flexy
Diamond Member
- Sep 28, 2001
- 8,464
- 155
- 106
A Review
There seems to be two kinds of gamers: People who are utterly angry and/or disappointed - and people who are fanboys. The one group rates the game 0 or 1 while the other group gives it a 10 and calls it the best game ever released.
Both groups of gamers are wrong.
The game is neither abysmal bad and deserves a 0 rating, but it's also not that great that it deserves a 10.0.
If Diablo III would have been released with NO PERSON EVER having heard of the dungeon crawler genre, without Dungeon Siege, any former Diablo or the Baldur's Gate series - it would probably get raving reviews as an epiphany and revolution in gaming.
The problem: While D III is (IMO) really a solid and "good" game, it does not bring anything much new to the table what gamers didn't have already in years (often decades) ago. Did it really need 10 years for "Another Dungeon Siege"? Or..did it really need 10 years to develop a game, which, somehow, looks like an addon-mod for WoW?
In this regards i think that D III disappoints, although "basically" not really a bad game per se.
It is really difficult to rate this in a fair way, because for a fair rating one must be without bias and rate a game for its entertainment value, for its money's worth and also how innovative and unique it is as compared to other, similar games.
The problem here is the extreme expectations of gamers after 10 years of waiting and half dozen or so "rather similar" games already out for ages. This is the reason it's difficult to give a 10.0 rating and to legitimate the price - seeing that some people reporting they finished the game in a mere hours.
If i spend $60 or $80 even (in Europe) on a game, i would expect an extremely immersive game which can be good for months and months of gameplay. But the game is so slimmed down and streamlined there is not much immersion or flexibility, let alone complexity - or a path (as repetitive as it might be), for example compared to WoW.
In WoW (or other, similar games), you could spend months, years in building and learning your character and, well, we all know, there is never an end in sight because there will always be a new goal, new talent trees, etc. But Diablo is not such a game which would take you months of immersion in the game since you can IN FACT - play it in a few hours.
There is also no nerd-tweaking and fiddling with RPG stats - instead, it's all "tuned" for quick playing and hacking and slashing - but for doing this i would not need Diablo III, i could just use any random old (!) game, eg. playing Baldur's Gate on a console.
As i might have mentioned, as someone giving an opinion it's a little like schizophrenia because i simply can't give a very bad rating, neither a very good one.
With all the expectations gamers had etc...i think (from my very own point of view) i would rate it a 6.0 or 6.5 - the "schizophrenic" aspect here is that the game WOULD likely get an excellent 9.5 or 10.0 rating if there would NOT have been those expectations and if it would be the first game of its kind. Furthermore, if the game would only cost half of what it actually does. For $25 or $30 it would be a blast and people might overlook things they might not like - but doing this is impossible with a game where people waited 10 years. From this point of view, yes, it's a disappointment but STILL a "good" game.
For me, personally..it's simply too "streamlined" and simplified to deserve the name RPG. There is no such thing as an RPG if there is no tweaking of character attributes or playing with stats and talents. This is what makes an RPG.
There is very limited choices - classes/characters will all look the same, the same talents etc. with some minor "tweaks", eg. what runes you use on your spells. But far not enough to allow a player to "identify" with their toon to assume a role. Simple: It's a HACK & SLASH game, one of many.
There seems to be two kinds of gamers: People who are utterly angry and/or disappointed - and people who are fanboys. The one group rates the game 0 or 1 while the other group gives it a 10 and calls it the best game ever released.
Both groups of gamers are wrong.
The game is neither abysmal bad and deserves a 0 rating, but it's also not that great that it deserves a 10.0.
If Diablo III would have been released with NO PERSON EVER having heard of the dungeon crawler genre, without Dungeon Siege, any former Diablo or the Baldur's Gate series - it would probably get raving reviews as an epiphany and revolution in gaming.
The problem: While D III is (IMO) really a solid and "good" game, it does not bring anything much new to the table what gamers didn't have already in years (often decades) ago. Did it really need 10 years for "Another Dungeon Siege"? Or..did it really need 10 years to develop a game, which, somehow, looks like an addon-mod for WoW?
In this regards i think that D III disappoints, although "basically" not really a bad game per se.
It is really difficult to rate this in a fair way, because for a fair rating one must be without bias and rate a game for its entertainment value, for its money's worth and also how innovative and unique it is as compared to other, similar games.
