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on 15 March 2014
I bought this on release having never played diablo however unlike most people I didnt really have an issue with the gameplay/story as I didnt have the previous games to compare it to.
My biggest problem with the game and why I lost interest after a while was that everything was centred around the auction house, and for a casual gamer like me it was awful. In order to get decent equipment, crafting materials or blacksmith plans you needed to go to the auction house. The loot drops were farcacal, so much so that after playing with all 5 characters and levelling 4 of them up to level 60 I didnt have any legendary loot or items of real worth to show. I had to go to the auction house to get my gear, which in turn meant having to spend alot of gold (or real money) which in turn made the game a grind and i felt i was just playing the game to earn gold to spend in the auction house. The loot drops for my characaters were so weak and not suited for the character class that i had no choice or the game became too hard as i moved up the difficulty or participated in multiplayer.
Fast forward to patch 2.0 and what a difference. No more auction house, the loot drops are fantastic and relevant to the character class. Having spent a couple of hours on each character I have already had multiple legendary drops, various (inc a green very rare) blacksmith plans, and every other item dropped has stats which are relevent to the class being played. This is the way the game should have been from the beginning, its actually a joy to play now and loot hunting is my favorite aspect. There are also some other minor tweaks too. I would say to anyone who has played this game casually in the past like me but put off to give it another try, I guarantee you will see a difference.
My biggest problem with the game and why I lost interest after a while was that everything was centred around the auction house, and for a casual gamer like me it was awful. In order to get decent equipment, crafting materials or blacksmith plans you needed to go to the auction house. The loot drops were farcacal, so much so that after playing with all 5 characters and levelling 4 of them up to level 60 I didnt have any legendary loot or items of real worth to show. I had to go to the auction house to get my gear, which in turn meant having to spend alot of gold (or real money) which in turn made the game a grind and i felt i was just playing the game to earn gold to spend in the auction house. The loot drops for my characaters were so weak and not suited for the character class that i had no choice or the game became too hard as i moved up the difficulty or participated in multiplayer.
Fast forward to patch 2.0 and what a difference. No more auction house, the loot drops are fantastic and relevant to the character class. Having spent a couple of hours on each character I have already had multiple legendary drops, various (inc a green very rare) blacksmith plans, and every other item dropped has stats which are relevent to the class being played. This is the way the game should have been from the beginning, its actually a joy to play now and loot hunting is my favorite aspect. There are also some other minor tweaks too. I would say to anyone who has played this game casually in the past like me but put off to give it another try, I guarantee you will see a difference.
TOP 100 REVIEWERon 14 December 2013
Even if I was a great fan of the original Diablo and D2, I was late in deciding to take D3 on. It was a combination of factors, from the bad reviews the game kept getting, to the constant servers errors I kept hearing about and to me being too busy to take up such a time-eater. However, I came across it at a great discount and, on an impulse, decided to give it a try. Three weeks of (casual) gameplay later this is what I think.
DIABOLICALLY GORGEOUS
The game is beautiful to look at and a visual pleasure to play in. The environments are meticulously rendered and yet they loose none of their details when zoomed in or acted upon. Blowing up tree trunks or exploding bodies of enemies is both fun and physically accurate. Sure, some heads or pieces of wood can be seen to spin for too long, but that is part of the game's appeal, right? You are become Death, the destroyer of Worlds!
YOUR CHORD SOUNDS FAMILIAR
The sounds are better than the music but they are both quite well made. What I found strange was that, at least once, throughout Act I, the background music clearly reminded me of the main theme from Baldur's Gate. Let's chalk this one off as ...tribute.
GRINDING BUILDS CHARACTER.
The bad news is that it builds exactly the same kind of character for everyone. There are no choices when leveling up. Everything eventually gets unlocked for you and you only get to choose what 4 skills to use and which runes to combine with each one. Your strength, dexterity, intelligence and vitality get automatically increased, depending on your class. No more making a tank out of a ranger I am afraid. And this is where the game looses its first star.
The fact that you get to have a sidekick that does practically little more than keep the mobs occupied until you dispense of them, does not help either.
CULTURAL PHOBIAS DO NOT A GOOD STORY MAKE
Yes, the story plot is infantile, disrespectful to the original games (I will refrain from spoiling it) and it offers very little help in immersing into the game world. It is unfortunate because, BLIZZARD has proved in the past that they can produce games with a very good back-story, such as Starcraft II.
However, this a game franchise that is heavily invested on the Judeo-Christian culture of the Devil. Just read the name on the box! So, taking away demonic pentagrams and most religious symbols (some crosses can still be found) fools no one. Because once you go down that road and then decide to backup, you should make sure not to step on yourself and trip. As in: if a golden-eyed Fallen Angel (Hello!) is helping you fight Diablo, are you sure who is the Devil and who is not?
LOOT. LOOT NEVER CHANGES.
Well designed and clearly labeled items make all the difference in the world. I would love for Borderlands 2 items to have such a clear Damager-Per-Second (DPS) number to make comparisons easier. Pair this with an inventory that is big enough and free of the need to play item-Tetris in (all items take up either one or two vertical squares) and you have yourself almost loot haven. Almost because you still get too many unusable items, mostly because of class restrictions.
You can stash such items in your common stash to share with your other heroes (on the same BattleNet account) but make sure to find the necessary...700,000 gold to pay for all the extra stash space. Hint: use the Auction House while you still can.
The only thing I found missing is the ability to add sockets to magical items and enchant regular ones.
THE AUCTION HOUSE: BRILLIANT! (WHEN IT WORKS)
I am going to go against the current here but here it is: I found the Auction House a brilliant idea. Well designed and decently executed. I am going to be sad to see it go on March, as announced. I can only hope they change their mind before then.
In all honesty, I am currently a Demon Hunter at Nightmare difficulty. And I have heard the complaints that it is impossible to finish Inferno without Real-Money Auction House (which is clearly not how it is supposed to work) but up to Nightmare, using the Auction House is the only way to get enough money to be able to do the enhancements you want, craft or buy the items you covet and unlock the precious extra stash space you need.
