is a slippery slope, but in order for companies and corporations to survive, they need to evolve with the ever changing market. Look at the music industry, those that clung onto cd sales to survive have gone bankrupt, those who embraced the internet movement and focus more on live event coverage, have not only survived, but have shown quarterly GROWTH despite all of the fearmongering about the music industry "dying" displayed in the media. I don't blame blizzard for advancing itself, will we see this with WoW? probably not because they already have a cash shop for vanity stuff, as well as monthly subscription to keep it's costs paid for, while still generating revenue to stakeholders. While it sucks right now and to claim it's a slippery slope, how awesome would it be, if blizzard released one of their high quality games, for free and was able to do this simply because of a cash shop, something that you don't have to utilize and still enjoy the game at your own pace. If you could get something like d3 or sc2, for FREE, and all you had to do is live with the fact that some people will spend $$$ in the game, is that inherently so bad?

Don't get me wrong, i'm not condoning this 100%, i'm just saying there is potential for it to not be as bad as everyone thinks. My greater concerns is how this works for ladder races (assuming we even have ladder). I was concerned about PvP, but at least blizzcon they said, gear in general would interact differently for PvP Arena/battlegrounds than from a PvE standpoint, so it's probably not going to be a scenario where guys can powerlevel (assuming you can even do this?!, remember this isn't d2 necessarily) to 99, buy all the best gear, walk into arenas and just pwn face against seasoned veterans. But it DOES mean someone who doesn't want to do the gear grind, CAN do this, and just focus on arenas cuz that's his thing.

I don't see why it's a big deal. Oh noes, someone can buy an item with money. Who cares? It's not like blizzard is designing diablo 3 to be fair and balanced anyway (they are literally on record saying as such), so what does it really matter? If you care about ladders or their pvp, you are more likely going to be concerned about class imbalances then items which may or may not be an upgrade over what you can get in game anyway.

Not to mention you can just use the normal gold-driven auction house if you really really hate it. It's a feature, use it or not at your own discretion.

Honestly, this is how I see things going. Starting out, everyone is going to throw their crap on the real money AH. Once they realize that only a small group would actually *buy* items for money, people will start putting items on the gold-driven AH, then try to sell the gold on the real money AH.


As far as I understand, the real money ah is not available in hardcore, which is likely where serious pvpers will play anyway.

You could also look at trying Path of Exile, which I'm shamelessly mentioning because it's developed here in NZ and Grinding Gear Games will likely be a potential future employer for me. ;)
 
Sewer water to one person could be perfectly clean water to another.

I can kind of see the points about no mods and not choosing skill points etc, although in this day and age requiring you to have an internet connection doesn't really seem like a valid complaint tbh. Sure if your internet goes down, or the servers go down you can't play, but you can't play if your power goes out either. Or your computer breaks. Given my experience with battle.net 2.0 through WoW and SC2 I have a feeling it'll be fine, might be a few hiccups in the first few days when the servers are likely getting slammed, but it won't be anything like what happened with AC2.

As for the real money ah, others have said it in probably better words than me on other forums, so I'll just quote them.

Spoiler :






As far as I understand, the real money ah is not available in hardcore, which is likely where serious pvpers will play anyway.

You could also look at trying Path of Exile, which I'm shamelessly mentioning because it's developed here in NZ and Grinding Gear Games will likely be a potential future employer for me. ;)

I have checked out Path to Exile before. It looks very cool. :)

Middle market seems the way to go these days. Hope you can get a job there.
 
Oops. Double Post. :(
 
Yes you seemingly have to be online. But there is singleplayer. I mean, just set your game up to just play by yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if there actually was a SINGLE PLAYER button on the first creen. It will be entirely playable alone. And it is built to be entirely viable.

The lack of skill points and stats points, I was iffy about it when they first announced it, but they managed to convince me it was for the better. It'd be a horrible design decision if the mechanics were the same as the previous games. There will be other ways to customize your character, which they have explained. "Enough to Str to wield this equipment, enough dex to max my block, dump rest in vitality", or "enough dex for my weird bowbarian" yaaay so much fun...

We only think of the stuff they removed because that's what we are used to. We still can't tell how the stuff they added will FEEL and play. So of course, we have a skewed perception that more is removed than is actually being added. I'm confident the crafting and skill choices and runes will allow quite a bit of customization and wacky builds. Frankly my only problem is that it will be seemingly way too easy to switch between builds without creating new characters. Although honestly I just started playing Diablo 2 again while waiting for D3 and what a surprise I had when I noticed the latest patch allows respec. And I like that.

The real-money auction house... Not super happy. We'll see. Don't have to participate. And if single player and coop play with your friend is your priority, as you seem to hint, then it's even less of an issue.
 
Dungeon Siege III was too short solo campaign and maybee Diabloo III has an epical campaign

Torchlight was funny comic look

DS3 campaign only takes you around 22 hours or less to win
 
Blizzard is cool with this and will make a decent chunk of change on the side. It's an ugly side to the gaming industry that I want no part of. Diabwow now officially sucks.

