anyone else going to be picking the game up? i played a little of the open beta weekend a couple weeks ago and am now as hooked as i was to the second diablo.
:banana:
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anyone else going to be picking the game up? i played a little of the open beta weekend a couple weeks ago and am now as hooked as i was to the second diablo.
:banana:
i plan on getting it sooner or later.
I want to get it, but the online only single player mode is really frustrating. And only having a party of 4 players at a time... is... not Diablo-esque. I like joining a world with many other players. The online aspect of Diablo games is very MMO-ish. This isn't that.
If the reviews are really good then I'll definitely consider it. But I'm not sure if I like where Blizzard is going with this one.
wait, you have to be online to play in single player mode?
C&C4 much???Quote:
Originally Posted by xr4man
Do tell. If this is the case I guess I won't be buying it. SC2 pisses me off because of this.Quote:
Originally Posted by xr4man
what's c&c4?
nevermind, found it.
i've never played command and conquer.
I won't be getting it. I watched some friends and my brother play parts of the first and second games. It's just not my type of game.
Then add intrusive DRM and I'm out. My limited curiosity is killed by that crap.
I so badly want to play the game. The first two were awesome. Still have Diablo II installed on my system and I play it once in a while. But I'm so against all this DRM nonsense. They really are screwing over their paying customers with this nonsense. If you pay for it, they assume you're a pirate? That rubs me the wrong way entirely.
And the great irony is that if you pirate, you get a cracked version that works so very nice.
True. But they still deem it theft of their intellectual property if you go buy a physical copy of the game, toss it on a shelf and go download a cracked version. Somehow that's bad. I can't see the logic in it though.
I want to give them my money for the new shiny game... but I will not tolerate being treated this way.
Well if anything you're breaking the TOS and what-not. So even if a law was passed where you could download copies of things that you already owned for your own personal usage, it wouldn't help much.
But yeah, I'm just going to skip it most likely. I don't like rewarding unfounded behavior which does nothing but hurt consumers.
And there's always Torchlight to consider.
And Torchlight 2, which is releasing around the same time, has co-op over internet *and* LAN. Though they've yet to decide how many players will be in each game at most. They're looking at 2-4 it seems like. So, just like Diablo 3, but it's not Diablo 3. Oh, and it's created by some of the same people from the old Diablo teams. They're even having another party develop an MMORPG version, but that's kind of unrelated.
Diablo 3: No offline mode. No Lan. 4 Player Max per game. Real Money Auction House (also an in-game-gold AH too). And of course, no modding single player mode, since it's online only. It's also "expressly" prohibited anyways, found within the TOS. Idk about you guys, but I liked creating silly weapons and armor when I got bored of the game, back in the day.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011...y-cash-trades/
= Pass. Blizzard no longer has the gamer at heart, I think.
I used to mod on Diablo II just so I could have matched weapons for my barbarian. Dual 4 or 6 gem swords, filled with yellow, blue and skull. Could wade through mobs, and would go toe to toe with bosses without backing down.
Torchlight looks good. Definitely Torchlight 2 sounds worth looking at.
I've played Torchlight. Again, the dungeon crawler is not my type of game. I get bored too easily. But I liked Torchlight enough, until I got bored of it and never finished.
Also, violating TOS has been dismissed in court before. They say once someone buys something it's theirs to do with what they please. The best the company can do is not offer support when people violate TOS, or ban them from servers, or not honor a warranty perhaps, although I think that got tossed out on an Apple lawsuit against someone with a jailbroken iphone wanting a replacement when something broke. Apple still had to replace it.
I committed to World of Warcraft for 12 months so I got Diablo 3 as part of that deal. Played the beta and consistanly go back to Diablo and Diablo 2 all the time. I'll be playing a lot. I just don't know how I am going to play everything between my 360, WoW and D3. I usually play WoW while working so thats not a big deal though.
i got the annual pass with wow for the free d3. I intended to play online anyways so the drm does not bother me.
Ditto. I'm not one for to many computer games solo. Xbox I'll play the single player through then never play that part again.Quote:
Originally Posted by farlo
yeah, i do like playing games solo.
i got the game last night and i am sorely disappointed. The whole thing with having to be online to play the single player is just moronic considering i just paid 70$ for the game and cant even play it because the servers are either full or down.
