*IT* IS COMING. (Diablo 3 beta)

[Micmu]

Have fun getting lag-killed in your "single player" games.
Have even more fun getting spied upon and banned for "unacceptable" behavior in your single player games.
Also have fun playing game when "internet is not working can't post on faceass now it's time for games!!"

It's a fucking MMO. I don't know why some of you still haven't got that clue yet and keep talking about "cracks" and "leaked beta copies" and "nazi DRM" when it's not DRM at all. You just get a fat client for their online service on that DVD. Like WoW.

 

[pocahaunted]

For those who care, the beta might be accessible sooner than expected for us who are usually shunned during beta invites.

Yay?

 

[Castanova]

That'd be pretty cool.Although I do predict a fairly short beta phase OR a whole ton of beta invite waves. Considering it's only the first two hours of the game, your typical beta tester will be done with all five classes within the first week of their invitation and probably lose interest.

 

[shihonage]

Somehow, Blizzard being a much larger company means that Runic is unable to produce a quality competing product? Okay, this may be true if they were both making Gears of War 4.

Yes, "somehow." Diablo 3 has a huge budget and accordingly, will cost $50... kind of like Gears of War. Torchlight 2 isn't, and doesn't. That's why it's listed as $20 on their website.

So, only crappy games sell for $20, and big budget always means a better, longer, more-fun game. Oh, I'm afraid commonly available evidence disagrees with your simplistic views.

/emperor

But they're both making Diablo clones

Nope, one is making a "AAA" sequel, like it or not.

What is "AAA" exactly? Shouldn't the graphics be one of the As? Doesn't that make Diablo 3 more of a ... BAA title?

using low-res textures, low-res models, and mostly forgo the need for level designers because 95% of the game is randomly generated.

Let me put it this way... there's a certain quality ceiling that you hit, before Diablo stops being Diablo and starts becoming something else.

Uh huh. This must be why Diablo clones are a dime a dozen.

Not even sure what's the point supposed to be here.

Also, I base my assumptions on actual information I gathered about Torchlight 2, while you base yours on... Torchlight 1, Runic's goals for Torchlight 1, and their marketing for Torchlight 1

Oh snap, you've got me! This whole time I've been looking at Torchlight without realizing it wasn't actual information! I feel so silly.

Pointless sarcasm is pointless.

Finally, a game that looks and plays a whole lot like Diablo 2, is somehow "irrelevant" to Diablo 3?

Pretty much. Or, if you prefer, it will have about the same relevance as Nox, Sacred, Titan Quest, Fate, Torchlight, and Dungeon Siege.

None of which were as closely aping Diablo 2 as Torchlight 2 is. It is obvious from the facts currently known, interviews, and videos.

Y'know, I'm not psychic, and I didn't get to play the game. Yet while I can merely speculate about quality of Torchlight 2, you don't even make an attempt to find out anything about it. You sound positively religious.

Very cute. And you're the one on a crusade in a Diablo 3 thread, bro.

:whatamireading:

Kneejerk defensive, and entirely without content, just like your other replies. I'm done trying.

 

[pocahaunted]

That'd be pretty cool.Although I do predict a fairly short beta phase OR a whole ton of beta invite waves. Considering it's only the first two hours of the game, your typical beta tester will be done with all five classes within the first week of their invitation and probably lose interest.

Possibly, but the odds are still very unfavorable. It's also interesting because it provides some hope of being able to play single player when retail hits, which seems to be something a lot of people want.

 

[Shannow]

No internet connection and no legit copy = no game. Well until haxors setup their own servers after a while...

I'm predicting some kind of 'host your own emulated d3 server' 3rd party loader program that you execute and D3 starts up with all the features of the game and none of the retards

I give it a month to surface at most, the internet hax0r prestige would be tremendous for the guy who gets a good one out of the door first

Another possibility: As I understood it, Blizz simply forces the saves to be on their servers. The crack (yes, micmu) would simply tell the game to save locally.
We'll see.

I bet 4000 posts that there'll be a working "non-Blizz" version within one month after release.
Any counter wagers?

 

[made]

I bet 4000 posts that there'll be a working "non-Blizz" version within one month after release.
Any counter wagers?

I bet my 2000 that it will take a lot longer than a month. SC2 multiplayer still hasn't been fully emulated afaik.

 

[Shannow]

I bet 4000 posts that there'll be a working "non-Blizz" version within one month after release.
Any counter wagers?

I bet my 2000 that it will take a lot longer than a month. SC2 multiplayer still hasn't been fully emulated afaik.

Well, I'm not talking about multiplayer. I never consider multiplayer as part of pirated games. Change that to "working single-player version".

 

[made]

I know. Me neither. Just saying that's the part that requires Bnet connection, much like D3's singleplayer will.

 

[spectre]

http://darkblizz.org/Forum2/site-news/d ... -cracking/

Some guys are onto it, apparently. They have the empty map and char up and running.
Unfortunately, it seems the majority of the code(drops, AI, skills) is stored on the server.

It is possible that they will be able dig deeper into it once closed beta begins.

 

[pocahaunted]

They haven't required any packet sniffing because the Bnet protocol wasn't encrypted, but they've only been able to keep a game running for 2 minutes top as of yet.

 

[spectre]

That darkblizz thread had some potential for epic level haxxor drama & butthurt for a sec.
EDIT: Whop de doop, thread got closed.

Anyways, shame I have to do actual work this weekend, leaving me with little time to watch the beta streams.
If anybody's interested, I can recommend this guy:
http://www.livestream.com/liquidblue1985/

He does full playthroughs, actually taking time to listen to what the NPCs say. Can be annoying at times when he jerks off to his crossfired triple-monitor setup, but otherwise seems better than the lot I saw before.

