It's hard to justify the scores given but D3 is an awesome game, however they seem to have neglected or glossed over the key problems of which there are many.
Itemisation....it's bad, almost all the drops are utter trash.
B-Net...while they had a very shakey week, they seem to have gotten it working properly now, i for one have been impressed with the improvement and fixes.
RMAH...it's a bad idea and it's the main reason so many accounts have been hacked and stripped already, couple this with a bunch of KNOWN exploits which gold farmers have been abusing 24/7 and it's all a bit of a mess.
Normal is a main gripe, but it's really a training/practice run through more than anything else. Nightmare is easy so is Hell....but inferno is another world.
For Slickshoes above, there is a Hardcore permadeath mode, enjoy ....i am
Bottom line, they got the main point right, it IS a Diablo game, definitely and as such it has a great launchpad and the game itself is really solid and polished.
I have had 3 deaths in the non hardcore version of the game that were the result of lag, there is no way I am trying the permadeath mode just now, maybe in a little while once the population has died down a bit and the servers seem more stable, I don't mind dying to me being a tool but to die to lag is infuriating.
Agreed, i lost one character to a server shutdown, that was fun
However, things are greatly improved and im loving hardcore mode currently.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
The game and not to mention battle.net has so many issues it is disguisting. Seriously, 11 years in the works and this is what we got ? Pathetic at best. Itemization, level scaling, loot sucks, battle.net is laggy as hell, artwork is good if you prefer rainbows in your Diablo. Blizzard can patch it all they want but it doesn't play or feel like a real Diablo game. That is the bottom line. The game will be dead in 2 years, if that.
The game and not to mention battle.net has so many issues it is disguisting. Seriously, 11 years in the works and this is what we got ? Pathetic at best. Itemization, level scaling, loot sucks, battle.net is laggy as hell, artwork is good if you prefer rainbows in your Diablo. Blizzard can patch it all they want but it doesn't play or feel like a real Diablo game. That is the bottom line. The game will be dead in 2 years, if that.
"When MMOs fail, there is always Skyrim."
QFT! lol It's been too long since I played it and really looking forward to the Dawnguard xpac. Sorry for the off topic reply.
edit: rainbows?? The only rainbows in diablo 3 is whimsyshire. Seemed like most of the game was pretty dark compared to that. I agree though that it doesn't feel like the previous 2 diablos. I was happy about that.
selling 3.5 million units in its first 24 hours. The stats mean it has become the fastest-selling PC game of all time.
Yeah, and how many of those millions were disappointed? Maybe even pushed towards piracy, because they're sick of being disappointed by their purchases? Sure, Blizzard may have protected themselves by making the game entirely online, but probably did some damage to the industry overall.
Counting box sales as the most important factor is incredibly short-sighted. For every game that sells these millions, you've got lots more that can't sell well enough to break even, because gamers are getting sick of wasting their money on being jerked around.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I think these scores were given because everyone on the planet knows that Diablo 3 will get better over time and be expanded upon a great deal, just like every Blizzard game ever.
Really? Blizzard used to be all about "not until it's ready" too, that's been blown out of the water. Frankly, I don't trust them anymore and I think they're incapable of delivering the kind of product they have in the past. Diablo 3 is mediocre at best, a half-a** job that was rushed out the door.
You can hold on to your faith in Blizzard if you want but please don't speak for "everyone".
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I really cant stand it anymore first you "officialy review TERA after you made it to 30! Now you do the same with D3! When are you going to hire reviewers who are capable of finishing a game?
The game and not to mention battle.net has so many issues it is disguisting. Seriously, 11 years in the works and this is what we got ? Pathetic at best. Itemization, level scaling, loot sucks, battle.net is laggy as hell, artwork is good if you prefer rainbows in your Diablo. Blizzard can patch it all they want but it doesn't play or feel like a real Diablo game. That is the bottom line. The game will be dead in 2 years, if that.
Exactly.
And quite frankly, Whimsyshire is a complete slap in the face to long-time Diablo fans.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Spotty B.net service? Really? I haven't had any lag or any disconnects since the day after launch. Either you are lying or you have had some pretty horrendous luck.