The problem here is the extreme expectations of gamers after 10 years of waiting and half dozen or so "rather similar" games already out for ages. This is the reason it's difficult to give a 10.0 rating and to legitimate the price - seeing that some people reporting they finished the game in a mere hours.
If i spend $60 or $80 even (in Europe) on a game, i would expect an extremely immersive game which can be good for months and months of gameplay. But the game is so slimmed down and streamlined there is not much immersion or flexibility, let alone complexity - or a path (as repetitive as it might be), for example compared to WoW.
In WoW (or other, similar games), you could spend months, years in building and learning your character and, well, we all know, there is never an end in sight because there will always be a new goal, new talent trees, etc. But Diablo is not such a game which would take you months of immersion in the game since you can IN FACT - play it in a few hours.
There is also no nerd-tweaking and fiddling with RPG stats - instead, it's all "tuned" for quick playing and hacking and slashing - but for doing this i would not need Diablo III, i could just use any random old (!) game, eg. playing Baldur's Gate on a console.
As i might have mentioned, as someone giving an opinion it's a little like schizophrenia because i simply can't give a very bad rating, neither a very good one.
With all the expectations gamers had etc...i think (from my very own point of view) i would rate it a 6.0 or 6.5 - the "schizophrenic" aspect here is that the game WOULD likely get an excellent 9.5 or 10.0 rating if there would NOT have been those expectations and if it would be the first game of its kind. Furthermore, if the game would only cost half of what it actually does. For $25 or $30 it would be a blast and people might overlook things they might not like - but doing this is impossible with a game where people waited 10 years. From this point of view, yes, it's a disappointment but STILL a "good" game.
For me, personally..it's simply too "streamlined" and simplified to deserve the name RPG. There is no such thing as an RPG if there is no tweaking of character attributes or playing with stats and talents. This is what makes an RPG.
There is very limited choices - classes/characters will all look the same, the same talents etc. with some minor "tweaks", eg. what runes you use on your spells. But far not enough to allow a player to "identify" with their toon to assume a role. Simple: It's a HACK & SLASH game, one of many.
Last edited:
So far I am unimpressed.
m0viestar#1379 - HybridSquirrel
MattOfWar#1881 - Nemesis13
Cuda#1366 - Cuda1447
pantlegz#1355 - Pantlegz
GothamHunter#1610 - gothamhunter
Merad#1742 - Merad
Fenixgoon#1961 - Fenixgoon
Evro#1739 - badb0y
Tweeter#1656 - GoStumpy
Dano44#1944 - CraKaJaX
Niz#1586 - Nizology
bucknut#1595 - KentState
bucwylde23#1265 - bucwylde23
StealthLSU#1658 - MikeyLSU
Laithan#1194 - Laithan
RobertMunch#1257 - Robert Munch
ichy#1587 - ichy
m0viestar#1379 - HybridSquirrel
MattOfWar#1881 - Nemesis13
Cuda#1366 - Cuda1447
pantlegz#1355 - Pantlegz
GothamHunter#1610 - gothamhunter
Merad#1742 - Merad
Fenixgoon#1961 - Fenixgoon
Evro#1739 - badb0y
Tweeter#1656 - GoStumpy
Dano44#1944 - CraKaJaX
Niz#1586 - Nizology
bucknut#1595 - KentState
bucwylde23#1265 - bucwylde23
StealthLSU#1658 - MikeyLSU
Laithan#1194 - Laithan
RobertMunch#1257 - Robert Munch
ichy#1587 - ichy
Seems like Bnet is down again. I was in a game, started getting some strange error pop-ups, then got booted out of game completely. Now I can't log back in. BLLIZZZZAAARDDDDD!!!
Imp
Lifer
- Feb 8, 2000
- 18,829
- 184
- 106
Just finished a 2 hour session with "singleplayer" - lasted until I lost connection to battle.net.
Definitely surprised at the lack of customizability and skills. It's great in that I can't "screw up" a character, but now everyone's the same. It makes it so that you're more focused on playing the game and trying different abilities out though.
Crafting is cool so far. It'll stay cool until I figure out how crappy the items are relative to unique items, if there are any.
Regardless, nothing new here, but it's fun.
Definitely surprised at the lack of customizability and skills. It's great in that I can't "screw up" a character, but now everyone's the same. It makes it so that you're more focused on playing the game and trying different abilities out though.
Crafting is cool so far. It'll stay cool until I figure out how crappy the items are relative to unique items, if there are any.
