The game is extremely childish. It was made retard prof without any bit of planing, choice or tactical elements. Equipment is next to meaningless. I'm at level 30 running naked and killing everything on sight by holding my left mouse button.
It's by far my worst purchase of this year and the worst dungeon crawler I have played. Not even Dungeon Siege was this bare-bone and this simplistic.
And I'm not even considering the always on DRM, error 37, stupid server issues like having 1500ms latency when pinging any west coast site gives me normal pings.
I'm gonna go call my bank and request a charge-back now and assume this site based review will either be made by an impressible 8 year old or a biased guy.
And why is a game that is clearly not an MMO getting an in-depth multi week review on MMORPG? Have we run out of things to talk about that actually are MMO related?
Like Mike pointed out it has at least "crappy launch days" in common with mmorpgs. Lolz.
Also I think it was Suzie or Bill that said that even when Diablo III isn't technically a mmorpg, it has many things in common (apart from the massively bit) and the target groups overlap for a great deal too.
This and the fact that majority readers asked for it to be covered. Plus, at BlizzCon, Wyatt basically said "It's an MMO in our eyes, but we're not calling it that officially." Yes, it's missing a shared world, but given the always-on (except when it's down, lolz) nature of the title and its social aspects, is it really that much of a stretch?
I say this with all due respect. How gullible do you think this site's readers really are?
I think I will wait till it hits the bargain bins. Loved D1 and D2, played them for weeks but be damned if I will pay that kind of money for a rehash of D2..
<<p>I say this with all due respect. How gullible do you think this site's readers really are?
Not even a little bit. We've covered this ground before. We held a poll, the "Yes" beat the "No." And we all agreed (the staff) that it was of enough shared interest to cover over the course of launch and beyond. If it helps, we'll likely be covering TL2 as well for the same reasons. In the future, if we're able, we'll be opening a site simply for "other" RPGs. But for now, we'll do stuff that has crossover potential here.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
I was able to sneak some time in. I loved D2 - though I could only manage a few play throughs before I got bored
So far, I like it. I do miss the erie atmosphere of D2 and D1. I feel like they've made some great useability improvements over D2 (though online only is a huge step back).
I like the advancement system. RPGs in general are moving away from the talent/skill tree system in favor of some form of "deck" building system. We've seen so many takes on the talent tree, I think Blizzard had no choice but to try something different. I also think making the game compatible with consoles is another reason for the system.
It definitely isn't as genre defining as D2 was - and Blizzard will get flack for that. I think thats the inherent problem.... it feels like another D2 clone.
It's way to early to review the game but I'll give my gut feelings. I'm level 20 and in Act II. I enjoy the gameplay of my Barb and don't miss the talent trees or setting my STR, VIT ...
I do miss the original voice behind Tyrael though. The new voice actor just isn't nearly as powerful. The same goes for the soundtrack. So far it's a dud.
The game is definitely fun. But there's only one Diablo 2 and the successor's, whetther made by blizzard or elsewhere, will never be the same for me.
well i rmeber when diablo 1 came out loved it couldnt stop playing it my isster at the time even broke it and threw it away so i wouldnt play it then 2 came out it was ok little difrent and now 3 well i lost all desire to play it not even interested in it dint even try my betta invite old crap old news should have been out 8 years augo you all can have it i got better things to play than old news
A horrible start? You're seriously going to label the game in that negative fashion over a few measly few hours downtime on the launch day of the most aniticipated PC game in history?
Honestly, your article reads like it was written by the forum trolls who spent the duration of the day crying on the o-forums yesterday about not being able to play, while the rest of us had a really enjoyable experience. The only downtime that was truly an inconvenience was the downtime yesterday evening, the other period's of downtime were trivial at best.
Eww. A lot of good and bad about D3. Well, for me I enjoy playing it. Made it threw act 1. The game play is great and with the server problem, for me it was only about three hours of wait time. Not to bad compared to other newly launched games, but still bad. Other then that thier has not been any problem since then with my game play.
A horrible start? You're seriously going to label the game in that negative fashion over a few measly few hours downtime on the launch day of the most aniticipated PC game in history?
Honestly, your article reads like it was written by the forum trolls who spent the duration of the day crying on the o-forums yesterday about not being able to play, while the rest of us had a really enjoyable experience. The only downtime that was truly an inconvenience was the downtime yesterday evening, the other period's of downtime were trivial at best.
Way to jump on the bandwagon.