Blizzard should be absolutely embarrassed that they let this huge server fiasco happen, if they even care anymore. It's what you would expect from some start-up game company. And there's really no actual reason why it happened. There just isn't one. It's mind boggling how it could have.
I still can't figure out why they want the single player mode to be online only... it just makes zero sense. And all of this could have been avoided too if it were otherwise.
I hate what the gaming industry is becoming.
I just hate blizzard all around.
They've explained quite a few times why they didn't want single player to be offline. You end up with problems like they had with D2, and where the user has access to data that makes it far easier to cheat in the online portion. By keeping nearly everything online it makes it easier to keep cheating / hacking to a minimum, as all queries have to run through the online servers.
As a programmer I can see why they would do it this way. You don't have to worry about essentially two separate forks, single player offline, and multiplayer online. While if it were me, I'd let the player do whatever the hell they want offline, and focus on protecting the online portion, I understand that by just doing that you are opening doors you could have kept locked by only having an online portion.
It just sucks they couldn't get the initial slam handled properly. Then again, if you create more servers, authentication, etc. than you need for launch, then in two months time you have a ton of idle servers you now have to figure out what to do with the hardware, even on a game as large as this. It isn't like Blizzard needs to be pinching pennies, but it is a business, and profits are what are important.
So while I understand why they are doing it, I don't necessarily agree with them doing it, but I also can't suggest a better method that would also solve the issues they were looking to handle.
One word: Piracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrazyTeaPot
They think that, if you have everything online, it'll be harder to play offline, and thus, transfer it.
PS: It's called a "debugger" and "decompiler", Blizzard. Just strap a debugger on, rip the code, make an offline version.
Albeit you have to be a great coder to do that, but I know there are people who do that.
Yeah, the whole, "they could make it easy to cheat online if they play offline" is kinda bologna.
It's all a (poorly) veiled attempt and controlling piracy. I like to take my games offline and mess with them, modify them, and cheat at them (if I want). I bought the product so I should be able to do that.
They should just make the online and offline portions different with no character crossover. And it's not impossible to verify the legitimacy of what did and did not happen while playing offline.
The thing I hate most about this sort of thing is that it increasingly makes cheating at games immoral. It used to be that I could cheat at a game I owned by entering cheat codes or modifying some game code. Then, one day, gaming companies decide to sell cheats as DLC. I can buy a "free pass" to get past a level or get a hint. So, now, if I cheat, I am somehow stealing from the company. What the heck? I bought the game to have fun, if cheating (offline) makes it fun, why make me pay money to do it.
It's just dumb.
i remember when gta was full of all kids of cheats that rockstar wanted you to use now its just stupid stuff. i do believe cheating is a dieing art.Quote:
Originally Posted by d_stilgar
I can understand ONLINE cheating not being fun, but offline cheating or cheat tournaments with pals?
Age of Empires, anyone?????
Heck, I had some awesome time with some friends using C&C Red Alert back when dial up modems were the way we played multiplayer *shakes head*. We modified the game file to have v2 rockets that could shoot 3/4 of the way across the map and were cheap. Made for some epic, epic firefights. haha.
I for one loved the original Diablo. I never made it all the way through II though, and even though I was excited for this release, I think Blizzard killed it with the DRM. I guess I will just wait til it is cheap and try it then.
What was fun in RA2, was when the "place buildings anywhere" bug was still working.
Apparently, there were 2 ways to execute it:
Click on building, click on ready paratroopers, click on minimap.
Click on building, click on tab, click on mainmap.
They say it's been done in the name of anti-piracy.
Who wants to bet there will be a cracked version available that allows you to play offline within the month?
These game companies are absolute morons. Anything you program can be un-programmed. You're not the only ones who are capable of programming stuff. So all you're doing is hurting your actual customer base while promoting piracy! Is that really so hard to understand? Honestly, I don't think they understand that and/or they believe something different, which is absolutely insane. I'm tempted myself to download the cracked version because of all of this.