CHAINS IN NEED OF BREAKING
I withheld the second star because of the always-online requirement. Because it is indeed a hassle and a hindrance (just try pausing in town for longer than half and hour and see what happens). Yes, the game does offer some gameplay features (namely, the Auction-House) to compensate for the inconvenience but they all give way to anger and frustration whenever BlLIZZARD's servers go down and you are unable to play a Single-player game for days at a time(!). Take away the Auction-House, however, and the always-online requirement becomes a severe and now unjustified hindrance!
THE ORIGINAL SIN
No, D3 looses its third and final star for being both short and boring at times. There, I said it. Yes, it is a well balanced eye-candie, with tons of loot, problematic character development yet the gameplay feels like at chore at times and it is over before you know it. I even found Act I (the one offered for free as a demo) to be better designed and longer than the rest.
It is like that old Woody Allen joke: two old ladies are complaining about their retirement home catering. "The food was awful, barely edible", "I know", her friend replied, "and such small portions!".
DIABOLICALLY GORGEOUS
The game is beautiful to look at and a visual pleasure to play in. The environments are meticulously rendered and yet they loose none of their details when zoomed in or acted upon. Blowing up tree trunks or exploding bodies of enemies is both fun and physically accurate. Sure, some heads or pieces of wood can be seen to spin for too long, but that is part of the game's appeal, right? You are become Death, the destroyer of Worlds!
YOUR CHORD SOUNDS FAMILIAR
The sounds are better than the music but they are both quite well made. What I found strange was that, at least once, throughout Act I, the background music clearly reminded me of the main theme from Baldur's Gate. Let's chalk this one off as ...tribute.
GRINDING BUILDS CHARACTER.
The bad news is that it builds exactly the same kind of character for everyone. There are no choices when leveling up. Everything eventually gets unlocked for you and you only get to choose what 4 skills to use and which runes to combine with each one. Your strength, dexterity, intelligence and vitality get automatically increased, depending on your class. No more making a tank out of a ranger I am afraid. And this is where the game looses its first star.
The fact that you get to have a sidekick that does practically little more than keep the mobs occupied until you dispense of them, does not help either.
CULTURAL PHOBIAS DO NOT A GOOD STORY MAKE
Yes, the story plot is infantile, disrespectful to the original games (I will refrain from spoiling it) and it offers very little help in immersing into the game world. It is unfortunate because, BLIZZARD has proved in the past that they can produce games with a very good back-story, such as Starcraft II.
However, this a game franchise that is heavily invested on the Judeo-Christian culture of the Devil. Just read the name on the box! So, taking away demonic pentagrams and most religious symbols (some crosses can still be found) fools no one. Because once you go down that road and then decide to backup, you should make sure not to step on yourself and trip. As in: if a golden-eyed Fallen Angel (Hello!) is helping you fight Diablo, are you sure who is the Devil and who is not?
LOOT. LOOT NEVER CHANGES.
Well designed and clearly labeled items make all the difference in the world. I would love for Borderlands 2 items to have such a clear Damager-Per-Second (DPS) number to make comparisons easier. Pair this with an inventory that is big enough and free of the need to play item-Tetris in (all items take up either one or two vertical squares) and you have yourself almost loot haven. Almost because you still get too many unusable items, mostly because of class restrictions.
You can stash such items in your common stash to share with your other heroes (on the same BattleNet account) but make sure to find the necessary...700,000 gold to pay for all the extra stash space. Hint: use the Auction House while you still can.
The only thing I found missing is the ability to add sockets to magical items and enchant regular ones.
THE AUCTION HOUSE: BRILLIANT! (WHEN IT WORKS)
I am going to go against the current here but here it is: I found the Auction House a brilliant idea. Well designed and decently executed. I am going to be sad to see it go on March, as announced. I can only hope they change their mind before then.
In all honesty, I am currently a Demon Hunter at Nightmare difficulty. And I have heard the complaints that it is impossible to finish Inferno without Real-Money Auction House (which is clearly not how it is supposed to work) but up to Nightmare, using the Auction House is the only way to get enough money to be able to do the enhancements you want, craft or buy the items you covet and unlock the precious extra stash space you need.
CHAINS IN NEED OF BREAKING
I withheld the second star because of the always-online requirement. Because it is indeed a hassle and a hindrance (just try pausing in town for longer than half and hour and see what happens). Yes, the game does offer some gameplay features (namely, the Auction-House) to compensate for the inconvenience but they all give way to anger and frustration whenever BlLIZZARD's servers go down and you are unable to play a Single-player game for days at a time(!). Take away the Auction-House, however, and the always-online requirement becomes a severe and now unjustified hindrance!
THE ORIGINAL SIN
No, D3 looses its third and final star for being both short and boring at times. There, I said it. Yes, it is a well balanced eye-candie, with tons of loot, problematic character development yet the gameplay feels like at chore at times and it is over before you know it. I even found Act I (the one offered for free as a demo) to be better designed and longer than the rest.
It is like that old Woody Allen joke: two old ladies are complaining about their retirement home catering. "The food was awful, barely edible", "I know", her friend replied, "and such small portions!".
on 22 May 2012
Like many people, I was excited about the upcoming Diablo 3. I wouldn't call myself one of the core fans, but I liked the first two Diablo games, and this game had been a long time in the coming, and from what I saw in the video previews was interesting.
Even my tempered expectations for this game however have not really been met. Don't get me wrong, I think that it has its place in the gaming industry, but when compared to other games currently on the market, there just isn't enough to it, nor are some of the core elements of it actually functioning as I believe they were intended.
Nostalgia:
This game is primarily built on nostalgia. I loved that. There is so much of the old games in this new one that there wasn't such a great leap, and you certainly KNOW you are playing a Diablo game. It has the same style of play, the same camera angle, the same way the maps work, but the graphics are updated to modern standards, and I was really impressed with that. So many games these days have dumped the old gaming history dealt out by Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale, and indeed Diablo and Diablo 2, but this game is certainly living up to that without it feeling dated right now.
Character Creation:
One thing should be mentioned is that you don't get to customize your character, at all, except in what way you dye your gear, or what you put on. There is no way, even minimally, to change how your character looks. I was disappointed at first by that, but as soon as you start the game it becomes obvious why that is the case. They have made stories for each of the classes, and the voiceovers and stories with them are illustrated. This indeed helps to draw you into the game, though it does mean that if you don't particularly like the voice or look of the character, well, there isn't anything you can do about it except for playing a different class or gender.
