Now that Diablo 3 is dead, will POE deliver?

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lethal_papercut wrote:

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FireSkull wrote:

And these players will be bored to death when they figure out that D3 is all about farming/auction house so that Blizzard can get more money. Then they will get mad and write how shitty D3 is. You know, the first post i made on this forum was actually about a few things that i liked in D3, but that got trolled instantly, and NOW I UNDERSTAND why. There is no reason to write about pros in D3, because D3 is simply not a game because of bots and RMAH. Also GAH needs to be removed because it ruins the gameplay, at least if we are talking about a REAL diablo game, and botters might still abuse GAH.

Even if these things that prevents D3 from being an actual game were removed, it would still be a very shitty game, but at least it would be an actual game. Right now D3 is just one big money machine for botters and asian farmers. This is supported by Blizzard.

Oh yes you're right, cos D2 wasn't all about botting, duping & using a RMAH aka D2JSP was it?

If RMHA is legit it means that you will see a lot more people using it, a lot more bots, a lot more hacks. Having something not legal compared to something totally legal, with few clicks away that is build in game is wery diferent thing mate.

D2 wasnt about botting until it had been out for many years, and you have to keep in mind that at this point Blizzard isnt even trying to take action against it.


I'd also like to point out that just because D2 wasnt pristine out of the gates, it didnt need to be, because it was a pioneer. People hadnt played full fledged LoD yet, so baby D2 was the best thing they had ever laid hands on.

There is a massive difference between Diablo 2 following in the footsteps of Diablo 1, and Diablo 3 following in the footsteps of Diablo 2. D3 was plainly and simply a massive step backwards. There's no reason that the game had to be disappointing at the point of release, even if it wasnt as good as it is someday going to be. Blizzard screwed up. Period.

@Charan
I've seen some of your posts about Diablo 3 before and I think you are being a bit unfair. You only played the Diablo 3 beta - not the game. Imho that is as unfair as someone judging PoE by just finishing the Twilight Strand.
And I also would take into consideration theat everybody here was 12 years younger when Diablo 2 came out, PC games were more.. magic back then. Heck basic stuff we now all take for granted now made us stare in awe...

And while Diablo 3 does a lot of stuff wrong, most of it doesn't really shine through until later in the game. So I really think you're being a bit unfair and just getting more and more carried away by the overall Diablo3-hate sentiment that rules this forum.
As I said before Diablo 3 is guilty of a lot of basic design flaws - itemization, skill system - just to name the biggest failures, but I think what most players agree on is that there are moments everything just feels right. The engine is very response and I truly believe that if they had sticked with the Skill tree design (imo the most superior skill system design still out there in aRPGs) and dhadn't fucked up the itemization so bad... the game would actually be pretty neat. (oh yeah chris metzen obviously should have never even came near the franchise)


On the boting thing I have to note:
I think a LOT of people overestimate how many people do really participate in the multiplayer scene. An aRPG was and will always be a singleplayer game with a huge multiplayer component, but I am dead sure that most people play for themselves and their interactions with strangers comes down to the occasional trade. (in D3 the AH might have increased the trade-rate but still most people will play for themselves)

Actually, I played Diablo 3 for real recently. Or I tried. Someone on this forum threw me a D3 key 'for educational purposes' and I felt utterly obliged to at least give the game a fair go. This is something I'd been meaning to do for quite some time but couldn't bring myself to pay full retail for it (60-80 bucks here in Australia).

So I tried it. I found it had some fundamental issues that I wasn't expecting that actually made me realise my prior misgivings during the D3 Closed Beta were actually minor. I am going to add some of these after-play thoughts to my main D3 vs PoE thread soon (that'll be a heck of a necro!), but for now, suffice to say that I did give the game a go (on someone else's dime, which made me feel all the more obliged to be fair about it), and didn't make it very far before I realised I was absolutely not enjoying myself.

And you can say 'most of it doesn't shine until later in the game' but if I have zero inclination to go past act 1 based on extremely basic functions of the game coupled with a tendency towards ham-fisted exposition that genuinely made the writer in me wither inside, then that doesn't really matter.

Please keep in mind that I do not hate Diablo 3. I dislike...rather intensely this recent-ish trend to label critics of things 'haters'. I find it a childish sentiment born of a black-and-white world where it's us vs them. This is ridiculous. I don't like Diablo 3; I don't think I ever had, although during the Closed Beta there was still some hope. This is not hatred; it's simple dislike and, sure, a little disappointment.

A disappointment, I can assure you, that was more than matched by my joy at finding Path of Exile. But if you've read my other post (there really was just one thread) about D3 and PoE, you'll know that already.

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You're somewhat right about the 12 years ago thing. I was...hm, 22 when Diablo 2 came out, so I was already fairly exposed to the 'magic' of PC games. Keep in mind I'd dealt with unplayable PC games out of the box and back then, you didn't have an internet to go on and bitch about it, or hunt down the latest patch. I made my own maps for Might and Magic (itself a bugged to hell game at times); I paid extra for the speech pack of Wing Commander 2. The 'magic' had, in fact, long died for me before Diablo 2 came out. It peaked with Diablo 1 but really, that was my first exposure to online gaming too, so that was less 'magic' and more 'addiction'. At any rate, I don't believe I have particularly rosy-tinted glasses when it comes to Diablo 2. I remember the black walls of death, and I remember the server splits. I remember duping and white rings and maphack. It was still a solid-as-hell game if you chose to play it away from all those.