Actually, in consideration of how much Blizz has fought gold farming in its games, and the number of accounts deleted because of it, I think thats a rather unfair statement to make.

I dont think they are fine with it at all.

And it remains to be seen if this will even be a problem in D3. Remember, D3 =/= WoW. The things that drive economy in WoW may not necessarily be the same thing in D3.

Lets not cry over broken eggs even before they are hatched, hmmm?
 
Actually, in consideration of how much Blizz has fought gold farming in its games, and the number of accounts deleted because of it, I think thats a rather unfair statement to make.

I dont think they are fine with it at all.

And it remains to be seen if this will even be a problem in D3. Remember, D3 =/= WoW. The things that drive economy in WoW may not necessarily be the same thing in D3.

Lets not cry over broken eggs even before they are hatched, hmmm?

With the RMAH, they are condoning it now. This time they'll get their cut however.

It was too much $$$ for Blizzard to ignore.
 
With the RMAH, they are condoning it now. This time they'll get their cut however.

It was too much $$$ for Blizzard to ignore.

Again, I point out that in a game like D3, how does the RMAH affect your experience in it at all? You can play the game single player, or with a small group of friends, none of which need participate in the RMAH at all.

If Blizz is going to cater to the 1% or so that has the ability to buy their happiness, I still dont see how that impacts your game play experience at all.
 
With the RMAH, they are condoning it now. This time they'll get their cut however.

It was too much $$$ for Blizzard to ignore.

Buying in game items with real $$ is already rampant in D2, however it often involves going through possibly dodgy third party sites. Blizzard is just removing those third party sites from the equation. If they didn't put the option in, the same thing would've happened in D3.
 
Buying in game items with real $$ is already rampant in D2

Don't get me wrong, I don't care that much about the Real Money Auction House issue at this point... However, we really have no stats on how "rampant" this was. Everybody seems to assume it was a giganormous problem. The truth is that it was most likely only a problem among the hardcore players who remained for many years, and those who actually played it online on closed battle.net (and many didn't because you lose your characters after 3 months of inactivity!!)... Most people I know who had D2 didn't really play on Battle.net. It was another era. So I think it's wrong to assume many people who played D2 were even aware of third party item selling. I'd be surprised if it were over 5%.
 
Again, I point out that in a game like D3, how does the RMAH affect your experience in it at all? You can play the game single player, or with a small group of friends, none of which need participate in the RMAH at all.

If Blizz is going to cater to the 1% or so that has the ability to buy their happiness, I still dont see how that impacts your game play experience at all.

This post sums up one of the problems quite nicely:

No one is mentioning the truly sad part about all this. As a player of D3, I will be forced by this system to think financially. Every item that drops, I'm probably going to have a burning curiosity about what it's worth in real dollars. Immersion is officially destroyed(It was hobbling on a single crutch before this). There is literally a real world dollar sign in the game. When I get a decent drop playing with friends that one of them can use I'm going to tactically weigh "Should I give this to them or take $10 off my rent?" And you'd be an idiot not to. Every decision you make will be a smart or dumb financial choice. I dunno about you guys but when I play games this isn't how I want to think. And all because Blizzard decided on the profit route and decided to dump the integrity of their game on the shoulders of the individual players. I'm not being forced to use this system, but no one will be able to ignore it.

Pretty good thread discussing the RMAH.

http://www.diablofans.com/topic/26294-auction-house-topic/page__st__440
 
Buying in game items with real $$ is already rampant in D2, however it often involves going through possibly dodgy third party sites. Blizzard is just removing those third party sites from the equation. If they didn't put the option in, the same thing would've happened in D3.

Blizzard hasn't removed anything. All they've done is legitimized gold farmers.

People can still run third party sites and they will probably thrive.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Funny rant about the subject here. Lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrESZJlNvQ&feature=player_embedded
 
This post sums up one of the problems quite nicely:

No one is mentioning the truly sad part about all this. As a player of D3, I will be forced by this system to think financially. Every item that drops, I'm probably going to have a burning curiosity about what it's worth in real dollars. Immersion is officially destroyed(It was hobbling on a single crutch before this). There is literally a real world dollar sign in the game. When I get a decent drop playing with friends that one of them can use I'm going to tactically weigh "Should I give this to them or take $10 off my rent?" And you'd be an idiot not to. Every decision you make will be a smart or dumb financial choice. I dunno about you guys but when I play games this isn't how I want to think. And all because Blizzard decided on the profit route and decided to dump the integrity of their game on the shoulders of the individual players. I'm not being forced to use this system, but no one will be able to ignore it.

To address a few points in the above comment:

(1)No one is being 'forced' to think financially. Thats simply a false argument right on its face - you can either choose to participate in the system...or not. Its up to you. But lets not pretend that your being forced to participate. Thats just false.

(2)Immersion is only destroyed if YOU allow it to be destroyed. I have been extremely well pleased by Blizzard games for well over the last decade or so, and I am more than willing to give them them a chance since they have been shown, consistently so, to be one of the premier game makers in the market today.