Game length and game acts:
I was not really that happy with the game length. As in the last games, in order to get a more difficult difficulty in the game, you have to complete the game all the way through. But in all honesty, I was expecting it to be longer. I went through first time, doing all the quests (you can't skip doing quests) and fully opening each map when I went through them, and it took me, as a slow player, about 25 hours to go through it at normal difficulty. And yes, of course, you get to do it again on more difficult levels much as the last one, and you can level up more, but it's all the same except for the upgraded monsters and better drops.
Also, the Acts, of which there are four, don't really feel that long, and they are pretty much the same locations as the previous games apart from one. This could be a good or a bad thing really, especially in terms of how samey it feels compared to the previous games. Some people will like it, for nostalgia sake, others will find it a bit boring. At first the nostalgia was good, but after a while, I realized that I would have preferred a world that was a bit more diverse, or had a few more acts that had different locations.
Loot, Crafting and Auction House:
Talking of loot, I don't think this has really worked out as Blizzard intended. In previous games, a lot of the challenge in the game, other than the difficulty, was finding good gear, because it let you take on stronger mobs, and get better loot, and gear up along with your level. This still happens, however they have added Crafting to the game.
I thought the crafting was an excellent idea, because it gave you another way to invest in your character, and indeed your account, because the level of your crafting stays with your account, meaning you can use it to make stuff on your low level characters to. However, you pay to upgrade your crafting, and it is quite a lot of money to do that, and then you pay more, and in salvaged reagents in order to craft things. That is a LOT of money, and in all honesty, I generally found that I was finding gear that was better from looting monsters.
But more than that, and something that I find a serious flaw in the game is that no matter what you make in the crafting, you can get better equipment on the auction house, and it is significantly cheaper. Even if you don't take into account the cost of upgrading your Blacksmith, the stuff you can find on the auction house, put there by other players, is usually LESS than the cost of the crafting you would use, especially since the magical attributes you craft into it are ENTIRELY random. This means that even if you find, out of the limited selection, something you want to craft, you may have to pay to craft the item three times if you are lucky, to get attributes you are generally happy with.
This of course means that the crafting is useless. There is no reason for players to use all their money doing crafting, when they can invest the money in buying gear from other players. It also means that the constant hunt for gear in the game itself is pointless except from bosses or rare mobs, and this actually takes away from the game in my opinion.
Connectivity:
The auction house is one of the main reasons why this game was set up to be one that requires a constant internet connection, even if you are playing alone. This requirement for connectivity is, in my opinion, a glaring fault with the game.
Now, I understand that at the beginning of any launch there are bound to be difficulties, bugs, server overload. That is just part and parcel of having a game that requires all the gamers to link up to servers. However I have not been that pleased with the ammount of downtime the game has, especially since I mostly have played it solo and therefore not needed to group up with friends from far away places. It has been a week since the release of the game, and I have been able to play the game around the same amount of time that I have tried to get on the game and been unable to because of the servers being down from errors or from server maintenance. This is a LOT of time where the game I purchased has been unplayable through no fault of my own, and I would be remiss in not pointing out that this has put a damper on my affection of the game.
A game, in my opinion should be playable, and only at the discression of Blizzard/battle.net servers is this the case. I feel there should have been settings that allowed you to play offline, as other multiplayer games (including previous Diablo) ones have done. This would also have aleviated stress from there servers, and therefore hopefully have reduced the downtime and server lagg that many people have put up with.
Achievements:
One thing that has been added is a full list of achievements. These range from different conversations and lore you find in the world, up to different achievements for boss fights and other challenges, including class ones. I feel that it was a good thing to add to the game, as it allows a bit more reason for people to play through things several times.
Multiplayer:
For all its faults, Diablo 3 can boast to have a good multiplayer setup. It is easy to join up with other friends (assumung they are on the same region server, people in europe cannot play with someone on US servers unless they create a new character on that server) to run around the world together and do the quests. Indeed the game works far better as a multiplayer than a solo player to be honest. The mob levels adjust to how many people are in your group, and what level they are. Indeed, you can have a level 57 character come and help level 31 and so-forth. It also makes grinding the levels pretty easy if you have a good group going, and it also makes it a lot faster.
However, one of the main reasons I liked multiplayer, was the fact that I can run around with my friends and kill things. But the fact remains that I can do that in other games, that are more fun, diverse and interesting than this one, and have more long-term appeal, such as Rift ([...]).
Cinematics:
I have heard a lot of people raving about the cinematics in the game. There are several such cinematics. Yes, they are well done, yes the skin texture looks amazing, but this really isn't, in my opinion, a good enough reason to buy a game. A game should be about gameplay, not cutscenes.
Summary:
For all the hype, I still feel that this game is mediocre.
Compared, as it should be, to older games such as Baldur's Gate, the game is short (perhaps due to all the disk space needed for those cinematics and voiceovers), and the main reason for levelling up and playing the game falls back on money grinding for the use on the auction house, and for achievements.
The game is better by far in Multiplayer, though it has no voice-chat facility, but I found myself thinking that this game is not so much a NEW game, as an updated expansion pack to Diablo 2. If you think of this game as that, then you will be less disappointed, and if you are happy with that, you may well love this game, but it really doesn't seem like a 'new' game, except for a couple of new class types.
Overall, I would suggest to people that this game is not worth the initial price of £35-45 for the standard edition. It is a mediocre game and I would not expect people to pay premium prices for it. I think if you can pick it up for £10-15, that is fair.
I suppose that after playing other games, I just found Diablo 3 to be lacking both in terms of a single-player game, and as a multiplayer when compared to other games on the market. Other games have far more content, better customer service, less online downtime. If you want nostalgia and don't mind paying highly for it, I guess Diablo 3 could be your cup of tea, but don't expect miricles. There are flaws, and in my opinion, big ones.
Even my tempered expectations for this game however have not really been met. Don't get me wrong, I think that it has its place in the gaming industry, but when compared to other games currently on the market, there just isn't enough to it, nor are some of the core elements of it actually functioning as I believe they were intended.