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I experienced amazingly bad lag on Diablo 3, the brief time I played it, maybe a month ago. It killed me. Literally. Repeatedly. The throwback to those lag-deaths on D2 was hard to ignore, but certainly it was something I figured Blizzard would have figured out by now. In contrast, I have *never* died to lag on Path of Exile. Not even to desync -- compared to the lag on D3, desync is to me far more forgiving.

The responsiveness about which you speak re: D3 just wasn't there for me. Between the lag and the fact that it all felt sort of floaty and 'too smooth', too slick, I could not go 'back' to D3 from PoE. Just wasn't going to happen.

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Chris Metzen's involvement in the Diablo franchise has been key and fundamental! He did some of the best artwork in the Diablo 1 manual, at the very least. So I've no idea why you say he shouldn't have gone near the franchise. He was a founding presence, along with Bill Roper, the Schaefers and David Brevik. Do we like where Metzen took the story? Of course not. But I think you need to rethink his influence on the franchise as a whole.

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Finally, yes, your 'ifs' (never-to-be now) would have made sure D3 had been a better game, naturally I cannot disagree there. I walked the moment they changed the skill rune system. That was my reason. But I am so thankful that I did, because in dodging that, I actually dodged quite a few other bullets as well. The RMAH and its tyranny over the game's item rarity and frequency, initial launch problems, that insufferably bad story, the general mismanagement of Sanctuary as a setting. The fact that you can't miss in combat, ever, and subsequent need for timed potions (not in my ARPG, thank you). The 'elective' mode that treats so much of us like idiots. All these would have remained even IF So even IF they had retained that skill rune system (which I believe GGG do better anyway), I would have sooner rather than later turned from D3.

There are some good things about diablo 3 that i would like to see in this game also, so it is nice that game developers are playing a lot of rpg games and know what is good and what is not.

The best things about diablo 3:

1. the lore and the books lore are amazing (added only in D3), but it lacks a button that should work like a random playlist and you wont listen to lore anymore when you farm on inferno
2. the beta was ok because it was dark most of the time but still the begining in D2 was much better
3. D3 has a lot of items with a lot of unique skins (but you don't get to use most of them)
4. the skills look nice, with some lack of color contrats they would have been fine (animations are very fluid)
5. some items look amazing (even if my lvl 30 hc char looks better than my lvl 60 one) and the characters have their own artstyle.

@Charan
I'm happy to read that you actually gave it a real shot, and I'm looking forward to that updated post. ;)

About the lag thing... uhm okay, I think this is really weird, but I don't know about the server-performance in Australia.
I pretty much experienced the direct opposite.. I haven't had any serious lags since third week after release (I'm still playing once every two weeks as long as PoE isn't in open beta) but I'm experiencing a lot of desync in PoE. I read somewhere that there should be an improvement coming before OB and I really hope so.

And yes, my bad I should have said: Chris metzen should have never even came near the franchise after he got tainted with WoW. ;) Or well I don't know if it was WoW, but I'm a huge fan of the Diablo lore and I can't describe how painful it was to play through D3.

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Charan wrote:

Chris Metzen's involvement in the Diablo franchise has been key and fundamental! He did some of the best artwork in the Diablo 1 manual, at the very least. So I've no idea why you say he shouldn't have gone near the franchise. He was a founding presence, along with Bill Roper, the Schaefers and David Brevik. Do we like where Metzen took the story? Of course not. But I think you need to rethink his influence on the franchise as a whole.

I believe it's due to the George Lucas-syndrome. Chris Metzen is the shit at Blizzard, and people might not stand up to him the way they used to. He might need some other badasses to spare with - when they lost Bill Roper the lore of all their series took a downturn if you ask me.

But it's the same that happened with Star Wars 1-3.

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FireSkull wrote:

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lethal_papercut wrote:

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FireSkull wrote:

And these players will be bored to death when they figure out that D3 is all about farming/auction house so that Blizzard can get more money. Then they will get mad and write how shitty D3 is. You know, the first post i made on this forum was actually about a few things that i liked in D3, but that got trolled instantly, and NOW I UNDERSTAND why. There is no reason to write about pros in D3, because D3 is simply not a game because of bots and RMAH. Also GAH needs to be removed because it ruins the gameplay, at least if we are talking about a REAL diablo game, and botters might still abuse GAH.

Even if these things that prevents D3 from being an actual game were removed, it would still be a very shitty game, but at least it would be an actual game. Right now D3 is just one big money machine for botters and asian farmers. This is supported by Blizzard.

Oh yes you're right, cos D2 wasn't all about botting, duping & using a RMAH aka D2JSP was it?

Bots are yet to hit POE but they may just be waiting in the side lines. The ladder is already corrupted in one form or another. What happens if d2jsp or some other site start selling bots & currency for POE? This game could go shit-shaped fast if the wrong people get involved.

In PoE you could report it to a Dev and get some feedback. In D3 you could report it to a dev, and then get banned for being racist, trolling, bad behaviour or spam. Thats the difference. Blizzard does not care. Blizzard North did. Blizzard are the cheaters, they just let the players make up their own hacks and dont take action. Then they get alot of money because of RMAH... And then they doubled it. Then they lie by saying that they take cheating "seriously".

...And how is this even legal?

Blizzard has just grown bigger. Blizzard South made Warcraft 1 & 2 and Starcraft - those are pretty damn nice games.