Diablo 3

[mothwing]

I liked hearing about the third instalment, even though I doubt I'll ever play it. Diablo I was the among the first games I ever played, Diablo II was the first game I ever played online and together with my brother. I loved that game, even though the amount of monsters you have to kill to get through the game and the way in which they completely vanish once killed always bothered me somewhat. I loved the story, though, and the prettiness of the angels in the game.


Sparkly, shiny, tendril wings. What more can you ask for?

What does make me a little sceptical are the graphics. What I've seen of the game so far is not that impressive. Well, Blizzard have never been synonymous with pretty graphics, and it seems as though the graphics have barely changed from Diablo II - which will make the fans happy, I suppose, but I would have liked something ... more impressive. I am not much of a gamer nerd, but considering HOW much prettier HGL and D&DO are, prettier games seem to be possible. I am told that the game is good for a beta version and considering it's in third person perspective, and maybe that's true. Still.

Comments

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Having played and finished the other two, I must give Diablo 3 a try one day. As I said, it will be at least another year, maybe a year and a half, before the final gets released. They're not going to cancel this one like they did with other games. The expectations are just too high. The version they've shown is pretty advanced, I guess they held information about it back for pretty long so that they'd have a lot of material to show that suggests a finished product in the not so far away future.
Personally, I don't think Diablo 3 will be as much as an improvement over Diablo 2 as Diablo 2 was over Diablo 1. Then again, many of the 'innovations' from Diablo 2 were 'just' sensible tweaks and improvements over old gameplay mechanics. Even though there have been many other action-RPGs in 3D in the meantime, I guess Diablo 3 will shine thanks to its brand name and the fact that Blizzard are going to put a lot of attention into refining details.
The graphics - meh, that's OK for me. The design style is very solid and I'd rather have a playable game than a good-looking slide show. Blizzard must figure the same. Thousands of people with very different configurations will want to play this over BattleNet, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for them to exclude all players with PCs that are three years and older from the experience. StarCraft 2 isn't going to be that graphically advanced, either, because it will be played online or over LAN a lot.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Well, there have been rumours about this one for what, two years? I suppose they must have held the information back and developed it quietly.

Since I'm not much of a gamer I usually prefer pretty graphics over sturdy game mechanics as I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference (unless it's blandly obvious, like with the buggy mobs you get in other Blizzard games, or the random lava on walls and ceilings in the HGL beta). You are right about BattleNet, though, although I suppose that most of the PCs which aren't older than four years will probably be able to deal with the requirements, from what I can see, as the Blizzard graphics requirements have never been as insane as those for other games.

LAN! I didn't even think of that. I wasn't sure whether I'd play it at all, but via LAN, it's really tempting.

[(Anonymous)]

The earliest 'serious' rumours started as early as 2005 when Bill Roper, largely responsible for both predecessors, left Blizzard. Roper was in charge of both Diablo 1 and 2 which were, by the way, developed by a subsidiary of Blizzard, Blizzard North. That subsidiary was closed in the process and many ex-members, Roper among them, went on to found Flagship Studios and develop HGL. Leaving Blizzard, Roper dropped what some perceived to be 'hints' to Diablo 3 being a secret project.
Gamers everywhere trust Blizzard because they strongly focus on quality. The release of StarCraft was delayed for more than a year in favour of refining gameplay mechanics. By the time it was released, the graphics already looked backwards - yet now, ten years after its release, it's a cultural phenomenon in several countries and still making game hitlists.
A game that Blizzard prominently scrapped due to quality concerns was WarCraft Adventure. Since the game was already in its late production stages that was a bold move. Story elements from WarCraft Adventure were later incorporated into WarCraft 3.
As I said, they won't cancel Diablo 3, the hype is just too great. It won't be a game design revelation but chances are good it will be much more thought out than many other action RPGs on the market. I own HGL but the game doesn't captivate me as much as Diablo 2 did, for example - Diablo 3 already looks like it will have an edge over HGL in terms of character and world design and story. It doesn't matter if the engine's technology isn't as advanced, Blizzard has proven more than once in the past that they can use even limited tools to achieve great successes. Just look at WoW, the graphics are a joke compared to other MMORPGs - yet people play it because the mechanisms are very refined and the low specs allow even gamers with systems that are four or five years old to play at decent frame rates.