On what planet have you been on holiday since launch? I would like to know, so we all can travel there too!
The only one that is lying through his teeth and sure as hell hasn't bought the game nor played it, is you!
As all the Error 37 and Error 73 jokes, constant server downtimes and maintenance (especially here in Europe!!) , endless complain threads about it (both on official forums and these and other forums), videos about it, etc.... that is all fake??
I know blind fanboism can go far these days.... but you take it to a whole new level. /shrug
I haven't has any issues either (barring trying to log on the day it came out.). Granted I haven't been playing 20 hours a day, but every time I log in it's up and lag free.
I agree with the review, but not with the score. The core gameplay itself is fun but Blizz put in dynamics that detract from that fun. I'm on nightmare mode, near the end of the 3rd act and I'm struggling to keep logging in because I realize what is ahead of me is a lot more of the same. Right now I log in, play til I reach a checkpoint then quit.
The drops are so pointless I've given up even looking at them. When my bag is full I sell it all except gems and pages, without even bothering to see if any of them are useful becase I know even if any of them had the stats I need, they'd be around 10 levels below me. And to me, not caring about drops indicates a serious problem with the game.
Lie to me in your opening quote and ill assume everything you have to say from then on is to reinforce the validity of your lie.
Right, because wikipedia is solid reliable information....not.
Also the number of copies sold is irrelevant, the statement, while probably not true, doesn't detract from the review, had they said "D3 is the best game ever made and heres why..." then fine, but they didn't.
Haters gonna hate.
He just got one fact wrong... Its the best selling game on first sales day... Not best selling game ever.
No game has ever sold 6,8 million copies in 1 day before ( and thats not counting the 1 million free copies from wow subscription)
I agree with the review, but not with the score. The core gameplay itself is fun but Blizz put in dynamics that detract from that fun. I'm on nightmare mode, near the end of the 3rd act and I'm struggling to keep logging in because I realize what is ahead of me is a lot more of the same. Right now I log in, play til I reach a checkpoint then quit.
The drops are so pointless I've given up even looking at them. When my bag is full I sell it all except gems and pages, without even bothering to see if any of them are useful becase I know even if any of them had the stats I need, they'd be around 10 levels below me. And to me, not caring about drops indicates a serious problem with the game.
Although I love the game and fully agree with the review's positives and negatives, I'm starting to see what you described in the second paragraph. It took me a little longer and I'm not seeing it until Inferno, but it's been awhile since I saw a decent gear drop. I'm even paying more attention to every drop than you. I look on every item for some green stats showing an upgrade but I think I must be at a 0.001% chance of seeing it at this point. I've even been looking for just a higher resist value if nothing else, and still nothing.
I seem to have a much better chance via crafted gear to get an upgrade than waste time looking at loot drops. That doesn't feel right, although I guess crafting would be useless across the board if that wasn't the case.
Hack'n'slash/farm-->loot-->find gear you can't use-->sell it to vendor-->buy gear on auctionhouse
I know they will change some of this in the future, but the Ah is still there, and when real money AH is the only way Blizzard is going to have a steady currency stream, you can be sure it is not going to go anywhere.
In over 70 hours of playtime and reaching Inferno, I have not once found an item where I thought "YES!".....The highest I can hope for is "Hmmm I think this can sell on the AH"
Hack'n'slash/farm-->loot-->find gear you can't use-->sell it to vendor-->buy gear on auctionhouse
I know they will change some of this in the future, but the Ah is still there, and when real money AH is the only way Blizzard is going to have a steady currency stream, you can be sure it is not going to go anywhere.
In over 70 hours of playtime and reaching Inferno, I have not once found an item where I thought "YES!".....The highest I can hope for is "Hmmm I think this can sell on the AH"
5/10
I keep forgetting the AH even exists . I think I'm just one of the few that got some great drops early on but now I'm stuck and not finding anything better. I'll have to take a look at the AH and see what everyone is talking about.
Hack'n'slash/farm-->loot-->find gear you can't use-->sell it to vendor-->buy gear on auctionhouse
I know they will change some of this in the future, but the Ah is still there, and when real money AH is the only way Blizzard is going to have a steady currency stream, you can be sure it is not going to go anywhere.
