[Gamescom Speculation] Diablo "4" Reveal

[Ravenblade]

Diablo's best times were with Bill Roper at the helm. Metzen's influence turned the genre into an emotional fragfest with Marvel-universe'sque characters in it which should not come as surprise, it was Metzen's world and he had a geek thing for it. Without a doubt his artistic influence wasn't that bad on the graphics side but the genre needs quite some talent in order to go back a little to the times where Diablo had a significant darker character - and they would have to do that without getting a retro-character. On the gameplay side there's been a few competitive games in the last years which could easily stand their ground beside Diablo which compared to the years ago - where Diablo series were the alpha and omega of ARPG - makes quite a difference. The difficulty is not just to create an amalgamation of "all the best things" but to bring in some own features even if it's at the risk of leaving the ARPG track a little. What I don't want is clearly another Diablo with microtransactions.

[Deleted]

The difficulty is not just to create an amalgamation of "all the best things" but to bring in some own features even if it's at the risk of leaving the ARPG track a little. What I don't want is clearly another Diablo with microtransactions.

I disagree, the difficulty is to make it work, while holding it captive to the battlenet and the always online bussiness model that blizzard has decided for all their games (Not sure if this is also a thing with starcraft series).
Has anybody consider what D3 game we could have, if it were possible to mod it?.
I have, the game with modders working on it, would be far better of what it is now.
But because of the battlenet thing, no modders are gonna make the work for you, as they do for example with bethesda tittles.
It is in fact worse, in WOW, although modders can not provide you with more content, at least they do provide us with UI notable and very praised changes, in D3 best you can do is use turbohud, which really does not compare.

[Ravenblade]

I disagree, the difficulty is to make it work, while holding it captive to the battlenet and the always online bussiness model that blizzard has decided for all their games (Not sure if this is also a thing with starcraft series).
Has anybody consider what D3 game we could have, if it were possible to mod it?.
I have, the game with modders working on it, would be far better of what it is now.
But because of the battlenet thing, no modders are gonna make the work for you, as they do for example with bethesda tittles.
It is in fact worse, in WOW, although modders can not provide you with more content, at least they do provide us with UI notable and very praised changes, in D3 best you can do is use turbohud, which really does not compare.

Realistically it is very unlikely that any future Blizzard game will be off-battlenet as it's their eco-system. Their philosophy was and will never be that one of being mod-friendly because they have a top-down approach to balance and content authority. So in that sense it is better, read: more pragmatic, to focus on what will or may happen than those aspects which never will because frankly there are ARPGs out there which don't require an internet connection and are moddable, they may not have the bling-bling'iness, finetuning and polish like Diablo 3 but they are a easily a good alternative as well. It's like the difference between being forced to check into a hotel in order to dine in a 5-star restaurant or rather cooking yourself and be in full charge of the content and location

[Deleted]

there are ARPGs out there which don't require an internet connection and are moddable, they may not have the bling-bling'iness, finetuning and polish like Diablo 3 but they are a easily a good alternative as well.

No, they are not, I do play D3 and POE, both are really good despite of not being modable at all.
So far i have tried torchlight 2, and grim dawn, and no, they are not an alternative to D3 or POE.
I still have to try victor bran, and van helsing, (the most recent one about Vikings, i am not even gonna try that).
I must confess i have still not give a real try to grim dawn, but for whatever the reason the game does not compel me to play it, even although i liked titanquest a lot back in the day, the game is not attractive at all to me.
A remake of D2 sounds more interesting (if it is playable offline) that the ARPGs that there are now, leaving POE and D3 appart.
I do totally agree that is very unlikely for any future Blizzard game to be off-battlenet.

[glowpipe]

THey just released a new class for D3. They wouldn't announce a sequel after that, when they're gonna do more classes instead.

Except they have been hiring a game producer and a lot of people to a new unounced diablo project. So there is coming a new diablo game. That is basically confirmed. What it is on the other hand, is not.

[Ravenblade]

No, they are not, I do play D3 and POE, both are really good despite of not being modable at all.
So far i have tried torchlight 2, and grim dawn, and no, they are not an alternative to D3 or POE.
I still have to try victor bran, and van helsing, (the most recent one about Vikings, i am not even gonna try that).
I must confess i have still not give a real try to grim dawn, but for whatever the reason the game does not compel me to play it, even although i liked titanquest a lot back in the day, the game is not attractive at all to me.
A remake of D2 sounds more interesting (if it is playable offline) that the ARPGs that there are now, leaving POE and D3 appart.
I do totally agree that is very unlikely for any future Blizzard game to be off-battlenet.

Of course this is all down subjective opinion really, the games are not equal but a lot offline games are good alternatives if you can't/don't want to play online. They are lacking in a few aspects but offer something else on their own. Generally spoken since D3 most ARPGs did have an easier time to expand their own ideas in their own ways without trying to go a contrived D2'esque route. In that sense I found TQ a good game back then, so much that I jumped on the crowdfunding bandwagon once I read about Grim Dawn online. It is a fine game by any standard, especially given its team size, really that is if you are into dystopian 19th century style atmosphere. I got back playing D3 only a few weeks ago and I find D3 is quite relaxing to compared to that.

[Lazuli]

D2 re-release with HD graphics and high rez support for online with a balance update would be incredible since they clearly aren't capable of making anything similar to D2 they may as well literally remake the same game cuz people will eat that shit up. D3, after all the updates, is only just recently a decent game for a 1-time play through in story mode imo and has zero replayability without open 8 player games and pvp. There are a million more comparisons I could make but just aren't worth going into cuz everyone knows them.

I just hope it's not another D3 fail... need to get BNorth on the case.

Also give me back the fucking Assassin class, ugh I hate every class in D3.