A question on blizzard games

[saga]

I have heard many rumors that the Diablo games are great and those are the only blizzard games i havent played yet. So in sometime in the near future Diablo 3 will be here and i want to know how good it is since ive seen videos on both diablo 2 and 3 and it looks simply amazing i would like to ask some other blizzard consumers if this game is good in your opinion.

[GRUNT]

Personally, I think that Diablo 2 is 'ok'.

In general, I'm not a big action-RPG fan. There are times when I'm in the mood for it, but I can often get bored of them fairly quickly. Although to be fair, I've only played D2, Torchlight, and Titan Quest.

Torchlight...got really boring really fast . Maybe it was just because I was playing a ranged-specialised Vanquisher, but I just had so few abilities, it really wasn't interesting to play since it felt like I was just waiting for a new weapon to show up. Somehow, it felt more repetitive than D2 or Titan Quest.

Titan Quest is, in my opinion, the best action RPG out there at the moment. It feels a lot more 'solid' than D2, partly because it has the benefit of being newer, and able to refine the action RPG gameplay which was pioneered with Diablo.

Many action RPGs (and Titan Quest is no exception) have this issue whereby often, the only way you can beat a certain group of monsters is to run in, then before you die, run out while drinking a pot, running back in, running away and drinking a pot, then running back in until they're dead.

Personally, I consider this really unintuitive. I remember having to do this in D2 and TQ. I felt 'weak', and I thought that my character must have poor items or I may not have been playing the game right. Turns out that this kind of behaviour was normal. I don't really find it fun, but it's been part of both TQ and D2, it seems.

One of the reasons why I'm so excited about D3 is because it retains the aspect of action-RPGs which I find appealing (instant gratification), while addressing so many of the issues that I have with the genre, such as:

• The difficulty of the game suddenly changing from 'walk-in-the-park' to 'instant-death', since health pots make the player nigh-invulnerable and the only way to put the player in danger was to significantly ramp up some monsters' damage

• Downtime in action due to needing to take health pots (this one isn't too bad though, but I like how D3's streamlining the design so much with health globes, which is a great idea)

• Lack of characterisation, which to me, makes action RPGs less replayable. For example, each character in Titan Quest is essentially a blank slate with no backstory. The only real difference in experience is with the abilities of the classes you choose. That's not really enough to keep me interested enough for a second playthrough. D3, on the other hand, has specific backstories for each character, your character actually has lots of dialogue with NPCs, and NPCs react to your character.

• Less chance to 'mess up' a character by inefficiently distributing attribute points. If you're a newbie, you're likely to do something like put a bunch of points into Mana, not knowing that your character needs less mana than you thought, or that you'd be getting items that increase your mana later in the game. With D3's skill runes and other, unrevealed systems to modify your character, I'm optimistic that we'll see new and compelling ways to 'build' your character without needing attribute points. Also, I agree with Blizz that for the most part, players attributed points in the 'most efficient' manner for that class. It's only really played with for specific builds, and there'll be new ways to create non-cookie-cutter builds in D3.

All action-RPGs can get repetitive after awhile. I remember that often, I'd be like: "WHOOO! I'm in the mood to play some action-RPG! Time to start up Titan Quest!" then after a while, once the repetitiveness sets in, I go: "oh yeah - this is why I stopped playing last time!"

So yeah, it's been a bit of a love-hate relationship for me, but I have every confidence that D3 is going to be something special .




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[Noctis]

depends if you like the genre or not, i said they are OK because at times its AWESOME then at times it's just good.

[saga]

i enjoy MMORPGs the most but they are tied with RTS

[Pandonetho]

I really like Diablo 2 and rate it as great. It was really fun going through hell mode with friends because it was so damn intense.

But there are a lot of hackers and such on b.net, and get ready to either get owned hardcore in PVP, or have no life to try and compete with everyone else lol.

Also, there's lots of grinding late levels, lots and lots of grinding... just to go from level 88 to 89, and then 89 to 90, etc.

[GRUNT]

Also, there's lots of grinding late levels, lots and lots of grinding... just to go from level 88 to 89, and then 89 to 90, etc.

I forgot to mention - that's another reason why I'm looking forward to D3!

It seems that most mainstream action RPGs involve boring boss runs as their endgame.

Blizzard's been tight-lipped about just what D3's endgame is going to be like, but they've said on quite a few occasions that they have plans to make it different from just doing continual runs against a particular boss.

[sandwich_bird]

Diablo 2 is a lot of fun when you play with your friends but alone it's just decent. With that said, if you're planning on buying the game, make sure you have some friends to play it with.

[Hellgrinder]

Never played a Diablo game, though I used to watch my Uncle play Diablo 2 all the time. I actually got really interested in the Diablo Universe because of that.

[Eligor]

Diablo 2 has the BEST art-direction and music of all the point and click RPG's I've played. And it is quite fun too, tho' not as deep as StarCraft or even WarCraft III. The story is not as involving (the best thing about the Diablo story is the Lore, which is mostly contained in the now almost forgotten manual to the first game, which presented everything, from spells to monsters to world history as if it were an actual mediaeval grimoire (with pertinent quotes from old poetry and ancient epics on the margins to boot! and some of the best of Samwise's and Metzen's artwork to grace the pages, they've deterioriated since then, trust me), best game manual ever written, a shame they don't put as much attention and creativity into them anymore).

Anyway, like any Blizzard game except WoW Diablo II LOD is worth playing through at least once (even if it's just single-player).

[Roland]

No exaggeration:

In my opinion, there has never been a game as good as Diablo 2. I never even got into the really deep strategy and class building, or anything like that, but it is unbelievably satisfying. StarCraft is hard, and fun, and strategic, Diablo 2 is just plain and simple, unspeakably fun. I heard a clip of the soundtrack yesterday, and fell down because of the crippling nostalgia. Get it, play it, and burn all your other games lest you be tempted away from it's indelible glory. Roland is the name of my best character on it, with whom I soloed Hell difficulty, which you only unlock by beating the game twice, on increasingly difficult settings. I also never played online, or looked up any class builds etc. The mind-numbing beauty of it all is that if you just start smashing the bads, and you won't have to stop for anything if your clever. By which I mean using common sense to build your character instead of guides. The pleasure I have derived from Diablo 2 is well beyond your comprehension, like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, you'll turn into a floating giant space-fetus if you try.

But y'know, that's just me.