In over 70 hours of playtime and reaching Inferno, I have not once found an item where I thought "YES!".....The highest I can hope for is "Hmmm I think this can sell on the AH"
5/10
I keep forgetting the AH even exists . I think I'm just one of the few that got some great drops early on but now I'm stuck and not finding anything better. I'll have to take a look at the AH and see what everyone is talking about.
When you reach Inferno, or maybe even Hell, you can't progress without using the AH unless you are extremely lucky. And when you visit the AH for the first time, and buy that real sweet weapon with high DPS and just the right stats, and you kill mobs with ease....you will feel all the fun drain out of the game.
Lie to me in your opening quote and ill assume everything you have to say from then on is to reinforce the validity of your lie.
Right, because wikipedia is solid reliable information....not.
Also the number of copies sold is irrelevant, the statement, while probably not true, doesn't detract from the review, had they said "D3 is the best game ever made and heres why..." then fine, but they didn't.
Haters gonna hate.
Obviously you have never heard of citing sources on wikipedia which most things do when they want to prove something lol..
Also, in reality, the longevity of this game will be hindered by the same old grind that was present in D2. The difference with D2 was, it wasn't as old then. Seeing as there may be some that are new to the genre though, it will probably remain a mixed bag at best.
Social itself is pretty laughable to me just because of what they started to do since SC2, which is to detract from the use of chat rooms which made being able to play with whomever you encountered that much more interesting. Not sure what reasoning Blizzard had behind this, but to me, it was more like a smack in the face for removing a feature that once made their games many times greater in terms of popularity.
The more I played the lower my score for D3 got and the less I liked the game. Pretty much everyone liked the game early on but the more you play the more you realize it's a shallow game that was poorly crafted. The loot tables are a joke. How can a company like Blizzard have this much time and a whole crapload of cash and design a game this watered down? I mean, they left out certain gems, prefixes, suffixes, runes, charms... the list is endless. The number of sets and *cough* "legendaries" alone is pathetic.
Garbage, game is garbage.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Hmmm I like Diablo 3, but I find the scores given a little too high. I do not think D3 has as much replayability as the first two Diablos just from the point of view that due to the way the skills are set up, there is never any need to reroll the same class more than twice theoretically (once for softcore, once for hardcore if you even want to do that). In D2, I had multiple accounts because I had several different specs for the same class.
With the AH, there is very little need to keep doing runs to kit out your characters in the best gear, unless you are seriously opposed to using it. This also lowers the expected replayability.
Ok, so I did gamble a bit on playing the game at release, which meant I had a week of not being able to log in at all due to Error 37. I can overlook that if it basically never happens again. However, it was extremely annoying not to be able to get in and play and again leads back to the arguments against having online-only play.
I would seriously knock down the score though on the issues of security. I think that that, even more so than the connectivity issue, is the most important problem facing this game. I dread to think what will happen on this front once the RMAH is in place. Having Blizz security check case-sensitive passwords, and changing back to user-chosen logins rather than email logins would be steps in the right direction.
As such, even with the great aspects of D3, I would not score this game higher than a 7/10 and I think I am being generous.
My thought on the game, it does not stack up to Diablo II. The loot system is the main problem IMO. I like to play the game with what I find. Never bought from the auction house, not that I could afford to anyways, but I find that other players are critical of my characters strengths as I almost always have inferior equipment. The great thing about Diablo II, you there was elite equipment and items sets for every level. The only place you find them in Diablo III is late hell or inferno.
Played with a wizard the other day in nightmare he was basically soloing while 3 others of us were in the game. After inspecting him I noticed his damage was twice what mine was and I have 8 characters at nightmare level and never found anything close to what he had. Take a wizard for example, he does not benefit from equiping wizard items like a wand, he just has to equip the highest dps item he can equip.
All in all, I give the game a 6 at best and I do not in any way think it has the long term viability that Diablo II had.