A few hours? I was lucky to get in early afternoon (after spamming through the 37 error for over one and half hour) and kept myself logged in during dinner.
My gf wasn't able to get in at all the whole day yesterday due to errors 37 and 75! She still hasn't been able to get in!
A horrible start? You're seriously going to label the game in that negative fashion over a few measly few hours downtime on the launch day of the most aniticipated PC game in history?
Honestly, your article reads like it was written by the forum trolls who spent the duration of the day crying on the o-forums yesterday about not being able to play, while the rest of us had a really enjoyable experience. The only downtime that was truly an inconvenience was the downtime yesterday evening, the other period's of downtime were trivial at best.
Way to jump on the bandwagon.
You may want to go back and read past the first paragraph.
A horrible start? You're seriously going to label the game in that negative fashion over a few measly few hours downtime on the launch day of the most aniticipated PC game in history?
Honestly, your article reads like it was written by the forum trolls who spent the duration of the day crying on the o-forums yesterday about not being able to play, while the rest of us had a really enjoyable experience. The only downtime that was truly an inconvenience was the downtime yesterday evening, the other period's of downtime were trivial at best.
Way to jump on the bandwagon.
You may want to go back and read past the first paragraph.
Bren
I personally read past the first paragraph and while it isn't nearly as blatant as the trolls, it echos them.
Did you read the 3/4ths of the article where he explains that the game is great fun? The servers have had issues and I would expect no decent game reporter to ignore that. Mike was just reporting the facts about server outages. It's only the first two paragraphs of an otherwise glowing review. Get a grip please.
The writing was of poor quality, especially the ending which was cheesy. They clearly used their WoW quest writers to write the storyline which they should not have done for a game storyline.
It has a very annoying "always online" DRM. You are not allowed to play single player offline, so whenever blizzard's servers go down (every tuesday for maintenance and whenever they have problems) you get kicked off and cannot play. DRM that stops you playing a game you paid for that is not an MMO is certainly fair game in a game review, ignoring it would not be fair.
Very little character customization, this should not be defined as an RPG of any kind. Stats are automatically given, you cannot choose where to put them and by level 60 you have all the skills in the game, so there is no decision making on your part to customize a character apart from what items to wear.
The cinematic's graphical quality is excellent, but the poor writing hurts them abit. Especially the ending which was a big let down.
Meh Diablo games have always been too small anyway, Sacred has always had a much better world, if diablo had a full open go where you want whe nyo uwant world, it would be spot on perfect.
Aori, this is supposed to be a review not an advertisement for your favourite game. You can't expect anyone other than a hack to leave out DRM issues that stop people from playing a game they paid for. This is not an MMO.
"I don't like this style of reviewing"
You don't like that it wasn't given an automatic 10/10
I do hope that he chooses to review the storyline, the auctionhouse (which in my opinion removes much of the challenge from the game, not that normal had any to begin with, allowing you to buy items far better than your own for very little money, making things quite trivial), and the character customization.
A horrible start? You're seriously going to label the game in that negative fashion over a few measly few hours downtime on the launch day of the most aniticipated PC game in history?
Honestly, your article reads like it was written by the forum trolls who spent the duration of the day crying on the o-forums yesterday about not being able to play, while the rest of us had a really enjoyable experience. The only downtime that was truly an inconvenience was the downtime yesterday evening, the other period's of downtime were trivial at best.
Way to jump on the bandwagon.
You may want to go back and read past the first paragraph.
Bren
I personally read past the first paragraph and while it isn't nearly as blatant as the trolls, it echos them.
Did you read the 3/4ths of the article where he explains that the game is great fun? The servers have had issues and I would expect no decent game reporter to ignore that. Mike was just reporting the facts about server outages. It's only the first two paragraphs of an otherwise glowing review. Get a grip please.
Bren
Ok let me explain, I did read it but reviews that start negative and end negative usually overshadow the good if people even read the middle and most don't.
There is also this whole idea of starting a review without a conclusion. So people will read a review during launch and get a sour taste, they are likely not be interested anymore if they were on the fence. Why come back to read the finished review if it starts off bad?
I don't like this style of reviewing, you review the product and then after some months of settle you review it again if you think its needed.
Almost every online game has server issues at launch. WoW had horrendous server issues at launch and every review site slammed them for it... It really doomed that game to failure didn't it? If Mike had of ignored the launch server issues and only reported the positive there would be even more people on here slamming him for that. A review should include the entire player experience from the game install to the actual game play. I would expect no less.