I'm actually liking what I saw, there, I said it no more Kodex Kool Kredits for me.

There are probably dudes out there screaming: still not grimdark enuff!!1one, but I think they got the atosphere down pretty well, much closer to the original than D2 did.
Not the same thing but it makes me feel a like the excitable little git I was at that time when D1 demo came out. The game got a lot of love from the devs and it shows.

 

[pocahaunted]

True, most things I don't agree with are more interface/infrastructure related, the game itself seems to be a vast improvement on Diablo 2, except, maybe, the whole skill hot swapping bullshit - hope they at least limit it in someway.

I've watched plenty of streams by now, most characters seem fun to play even at the lower levels, unlike, say, low level sorceresses in D2. If anyone wants some decent streams, just check on JTV/TwitchTV.

 

[spectre]

except, maybe, the whole skill hot swapping bullshit - hope they at least limit it in someway.

Lot's of people bitching about it, so they'll probably attempt to address it somehow. I'm thinking, it'll have something to do with the way runestones are implemented.

And I don't think they'll be making any drastic changes to it, with the 10 char limit, you don't have that much space for 4 variations of a single class. Most likely, it is merely expected that you create a 1 male and 1 female in each class and swap around gear & runes if you want to make a drastic respec.

I don't feel too bad about the skill swapping on principle. It definitely beats the D2 approach when you had to invest skill points blindly if it was your first time with the char. And the 1 or 20 points per skill wasn't really THE most enlightened system IMO.
As long as it won't be viable to do it in mid-combat, it should turn out ok.

What I'm not over, though is the lack of the offline mode. The few streams I saw HAD server-side issues and that I cannot stand. Fortunately, the friendly neighborhood tpb store will be happy to oblige as far as I am concerned.
Of course, until I eventually cave in and just buy it.

 

[pocahaunted]

Yeah, the lag has been appalling, but besides this being an early stage of semi-public beta these aren't even the Bnet servers yet so it's expected.

I'm OK with being able to swap skills, just not as I've seen done in some streams where players would just change skills mid-fight. For example Monks would go low on HP and switch to the healing skill, this generates very clunky gameplay. There are also other big cooldown skills which are way too powerful to ignore even if they aren't runed, there's a big incentive to use them and then swap them out until the skill is up again.

An easy fix would be to disallow swapping skills on CD or just make every new swap have to go through the CD before being usable, whilst having an interruptible cast mechanic when changing skills to avoid in-combat skill swapping abuse.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

Mmm lag, I remember the Duriels chamber fight, that encounter alone caused a few deeds screens for my Hardcore toons lag or no lag.

 

[spectre]

here are also other big cooldown skills which are way too powerful to ignore even if they aren't runed, there's a big incentive to use them and then swap them out until the skill is up again.

Seems like this won't be the case. Swapping out a summon or aura skill automatically turns off the effect, at least the guy on one of the WD streams says so.
It still applies to the healing and damage dealing skills, but imo this won't save your ass in a pinch, and I dont really think anyone would use that way unless it's macro'ed.

 

[Padre]

http://youtu.be/cCh1sL-nfQ8

That looks hawt. Notice how fire enchanted (molten here) monsters can still fuck up your day.

Also that leap is so much better than the one from d2.

 

[asper]

Fucking sad that a game that looks so enjoyable is multiplayer, online-only. Fuck!

 

[Padre]

Agreed. Lag was visible, mostly during loot drops and delay when your hit deals damage to opponents. Against some fast moving mobs in HC it can be a problem.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

http://youtu.be/cCh1sL-nfQ8

That looks hawt. Notice how fire enchanted (molten here) monsters can still fuck up your day.

You mean, can still fuck up your day if you stand around for several seconds while it slowly explodes like a retard? Yeah so it basically does nothing.

Why is the game look so damn slow? My character in D1 walked faster then this barb running in D3. The enemies are ridiculously slow as well, but since they undead maybe its better for other areas. The group sizes are pathetic though, whatever happened to rooms of 30+ skeleton hordes? Those were par for the course in D2.

Why does D3 still have a durability system? If you want to talk about streamlining useless annoying elements of gameplay that should be on the top of the list. Oh wait Blizzard needs to sell items, never mind.

 

[Padre]

You need gold sink too.

And about standing around like a retard. Imagine being blocked by creeps and having a slight lag. You will die either way. And I too hope that monsters will be much faster but you have to admit it's just the starting location of act 1. It's like den of evil in D2. Nothing fancy is going to happen there.

 

[Jezal_k23]

People have been complaining the beta is extremely easy.

 

[Castanova]

That means nothing. It's not like Diablo 2 was hard through, say, Blood Raven which is about what this beta represents. Furthermore, they've only released one beta patch and it already started making the game harder. It makes sense for the very beginning of Normal mode to be easy, anyway, in this day and age. What remains to be seen is if the game ever gets genuinely hard.

There's only one thing in the beta that concerns me which is the cathedral level generation. The cathedral dungeon isn't linear (in the sense that there do seem to be branching paths) but it IS quite linear (as in you're navigating hallway-like rooms). I hope some of the other dungeons are more like the D1/D2 dungeons with lots of interlocking rooms, rather than hallways.

EDIT: yeah, the low monster count may be a warning sign. That being said, the enemy count was lower before the patch. After the patch (on sept 8), there were more enemies throughout.

 

[J1M]

Those of you commenting on difficulty sound just as retarded as those people who fretted over 5-man Scarlet Monestary in the WoW beta being representative of end-game content.