It just baffles my mind that game companies are still trying. Do they think that we'll eventually just be so annoyed with this DRM crap that we'll stop pirating and call it truths if they go back to older ways? Uh, no. We'll just pirate even more so we can have the product that we should have had from the start.
On an unrelated note: My friend bought D3. He got to play for a bit, but now the servers are down again. World's most expensive login screen is all D3 is becoming.
if i could get my money back i definitely would. i stood in line for 2 hours had to wait another 3 to find out i couldn't play. then i played for 20 mins got kicked for server down time then i couldn't log on now i have to wait again.
So my friend bought D3 and gave me a guest pass, which allows you to try out the game for free.
Unfortunately, you can only play with other guest pass people, not people who actually bought the game, so we were unable to play together. Lame much? Maybe, just maybe, I would have been more inspired to buy the game had I been able to play with my friend? I mean, why else would your friend give you a guest pass?? Doesn't make a lot of sense.
The "starter edition", which is what you get with the guest pass, allows you to play up to level 13, or up to the skeleton king in Act 1. You also can't access the AH.
So with all of that in mind, here is what I think of D3 so far after playing for about two hours.
It's really boring.
.......................
First Impressions:
.......................
Cinematics: When you first start the game, it goes into the cinematic that was released awhile back, and nothing more. I was hoping it might expand on it a bit, but no such luck. Then the game starts.
Character Creation: Looks a little bit like WoW was my first thought. Absolutely no customization of any kind at all. You get to pick your name, your banner and your class. That's it. Why not more? No reason. None at all. They've been developing Diablo 3 for a decade and you can't even make your character your own.... Neat.
Gameplay: The first thing I tried doing was changing my viewing angle. Nope, As far as I could figure out, that's not an option.
It then guides you through the very self explanatory process of controls, which takes all of maybe 5 second. The controls are extremely simple and obvious, more so than any other game I've ever played, except Trackmania, where the only controls are the arrow keys.
Then I went off to explore the map and thus encountered my first monster. Bam, pow, boom. Monster dead, along with his friends. Okay, that was easy. Maybe it'll get a bit harder. ...Nope. Not once in the two hours that I played this game was it ever even remotely difficult. I never dropped down below half health. I rarely even got to the half health point. Very unlike Diablo (I remember almost dying quite a lot) and just kind of boring. Where's the fun if it's not challenging? It's just so mindless and unengaging.
After traveling a short distance, you encounter a camp with whatever survivors are left. You meet the captain who gives you a little quest. "Go here and talk to this person." So I did as much. And did as much again from that person. ...And again. It's basically just giving you the underlying "what's going on" story. It's mostly (as in entirely) uninteresting, though. It's just that nothing that anyone says is actually interesting. It's all very shallow and "of course. I didn't see that coming a mile away.... not." It's the same (and basic) mathematical formula that every game in existence uses.
Eventually, you'll end up on an actual quest where you need to go somewhere and do something that's actually worth doing. Except that it's not. It's just your typical, "Go here and kill [whatever], then come back and claim your reward". In fact... that's the entire game. There's no real exploration, it's extremely linear. You have one direction to go and you go there. You kill stuff along the way, collect stuff to sell or to wear or to use, and you kill some more stuff. As you kill new things, Mr Cain will pop up and give you a little info on them. Slightly interesting, but pretty shallow none-the-less. Just a quick little bit of info is all it is. Not once did I go, "Woah. That's pretty crazy/interesting/cool/etc." which frankly, I would have liked to. Creature and monster lore in a completely imaginary world can and should be very interesting.
After kicking and punching your way through a bunch of enemies that a child could beat up, you'll then meet a boss. Punch, kick, punch, punch, kick. Dead. Wait, was that really a boss? Even as a mini-boss.... that was super easy. I didn't even drop to half health. And he had friends surrounding him too! Again, boring.
And.... that's pretty much the entire game so far right there. There really isn't much else aside from that.