The writing was of poor quality, especially the ending which was cheesy. They clearly used their WoW quest writers to write the storyline which they should not have done for a game storyline which should have better writing.
It has a very annoying "always online" DRM. You are not allowed to play single player offline, so whenever blizzard's servers go down (every tuesday for maintenance and whenever they have problems) you get kicked off and cannot play. This is not an MMO and irritating DRM that stops you playing a game you paid for as single player should obviously be taken into account in a review.
Very little character customization, this should not be defined as an RPG. Stats are automatically given, you cannot choose where to put them and by level 60 you have all the skills in the game, so there is no decision making on your part to customize a character apart from what items to wear.
The cinematic's graphical quality is excellent, but the poor writing hurts them abit. Especially the ending which was a big let down.
I found that the auctionhouse trivilaizes the item drops I find, because I could always get much better items than what I could find on the auctionhouse for low prices. Suddenly my item drops don't matter.
Comments
The game is extremely childish. It was made retard prof without any bit of planing, choice or tactical elements. Equipment is next to meaningless. I'm at level 30 running naked and killing everything on sight by holding my left mouse button.
It's by far my worst purchase of this year and the worst dungeon crawler I have played. Not even Dungeon Siege was this bare-bone and this simplistic.
And I'm not even considering the always on DRM, error 37, stupid server issues like having 1500ms latency when pinging any west coast site gives me normal pings.
I'm gonna go call my bank and request a charge-back now and assume this site based review will either be made by an impressible 8 year old or a biased guy.
I say this with all due respect. How gullible do you think this site's readers really are?
I think I will wait till it hits the bargain bins. Loved D1 and D2, played them for weeks but be damned if I will pay that kind of money for a rehash of D2..
I miss DAoC
Not even a little bit. We've covered this ground before. We held a poll, the "Yes" beat the "No." And we all agreed (the staff) that it was of enough shared interest to cover over the course of launch and beyond. If it helps, we'll likely be covering TL2 as well for the same reasons. In the future, if we're able, we'll be opening a site simply for "other" RPGs. But for now, we'll do stuff that has crossover potential here.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
My Review Manifesto
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My experience was terrible. Just.. words fail. Maybe next year if I try again. Or perhaps not.
It's really a buggy mess right now.
- Problems with servers. Login issues. Lag. Etc.
- Characters dissapearing.
- Achievement system not working and for those who it does, they lose most of it after a relog.
I find it really baffling that the achievement system appearently wasn't tested AT ALL ?!
I was able to sneak some time in. I loved D2 - though I could only manage a few play throughs before I got bored
So far, I like it. I do miss the erie atmosphere of D2 and D1. I feel like they've made some great useability improvements over D2 (though online only is a huge step back).
I like the advancement system. RPGs in general are moving away from the talent/skill tree system in favor of some form of "deck" building system. We've seen so many takes on the talent tree, I think Blizzard had no choice but to try something different. I also think making the game compatible with consoles is another reason for the system.
It definitely isn't as genre defining as D2 was - and Blizzard will get flack for that. I think thats the inherent problem.... it feels like another D2 clone.
-----------------------------
Real as Reality Television!!!
It's way to early to review the game but I'll give my gut feelings. I'm level 20 and in Act II. I enjoy the gameplay of my Barb and don't miss the talent trees or setting my STR, VIT ...
I do miss the original voice behind Tyrael though. The new voice actor just isn't nearly as powerful. The same goes for the soundtrack. So far it's a dud.
The game is definitely fun. But there's only one Diablo 2 and the successor's, whetther made by blizzard or elsewhere, will never be the same for me.
well i rmeber when diablo 1 came out loved it couldnt stop playing it my isster at the time even broke it and threw it away so i wouldnt play it then 2 came out it was ok little difrent and now 3 well i lost all desire to play it not even interested in it dint even try my betta invite old crap old news should have been out 8 years augo you all can have it i got better things to play than old news
It's the little things you really enjoy. The rats running out of the bushes. Half a guys body crawling across the floor. This game is epic.
People complaining about graphics make me laugh. This is not Crysis 2. Gameplay is the key here. Too easy for you on normal? Try inferno.
Anyone who played the first 2 are playing this. Also don't expect this on the bargain bin any time soon. D2 was $40 like 8 years after launch.
Not happy there is no offline mode. But they had to do this to prevent cheating. I expect most companies to start following suit.
Jesus, you too Mike?