Nostalgia:
This game is primarily built on nostalgia. I loved that. There is so much of the old games in this new one that there wasn't such a great leap, and you certainly KNOW you are playing a Diablo game. It has the same style of play, the same camera angle, the same way the maps work, but the graphics are updated to modern standards, and I was really impressed with that. So many games these days have dumped the old gaming history dealt out by Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale, and indeed Diablo and Diablo 2, but this game is certainly living up to that without it feeling dated right now.
Character Creation:
One thing should be mentioned is that you don't get to customize your character, at all, except in what way you dye your gear, or what you put on. There is no way, even minimally, to change how your character looks. I was disappointed at first by that, but as soon as you start the game it becomes obvious why that is the case. They have made stories for each of the classes, and the voiceovers and stories with them are illustrated. This indeed helps to draw you into the game, though it does mean that if you don't particularly like the voice or look of the character, well, there isn't anything you can do about it except for playing a different class or gender.
Game length and game acts:
I was not really that happy with the game length. As in the last games, in order to get a more difficult difficulty in the game, you have to complete the game all the way through. But in all honesty, I was expecting it to be longer. I went through first time, doing all the quests (you can't skip doing quests) and fully opening each map when I went through them, and it took me, as a slow player, about 25 hours to go through it at normal difficulty. And yes, of course, you get to do it again on more difficult levels much as the last one, and you can level up more, but it's all the same except for the upgraded monsters and better drops.
Also, the Acts, of which there are four, don't really feel that long, and they are pretty much the same locations as the previous games apart from one. This could be a good or a bad thing really, especially in terms of how samey it feels compared to the previous games. Some people will like it, for nostalgia sake, others will find it a bit boring. At first the nostalgia was good, but after a while, I realized that I would have preferred a world that was a bit more diverse, or had a few more acts that had different locations.
Loot, Crafting and Auction House:
Talking of loot, I don't think this has really worked out as Blizzard intended. In previous games, a lot of the challenge in the game, other than the difficulty, was finding good gear, because it let you take on stronger mobs, and get better loot, and gear up along with your level. This still happens, however they have added Crafting to the game.
I thought the crafting was an excellent idea, because it gave you another way to invest in your character, and indeed your account, because the level of your crafting stays with your account, meaning you can use it to make stuff on your low level characters to. However, you pay to upgrade your crafting, and it is quite a lot of money to do that, and then you pay more, and in salvaged reagents in order to craft things. That is a LOT of money, and in all honesty, I generally found that I was finding gear that was better from looting monsters.
But more than that, and something that I find a serious flaw in the game is that no matter what you make in the crafting, you can get better equipment on the auction house, and it is significantly cheaper. Even if you don't take into account the cost of upgrading your Blacksmith, the stuff you can find on the auction house, put there by other players, is usually LESS than the cost of the crafting you would use, especially since the magical attributes you craft into it are ENTIRELY random. This means that even if you find, out of the limited selection, something you want to craft, you may have to pay to craft the item three times if you are lucky, to get attributes you are generally happy with.
This of course means that the crafting is useless. There is no reason for players to use all their money doing crafting, when they can invest the money in buying gear from other players. It also means that the constant hunt for gear in the game itself is pointless except from bosses or rare mobs, and this actually takes away from the game in my opinion.
Connectivity:
The auction house is one of the main reasons why this game was set up to be one that requires a constant internet connection, even if you are playing alone. This requirement for connectivity is, in my opinion, a glaring fault with the game.
Now, I understand that at the beginning of any launch there are bound to be difficulties, bugs, server overload. That is just part and parcel of having a game that requires all the gamers to link up to servers. However I have not been that pleased with the ammount of downtime the game has, especially since I mostly have played it solo and therefore not needed to group up with friends from far away places. It has been a week since the release of the game, and I have been able to play the game around the same amount of time that I have tried to get on the game and been unable to because of the servers being down from errors or from server maintenance. This is a LOT of time where the game I purchased has been unplayable through no fault of my own, and I would be remiss in not pointing out that this has put a damper on my affection of the game.
A game, in my opinion should be playable, and only at the discression of Blizzard/battle.net servers is this the case. I feel there should have been settings that allowed you to play offline, as other multiplayer games (including previous Diablo) ones have done. This would also have aleviated stress from there servers, and therefore hopefully have reduced the downtime and server lagg that many people have put up with.
Achievements:
One thing that has been added is a full list of achievements. These range from different conversations and lore you find in the world, up to different achievements for boss fights and other challenges, including class ones. I feel that it was a good thing to add to the game, as it allows a bit more reason for people to play through things several times.
Multiplayer:
For all its faults, Diablo 3 can boast to have a good multiplayer setup. It is easy to join up with other friends (assumung they are on the same region server, people in europe cannot play with someone on US servers unless they create a new character on that server) to run around the world together and do the quests. Indeed the game works far better as a multiplayer than a solo player to be honest. The mob levels adjust to how many people are in your group, and what level they are. Indeed, you can have a level 57 character come and help level 31 and so-forth. It also makes grinding the levels pretty easy if you have a good group going, and it also makes it a lot faster.
However, one of the main reasons I liked multiplayer, was the fact that I can run around with my friends and kill things. But the fact remains that I can do that in other games, that are more fun, diverse and interesting than this one, and have more long-term appeal, such as Rift ([...]).
Cinematics:
I have heard a lot of people raving about the cinematics in the game. There are several such cinematics. Yes, they are well done, yes the skin texture looks amazing, but this really isn't, in my opinion, a good enough reason to buy a game. A game should be about gameplay, not cutscenes.
Summary:
For all the hype, I still feel that this game is mediocre.
Compared, as it should be, to older games such as Baldur's Gate, the game is short (perhaps due to all the disk space needed for those cinematics and voiceovers), and the main reason for levelling up and playing the game falls back on money grinding for the use on the auction house, and for achievements.
The game is better by far in Multiplayer, though it has no voice-chat facility, but I found myself thinking that this game is not so much a NEW game, as an updated expansion pack to Diablo 2. If you think of this game as that, then you will be less disappointed, and if you are happy with that, you may well love this game, but it really doesn't seem like a 'new' game, except for a couple of new class types.
