Preview Diablo 3 still has that old Diablo feeling

[poocolator]

The bleed effect is just ridiculous. Awesome in its spectacle, brilliant in its execution. It works like this: Diablo III’s monk class plays as if he’s stepped out of God of War, or any other console brawler. If he chains three punches in quick succession, he can set up a finishing move. One is a flashy flurry of strikes like something from the Pokemon cartoons – zipping through the air and hitting everything in range. You could finish your flurry with one epically violent slap – knocking your target backwards with full force through the scenery.

As one demon dies, another rushes in to take his place – it’s Whack-a-Mole played with two mouse buttons and a warrior of unholy fury. Every creature gets a slap, a tickle and a stomp. Unless you want to be really, really clever, which is where the bleed effect comes in. Use this attack, and as a creature bleeds, it takes damage, its health bar ticking away to nothing. And if they die with the bleed still effective, they explode. The destruction is vicious, hilarious – a tsunami of gore. If you set two, maybe three bleeds running, you can time a chain reaction. Bubble Bobble, played with bile and bones. Diablo III is already gloriously, stupidly violent. It’s already brilliant. But it won’t be out until at least 2011.

Dear God, is there no end to this dumbfuckery?

Diablo 2 was stupidly violent, and a clickfest, but I could handle it and enjoyed it. Diablo 3 looks cartoony and WoW-like, typically the new Blizzard look, so I'm hardly excited for this. If the other "improvements" they're flaunting are in the vein of that time-limited escape thing in OP post, then the game's definitely gonna be shit.

 

[Severian Silk]

Vagrant Story had chained attacks too. It wasn't one of the features I disliked.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

The bleed effect is just ridiculous. Awesome in its spectacle, brilliant in its execution. It works like this: Diablo III’s monk class plays as if he’s stepped out of God of War, or any other console brawler. If he chains three punches in quick succession, he can set up a finishing move. One is a flashy flurry of strikes like something from the Pokemon cartoons – zipping through the air and hitting everything in range. You could finish your flurry with one epically violent slap – knocking your target backwards with full force through the scenery.

So... what part of that is "that old Diablo feeling"?

 

[St. Toxic]

The part where you go "Hey that looks pretty gute" but then it isn't and you feel jaded and empty.

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

BRO CANT YOU DFUCKING READ THEY WROTE ABOUT CONSOLE STUFF THIS SUCKS AND THEY MENTIONED GRITTY MATURE OH WELL I GUESS YOU MIGHT A WELL SUCK ON BLIZZARDS COCK IF YOU SWALLOW THIS LOAD YOU GUYS ARE NO BRIAN SURGEONS>>>>>!??!!

Really? Sounds more like the opinion of one persons preview than hard evidence. But you go and take it for gospel written in stone if that is what makes you happy. Diablo has always been very violent and was never famous for deep and complex gameplay.

 

[MisterStone]

Look mayn, Blizzard just wants this shit to be fun, OK? If it's not fun, it doesn't go into the game. Slamming the shit out of a huge mob of monsters is fuckin rad, man. You just boot that shit up, and it's POW, everything on the screen just explodes n shit. All this shit about character builds, working with a team, clicking on individual targets is fucking nerd bullshit. Go paint your little wizard figures, dweebos.

 

[Drakron]

Time limits are not fun.

 

[poocolator]

Yeah, I can't see how it's going to be much fun trying to pick up loot killed monsters drop, a la Diablo 1/2, when you've got a time limit to get out. Unless monsters don't drop the same amount of loot in the same fashion as the originals... which basically destroys the whole point of the game for me.

 

[MisterStone]

Don't worry, I'm sure all the treasure that the monsters drop will automatically accrue in a floating magical pouch that follows you everywhere you go and sucks up all of the items, arranging them for you by value or overall quality. The pouch will also give you hints and casting healing spells on you if you get below 30% HP.

 

[aboyd]

The bleed effect is just ridiculous. Awesome in its spectacle, brilliant in its execution. It works like this: Diablo III’s monk class plays as if he’s stepped out of God of War, or any other console brawler. If he chains three punches in quick succession, he can set up a finishing move. One is a flashy flurry of strikes like something from the Pokemon cartoons – zipping through the air and hitting everything in range. You could finish your flurry with one epically violent slap – knocking your target backwards with full force through the scenery.

So... what part of that is "that old Diablo feeling"?

The assassin class in Diablo 2 had exactly the same mechanism -- hit 3x and you've set up a finishing move. So that's similar. And there was in fact a monk class in the D1 expansion, so that's another similarity. Also, the gore is very similar to Diablo 1 -- in it, there were torture chambers with bodies cut in half littering the floor, Satanic pentagrams, bloodied sacrificial altars, etc. That might have been in Diablo 2 also, I don't recall. And in Diablo 2, there is a bloody/gorey explosion effect you can get when killing certain enemies -- red splatter across the battlefield. So the Diablo series is to my mind disturbingly bloody. I wouldn't let my kids play until they were quite a bit older.

