Diablo 3 – MRAAKTAGON

Legacy Diablo 3 article

This has been long gone off the internet, but I wanted to keep it for posterity because it is a poignant run down of the failed design of Diablo 3 and its crippling interaction with the Real Money Auction House. The article is a great nostalgic read and a grim reminder of how far a license can fall when in the hands of the wrong company, the wrong developers and the wrong game designers.

A lot of the problems this guy notes I never experienced, I wasn’t even able to get through act 1 before quitting. Things have changed for Diablo 3 from what I hear since the above was written, but my issues with the game had little to do with the RMAH in the first place, rather the core ARPG gameplay itself, which is not good and the core character models, which are silly looking and all run funny. I’ve always thought of doing a review, but Diablo 3 is one of those special games that is so bad it’s not worth reviewing. It gets the patented: unplayable/unreviewable rating a la the Onion. unsatisfying-4

And there goes the RMAH

LordLobo
http://www.shacknews.com/article/81172/diablo-3…

bahahahaasfhahahahwghagagaag
littlemute
why would they do that?
LordLobo
I have no idea

dumb

dumb
littlemute
dude they are so full of shit

a secure place for trades?

that’s why they made it? bullshit

why take a cut then?
LordLobo
well, it’s more secure than chinese gold farmers – but everything they did was so dumb

not fun
littlemute
dude they reduced good item drops based on the number of items of X type that were in the auction house
Maurice B.
ha D3 is fucking crumbling under it’s on FATGUNT
littlemute
crafting will still suck

Maurice B.
fucking horrible foundation issues D3 has, and the fattalanch
littlemute
hitlag will still ruin the game

and there will still be gear checks just like that guy said
sociopath
i think i set the console demo to DL

never checked back

haha
littlemute
worth looking at the demo to see the controls if you have time
LordLobo
seems like the console one would be fun with people – but then it’s still d3
littlemute
it’s not torchlight 2
LordLobo
yep
littlemute
or Diablo 2
sociopath
then maybe d3 expansion on console with frengs
littlemute
I would rather just play Zyel or Midian/Eastern Sun
LordLobo
I’d sit on a couch and play console tl2
sociopath
cuz the new class looks kinda fun
littlemute
Mods

no fucking mods

it’s a dead game
LordLobo
yeah

alas
sociopath
i don’t really mod like i used to
littlemute
Well you have to wait
sociopath
i’ve got some loaded for skyrim pc
Maurice B.
i played the xbox 360 d3 demo
littlemute
in like 6 months there will be a TL2 mod that takes it to the next level
LordLobo
I wonder if anyone’s made a mod that will let you play tl2 with 4 people on gamepads…
sociopath
tried to get something going for gta4 pc
Maurice B.
FUCKING HIT LAG IS THERE OR WORSE THEN PC
sociopath
never could get it working well
Maurice B.
fucking HIT LAG ON MY LOCAL XBOX 360

WTF

it’s fucking BUILT THE FUCK IT[in]
LordLobo
wow
sociopath
we get it bro
littlemute
it’s meant to be that way man
Maurice B.
you can’t dodge SHIT
littlemute
DESIGNED to be that way

you can’t dodge shit per DESIGN
Maurice B.
a pissfromspace

fucking JAY
sociopath
you’ve been screaming about hit lag since the beta
Maurice B.
taht asshole fucked d3 so badly

and then LEFT!
littlemute
but now we know WHY the hit lag is there

for the gear checks
Maurice B.
because they DONT WANT YOU TO BE SO POWERFUL YOU CAN WIN IN 10MIN

they dont want that shit

THE SHIT THAT MAKES THE GAME GREAT!
littlemute
no, they want to gear check you at points so you buy
Maurice B.
they REMOVED it form the game

yes exactly

fuckinghorriblenessinfinity
littlemute
if you can dodge or use skill to get through areas without gear, they don’t make their money

littlemute
so naked hardcore runs are not possible in D3
Maurice B.
yes. i will not buy anymore blizzard games

period

fuckthemforever
littlemute
dude what about their online CCG?
Maurice B.
even if it’s my loss
LordLobo
the last one I will buy is the Protoss sc2 expansion and that’s it
Maurice B.
and i cant play some “great” new blizzard game

fuckthem
littlemute
warcraft 4
Maurice B.
no more money for how hard they pissed on diablo