(3) If you are living so close to the edge that you have to think if something is worth 10 bucks towards your rent....YOU SHOULDNT BE PLAYING ONLINE GAMES. Cancel your internet access, save some dollars and buy some food. Use the time saved to get a better education or a better job than one that involves 'do you want fries with that?'

(4) Yes, you will indeed be able to utterly ignore that system if you choose to do so. I make more than eough money to participate in that kind of thing, but I plan on not doing so, because I dont like relying on a crutch (i.e. my pocketbook) to give me an advantage in a game. Also, since I only plan on playing single player, or just within my close circle of friends, well, lets just say we got past the epeen measuring thing a long time ago.

Bottom line, no one controls what I think, and for people to claim thats a problem in a freaking video game as a reason to not buy it is a cop out of mythical proportions. Grow a backbone, get a job, and enjoy the game the way YOU want, not the way you think you have to.
 
To address a few points in the above comment:

(1)No one is being 'forced' to think financially. Thats simply a false argument right on its face - you can either choose to participate in the system...or not. Its up to you. But lets not pretend that your being forced to participate. Thats just false.

(2)Immersion is only destroyed if YOU allow it to be destroyed. I have been extremely well pleased by Blizzard games for well over the last decade or so, and I am more than willing to give them them a chance since they have been shown, consistently so, to be one of the premier game makers in the market today.

(3) If you are living so close to the edge that you have to think if something is worth 10 bucks towards your rent....YOU SHOULDNT BE PLAYING ONLINE GAMES. Cancel your internet access, save some dollars and buy some food. Use the time saved to get a better education or a better job than one that involves 'do you want fries with that?'

(4) Yes, you will indeed be able to utterly ignore that system if you choose to do so. I make more than eough money to participate in that kind of thing, but I plan on not doing so, because I dont like relying on a crutch (i.e. my pocketbook) to give me an advantage in a game. Also, since I only plan on playing single player, or just within my close circle of friends, well, lets just say we got past the epeen measuring thing a long time ago.

Bottom line, no one controls what I think, and for people to claim thats a problem in a freaking video game as a reason to not buy it is a cop out of mythical proportions. Grow a backbone, get a job, and enjoy the game the way YOU want, not the way you think you have to.

No one is forcing you to use the RMAH but you will be constantly thinking about it. That's the point. It'll always be in the back of your mind.

The Blizzard that you have today is not the Blizzard of Diablo I and II days. You can have faith in them if you want. I am not interesting in a cash grabbing AAA company like that. I'll stick to the middle market.

If you are a university student or you live in a country like Thailand for example, $10 is a big deal. Maybe you work part time and are going to night school already. You want to play a game to relax and unwind. Now it becomes a financial decision when you get a good item drop. That's lame.

I have more than enough money to buy whatever I want in the game as well. That isn't the point though. I am not rewarding Blizzard for their greed and for introducing something very ugly into the game.

Bottom line, there are plenty of other reasons not to buy this game but this is the final straw and it broke the camel's back as well.

Torchlight II will be more than sufficient for me and Runic Games has integrity. Nice to see they haven't forgotten their roots. :)
 
(3) If you are living so close to the edge that you have to think if something is worth 10 bucks towards your rent....YOU SHOULDNT BE PLAYING ONLINE GAMES. Cancel your internet access, save some dollars and buy some food. Use the time saved to get a better education or a better job than one that involves 'do you want fries with that?'

If your parents are floating you for every expense to the point where you don't have to even think about finances, then you're not mature enough to be on the Internet.
 
It's true in a way that you can choose not to participate. But you have to basically actively choose not to participate every time a potentially worthy item drops down. So it is a pretty harassing thing if you ask me. Not everybody thinks the same way.

That being said, I guess a lot of this will depend on the value of the items. If 99% of items are not excruciatingly rare, I don't think many of them will sell for more than 5$, but we'll see. If it all dabbles in small numbers like that, who cares about this auction house. I can safely ignore it. The only time when it might come into play is if I am a lucky person who gets an item worth 100$. Although I'd probably sell it if there are really people who are gonna buy it. It's kind of sad in a way, it means that I won't get to play with the rarest items in the game, because I'm a sane person who would sell it and not pay 100$ for something like that. Thank you insane people.

Anyway, it'll all depend on how prices settle. But I suspect most of the items most of us will dabble with will go for worthless prices.
 
With a RMAH, it could certainly affect the rate of drops.

It is in Blizzard's interest to have many people use the thing as that means more $$$ for them. Making it basically impossible to get certain items through trade could almost force people to use it.

People basically have to trust that Blizzard will be on the up and up.
 
All I can say is wow. Imagine if NetHack had microtransactions!

Personally, I would refuse to play any $60 on release game that had microtransactions on top of real DLC of the typical form of additional levels, characters, etc... Charging $10 for a 3d model that has a couple of real in game stats is too much. As Thormodr implied, that's Ramen money.

That's obviously why they have the online requirement. It's not for the piracy, but so they can prevent you modding stuff into your game and playing with others with it, so instead they can charge you $10 a gimmick item. I wouldn't consider Diablo 3 with microtransactions unless they made it free2play.
 
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