Regardless, nothing new here, but it's fun.
evident
Lifer
- Apr 5, 2005
- 11,904
- 508
- 126
Adding mine to the list i'm looking for people to play with so come join me 
m0viestar#1379 - HybridSquirrel
MattOfWar#1881 - Nemesis13
Cuda#1366 - Cuda1447
pantlegz#1355 - Pantlegz
GothamHunter#1610 - gothamhunter
Merad#1742 - Merad
Fenixgoon#1961 - Fenixgoon
Evro#1739 - badb0y
Tweeter#1656 - GoStumpy
Dano44#1944 - CraKaJaX
Niz#1586 - Nizology
bucknut#1595 - KentState
bucwylde23#1265 - bucwylde23
StealthLSU#1658 - MikeyLSU
Laithan#1194 - Laithan
RobertMunch#1257 - Robert Munch
evident#1281 - evident
m0viestar#1379 - HybridSquirrel
MattOfWar#1881 - Nemesis13
Cuda#1366 - Cuda1447
pantlegz#1355 - Pantlegz
GothamHunter#1610 - gothamhunter
Merad#1742 - Merad
Fenixgoon#1961 - Fenixgoon
Evro#1739 - badb0y
Tweeter#1656 - GoStumpy
Dano44#1944 - CraKaJaX
Niz#1586 - Nizology
bucknut#1595 - KentState
bucwylde23#1265 - bucwylde23
StealthLSU#1658 - MikeyLSU
Laithan#1194 - Laithan
RobertMunch#1257 - Robert Munch
evident#1281 - evident
Had a lot of fun tonight co-op'ing with some other AT'ers. Looks like the game is down again now, chat stopped working and then the client totally froze on me.
A SP game is just a MP game that you're the only one connected to. So yeah, you can get network lag in SP.
A SP game is just a MP game that you're the only one connected to. So yeah, you can get network lag in SP.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHU(PRGT#)&R (TTR_Y_)R*YT_*(Y#_*(TY_*((_*
I was in the middle of killing the butcher on NM and got kicked.
I was in the middle of killing the butcher on NM and got kicked.
JulesMaximus
No Lifer
- Jul 3, 2003
- 74,459
- 854
- 126
Argh... I was enjoying that and now I get kicked off.
Been playing for about 2 hours already. Love this game!
Been playing for about 2 hours already. Love this game!
By the looks of my weapons I even lost my new weapon that was a major upgrade. I am going to be pissed because NOTHING is dropping on NM for my Barbarian.
Finally time to play ... but I can't. Guess I should go do the dishes and hope the good karma helps
damn bnet just died on me a minute ago while I was in a middle of a quest!
damn thing is the reason I quit D2, so unreliable. now D3 servers doesn't feel like they have improve it any. disappointing.
guys check out the D3 server status page:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/status
I only see Asia up right now.
damn thing is the reason I quit D2, so unreliable. now D3 servers doesn't feel like they have improve it any. disappointing.
guys check out the D3 server status page:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/status
I only see Asia up right now.
Last edited:
Farmer
Diamond Member
- Dec 23, 2003
- 3,345
- 2
- 81
I agree with the comments. A game like this can't be 10.0, it's practically the same game as D2. Even the graphics are disappointing. But the concept is addictive and I will play it.
However, the connectivity issues make a bad first impression. You'd figure, given Blizzard's experience with Bnet and how long the beta was run, including a stress test weekend, they would've gotten it right.
However, the connectivity issues make a bad first impression. You'd figure, given Blizzard's experience with Bnet and how long the beta was run, including a stress test weekend, they would've gotten it right.
Rhezuss
Diamond Member
- Jan 31, 2006
- 4,120
- 34
- 91
The pathetic ending will be that they'll fake they're sorry and apologize...
How can a serious company can't predict a huge amount of players would login at the same time on release?
The game been out for nearly 24 hours but the servers been down for what 18 hours now?
It might just be a video game but it's a hobby and product that we paid for and was expected to work on release. I couldn't care less if there were some downtimes counting in minutes but hours? Seriously?
And all this will go unnoticed...
How can a serious company can't predict a huge amount of players would login at the same time on release?
The game been out for nearly 24 hours but the servers been down for what 18 hours now?
It might just be a video game but it's a hobby and product that we paid for and was expected to work on release. I couldn't care less if there were some downtimes counting in minutes but hours? Seriously?
And all this will go unnoticed...
HumblePie
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2000
- 14,667
- 440
- 126
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