DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I have the game on the backburner. Like Mal, I'm really enjoying FFXIV thanks to that LS I found myself in. Not to mention, the RMAH is bullshit. I thought OGP charged way too much for their stuff, but $30 for a weapon? I understand it's community based... but wtf? No.

When the RMAH went online, black market gold was going for $10 per million, which is what I'm going off of. That number was plummeting over the past couple weeks as more gold got dumped into the economy, but it seems to be holding steady atm based on the items my friends have sold.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I'm laughing my ass off at this, but I don't know if I should be.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Yeah it doesn't speak well of Humanity as whole.

But omg.

Like i was saying before, we need to get together and group-farm.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I like how this puts most Blizzard games in perspective, though the FFVII and Bioshock ones were fun, too.

Naturally, the FFVII fanboys took offense in the comments, though.

[DakAttack]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Naturally. I didn't recognize that scene from Advent Children, was it cut from the first release?

[Aeni]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I don't think that scene was from the movie ... correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a cut scene from one of the numerous FFVII "remake/re-release/oh for fucks sake is this the 100th incarnation" versions, maybe from a PSP title.

(also note with regards to WoW that he's comparing a scene from the intro movie which arguably better reflects the pvp nature of the game and not the pve)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Blizard Explains Why New Diablo Games Are Locked For Up To Three Days

And here I thought EA was a little too "Big Brother" about DLC in your games. This is downright insulting and treats digital buyers like second class citizens.

This is treating every prospective digital customer as a prospective gold seller. Blizzard should change it's name to Captain Ahab.

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

*sigh*

I can't even say I'm surprised.

[Icemage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Blizard Explains Why New Diablo Games Are Locked For Up To Three Days

And here I thought EA was a little too "Big Brother" about DLC in your games. This is downright insulting and treats digital buyers like second class citizens.

This is treating every prospective digital customer as a prospective gold seller. Blizzard should change it's name to Captain Ahab.

Not that this excuses the general shittiness of EA, but I believe I stand vindicated in my general hatred of all things Activision.


Icemage

[Icemage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Ah, Jim Sterling. I don't always agree with him, but this is priceless.

Diablo III is blatantly better than Torchlight II -Destructoid


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I'm not sorry I bought it. Not one bit.

It was absolutely worth it for the campaign. The rest of it however, has left me wanting. They utterly eviscerated what made Diablo 2 so much fun to re-roll over & over. So I'm content now to keep on BF3 and FFXIV, as I'm almost done all the GC quests (Why the hell do their 2 MMOs have such better stories and characters than the last 3 or 4 offline games put together?! I feel sorry for the folks who will forever miss out on the 7th umbral era story.) and I've made more friends playing BF3 so yay, finally ppl I can group up with instead of praying I don't get saddled with "Team Herp Derp" over half the time.

HotS is looking good too, for the record. The only thing I've seen of it thus far that I don't care for is the warhound change to using anti-air mines as opposed to AoE missiles like the Thor (essentially making it a much cheaper but less damaging per-unit Thor against air units). Zerg is looking a little OP with some of the stuff they got but that's what the beta is for.


As for D3, I'll wait until they do a few more patches. Having beaten it and climbed my way up to Inferno finally (TM and Hayde are both way ahead of me though on that front) I can honestly say the game was rushed. Sad to see really, when Blizzard is known for taking their sweet time to get things right (Kotick, please go DIAF already). The recent nerfs to A3 monsters helped, as did the easing of damage of Inferno mobs for A2~4. However there's still just far too many glaring balance issues;

- People are STILL duping items and gold en-mass, which is royally fucking up the AH.
- The Witch Doctor is a poor man's Necromancer (worse, even - so many lackluster skills and runes)
- Attack Speed nerf was a little heavy-handed, 25%~35% nerf would have been easier to swallow and 50% across the board.
- Shen is still (largely) useless (be nice if he could add socks or at least craft Amulets and Rings)
- Haedrig still sucks as well (too expensive, can't pick mods, not enough inherent variety at every level for recipes)
- There are still MAJOR lag/connection issues plaguing the game, seemingly at random.
- Enemies just become way, way too bullshit starting on Hell, far worse than LoD ever was. There are just certain combinations of traits (even more so on specific mob types) that honestly just shouldn't be allowed. No really, FUCK OFF with Fast, Horde Illusionist & Immortal Minions that is utter bullshit. You can not possibly kill that.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Rushed isn't really the right word. How long was it in development for chrissakes? It would be more accurate to say that they had MAJOR feature creep issues, with some major design decisions like the skill interface and elective mode being made so late in the process that they didn't have time to iron them out. Yeah "when it's done" but when you don't have the pressure of deadlines you also have no incentive to commit to a vision and run with it. I think somebody upstairs got understandably tired of that, and while the tendency of publishers to rush releases is usually maligned, I think some degree of that is a necessary evil. If they had locked in an older vision of their gameplay concept earlier and delivered the best possible execution of it, they probably would have ended up with a better product than this rushed-feeling delivery of a more heavily iterated design. Based on that criticisms of game balance on release are quite justified, and it still hasn't reached a comfortable point, but I will give them an A for effort on the patch schedule they've been maintaining since release and their vigilance in hotfixing major issues.