So far what I've seen isn't too far off from the earlier games, with one exception. I was fully on board back when it was first announced and everyone complained about the rainbows and bright landscapes. My memory of Diablo is of something far more gothic and sinister. I really liked the changes people make to the screenshots, showing what a "real" Diablo game should look like. Other than that, thus far, things seem great.

 

[Lurkar]

So far what I've seen isn't too far off from the earlier games, with one exception. I was fully on board back when it was first announced and everyone complained about the rainbows and bright landscapes. My memory of Diablo is of something far more gothic and sinister.

Human memory degrades over time.

We are so very susceptible to nostalgia goggles.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Funny, Im pretty sure he said Diablo, not Diablo 2 LoD.

Although I think the current one looks fine overall, to be honest. Also, plenty of sections Diablo 2 (particularly act 1) and LoD were extremely dark. Diablo 2 was probably a greater detour from the color palette and atmosphere of the original than the third will be from the first two. Actually, I'm 99% sure about that. The original had incredible atmosphere (particularly the music) that just wasn't quite captured in the second, though it made up for that in other ways.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Fuck, reinstalling.

 

[poocolator]

So far what I've seen isn't too far off from the earlier games, with one exception. I was fully on board back when it was first announced and everyone complained about the rainbows and bright landscapes. My memory of Diablo is of something far more gothic and sinister.

Human memory degrades over time.

We are so very susceptible to nostalgia goggles.

OH HOW WITTY. LET'S POST A SCREENSHOT TAKEN AT 500% BRIGHTNESS DERP DERP

 

[Krash]

So far what I've seen isn't too far off from the earlier games, with one exception. I was fully on board back when it was first announced and everyone complained about the rainbows and bright landscapes. My memory of Diablo is of something far more gothic and sinister.

Human memory degrades over time.

We are so very susceptible to nostalgia goggles.

OH HOW WITTY. LET'S POST A SCREENSHOT TAKEN AT 500% BRIGHTNESS DERP DERP

Actually that's a normal screen with one monster frozen and one poisoned, and magic lighting up the scene a little. What do they teach you in schools these day?

 

[Shannow]

So far what I've seen isn't too far off from the earlier games, with one exception. I was fully on board back when it was first announced and everyone complained about the rainbows and bright landscapes. My memory of Diablo is of something far more gothic and sinister.

Human memory degrades over time.

We are so very susceptible to nostalgia goggles.

OH HOW WITTY. LET'S POST A SCREENSHOT TAKEN AT 500% BRIGHTNESS DERP DERP

Actually that's a normal screen with one monster frozen and one poisoned, and magic lighting up the scene a little. What do they teach you in schools these day?

And it just proves the point. Most people will say that D1 was the most atmospheric and D2 had the better char dev (and gameplay). So D3 is simply making worse what D2 already did badly and whch was the best aspect of D1 (imo). Now before someone starts posting screens from hell in D1, the best parts were the higher church levels and catacombs. And it just happens that colour was rare in those. Rainbows and anime-colour-flashes mixed with WoW graphics simply don't provide a gothic, dark, gritty atmosphere. Hurr, hurr, derp, derp.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Except D3 looks nowhere near that ridiculous.

 

[aboyd]

I concede to those who say that D2 had some very bright moments. In fact, so did D1. But my point was simply that I found the darker material stuck with me, and it's what I appreciated as far as atmosphere is concerned. It's what I would like to see continued. Here is a fairly bright D1 screenshot, but what's interesting to me is that even with all the color from the spell effects, the rest of the playing field is fairly washed out in color, and there's always the Satanic pentagram to remind you of your place. And the bodies on pikes. And the walls made of bones.

And here is a Diablo 2 screenshot, basically a bloodbath.

This is what I remember of these games, and what I've seen of Diablo 3 is that it's potentially similar gameplay, but with happy bright shiny environments. I just hope that the art direction goes a bit more gothic before the game is released. That's all.

EDIT: You know what? I still have the PS1 version of Diablo 1, and it works in my PS3. I think I will fire it up right now and play for an hour before bed. Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[poocolator]

To tell you the truth, the colours don't bug me so much anymore after it was revealed that D3 characters are going to be cartoonish, a la WoW.

 

[poocolator]

To tell you the truth, the colours don't bug me so much anymore after it was revealed that D3 characters are going to be cartoonish, a la WoW.

What do they teach you in schools these day?

They teach us not to accept candy from dirty, old Swedes.

 

[godsend1989]

 

[poocolator]

OMG it's the druid's sekrit weapon

 

[reaven]

Was someone expecting diablo 3 to be good honestly ? Come on is post wow blizzard...

 

[DreadMessiah]

Most likely still play it...