NO
littlemute
I can wait until then
Maurice B.
to my detriment
LordLobo
wc4 isn’t happening
Maurice B.
to the grave

fuckitall
littlemute
starcraft 2 is boring but that’s likely just me
sociopath
chumpo jimmies: ☑ rustled ❑ unrustled
Maurice B.
ahahahaha
littlemute
no WC4, no money
LordLobo
it’s more I want to finish the story of sc2

though the zerg sp game wasn’t very memorable
Maurice B.
dude mute

they are making a fucking DOTA!

there will be no WC4 RTS
LordLobo
LATE
Maurice B.
and if they do make WC4, and you buy it, you have no one but yourself to blame when it is spacepiss
LordLobo
I don’t think blizz’s dota will ever see the light of day
Maurice B.
because?

they are taking their ball home and doubling down on WoW?

i hope so
LordLobo
they won’t get enough interest from the other MOBA camps

well
Maurice B.
and you think they are seeing that

i mean they SHOULD be able to see
LordLobo
you can bet on a new WoW expansion announcement at Blizzcon in october
Maurice B.
but will they admit that to themselves

Maurice B.
can they admit they are past their prime, is that the real issue.
LordLobo
probably not
Maurice B.
they are in a time of decline and there is just a long way down from here
LordLobo
WoW has to be nearly hemmoraging money at this point
Maurice B.
isn’t activation wanting to sell blizzard or some shit?
LordLobo
activision wants to buy out of Vivendi
Maurice B.
ah right
LordLobo
which might actually be good for them
Maurice B.
because they want all their COD money
LordLobo
right
littlemute
They won’t be able to top LOL or DOTA 2
LordLobo
also Vivendi is a shithole company
littlemute
they are just too fucking refined at this point
LordLobo
consider this
Maurice B.
right and they spent how much already trying to make DOTA and they will just walk away from it

fucking idiots
littlemute
they could have HIRED Icefrog and those guys in 2005
LordLobo
HoN is older than either LoL or DOTA2 and has a tiny fraction of the audience

yep

then valve scooped them up
Maurice B.
they tried to make a full game out of a mod for WC3 instead of MAKING SOMETHING FUCKING NEW THAT COULD TAKE THEM SOMEWHERE!
LordLobo
they scraped that ‘titan’ project which was rumored to be their next MMO
littlemute
uhhh what the fuck?
Maurice B.
think of the MILLIONS of dollars blizzard has wasted
LordLobo
with their insane 12-year dev cycles that seems pretty dumb
littlemute
CCG
Maurice B.
AGAIN and AGAIN we see what money does to movies/video games
littlemute
won’t that save them?
Maurice B.
money fucked starwar[s]e

money fucked diablo 3

Beat this dead horse…

Maurice!Bastard posted this link about Diablo 3 and I think this concisely expresses what a lot of people (people that played the game a shitload more than I did) feel about Diablo 3’s failure as a game and I don’t know if this dude coined the phrase originally, but I think the term “Gear Check” game is something we’ll be able to use going forward forever to refer to what Diablo 3 and games like it are (sort of like calling people Nazi’s– everyone understands what you mean).

If this is in the TL:DR region, skip to the bottom part about “Diablo 3’s Fake Difficulty.”

As boring as Starcraft 2 is (to me at least) and terrible as Diablo 3 is, I think Blizzard should stop making games entirely. Doing a crappy online CCG is just another indication that they have no idea what players want (outside of the MMO space– but what normal people would ever play an MMO in the first place?).