Most of Mal's criticisms are true, though I don't see the same problems with the economy that he does. I find plenty of amazing items in the 10-15M range and godly ones around 30M, which is pricey as hell but far from unattainable for a legit farmer. The biggest problem with the game right now, imo, is the combination of punitive repair costs and the adjustment to drop rates pushing everyone in inferno back to act 1 as the most efficient item farming area, rendering 2/3 of the already limited end-game content useless. On the play experience side, I've been having a huge problem with lag, rubber-banding and desync since 1.0.2 and especially since 1.0.3. It's bizarre. I had no issues whatsoever in the first couple weeks after launch when the servers would ostensibly be most hammered. I assume some piece of netcode has been changed to give the client less benefit of the doubt, possibly as a ham-fisted response to some exploit I'm unaware of. At any rate, it would be completely moot if I wasn't required to play the game off their servers rather than locally, which follows from the push for DRM, which follows from the desire for a secure RMAH, which probably follows from a desire for greater monetization by some moustache-twirling fat cat, so I guess whoever that is, Kotick or whoever, I have a bone to pick with them, too.

All that being said I'm still enjoying the game a lot. I've been focusing on my wizard lately because she is fun as hell to play and I'm most interested in her gear progression so I can push farther into inferno. I got Rakanoth to 50% multiple times as a solo wizard, but I can't quite hold it together long enough at my power level. Some of my friends have quit, just as many have caught up to me in inferno which gives me more opportunities to play co-op, which is always good times. So yeah, D3 wasn't what it should have been at launch and it's saddled with a lot of corporate-political baggage, but it's still a great game and it's getting better all the time.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Oh I'm sure Blizzard will eventually get it right.

But in the mean time I'm not going to subject myself to that trolling rage-fest any further. Not when XIV is so much fun with this new LS and ESPECIALLY not now that XI is actually getting a new goddamned EXPANSION!

[Hayde]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Also, players are reporting that Act 3 and Act 4 are dropping less quality and quantity of ilevel 63 gear. At first, Blizzard (Bashiok) brushed it off as simple perception, but a recent blue post suggests that there might be something wrong with the drop rates (and I suppose with that--quality) of loot in the later loot. TL:DR--it's more efficient to farm act 1 and act 2 even more so, since you are less likely to die, and get better loot. Personally, I'm in agreement with those players and after spending the last week grinding the fuck out of act 3, I still walk out of act 2 with a better bag of crap to sell--not to mention I found a yellow 1000 dps bow with a socket in it.

[Aeni]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Blizard Explains Why New Diablo Games Are Locked For Up To Three Days

And here I thought EA was a little too "Big Brother" about DLC in your games. This is downright insulting and treats digital buyers like second class citizens.

This is treating every prospective digital customer as a prospective gold seller. Blizzard should change it's name to Captain Ahab.

UPDATE: In a statement to Kotaku, Blizzard clarified that the level cap and game progression restrictions detailed below are an "unintended consequence" of the 1.0.3 update for Digital Edition purchasers, and that the company is working to fix this problem. Other restrictions on auction houses, public chat channels and games, item dropping and Global Play features will remain in place for new Digital Edition purchases until credit card payments can be approved, in order to "deter credit card fraud, which in turn helps reduce gold spam and other harmful activities that can have a negative impact on the game experience for everyone."

Diablo III digital purchases can be limited for up to 72 hours (updated) | Ars Technica


Not sure what the big fucking deal is about, but credit card fraud is fucking huge atm, and is not just limited to "Blizzard" games. I'm sure every online game that has services attached to them are facing the same problems. You either have ass-kissing, hand-holding convenience and no security or inconvenience with security. Can't have it both ways.