A horrible start? You're seriously going to label the game in that negative fashion over a few measly few hours downtime on the launch day of the most aniticipated PC game in history?
Honestly, your article reads like it was written by the forum trolls who spent the duration of the day crying on the o-forums yesterday about not being able to play, while the rest of us had a really enjoyable experience. The only downtime that was truly an inconvenience was the downtime yesterday evening, the other period's of downtime were trivial at best.
Way to jump on the bandwagon.
Eww. A lot of good and bad about D3. Well, for me I enjoy playing it. Made it threw act 1. The game play is great and with the server problem, for me it was only about three hours of wait time. Not to bad compared to other newly launched games, but still bad. Other then that thier has not been any problem since then with my game play.
A few hours? I was lucky to get in early afternoon (after spamming through the 37 error for over one and half hour) and kept myself logged in during dinner.
My gf wasn't able to get in at all the whole day yesterday due to errors 37 and 75! She still hasn't been able to get in!
So please! A few hours my ass!
You may want to go back and read past the first paragraph.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
Did you read the 3/4ths of the article where he explains that the game is great fun? The servers have had issues and I would expect no decent game reporter to ignore that. Mike was just reporting the facts about server outages. It's only the first two paragraphs of an otherwise glowing review. Get a grip please.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
The writing was of poor quality, especially the ending which was cheesy. They clearly used their WoW quest writers to write the storyline which they should not have done for a game storyline.
It has a very annoying "always online" DRM. You are not allowed to play single player offline, so whenever blizzard's servers go down (every tuesday for maintenance and whenever they have problems) you get kicked off and cannot play. DRM that stops you playing a game you paid for that is not an MMO is certainly fair game in a game review, ignoring it would not be fair.
Very little character customization, this should not be defined as an RPG of any kind. Stats are automatically given, you cannot choose where to put them and by level 60 you have all the skills in the game, so there is no decision making on your part to customize a character apart from what items to wear.
The cinematic's graphical quality is excellent, but the poor writing hurts them abit. Especially the ending which was a big let down.
Meh Diablo games have always been too small anyway, Sacred has always had a much better world, if diablo had a full open go where you want whe nyo uwant world, it would be spot on perfect.
I have a feeling that guy doesn't have much more going on in his life than video games.
Aori, this is supposed to be a review not an advertisement for your favourite game. You can't expect anyone other than a hack to leave out DRM issues that stop people from playing a game they paid for. This is not an MMO.
"I don't like this style of reviewing"
You don't like that it wasn't given an automatic 10/10
I do hope that he chooses to review the storyline, the auctionhouse (which in my opinion removes much of the challenge from the game, not that normal had any to begin with, allowing you to buy items far better than your own for very little money, making things quite trivial), and the character customization.
Almost every online game has server issues at launch. WoW had horrendous server issues at launch and every review site slammed them for it... It really doomed that game to failure didn't it? If Mike had of ignored the launch server issues and only reported the positive there would be even more people on here slamming him for that. A review should include the entire player experience from the game install to the actual game play. I would expect no less.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
The writing was of poor quality, especially the ending which was cheesy. They clearly used their WoW quest writers to write the storyline which they should not have done for a game storyline which should have better writing.
It has a very annoying "always online" DRM. You are not allowed to play single player offline, so whenever blizzard's servers go down (every tuesday for maintenance and whenever they have problems) you get kicked off and cannot play. This is not an MMO and irritating DRM that stops you playing a game you paid for as single player should obviously be taken into account in a review.
Very little character customization, this should not be defined as an RPG. Stats are automatically given, you cannot choose where to put them and by level 60 you have all the skills in the game, so there is no decision making on your part to customize a character apart from what items to wear.
The cinematic's graphical quality is excellent, but the poor writing hurts them abit. Especially the ending which was a big let down.
I found that the auctionhouse trivilaizes the item drops I find, because I could always get much better items than what I could find on the auctionhouse for low prices. Suddenly my item drops don't matter.
I sure wish that MMORPG.com would stick with MMOs.
Palazious <The Vindicators> Darkfall
Palazious r40, rr45 SW War
Palazious 50 Pirate PoTBS
Palazious 35 Sorcerer Vanguard
Palazious 75 wizard EQ
Paladori 50 Champion LOTRO
Poppa Reaver bugged at rank15
When you are offered some beta pass's, kickbacks of course your gonna advert there product .
I'm having fun with it, not sure what all the emo is around here.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas