Diablo 2 did it better. Diablo 3 is casual.

[umad]

well haven't been here since September. Finished with WoW, was hoping Diablo 3 would hook me but it didn't.

Here's my long summary of D3. I played Diablo 2 for 5 years straight. From the day it came out until 2005, a few months before patch 1.11.

The Pros...

Graphics:

I read many early reviews, looked at pictures, and read comments on how the graphics were bad. For a 2012 game sure they could be a bit better. Blizzard wants people with bad computers the chance to play.

I think the art style in the game is awesome. The game isn't very dark, but neither was D2. It's not cartoony looking like I thought it would be.

The most impressive thing is the physics. You can smash anything to bits. Tables, barrels, pillars, doors, etc. Pieces go flying everywhere, they roll, and they flip. Bodies explode into a million pieces and you can knock enemies off ledges and they will fall into the abyss. Blood squirts all over the floor and certain NPCs can get their head or other body parts chopped off.

The resolution is still a bit blurry similar to Diablo 2. This is something that could have be done better.

The water, moving grass, and dungeons were done very well. Act 3 especially up on the keep was excellent.

Boss Fights and trash mobs:

Much better than Diablo 2.

There is a great vareity of mobs with tons of unique abilities. You really have to pay attention. Simple things like rings of fire on the ground to spawned poison creatures to big enemies who charge up a 2 handed swing.

All the boss fights were done very well. Butcher, Belial, and Diablo were my favorite. They will be much better in Inferno mode.

NPC dialogue:

Although the actual story and certain NPCs were a let down for me, certain NPCs have some great dialogue.

I love how the companions will chat with each other, random NPCs dialogue will change as you progress through quests, and some make funny remarks.

Your character will talk with NPCs or other players when doing quests or out in the wilderness. Some simple dialogue, but some funny stuff as well.

Economy:

Gold is not useless??? Hooray.

The auction house looks promising so far. No need to advertise items in battle net channels or whisper random people and make trades through game.

The Cons...

No Stat Allocation:

Very disappointed in this. It totally makes for a unique designed character. In D2 you can go full vit, full strength, or a mix. Most people had to work a class a few times to figure out what they wanted. Most people had the same class, but with different stats.

No Skills:

Another big disappoint. The skills and rune system in Diablo 3 is very underwhelming.

Some skills are pathetic and weak compared to others. There are many skills on my barbarian that I do not use at all because they are pointless.

Diablo 2 did is great where you had to experiment to get what you wanted. I had both a Fire sorc and a orb sorc. Took me a while to get it right when the game came out but then they were perfect.

Diablo 3 you can make any error and correct them free of charge. This makes having 2 of the same class pointless.

Crafting:

I haven't really done much crafting, but from posts I have read it is not very impressive. Blacksmithing looks to be a big gold sink with no returns. All based on RNG and items that are very underpowered. You can get better items from the AH from people who sell way cheaper.

Jewelcrafting I thought it was okay, but now not so much. I like how you pay to remove sockets and upgrade gems. But at the same time, that means you only need a few gems for each character and then there is no point for gems anymore. Basically vendor trash.

Story:

The story was never a big part of this game lets admit that. But at the same time they rehashed boss content from previous games... Skeleton King - Diablo 1, Butcher - Diablo 1, Izual - Diablo 2, etc.

The actual story was pretty weak compared to Diablo 2. It was obvious what would happen to Leah and her mothers involvement as she just comes out of nowhere.

DRM:

DRM does not stop pirates. Pirates will always find a way around.

If Diablo 3 had single player, there wouldn't have been mass complaints on the day it was released. People would have just wanted to get going on one character and when the servers were stable people could do COOP with friends.

Whenever Blizzard decides to kill the Diablo 3 servers, that's it. You lose your characters forever. The same of course will happen with WoW if people realize.

That could be in 10 years, but for people who love the game and return to games, your out of luck.

No PvP:

Big thing for me in Diablo 2. I loved just having duels with multiple people in the Blood Moore. That never got old at all.

The Diablo team had years to set up simple PvP. It doesn't have to be WoW arena. Just simple like Diablo 2.

Quest system:

I find the quest system very odd compared to Diablo 2. The only way to track quests completed quests is at the achievement pane or at the menu.

You have to exit to menu if you want to change quests. It's not like Diablo 2 where I could basically teleport through Act 1 to Andariel.

The waypoint system is also very poor. I cannot switch between acts freely like Diablo 2. I have to quit and switch the quests to Act 1-4.


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


Overall I would give Diablo 3 a 6.5/10.

I think the game is worth a play through normal-hell on at least one character. You should at least try the other classes, although some are very poor such as the wizard compared to D2.

The game is very simplified compared to Diablo 2. The hack and slash was done right, but they seem to have taken ideas from WoW due to it's popularity. The MMO type mechanics do not fit the Diablo mold.

I don't think the retail of $60 was worth it, but it's Blizzard what can I say.

[Dangg]

Diablo 3 you can make any error and correct them free of charge. This makes having 2 of the same class pointless.