Skills: You get two main skills at any one time, where as you level, you can pick between a few options. One skill kills monsters this way, another skill kills monsters that way. You also get 4 more other skills, which are programmed to 1 - 4 on your keyboard. Basically the same thing. The difference any of them make and your decisions to use them... are non-existent. I never felt, "Hmm, that's nice, but I should really take this instead as it would be more beneficial to me." What you pick, ultimately, doesn't really matter. And as far as a skill tree goes, where you need to decide what you spec into... Yep. Doesn't exist. You unlock new skills as you level and then you decide if you want to use it or not. Again... boring.
Sounds/Music: It feels a bit like Diablo, but at the same time, it doesn't? I'm not really sure what it is. But it doesn't have that Diablo feeling. Maybe that's just me. But playing Torchlight, I had that feeling right away. It's all kind of unfortunate, because what you hear is just as important as what you see. They must have had a budget of a teenagers weekly allowance set aside for this category. It's all quite unimpressive and I didn't even notice the lack of engaging sounds until someone mentioned it to me.
Graphics: They are neither good nor bad. What else can I say? They don't impress, but they also don't let you down either. They're on the upper-end of mediocre I guess.
Character Cinematics: Largely uninteresting and unimpressive. I can't even remember what my characters cinematic was about.... That's how much of an impression it left on me.
Conclusion: It's just a total let down for me. It's very much like Diablo 2 in many ways, except that it's nowhere near as fun or as good. In fact, I would say that this game is not fun. I can't think of anything about it that I actually and legitimately enjoyed. It's just very boring. It feels a bit like Diablo, but it also doesn't feel like Diablo. Diablo 2 feels like Diablo even to this very day. And it had more and better cut scenes too!
All of this... after a decade in development...
Rating: 4/10
Unless someone takes the time and effort to buy the game, decompile the game, monitor the inbound and outbound packets and translate that, there isn't going to be a crack in a month.
It's more than just rewriting an executable. They have to write a complete server application and redirect all traffic to the new server executable. Right now, Blizzard has the servers set up much like they do WoW, where you are given a visualization of the world, and the game packs up all your actions and sends them out to the server. The server interprets what you want to do, decides whether or not you can do them, process those actions, and sends the outcome back to your local computer where you see the outcome.
It is very possible to get around this, as they have made quite a lot of progress with cracked WoW servers, but it takes time. Not only do they have to figure out all the commands and such being sent, but they have to populate a database correctly with every item. This takes a huge amount of time. You won't see a standalone server executable within the month. Maybe 6 months / 1 year / 2 years, but not within the month.
But, the game is popular enough that you will see something sometime along, just don't hold your breath for it.
Also, forking your code base to have separate single player and online multiplayer is a pain in the ass. It wouldn't be something that I would do. I can't remember the last time I didn't have internet and wanted to play a game. Others may, but not having them play a bit wouldn't have much weight to me considering the positives of forcing an internet connection.
I don't own the game. Didn't like D2 aside from a single play through. Objectively, I understand why they did things this way. If I had to make the same kind of game, I would have likely gone the same, or similar, route.
Must not be that good. 2.5 star rating on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Sta...=1W7859XARQKXZ
It's very divided. People are either loving it or hating it. There's next to no middle ground. That's what happens when you try to cater to everyone while also implementing a lot of features that people aren't going to like.
I said hell with it and picked it up for my fiancee and I. I'm quite enjoying it so far. I don't have a lot of time to dump into a game, so I like that I don't have to go and search guides just to make sure the stat points are perfect.
I'm finding it to be a much more enjoyable experience over D2, as things I found quirky or didn't like have been changed. The added skills are nice as well.
There's only been a couple times we couldn't log in, but we just went and did something else in the interim.
I'll just add, no Eyefinity or Nvidia 3D surround support.
seems like they got the server issued ironed out thursday, i had no issues logging in at all all weekend. overall its enjoyable, and has some fun boss battles.
It definitely gets better the more you play. And it's definitely better if you play with other people.
I can't wait! My girlfriends starts hating this game before the release cause my friends and I always talk about it :)) She feels neglected. Poor thing, she will have worse times after the release :banana:
It seems to be mixed reviews. I really enjoy it. Socially with other friends that play it I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Feel free to add me if you guys want.
Gottlos #1419