And of course, likely there will be no MAC port of Torchlight 2 any time soon, which is sad but when your player base on a platform is less than 5% of sales, it’s tough to justify a big expense there. A far better game it is for everyone.

Fuck those losers!

Diablo 3 is lag incarnate and altogether pretty boring

I’ve had some fun with D3 with two characters just over level 10, but it has problems, problems that might be OK if it were an MMO and I liked MMO’s. It’s not an MMO and the problems with latency, the rubberbanding and error 33, patching errors are just ridiculous, especially in (drum roll) single player. Your mileage varies I’m sure but to put it bluntly, D3 is not a very good single player game. It’s linear, it’s pretty boring so far except for the boss fights and seeing all the stuff in the environment you can blow up. This is par for the course with the Diablo series: they are not that great single player games– the Zyel mod was created specifically to give players that wanted a good single player experience a better one than could be gotten off vanilla Diablo 2. And, please, go back and try to play Diablo 1 without falling asleep in your chair.

Multiplayer– that’s where the game shines and while it’s been fun it’s been marred, of course, by lag– maybe acceptable in this early stage if the two core things people want out of the game are fulfilled: fun combat and fun item management. The former is OK. I’m still on the fence about it. The concept I want to talk around with D3 is the idea of RELATIVE fun. On it’s own, D3 is good, it’s not great, but when you put it up against Torchlight 2 it falls completely flat.

I reiterate some of my earlier posts– once you play Torchlight 2, it’s really tough to go back to Diablo 3’s slow, ponderous gameplay. It feels like going from fast paced hyper Gauntlet madness with craziness at every turn in Torchlight 2 to slow, static and, while visually appealing, fairly stagnant fighting in Diablo 3. The second point of fun, item management, is a fucking chore in D3. While I’m still low level, drops are shit and from what I’ve read and heard– it doesn’t get much better. The items so far are bland and overall the crafting really feels like a combination of Hellgate London and Titan Quest with all the breaking apart of items into more crap and crafting into….yay more of the same crap you picked up! Basically you take all your blue items and yellows you do not want, throw away the white items (they are totally useless in the game–and the grey items? what in the flying fuck are they doing in the game?), break the rest of them apart because they don’t fit your character and then take the sub items ( like subtle essence) to create some type of item with a reroll on the effects— in turn this item may not work out for your character so you break the produced item apart and when you have enough sub items again, you get another reroll which may or may not work out for you. There’s no way to influence the reroll (like a cube lock for example) There’s no path of crafting other than this that I’ve seen (sockets and jewels– though no runes or rune words). From what I’ve seen so far, it’s quite tedious. I made 11 or so belts and they all had almost exactly the same powers– nothing special, nothing that gives your character access to anything outside of his set of attacks (like a summon power for a barbarian).

Act 1? Nothing compared to D2’s act 1. It’s very short– it’s got one big boss at the end and that’s it (the Butcher). The fight is boring.

So now I sit waiting for a patch that looks like it’s going to take an hour to download and I’m thinking:

Torchlight 2 beta video action mraak

Watch me die THRICE, see the explosions, see the no lag, see the ability to add skill points, see the ability to dodge enemy attacks!

Dare I say it: Torchlight 2 beta > Diablo 3 beta. This is not to say that these are not great games– they are both amazing, but judging from the beta, TL2 was just a better experience. Here’s why:

1) It’s a better game. It’s more fun to play, especially if you’ve played a lot of Diablo 2.

2) It’s more respectful of your time. There’s very little B.S. story stuff. It gets right to the kill, loot, item manage, kill cycle that is the core of the game.

3) No lag for no good reason -sure other players will lag but that’s a normal reason for lag. If you’re playing against someone in the BFE of the internet, BFE lag is what you’re going to get. What you won’t get is client side prediction coupled with an overburdened server.

4) Hit lag – when a monster attacks and you are nowhere near that monster you do not get hit. In Diablo, the client side prediction means you will get hit anyway. This takes a huge amount of the tactical play from the game.