I'm shocked in disbelive that there is a person in the world who thinks of this as a positive argument.

---------- Post added 2012-05-23 at 03:31 AM ----------

Some skills are pathetic and weak compared to others. There are many skills on my barbarian that I do not use at all because they are pointless.

OMG did you even play Diablo 2?

[umad]

I'm shocked in disbelive that there is a person in the world who thinks of this as a positive argument.

---------- Post added 2012-05-23 at 03:31 AM ----------

what can I say... It's like a WoW respec but it's free.

In Diablo 2 you had to experiment when the game was released. I remember my friend making a pure prayer Paladin, wow that was fail but he still managed to do everything.

I had multiple level 99s in the beginning but later on they became terrible compared to my 70-80s because I figured out proper specs.

I had multiple characters for multiple things.

- Orb mfer
- Fire PvP
- Summon Necro

etc

In Diablo you only need 1 of each class. The only reason to make another is for achievements.

[robotwars]

Actually it will stop pirates. You cannot play this game without connecting to a server. This game itself will never be cracked, just like wow was never cracked. The only thing they can do is create an emulated server. Whoopty doo, a few people play on an emulated server. Not even close to comparable to going to a torrent site and downloading a single player game like dragon age.

Again, no one "cracked" wow and this is no different. Its the same thing except diablo is disguised as a single player game. No one will be able to login to this game, ever, from a cracked copy. They can enjoy playing on illegal emulated servers if they ever appear. Empty pvp, empty auction house, no rmah, just a few freeloading clowns.

[Thrage]

I think your assessment of the game as "casual" is the wrong word. Diablo 3 is what I would call "Smarter."

All stat allocation has ever done for anyone is allow them to gimp themselves. This is a nasty thing that happens in gaming that I consider akin to Adventure Games that don't tell you you've lost and can't advance. Given the nigh-endless combination of stats you can find on gear, you will be able to get pretty much whatever stats you want through that system anyway.

I also think the skills are very well balanced and each one has its own flavor, even if its purpose overlaps another. Some are useless until you get a good rune or two for them, but that's OK in my book.

[Elaris]

I'm re-reading the part about not needing multiple characters, and not seeing how it was so much better to slog right through the levels making multiple specialised characters, than making one you can respec for anything...

EDIT: I'm assuming all these people claiming it's casual have already beaten Inferno as it's such an easy game, right?

[Ausr]

If it's casual, it must be bad! OoOoOoOo the casual boogeyman will eat you and your family!

[hq78]

I'm shocked in disbelive that there is a person in the world who thinks of this as a positive argument.

---------- Post added 2012-05-23 at 03:31 AM ----------



OMG did you even play Diablo 2?

but barb in d2 has many useful skills.. like majority of them are useful

[Slonato]

Your first 2 negatives: no stat allocation and no skills are a plus to me.

In D2, knowing what the optimal stat allocation was stupid, considering all you used stats for was max of your damage stat, some vitality, then min to be able to equip items. In D3, item usability is purely based on level.

Skills were poorly balanced, and in order to be competitive you had to put every new stat in a single ability. How is that interesting? In order to recustomize, you had to roll a whole new character (or at later patches, do the first quest in normal/nightmare/hell or clear all bosses on hell). Your poor or leveling decisions screw you later. In D3, you can try all the abilities and see what you like in different situations-and they're all balanced, instead of requiring you to focus on just one ability.

[umad]

there isn't even PvP now at release. There are already emulated servers so yes it's cracked and yes people are playing. I don't approve of it but it's done. DRM does not stop pirates and all it does is hurt people with poor connections - not myself.

casual may be the wrong word but vs Diablo 2 I think this game was overhyped. Blizzard took things from WoW due to it's popularity and put it in Diablo.

[Deleted]

I doubt people completed Diablo 2 in 2-3 days like they did to Diablo 3. As far as I recall level 99 was almost out of reach without insane amounts of work.

[vihtahousu]

thanks for nice review =) I just want to say one thing; its much better to have your chars on server side than your own computer because then hackers/programmers can't upgrade their characters stats or equipment

[Wilian]

Actually it will stop pirates. You cannot play this game without connecting to a server. This game itself will never be cracked, just like wow was never cracked. The only thing they can do is create an emulated server. Whoopty doo, a few people play on an emulated server. Not even close to comparable to going to a torrent site and downloading a single player game like dragon age.

You can be fairly sure that within next few months someone releases relatively simple emulation program that player can run on backround as if it was the real deal. The only time consuming part will be figuring out how to make random spawns and stuff accurate. (there is spawnless oneyou can get already)

Things like getting these are bragging rights within the communities of crackers and you can be sure that right now all of them are out there figuring the shit out to say that they were the first who was able to make it working properly first.

Also comparison to WoW is a bit silly in terms of player numbers because it is MMO, built to work as MMO and entire design is based around it, while Diablo is single player with CO OP and it doesn't have to go into such lengths of balancing and content to figure out properly. The scale is entirely different.

+ there are people who can just put up with slightly bugged/unbalanced version of the game if it means that they don't warp lag to death, have rollbacks of items and experience and unexpected downtime during prime time.