Overall, I would suggest to people that this game is not worth the initial price of £35-45 for the standard edition. It is a mediocre game and I would not expect people to pay premium prices for it. I think if you can pick it up for £10-15, that is fair.
I suppose that after playing other games, I just found Diablo 3 to be lacking both in terms of a single-player game, and as a multiplayer when compared to other games on the market. Other games have far more content, better customer service, less online downtime. If you want nostalgia and don't mind paying highly for it, I guess Diablo 3 could be your cup of tea, but don't expect miricles. There are flaws, and in my opinion, big ones.
on 24 December 2013
The good; fast delivery.
The bad: the game.
Blizzard took the flexibilty, character development options and strategizing of Diablo 2 and turned it into a constant-action, auto-respeccing shooter.
This could and should have been so much better. But Blizzard have gone for the lowest common denominator of 'shoot lots', 'make it easy to respec so no one has to build more than one character' and let's make everyone play online.
The character options look good on paper. The build options look good on paper. But when it comes down to it, it's just shoot shoot shoot. The ability to make dramatically different builds even within the same character class which was an important part of Diablo 2 is not used here. Strategy? No chance; it's a constant fight throughout (like the start of Act 5 in D2).
This is basically World of Diablo; no charm and all money-grabbing.
Why on earth this has to be played online is anyone's guess. This means that anyone with restricted net (EG the military on tour) cannot play it.
Blizzard had many years to bring out a stunning successor to D2 and instead they've gone flashy graphics and no gameplay.
I wasted my money, don't waste yours.
The bad: the game.
Blizzard took the flexibilty, character development options and strategizing of Diablo 2 and turned it into a constant-action, auto-respeccing shooter.
This could and should have been so much better. But Blizzard have gone for the lowest common denominator of 'shoot lots', 'make it easy to respec so no one has to build more than one character' and let's make everyone play online.
The character options look good on paper. The build options look good on paper. But when it comes down to it, it's just shoot shoot shoot. The ability to make dramatically different builds even within the same character class which was an important part of Diablo 2 is not used here. Strategy? No chance; it's a constant fight throughout (like the start of Act 5 in D2).
This is basically World of Diablo; no charm and all money-grabbing.
Why on earth this has to be played online is anyone's guess. This means that anyone with restricted net (EG the military on tour) cannot play it.
Blizzard had many years to bring out a stunning successor to D2 and instead they've gone flashy graphics and no gameplay.
I wasted my money, don't waste yours.
on 8 March 2014
I was put off by this game because of the high price, low ratings, tons of bugs, Auction House (This most of all) and the claims that Torchlight 2 can easily compete. I completed Torchlight 2, great game but Diablo 3 gives you more reward.
I left World of Warcraft for a reason and do not want to return to that hell.
So I waited...... Now I decided to buy it as it appears all of the above are fixed :) I am level 20. Joined a really fun and relaxed clan with nobody flaming or arguing and it has none of the bad World of Warcraft problems with the community but all of the brilliant gameplay, battles and loot.
The auction house has been removed to allow people to return to the game being about the game and in general after only 5 hours I am totally loving it. I enjoy playing alone but it is nice to have a community ready and available to interact with and ask for help if needed. I have already moved the difficulty up to hard and having a great time.
If you were put off before and are now considering it please do. For £18.99 it arrives in a nice presentation case with DVD if you do not want to download and Battle.Net is easy enough to register with. It is far cheaper buying this than from Blizzard directly.
Very Pleased.
I left World of Warcraft for a reason and do not want to return to that hell.
So I waited...... Now I decided to buy it as it appears all of the above are fixed :) I am level 20. Joined a really fun and relaxed clan with nobody flaming or arguing and it has none of the bad World of Warcraft problems with the community but all of the brilliant gameplay, battles and loot.
The auction house has been removed to allow people to return to the game being about the game and in general after only 5 hours I am totally loving it. I enjoy playing alone but it is nice to have a community ready and available to interact with and ask for help if needed. I have already moved the difficulty up to hard and having a great time.
If you were put off before and are now considering it please do. For £18.99 it arrives in a nice presentation case with DVD if you do not want to download and Battle.Net is easy enough to register with. It is far cheaper buying this than from Blizzard directly.
Very Pleased.
on 9 June 2012
I am going to be brutally honest about this review.
I have Diablo and Diablo 2. Played Diablo 2 and finished hell level. Played softcore, hardcore as well as PvP.
Overall, I'm going to say this: THIS GAME IS NOT FUN TO PLAY. What game can be considered good if it's not fun?
Note: mobs - monsters
Plus of this game:
1. More hints to help you move along the game. More idiot-proof (too much guidance in my opinion, but some players may like it)
2. Relatively enjoyable cutscenes, though it's repeated for every character class with little variation. Both genders offered for each of the 5 character classes.
3. Bigger stash, shared among characters so transferring between characters is easier. Items take up less space compared to previous games.
4. References to older games which many players can identify with.
5. Abilities are more impressive, lots of explosions and earth shaking attacks.
Minus of this game:
1. IT IS NOT FUN TO PLAY. This is the biggest problem. Save yourself the anguish and go play some other game that's fun to play. I believe most gamers expect to at least finish the game and enjoy it while doing so. This is the biggest problem with this game - balance. The game has not been play-tested properly and sufficiently for balance. Some mobs are relatively meek but others are downright impossible to go up against. Elite mobs are more difficult than bosses.
2. Part of the fun in Diablo and Diablo 2 is in finding nice items (loot) when killing mobs. The items drops in this game are bad enough that I did not find a single legendary item (highest level item type) after completing the game in normal, nightmare and hell difficulty. Many other gamers reported the same experience. It's not fun picking up lousy stuff 99% of the time. Finishing the game 3 times in 3 difficulty levels and not seeing anything nice at all? That's not right.
3. The Development Team of the game wanted to make gold a valuable commodity of the game. In order to do that, they made all the items worth very little when you try to sell them. Normal level items are worth 2-20 gold (very little), so nobody picks them up anymore. They also made repair costs higher (several thousand per repair at higher levels, which 'forces' players to look for and pick up the gold they find). It makes it very painful to die, especially at higher levels. They also imposed a timer to stop players from playing, from a few seconds to 30 seconds - to stop players from taking dying too easy. Some players like it that way, most don't.