5) You can play at the highest difficulty right out of the gate without slogging through the game. This is the main reason why the TL2 beta is better.

This isn’t to compare the final versions of each game–I haven’t played either. Diablo 3 was a beta I felt I +had+ to play, but TL2 I cannot WAIT to play every time I get the chance to.

As I’ve said before, Diablo 3 will be great to run through once on normal and dabble in Nightmare a bit, probably a full month of play and you will get your money out of it. For the long haul, the game you will be playing in a year is going to be Torchlight 2.

The countdown begins for D3

Diablo 3 is just shy of a week away from release. Following this game for so long, many of us have seen from the periphery a lot of the design paths that didn’t make it into the game (especially Maurice!Bastard who played a demo at some Warcraft tournament eons ago and actually read the website from time to time). Here’s a list and why I think each change was made. There is probably an exhaustive list of this somewhere.

Health Potions in addition to the health globes: Originally there were no health potions, just the health drops in the form of the big red globes. Now there are health potions and globes. Why: I think they just couldn’t work this one out with the testers and the game became too dangerous without the player’s ability to heal whenever they wanted. During the beta, any time I died it was because I was trapped by one mob and being shot at by another. I don’t think this matters, but we may see the health globes disappear in the final…

No basic weapon attacks: This one is really odd. You always attack using your skills, rarely the weapon you have. If you equip a bow and are not a character that has archer skills, you will never see an arrow fly from your hands. Yet the weapon will add to your DPS and any other effects. It’s very strange. Why: this has got to be the real money auction house. There’s no other explaination possible. Blizzard wants users to be able to use (and that means buy from them or other users where they get a cut) as many weapons in the game as possible so where it seems like there was a constraint on weapons for characters to make them unique, this is gone.

No weapon animation for skills: This ties into he point above and the monk is the most noticeable character for this. When you have a weapon and your character uses a skill (such as any attack) the weapon disappears. If you are carrying a bow and you want to punch someone as the monk, the bow disappears until the skill animation is over. Why: Again, this looks like the real money auction house. They want all characters to buy all items in the game and since characters can use any weapon (but only attack with skills), they would have to animate all skills with all weapons for all characters. That’s easily done if you started designing the character animation that way like pretty much all the other ARPG’s I’ve played– but if you have to go back and redo all the animation after someone said “hey we need a revenue stream here with the weapons” it will take forever and a day.

Character animations aren’t that great compared to the monsters: This is one that has not changed and probably should have. The monsters look incredible– just awesome incarnate. The characters are sadly, just OK– nothing really special at all and their run animations are bit loopy across the board. The worst is the witchdoctor (male version) with his shaking palsy and hunch–quite inspiring to make one select him right? Why? locked in because of Armor sets. Totally constrained changing or iterating over the character models at some point during development (far too early from the looks of it).

Characters are the same but you can tell they were originally designed to be different: Baurice!mastard complains about this one quite a bit. The characters are all either close or long range DPS generators and though they look different and have some different types of mana, they are essentially the same across the board. Why? It’s suspected that they were trying to balance out the PVP and wow who gives a shit about that at all? I would say the only character that feels different is the Witch Doctor. If you play the Demon Hunter or the Wizard it really does feel like the same character with different animations for stuff.

After the beta, I’m really on the fence with D3. I played D1 for about a month and then picked it up a couple years later because of various LAN’s that destroyed my dwellings from time to time. I played D2 again for about a month and then picked it back up because of the ZYEL mod and well, yes, played a shitload over the years. Instead of being more like ZYEL with it’s insane monster rushes and mentally unstable level of crafting options, D3 is looking to be another play for a month, play it a bit with friends here and there after but with Torchlight 2 swinging out soon after, it may be completely eclipsed. That said, the D3 gameplay is jewel-like in it’s polish and very very fun. If they had abandoned any ideas around monetizing in game items would it be a better game? Signs point to Yes.