[Masqerader]

diablo 2 was as casual as it gets. not that it matters btw.. i personally don't like diablo 3

[umad]

99 took a very long time on Diablo 2. I can't speak for anything after patch 1.10 though.

Also Diablo is a griding game, not like WoW. I had no problem rolling other characters and I never knew anyone who complained about that. It took a while to get right until people started figuring out different builds like smiters, hammerdins, fohers, etc. Even then, all those builds were slightly different.

I don't remember many hackers when I played... Don't forget there was "Battle Net" and "Open Battle Net." Open you could import characters from single player which could be cheated with and trainers used. Only hacks I remember were map hack and duping which was fixed. Maybe after 1.10 it got bad. I know people speak of bots. There were no bots in my time.

[PBitt]

I've never played the previous two installments myself...I'm sure I'd have a different view of things if I had, but I'm personally really enjoying the game atm.

As for some of your points, I will agree with a lot of the pros, and I see the point in some of your cons...crafting seems like a complete waste, for example. The story is not particularly amazing but it suffices...having a great story is good and all but if I'm looking for the most amazing story, I'll be reading a book not playing a videogame that involves slaying legions of demons.

As for some of your other cons:
-I believe pvp is a feature they will be implementing, IDK when but they have an option for it so I assume it's coming.
-As for skills, the game doesn't really even begin to be hard for most players that have played Diablo 2 until Inferno mode, and I'm quite sure it's not forgiving at all. There are lots of different ways people play one class, and any good player is probably going to have at least 4 playstyles, two each for solo/co-op with trash build and boss builds respectively. I agree some certainly pale in regards to others but sometimes people come out with wacky builds that end up working quite well.
-In regards to the servers, I would agree it would be nice to have an offline mode but everyone that has a PC has internet, the game was simply set up this way, and IDK how Diablo 2 characters are stored but I'd much rather have my character on their server than saved to my hardrive where I could lose it if it crashed or if I got a new pc.

Above all, the gaming industry has expanded, gaming developers have grown, and to be honest, I think that Diablo 3 is cleaner and simpler than Diablo 2, which is not a bad thing...not to mention, there weren't the amount of forums and videos and all this crap we have now to help people play better. Case in point, things shouldn't be difficult to figure out for the sake of being difficult to figure out...there is a lot of customization and ways to play D3, not to mention you need to max out at level 60 to be able to play any way you want to begin with, so even if it is simpler, it doesn't mean there isn't any depth to it.

[Shadzta]

Personally im starting to think the gaming community has risen and improved so much that we are becoming too good at games...well i say too good but we all know that aint true...i think there has been an insane influx of "casual bads" aka more new people to gaming but the original group of gamers from say 10 + years ago are now really good at games to the point where THEY aren't finding it a challenge anymore thats why we are getting the 1 week and inferno solo'd lololol shit. Iunno thought just crossed my mind....kinda makes sense.

Gaming as a pasttime and industry has blown up last 3-5 years. Exponentially.

[Celeclop]

PvP will be implemented in a future patch, that should raise your score of the game by at least 1

[Gerion]

You can be fairly sure that within next few months someone releases relatively simple emulation program that player can run on backround as if it was the real deal. The only time consuming part will be figuring out how to make random spawns and stuff accurate. (there is spawnless oneyou can get already)

Things like getting these are bragging rights within the communities of crackers and you can be sure that right now all of them are out there figuring the shit out to say that they were the first who was able to make it working properly first.

Also comparison to WoW is a bit silly in terms of player numbers because it is MMO, built to work as MMO and entire design is based around it, while Diablo is single player with CO OP and it doesn't have to go into such lengths of balancing and content to figure out properly. The scale is entirely different.

+ there are people who can just put up with slightly bugged/unbalanced version of the game if it means that they don't warp lag to death, have rollbacks of items and experience and unexpected downtime during prime time.

It took many months of beta for Mooege's team to even create the monsterless and useless sandbox emulator that's out now. He has since then quit the project. The task of creating a fully functional emulator is an incredibly daunting task that is rewardless. Same goes for WoW emulators, all of them are crap and still do not live up to the real deal. Despite the technical issues, Diablo 3's online only system is very difficult to crack for pirates.

[Wilian]

It took many months of beta for Mooege's team to even create the monsterless and useless sandbox emulator that's out now. He has since then quit the project. The task of creating a fully functional emulator is an incredibly daunting task that is rewardless. Same goes for WoW emulators, all of them are crap and still do not live up to the real deal. Despite the technical issues, Diablo 3's online only system is very difficult to crack for pirates.

Regardless, it is a challenge for the scene and you can be sure that right now there's going on a competition never seen before so someone can bang the "I worked out Diablo 3, bitches" card on the table like a pro. Within next 5 months or so, there will be playable version and I can bet my money on it.

And as for WoW servers, I could easily point out a vanilla one that is pretty much working (but not known/popular as people do not want the true experience but instead realms with x5 exp which it doesn't offer) on a Blizzard level of quality.