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, that was me.)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

I know. :)

I don't think they'll cancel it, either. The situation doesn't sound as though it's similar to WarCraft Adventures, as they seem to be further along already than they were when they cancelled the Adventures.

As for HGL - the backstory is probably the least interesting thing about the game. Since I go for pretty graphics and captivating stories what am I doing, playing WoW I knew I wouldn't play the game for long. It doesn't really draw me in, in contrast to the Diablo series, or NWN 1 (although that one completely lost the appeal for me when I found out that Aribeth had randomly died between expansion packs).

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

HGL has a backstory? It must be in all the novels and comic books they want people to buy in addition to the game. So far there's been only one subplot in HGL (the game) I found amusing, the oracle quest series. I love Lucius Aldin and Tech Smith 314, great odd couple.
WoW fascinated me for some months because that huge, explorable world inhabited by real people was a novel experience. Now the game just sucks. I don't want to have tie myself to some super-disciplined guild and its rigid regime to be able to see some end game content. All I want is to go out there on my own, go on interesting quests, team up with chance acquaintances when I feel like it and get rewarded with nice stuff. Sure, in theory that's possible. I reality, however, most quests you can solve on your own are endlessly boring and repetitive fetch-and-collect tasks that will easily occupy you for twenty or more minutes and the rewards usually suck. Unless you're in a guild you can forget about parties - getting through even the easiest instances is next to impossible with a spontaneous group because halfway through someone will lose interest and leave, resulting in a total wipe which kills whatever motivation the rest may have had. And don't get me started on PvP. I'm sure it's all great when you've got your high level equipment - but how are you going to get your hands on that unless you're in a guild?
Burning Crusade was pretty disappointing. Of all the possible new races blood elves and draenei must be the most boring. No new classes, two stupid new professions I couldn't care less about and an exciting new continent you won't get to see unless you already have a lvl 60 character. I've never managed to get a character higher than 40, the game was just such a drag, drag, drag.
*whoof* That's my standard WoW rant. To be fair, so far I haven't found an MMORPG that was a lot better. I tried both Guild Wars and LotRO but none are really all that great in my opinion. LotRO is nice but not great and plays too much like WoW.

I'll tell you which RPGs you should play if you like stories (if you haven't played them already, that is):

- Baldur's Gate I & II, of course
- Knights of the Old Republic (requires Star Wars tolerance)
- Chrono Trigger (old console RPG; requires Super NES and anime tolerance)
- Jade Empire (too action-based IMO, but has an exotic setting and characters)

and, of course, the best EVER - Planescape: Torment.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Wow, I had not realised I had not responded to this yet. Sorry.

Your motivation for playing that game sounds a lot like mine, although in my case a large part of the motivation is probably being able to play with my brother again.
As a solo-gamer, I never got the hang of guilds or parties. (My only guild experience was when I chanced upon an RPGing guild who invited me. They managed to suck even more than the majority of forum RPGers out there, which is a record.) So far, I've only ever done instances with random groups, and even though some of those were really nice and interesting, they usually did wind up sucking one way or another. That was more due to my class than the group, though ("Yes, I know you are a Shadow Priest, but why are you so bad at healing?!").
I was disappointed by the utter lack of imagination about the quests, too. There are some really interesting ones with actual storyline, but most of them are variations of "Kill ten wolves." - "Done? Good, go kill twenty slightly stronger wolves!".

WoW is mostly about the instances and raids, as that's where their imagination went (which doesn't say that most instances are that interesting, but sometimes you just catch a glimpse of someone with a mind for storytelling among all the rubble). For me, the greatest difficulty has been to find people who are also new players and not replaying the game out of boredom with their thousands alt and are therefore more likely to permit mistakes without flaring up, and players who actually enjoy exploring the areas instead of marching straight to the final boss as though trying to run a race. I would have liked to actually explore the places we rushed through a little, too. There are amazingly pretty instances which are funny and have great NPC dialogue, or events which are worth playing, like the Opera event.

I have only started playing WoW a while ago, post-BC, so I am not sure what to think about it. Coming from WCIII: FT, story-wise, the introduction of Draenei and BElfs is incredibly lame and not very logical, but all that was forgotten for me when I saw Outland. Those landscapes were somewhat worth the amount of grind before. It's by far the prettiest area and I enjoy riding around Terokkar Forest (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1080/645675976_f64a3d2e33.jpg?v=0), for instance, or the Zangamarsh (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/187/394327263_4041d99327.jpg?v=0). I am a sucker for exotic landscapes.