Comments
Agreed, i lost one character to a server shutdown, that was fun
However, things are greatly improved and im loving hardcore mode currently.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
The game and not to mention battle.net has so many issues it is disguisting. Seriously, 11 years in the works and this is what we got ? Pathetic at best. Itemization, level scaling, loot sucks, battle.net is laggy as hell, artwork is good if you prefer rainbows in your Diablo. Blizzard can patch it all they want but it doesn't play or feel like a real Diablo game. That is the bottom line. The game will be dead in 2 years, if that.
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
that statement is true but needs to be refined
the truth is that D3 broke all sales records for PC games in the first 24 hours
http://www.vg247.com/2012/05/23/diablo-iii-sells-6-3-million-in-first-week-3-5-million-in-first-24-hours/
selling 3.5 million units in its first 24 hours. The stats mean it has become the fastest-selling PC game of all time.
EQ2 fan sites
"When MMOs fail, there is always Skyrim."
QFT! lol It's been too long since I played it and really looking forward to the Dawnguard xpac. Sorry for the off topic reply.
edit: rainbows?? The only rainbows in diablo 3 is whimsyshire. Seemed like most of the game was pretty dark compared to that. I agree though that it doesn't feel like the previous 2 diablos. I was happy about that.
Yeah, and how many of those millions were disappointed? Maybe even pushed towards piracy, because they're sick of being disappointed by their purchases? Sure, Blizzard may have protected themselves by making the game entirely online, but probably did some damage to the industry overall.
Counting box sales as the most important factor is incredibly short-sighted. For every game that sells these millions, you've got lots more that can't sell well enough to break even, because gamers are getting sick of wasting their money on being jerked around.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Really? Blizzard used to be all about "not until it's ready" too, that's been blown out of the water. Frankly, I don't trust them anymore and I think they're incapable of delivering the kind of product they have in the past. Diablo 3 is mediocre at best, a half-a** job that was rushed out the door.
You can hold on to your faith in Blizzard if you want but please don't speak for "everyone".
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I really cant stand it anymore first you "officialy review TERA after you made it to 30! Now you do the same with D3! When are you going to hire reviewers who are capable of finishing a game?
8-8.5 is a fair rating imo. It's a solid game, nothing more, nothing less.
Exactly.
And quite frankly, Whimsyshire is a complete slap in the face to long-time Diablo fans.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I haven't has any issues either (barring trying to log on the day it came out.). Granted I haven't been playing 20 hours a day, but every time I log in it's up and lag free.
Good score for a game with balance and online stability issues.
Falls in line with the rest of the internet. Diablo 3 has a 88% review score average on Metacritic.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I agree with the review, but not with the score. The core gameplay itself is fun but Blizz put in dynamics that detract from that fun. I'm on nightmare mode, near the end of the 3rd act and I'm struggling to keep logging in because I realize what is ahead of me is a lot more of the same. Right now I log in, play til I reach a checkpoint then quit.
The drops are so pointless I've given up even looking at them. When my bag is full I sell it all except gems and pages, without even bothering to see if any of them are useful becase I know even if any of them had the stats I need, they'd be around 10 levels below me. And to me, not caring about drops indicates a serious problem with the game.
He just got one fact wrong... Its the best selling game on first sales day... Not best selling game ever.
No game has ever sold 6,8 million copies in 1 day before ( and thats not counting the 1 million free copies from wow subscription)
https://www.ticketsolutions.com/blogs/intentional-foul/images/keyboardsmash.gif
Although I love the game and fully agree with the review's positives and negatives, I'm starting to see what you described in the second paragraph. It took me a little longer and I'm not seeing it until Inferno, but it's been awhile since I saw a decent gear drop. I'm even paying more attention to every drop than you. I look on every item for some green stats showing an upgrade but I think I must be at a 0.001% chance of seeing it at this point. I've even been looking for just a higher resist value if nothing else, and still nothing.
I seem to have a much better chance via crafted gear to get an upgrade than waste time looking at loot drops. That doesn't feel right, although I guess crafting would be useless across the board if that wasn't the case.
Diablo 3 is simply a bad game at its core. Yes it looks nice, but that's it, it has nothing else.