4. Playing the game, especially at higher levels, entail a lot of dying. Not fun. At hell level you will die if any mob scratches your back if you do not have decent equipment. At inferno level (most difficult level), most players die to 1 hit by any mob. It it not fun to play. Its just frustrating. The only time you can get through with reasonable fun if you have super equipment, but the only way you get super equipment is to get to the last part of inferno (act 4 inferno), so it becomes a catch 22. The development team's idea of difficult is you die and die and die. Fun right? No.
5. Some elite mobs are downright impossible to beat, so you have to skip them (run past them as quickly as possible and move to the next area of the game). Its not fun to have to do that a lot of time at the higher difficulties.
6. Many elite mobs take a lot of time to beat. Some are more difficult than bosses. Part of this is due to the mobs getting totally random affixes (abilities). The balance is totally and completely off.
7. In inferno mode, many characters will die in 1 hit. Many tank characters die in 2 to 3 hits. That is not right. If a tank with relatively good equipment can't survive then who's going to tank? Dying all the time and spending most of your time waiting to resurrect is not fun. Now the development team wants to make dying even more undesirable by increasing repair costs by 6-8 times. Even worse because now you have to spend time looking for gold in lower levels (like gold farmer in wow). So now you're not enjoying your leisure time killing mobs, you're spending time doing gold farming. I'm sure many of you already have a full-time job if you're working, or a full-time studies if you're a student. You don't need another job - gold farming.
8. This game has so many flaws it glows with it. Although the franchise is still strong, it appears to me at least, this game is not complete when it was released in the middle of last month.
9. This game also requires you to be online when you play it, even if you're only playing single player mode. When the server is under maintenance, you can't play. When there's unscheduled maintenance, you can't play. When your internet connection is not stable, you can't play.
10. Last but not least, this game only supports up to 4 in multi-player (Used to be 8 in Diablo 2) In the beginning I couldn't join my friends because there are already 4 players in the game. To make things worse, nowadays we don't play together. Why? When we play together the mobs get stronger (higher life) and their damage goes up. I just had a game where I joined my friend's game and after playing for a while he told me he can't play with me because the mobs are too difficult to kill. So he goes off to play single player and I go play single player. When playing solo, we die very often. When playing together, we die again and again and again. I wonder if the purpose of this game is to die and die and die? Fun? No.
Please save yourself the frustration of an unfinished game and play something else. I feel that Diablo 2 is a better game than this one.
p.s. In Diablo 2, if you're in trouble you can open a town portal to escape to town. You can choose boots that allow you to run up to 40% faster so that you can outrun mobs. You can leave the game instantly so that you don't die in hardcore. So the development thought, that's unfair to the mobs. So, in Diablo 3, you can only run up to 12% faster? but mobs can have fast affixes meaning they'll run faster than you ever will. They also added a 5 second timer on town portals and 10 second timer on exiting the game if you're not in town so you cannot escape easily. If there's one thing they did right, that is the way they made sure it's difficult to escape from bad situations. They made it difficult alright.
I have Diablo and Diablo 2. Played Diablo 2 and finished hell level. Played softcore, hardcore as well as PvP.
Overall, I'm going to say this: THIS GAME IS NOT FUN TO PLAY. What game can be considered good if it's not fun?
Note: mobs - monsters
Plus of this game:
1. More hints to help you move along the game. More idiot-proof (too much guidance in my opinion, but some players may like it)
2. Relatively enjoyable cutscenes, though it's repeated for every character class with little variation. Both genders offered for each of the 5 character classes.
3. Bigger stash, shared among characters so transferring between characters is easier. Items take up less space compared to previous games.
4. References to older games which many players can identify with.
5. Abilities are more impressive, lots of explosions and earth shaking attacks.
Minus of this game:
1. IT IS NOT FUN TO PLAY. This is the biggest problem. Save yourself the anguish and go play some other game that's fun to play. I believe most gamers expect to at least finish the game and enjoy it while doing so. This is the biggest problem with this game - balance. The game has not been play-tested properly and sufficiently for balance. Some mobs are relatively meek but others are downright impossible to go up against. Elite mobs are more difficult than bosses.
2. Part of the fun in Diablo and Diablo 2 is in finding nice items (loot) when killing mobs. The items drops in this game are bad enough that I did not find a single legendary item (highest level item type) after completing the game in normal, nightmare and hell difficulty. Many other gamers reported the same experience. It's not fun picking up lousy stuff 99% of the time. Finishing the game 3 times in 3 difficulty levels and not seeing anything nice at all? That's not right.
3. The Development Team of the game wanted to make gold a valuable commodity of the game. In order to do that, they made all the items worth very little when you try to sell them. Normal level items are worth 2-20 gold (very little), so nobody picks them up anymore. They also made repair costs higher (several thousand per repair at higher levels, which 'forces' players to look for and pick up the gold they find). It makes it very painful to die, especially at higher levels. They also imposed a timer to stop players from playing, from a few seconds to 30 seconds - to stop players from taking dying too easy. Some players like it that way, most don't.
4. Playing the game, especially at higher levels, entail a lot of dying. Not fun. At hell level you will die if any mob scratches your back if you do not have decent equipment. At inferno level (most difficult level), most players die to 1 hit by any mob. It it not fun to play. Its just frustrating. The only time you can get through with reasonable fun if you have super equipment, but the only way you get super equipment is to get to the last part of inferno (act 4 inferno), so it becomes a catch 22. The development team's idea of difficult is you die and die and die. Fun right? No.
5. Some elite mobs are downright impossible to beat, so you have to skip them (run past them as quickly as possible and move to the next area of the game). Its not fun to have to do that a lot of time at the higher difficulties.
6. Many elite mobs take a lot of time to beat. Some are more difficult than bosses. Part of this is due to the mobs getting totally random affixes (abilities). The balance is totally and completely off.
7. In inferno mode, many characters will die in 1 hit. Many tank characters die in 2 to 3 hits. That is not right. If a tank with relatively good equipment can't survive then who's going to tank? Dying all the time and spending most of your time waiting to resurrect is not fun. Now the development team wants to make dying even more undesirable by increasing repair costs by 6-8 times. Even worse because now you have to spend time looking for gold in lower levels (like gold farmer in wow). So now you're not enjoying your leisure time killing mobs, you're spending time doing gold farming. I'm sure many of you already have a full-time job if you're working, or a full-time studies if you're a student. You don't need another job - gold farming.