I tried GW and Crocky's playing it at the moment, but somehow, it didn't really work for me, and even though it's probably good that there are not so many mindless grind quests, I was baffled to see how few quests there are. There did not seem to be any more content once you're a few levels into the game, and little else to do.

What's LotRO like? I know that Night loves it, but I never played a demo for that one.

The next MMO on my list I'd like to give a shot is Silkroad, which is appealing mostly because it is free of charge. I've never heard anything positive about it so far, but maybe it's better than people say.

Thanks for the recommendations! So far, I've not been able to find any of the games you mentioned in my brother's game shelf which is much better stacked than mine, so I've put Baldur's Gate on hold at the library and am currently waiting for that one. I think I'll skip Knights of the Old Republic, because even though I do have Star Wars tolerance, I don't think I'd enjoy a game in that setting. I am very curious about Jade Empire, too.

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

What I definitely like about Guild Wars is that fights are more dynamic than in almost all other MMORPGs. First of all, you can only equip eight skills - but that's a plus because it really forces you to think about a good combination and a strategy. There are no healing items, either, the only way to heal during fights is to use skills. Fighting really means wearing your enemies down.
What I don't like so much about Guild Wars is that your skills practically define your character. How effective your skills are isn't determined by standard RPG stats like strength or intelligence, it's determined by how many character points you spend on skills. Another thing is, of course, that all areas outside cities are instances in which only you and your party turn up. Sure, travelling is super-fast because you just have to click on an already explored spot on the map to get there but there's no real exploration. You enter an area, you fight your way through it until you reach the next map point, that's it.

There was a time in WoW when you actually could beat at least the earlier instances like the Deadmines or Blackfathom Deeps with strangers but that seems to be a thing of the past. One wipe and that's it. LotRO has a better community in that respect. Some weeks ago I played through the entire Barrow Downs quest series in Bree during an afternoon, all with people I had never met before. Especially if you know the books that's cool because you get to see many locations from book one and invade much more deeply into them than Frodo and pals did. Slaying the King of the Barrow Wights after two hours of fighting through an atmospherically dark and dank dungeon was extremely cool and got us all very nice gear. MMORPGing like it should be.
In short, LotRO is much more down-to-earth graphically, although still pretty, and made for a community that knows the books and likes an experience expanding its contents. A quest I rather liked was having to get water for some hobbit construction workers - they gave you a leaky bucket you had to take into the Old Forest to Goldberry's spring, talk to her and then get the bucket back to the hobbits before all the water had run out. Sure, those are standard quest mechanisms but they're wrapped a lot better in LotRO than in WoW.

KotOR has a very good D&D-inspired character system and pausable, tactical battles. Some of the party characters are really great, too. All I'll say is HK-47, a barrel of laughs. Plus, there's a plot twist about halfway through the game worthy of Harry Potter.
Jade Empire is rather good but it plays too much like Star Wars in ancient China for my taste. I'd have liked it better if the character system hadn't been simplified so much and if the setting was a little more like those cheesy 70s martial arts movies. The way it is it's more like a cross between Tiger and Dragon and, well, Star Wars. Jade Empire tries to bring you a breathtaking story twist near the end, too, but after KotOR it felt a little less impressive. Also, I like tactical battles in RPGs, in fights Jade Empire plays more like a beat 'em up with an underlying RPG system. KotOR and Jade Empire are more linear than other RPGs because they're segmented into areas and a little more linear.
Baldur's Gate is old school. I haven't finished either myself but both games are BIG and tell one ongoing story. Most memorable characters: the slightly retarded ranger/warrior Minsc and his pet hamster Boo.
Chrono Trigger was never released in Europe so to play it you either need an American Super Nintendo plus cartridge or the remake for PlayStation One. There are other and easier ways to get and play it if you don't mind engaging in what Nintendo might consider pirating a thirteen-year old SNES game ... In any event, Chrono Trigger is very linear and you have to like comedy manga like Dragon Ball or Ranma to appreciate its characters. Here is an in-depth review I wrote about it.