This is how a good ARPG works -
Hack'n'slash-->loot-->find gear-->improve-->progress
But instead, in Diablo 3 it is
Hack'n'slash/farm-->loot-->find gear you can't use-->sell it to vendor-->buy gear on auctionhouse
I know they will change some of this in the future, but the Ah is still there, and when real money AH is the only way Blizzard is going to have a steady currency stream, you can be sure it is not going to go anywhere.
In over 70 hours of playtime and reaching Inferno, I have not once found an item where I thought "YES!".....The highest I can hope for is "Hmmm I think this can sell on the AH"
5/10
I think the score is absolutely appropriate.
I keep forgetting the AH even exists
. I think I'm just one of the few that got some great drops early on but now I'm stuck and not finding anything better. I'll have to take a look at the AH and see what everyone is talking about.
Sorry, but with PoE free, TL2 20 dollars and Titan's Quest 15 (?) dollars, value is NOT 10/10.
When you reach Inferno, or maybe even Hell, you can't progress without using the AH unless you are extremely lucky. And when you visit the AH for the first time, and buy that real sweet weapon with high DPS and just the right stats, and you kill mobs with ease....you will feel all the fun drain out of the game.
Obviously you have never heard of citing sources on wikipedia which most things do when they want to prove something lol..
Also, in reality, the longevity of this game will be hindered by the same old grind that was present in D2. The difference with D2 was, it wasn't as old then. Seeing as there may be some that are new to the genre though, it will probably remain a mixed bag at best.
Social itself is pretty laughable to me just because of what they started to do since SC2, which is to detract from the use of chat rooms which made being able to play with whomever you encountered that much more interesting. Not sure what reasoning Blizzard had behind this, but to me, it was more like a smack in the face for removing a feature that once made their games many times greater in terms of popularity.
The more I played the lower my score for D3 got and the less I liked the game. Pretty much everyone liked the game early on but the more you play the more you realize it's a shallow game that was poorly crafted. The loot tables are a joke. How can a company like Blizzard have this much time and a whole crapload of cash and design a game this watered down? I mean, they left out certain gems, prefixes, suffixes, runes, charms... the list is endless. The number of sets and *cough* "legendaries" alone is pathetic.
Garbage, game is garbage.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Hmmm I like Diablo 3, but I find the scores given a little too high. I do not think D3 has as much replayability as the first two Diablos just from the point of view that due to the way the skills are set up, there is never any need to reroll the same class more than twice theoretically (once for softcore, once for hardcore if you even want to do that). In D2, I had multiple accounts because I had several different specs for the same class.
With the AH, there is very little need to keep doing runs to kit out your characters in the best gear, unless you are seriously opposed to using it. This also lowers the expected replayability.
Ok, so I did gamble a bit on playing the game at release, which meant I had a week of not being able to log in at all due to Error 37. I can overlook that if it basically never happens again. However, it was extremely annoying not to be able to get in and play and again leads back to the arguments against having online-only play.
I would seriously knock down the score though on the issues of security. I think that that, even more so than the connectivity issue, is the most important problem facing this game. I dread to think what will happen on this front once the RMAH is in place. Having Blizz security check case-sensitive passwords, and changing back to user-chosen logins rather than email logins would be steps in the right direction.
As such, even with the great aspects of D3, I would not score this game higher than a 7/10 and I think I am being generous.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
Thats why I quit reading reviews from here. They gave EQ2's latest expansion good numbers and it was a joke.
My thought on the game, it does not stack up to Diablo II. The loot system is the main problem IMO. I like to play the game with what I find. Never bought from the auction house, not that I could afford to anyways, but I find that other players are critical of my characters strengths as I almost always have inferior equipment. The great thing about Diablo II, you there was elite equipment and items sets for every level. The only place you find them in Diablo III is late hell or inferno.
Played with a wizard the other day in nightmare he was basically soloing while 3 others of us were in the game. After inspecting him I noticed his damage was twice what mine was and I have 8 characters at nightmare level and never found anything close to what he had. Take a wizard for example, he does not benefit from equiping wizard items like a wand, he just has to equip the highest dps item he can equip.
All in all, I give the game a 6 at best and I do not in any way think it has the long term viability that Diablo II had.