8. This game has so many flaws it glows with it. Although the franchise is still strong, it appears to me at least, this game is not complete when it was released in the middle of last month.
9. This game also requires you to be online when you play it, even if you're only playing single player mode. When the server is under maintenance, you can't play. When there's unscheduled maintenance, you can't play. When your internet connection is not stable, you can't play.
10. Last but not least, this game only supports up to 4 in multi-player (Used to be 8 in Diablo 2) In the beginning I couldn't join my friends because there are already 4 players in the game. To make things worse, nowadays we don't play together. Why? When we play together the mobs get stronger (higher life) and their damage goes up. I just had a game where I joined my friend's game and after playing for a while he told me he can't play with me because the mobs are too difficult to kill. So he goes off to play single player and I go play single player. When playing solo, we die very often. When playing together, we die again and again and again. I wonder if the purpose of this game is to die and die and die? Fun? No.
Please save yourself the frustration of an unfinished game and play something else. I feel that Diablo 2 is a better game than this one.
p.s. In Diablo 2, if you're in trouble you can open a town portal to escape to town. You can choose boots that allow you to run up to 40% faster so that you can outrun mobs. You can leave the game instantly so that you don't die in hardcore. So the development thought, that's unfair to the mobs. So, in Diablo 3, you can only run up to 12% faster? but mobs can have fast affixes meaning they'll run faster than you ever will. They also added a 5 second timer on town portals and 10 second timer on exiting the game if you're not in town so you cannot escape easily. If there's one thing they did right, that is the way they made sure it's difficult to escape from bad situations. They made it difficult alright.
on 16 June 2012
Dumb "1-button-click" action. Where exactly is RPG part here? Storyline is primitive as well as dialogs. There is nothing new but just remake of Diablo 2 storyline (simplified version, though).
"Dialogs" actually are also not dialogs, but pre-defined story tellings from characters, which you can't basically interact in any way.
RPG is not correct description for this game. It's action.
Graphics is good but cartoonish. I bet many people expect a lot more dark and feral surrounding, which would fit the "end of days" storyline.
Surprise-surprise - internet connection is ALWAYS needed, even for single player game. How come? I guess Blizzard afraid that no one would pay money for this and so, that is the reason they spent 12+ years, developing severe security measures, not the game itself.
"Dialogs" actually are also not dialogs, but pre-defined story tellings from characters, which you can't basically interact in any way.
RPG is not correct description for this game. It's action.
Graphics is good but cartoonish. I bet many people expect a lot more dark and feral surrounding, which would fit the "end of days" storyline.
Surprise-surprise - internet connection is ALWAYS needed, even for single player game. How come? I guess Blizzard afraid that no one would pay money for this and so, that is the reason they spent 12+ years, developing severe security measures, not the game itself.
on 18 July 2012
Diablo III the mouse clicking frenzied dungeon crawler, the descendant of Diablo I and II - the gameplay of the Diablo series is based on a simple but frenetic recipe of ever increasing level, gear and monsters. To possibly find that new bit of equipment, or explore that previously unseen area urges the player to just keep on going.
Diablo I nailed this very well, and despite the naive coding issues that generated spawned and hacked equipment it was a great title.
Diablo III then surely cannot go far wrong with this recipe ? With the power of modern computers to impress visually with atmospheric areas and moody sophisticated lighting, the game must have just got only better.
Except it hasn't. Despite being prettier the game doesn't actually play better than what has come before. Why is that ? It's difficult to frame, but the tweaks and the feel of the game are rather flat - after you've played a bit, you've pretty much seen it all. And after you've completed it on the first pass at Normal difficulty, well, you will be hard pressed to find interest further on. But D1 was pretty much the same thing over and over wasn't it ? It was and it wasn't - the levels were always very different, and the styles and creatures you could find just meshed nicely into a myriad of different themes. D3 is far less rich in its replayability. Many of the areas are always the same, the dungeons are largely similar, and the creatures - well you get the idea.
So, D3 is an at best, mediocre copy of D1. At its worst its a copy that doesn't come up to the standard of the first one. Its pretty. No doubt about it. But visuals only get the audience in the door. Gameplay is what keeps them in their seats.
D3 could have been so much better - its apparent that very little thought has gone into its gameplay design, things like the identify are now a strange leftover that does nothing and could certainly have either been implemented better or done away with completely. The design of the dungeons are also lacking in imagination - very samey and locked in some bizarre 15 year old 2d plane layout. Given the richness of the visuals much could have been done with the dungeons to make them more interesting - true 3d heights to allow jumping, climbing and the like, pits, chutes and some clever puzzles could have done wonders to not only just copy what has gone before, but nudge it that bit further down the design path.
But its not only the level design and randomness that is lack lustre.
Things such as customisation of characters is woefully lacking. In fact its so lacking that it seems almost ridiculous you cannot change the look of your character - you are limited to dying your equipment. This seems jarring with the current design of games, MMOs in particular, that allow lots of character customisations to add a bit of personality to your avatar. Sure, D1 didn't have such customisation, but to be fair, that was over 15 years ago and the machine limitations were greater. It seems almost strange that the company that is behind World of Warcraft and has at least some experience with customisable characters launches Diablo 3 which has none of it. A blast from the past !
Blizzard have also tweaked the gameplay of D3 with an eye to milking a cash cow. You can see their thinking. If Diablo is so successful, and gets lots of repeated plays, how can we monetise that recurring popularity ? The answer is in the item drops and the auction house. You can now pay cash for items. Injecting real money into the economy brings a market nature to the game that generates income for Blizzard, and in theory makes your game more interesting by shopping for items. But does it really ? One downside to this is that game balance is secondary to that of game income - Blizzard will want to promote the spending of money rather than the balancing of things to play better. It also brings up the often bitter arguments between those that buy their way in, and those that earn their way in - and tends to disincentivize the earners.
All in all D3 feels like its stuck in the past. Zero innovation, a carbon copy of old Diablo gameplay - but implemented in worse fashion in many areas, a monetisation of items. Not good.
