EL DIABLO

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Saturday, May 19, 2012 04:53
VIEWED: 5393
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BYTEMITE

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 3:06 PM

Sorry, that's just fun to say. Anyway, Diablo 3 launched last night at midnight!

I know some of us currently think that Blizzard is the devil, but for anyone who's playing, I thought I'd make a discussion thread.

I played a wizard in the beta last month. I didn't feel like the online play was very intrusive, you can control who comes in your game or not, so really the only concern there is the usual security concerns associated with battle.net.

But since Diablo 3 is free to play once you have the client, at least you don't have to put credit card information out there.

The game itself is a lot of fun. They've simplified controls even down from what they were in the first and second Diablo, in that you assign both a normal attack to your left mouse and a special mana-spending attack to the right mouse (and for ranged attackers, the shift key is as important as ever). Instead of specializations through talents, a character picks up all the abilities as they level, and you can also learn different modifications for abilities at different levels. For example, one of the first spells you learn is Ray of Frost, which slows down a single mob and does damage. But add a rune to it, and you can turn Ray of Frost into an impenetrable shield of ice shard death centered around your person, very useful for small quick moving mobs that like to swarm you.

Because you have so many options but only two attacks you can use at any one time, the game feels almost more strategic than the other iterations. As a wizard I often found myself carefully scouting around the edge of a mob then withdrawing to assign the abilities I wanted to use before I'd engage them. Other classes with better armor may be able to wade right in and start hacking and slashing but there's definitely a unique twist to the point and click hack and slash playstyle.

There's also a lot of environmental effects that can be used strategically, walls and bridges that can collapse, chandeliers that can be dropped on mobs, and sometimes the effects of mobs can be used as a weapon against other mobs, sometimes causing a chain reaction that can wipe out a group chasing you. Sometimes triggering these traps is very entertaining and satisfying. Mobs can also surprise you and sometimes have unexpected twists, so watch out.

Once you get past the graphics of the title screen, which looks ten years old and almost laughable, the graphics and environment are actually very good. The game has its colour, but the colour adds a moody and eerie effect and is nice to look at. The first area mist and darkness swirls around you, and I think people will be impressed by the torch-lit vistas in some of the dungeons.

Speaking of, you'll find the game to be a concentrated dose of nostalgia pretty much right away, but I don't want to spoil it for you. I also enjoyed how they treated the music, and also how voice-overs provide bits of lore at your leisure, listening as you continue to explore and encounter new things uninterrupted.

Anyway, I was enchanted by the game right away. I don't know about the end game, as this is fairly typical Diablo questing and grinding - some players will probably once again just pay higher level players to experience leech for them and run them up to the bosses. However, Blizzard added a nice touch in that some of your in-game quest accomplishments are shared across all your characters, which means some quests you won't have to repeat. And the game randomly generates each time you log in and out, just like the previous games, so you might find alternate quests for areas as you play - one time I found a black mushroom that veterans from Diablo 1 will remember, but I missed picking it up the first time around due to inventory issues and haven't seen it since.

And I also don't know how the community will evolve - in the past the games have been plagued by widespread cheating and griefing, which in the case of item duplication ruined the in game economy, though all the shenanigans of yest

ZEEK

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 3:56 PM

My copy's in the mail. Probably won't get here until tomorrow.

I'm bitter about the design decisions they made in this game though. They took out some of the stuff I had the most fun with in D2. I really liked experimenting with weird builds and taking underpowered skills and making them viable. Now the range of skill power is basically static. There's a little you can do with your equipment to enhance skill power but beyond that you're basically stuck with what everyone gets. Meh.

The beta was pretty boring to me. I played it for maybe 2 weeks before I lost interest. I never even got around to making a demon hunter. It was just way too easy. My wizard could basically tank anything that came at him. Granted it's just like the first half, quarter, whatever of the first act. So, it's supposed to be the intro and all that. Still it was crazy boring. At least in D2 blood raven kicked the difficulty up a notch and forced you to start actually playing strategically.

I'm hoping the story will be good enough to justify the purchase. We'll see.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:06 PM

Huh. You were tanking with your wizard? I couldn't really do that, not with the grotesques, so I ended up having to strategize a lot, hit and run tactics and so on.

I also miss some of the build variability, they did that with WoW and I wasn't happy either. But this time, I think they implemented it in a way that forces you to adjust your tactics based on who you're up against, which still should add some variety in how a fight turns out. So I'm more forgiving here than I am about it in WoW.

ZEEK

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:20 PM

Grotesques didn't seem to do anything to me. Though I think they patched the beta a number of times. It's possible they changed the damage or hit points or something later. When I played I never saw the red outline thing that tells you you're going to die soon. I never drank a potion. I never came close to dying. It was very bland and boring.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:53 PM

Yeah, one good pelvic thrust from the grotesques would pretty much knock off a third of my hit points so any time I fought them it was like "aaaaarun! warghgigible!" only they can run about as fast as you so then you're looking for an open enough spot to get around them and slow them and put some distance on.

I think I saw the red outline once, because one of the bosses has a very long range life leeching attack, but I managed to pop a potion and it was okay. I had to go through a lot of potions and sometimes it was like okay cooldown hurry up. For me the playing was pretty frantic. So, not sure, maybe they made it harder.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 3:39 AM

Well... I may have spoken too soon about the online aspect. Partying was great, really fun, was having a great time with my friend... and then the servers got that "day shift is over first day of game time" player rush and just got hammered. Oops.

That'll sort itself out eventually though. I'm patient.

ZEEK

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 1:56 PM

My copy is out for delivery. I'm prepared to be disappointed tonight.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 2:51 PM

Well, I don't know what to say to that. If you expect disappointment you're probably gonna find it.

Most people I've heard talking about it, when they aren't hating it because it's not Diablo 2 and they're not complaining about /making fun of the servers crashing under the player load (Error 37), they say it's good clean simple fun, and that the difficulty increases on a pretty acceptable learning curve.

ZEEK

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 6:33 PM

I think the problem is Diablo 2 was more than just good clean fun. It's like if someone came out with Sim City 12 (or whatever they're up to) and they gave you pac-man. Pac-man is a great game but it's not Sim City. I feel like that's what is happening here. I had a ton of fun playing Diablo 2. I played it for years and years. I was still playing it in 2008 when they announced Diablo 3. I just don't see this game having the same value. It's a different kind of game flying under the Diablo banner. That's disappointing to me.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 6:36 PM

Did we play the same beta? o.0

I thought it had a very Diablo feel. Hey, remember in Diablo 1, when all you had was your click attack with your equipped weapon on the monsters, and your assigned spell button?

Or maybe I'm just one of the few people who think Diablo 2, while fun, wasn't actually an improvement on Diablo 1? The talents added versatility, yes, but I don't think they MADE Diablo 2, let alone the entire series, let alone made Diablo 2 better than the first one. It was just another menu screen to manage.

I ended up actually liking Diablo 1 mood and music better, but playing Diablo 2 because that's where all my friends were. All Diablo 2 really had going for it was that it was longer and had outdoor non-dungeon elements.

Diablo 3 feels to me like they took the best parts of Diablo 1 and 2 and put them together. Music and mood of Diablo 1 with the journey and outdoor environments of Diablo 2. But to each their own.

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