The gameplay ends up being bland. Its replayability surprisingly low for what it should be.
Interestingly enough I think many of the design copy issues are also present between Starcraft I and Starcraft II. For me Starcraft I was one of the best games ever made - its balance was brilliant, its gameplay hitting the sweetspot. Starcraft II seemed to try to replicate it - prettier - but missed its target.
After the disappointment of Starcraft II and Diablo III, I can't help feeling that Blizzard's best days are behind them, and that perhaps some of their best known games were either design flukes - or the loss of the original staff that worked on those games has hit the creativity of the company badly. We'll have to see what Torchlight II is like - many of the staff there actually the guys behind the original Diablo.
Diablo I nailed this very well, and despite the naive coding issues that generated spawned and hacked equipment it was a great title.
Diablo III then surely cannot go far wrong with this recipe ? With the power of modern computers to impress visually with atmospheric areas and moody sophisticated lighting, the game must have just got only better.
Except it hasn't. Despite being prettier the game doesn't actually play better than what has come before. Why is that ? It's difficult to frame, but the tweaks and the feel of the game are rather flat - after you've played a bit, you've pretty much seen it all. And after you've completed it on the first pass at Normal difficulty, well, you will be hard pressed to find interest further on. But D1 was pretty much the same thing over and over wasn't it ? It was and it wasn't - the levels were always very different, and the styles and creatures you could find just meshed nicely into a myriad of different themes. D3 is far less rich in its replayability. Many of the areas are always the same, the dungeons are largely similar, and the creatures - well you get the idea.
So, D3 is an at best, mediocre copy of D1. At its worst its a copy that doesn't come up to the standard of the first one. Its pretty. No doubt about it. But visuals only get the audience in the door. Gameplay is what keeps them in their seats.
D3 could have been so much better - its apparent that very little thought has gone into its gameplay design, things like the identify are now a strange leftover that does nothing and could certainly have either been implemented better or done away with completely. The design of the dungeons are also lacking in imagination - very samey and locked in some bizarre 15 year old 2d plane layout. Given the richness of the visuals much could have been done with the dungeons to make them more interesting - true 3d heights to allow jumping, climbing and the like, pits, chutes and some clever puzzles could have done wonders to not only just copy what has gone before, but nudge it that bit further down the design path.
But its not only the level design and randomness that is lack lustre.
Things such as customisation of characters is woefully lacking. In fact its so lacking that it seems almost ridiculous you cannot change the look of your character - you are limited to dying your equipment. This seems jarring with the current design of games, MMOs in particular, that allow lots of character customisations to add a bit of personality to your avatar. Sure, D1 didn't have such customisation, but to be fair, that was over 15 years ago and the machine limitations were greater. It seems almost strange that the company that is behind World of Warcraft and has at least some experience with customisable characters launches Diablo 3 which has none of it. A blast from the past !
Blizzard have also tweaked the gameplay of D3 with an eye to milking a cash cow. You can see their thinking. If Diablo is so successful, and gets lots of repeated plays, how can we monetise that recurring popularity ? The answer is in the item drops and the auction house. You can now pay cash for items. Injecting real money into the economy brings a market nature to the game that generates income for Blizzard, and in theory makes your game more interesting by shopping for items. But does it really ? One downside to this is that game balance is secondary to that of game income - Blizzard will want to promote the spending of money rather than the balancing of things to play better. It also brings up the often bitter arguments between those that buy their way in, and those that earn their way in - and tends to disincentivize the earners.
All in all D3 feels like its stuck in the past. Zero innovation, a carbon copy of old Diablo gameplay - but implemented in worse fashion in many areas, a monetisation of items. Not good.
The gameplay ends up being bland. Its replayability surprisingly low for what it should be.
Interestingly enough I think many of the design copy issues are also present between Starcraft I and Starcraft II. For me Starcraft I was one of the best games ever made - its balance was brilliant, its gameplay hitting the sweetspot. Starcraft II seemed to try to replicate it - prettier - but missed its target.
After the disappointment of Starcraft II and Diablo III, I can't help feeling that Blizzard's best days are behind them, and that perhaps some of their best known games were either design flukes - or the loss of the original staff that worked on those games has hit the creativity of the company badly. We'll have to see what Torchlight II is like - many of the staff there actually the guys behind the original Diablo.
on 3 September 2012
I think the main problem with the game is that it was written by a team that did not really understand the principles. Also I think size wise, the game is identical to the previous one that is 12 years old. The size of game may of been fine back then, but these days people (well I certainly did) expect much more.
The game starts off so easy you fly through it in no time at all. Then you realise you have to do it again on harder level - which is still very easy, until you have completed it 3 times and, supposedly the real game begins. Sadly this is not the case, it is so boring by then you really wonder what the whole point was.
The original game was built around the idea of hunting for items, pure and simple. With an Auction House as part of the game this has meant the game is slanted towards that, so there is very little chance of ever getting a decent item. You end up hunting for money to buy items instead - which is extremely dull.
There have been panic fixes to try and rectify the game but it really is just very very poor and a mere shadow of the one 12 years ago.
Considering 12 years have past this game should of been an enormous world with say 15 acts, not 4 tiny ones.
Blizzard used to make very solid games, that time has now well and truly passed.
The game starts off so easy you fly through it in no time at all. Then you realise you have to do it again on harder level - which is still very easy, until you have completed it 3 times and, supposedly the real game begins. Sadly this is not the case, it is so boring by then you really wonder what the whole point was.
The original game was built around the idea of hunting for items, pure and simple. With an Auction House as part of the game this has meant the game is slanted towards that, so there is very little chance of ever getting a decent item. You end up hunting for money to buy items instead - which is extremely dull.
There have been panic fixes to try and rectify the game but it really is just very very poor and a mere shadow of the one 12 years ago.
Considering 12 years have past this game should of been an enormous world with say 15 acts, not 4 tiny ones.
Blizzard used to make very solid games, that time has now well and truly passed.
on 7 October 2013
So you go through a level killing lots of mobs and are rewarded at the end of each level with an easy boss fight. This is not as good as the first two not by a long shot, wish that I had never bought it waste of time and money.
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