I will never consider a $60 game 'value', especially not one very similar to other games like the free Path of Exile (which is more Diablo-like than D3 which is why I nicknamed it Diablo 2.5), and the $20 Torchlight 2.
Why the reviewer rated it 10/10 for value is beyond me. What's PoE and T2 going to be? 11/10? T2 will be moddable FFS.
That is my one major gripe with this review.
I'd comment on the game, but others have bashed it enough already and I'd only do so further. I knew when it was announced it wouldn't be a true Diablo game because Blizzard North left. Years later, I'm correct, which is very sad. But oh well, I have PoE to play, which is basically what I wanted in the first place.
Some comments on the main forums about the poor itemization in D3:
"I introduced a new friend to D3 who hadn't played Diablo before. After a few days he said to me, "Items have no substance, they are just pictures with stats on them". Theres nothing special about shoulders vs belts vs boots vs chest etc. They are just stat panels. They add nothing to the game."
"This game has not longevity as long as the items suck. On a game built on the idea of trading fun items, this game fails."
I mean honestly, items are the whole point of D3's monetization, charging us not just $60 for the game and $40-60 for each of 2 expansion packs and maybe DLC and microtransactions along the way, but expecting us to shell out $$$ for items in game- yet what are the items even adding to the game right now? They're just raw meaningless statistics. This game could exist without items at all and probably be more fun to play. Which isn't a good thing.
simply adding more zeros to things is lazy game design.
Game just feels like it was just Changed so it'd be more familiar to the 'current' blizzard crowd (WoW Players mostly), and not Diablo 2 Fans.
They Essentially made World of Diablocraft. This is not an Insult to WoW Players, Its just a simple truth, the game was suppose to appeal to you more than anyone else. Art style shows it too. There's a video out there on youtube that explains it very well.
Weapons really do just boil down to "Which has the best DPS"... Its been said before, But in Diablo II, weapons and armor all have uses that can transcend their level, In this game items will always be replaced by something 1-2 levels higher. Its MMO mechanics.
Frankly, Whoever took the design this way was dumb. If i wanted to play an MMO, I'd play an MMO. Diablo III should have built and improved on Diablo II's gameplay and itemization. It was a good system, could still be improved, But good. I mean, how arrogant does one have to be to think they can improve on a system that has almost legendary addiction status, even over a decade later.
You know, I hadn't even given any real thought to that, but you're spot on, completely right. Diablo 3's elemental damages are totally meaningless. Maybe cold slows, but otherwise theres no difference between them. All the rare weapons just wind up being 1 random elemental damage and 4 affixes or whatever, but which elemental damage is irrelevant, whereas in Diablo 2 there was a huge subtheme to each to make them specific and identifiable- like you say, lightning had a big damage range, cold slowed, poison was DoT, magic was rare and pierced everything, etc
And heck, even in D2, it was an underdeveloped part of the game. The differences between elements were mostly statistical- lightning coming in 1-99, but no reason it couldn't be +50 damage straight up. What was different between Fire, Lightning & Magic damages? (Poison & Cold had their own things of course) If I were going back and designing the game from the ground up, I'd give each elemental damage its own mechanic- something that Runic is doing in Torchlight 2 I know (Fire damage sets enemies on fire, for example)
I'd say something like- Fire deals AoE damage, Cold slows, Poison deals DoT, Lightning deals highly variable damage that can pulse to hit with aftershocks
No, this is no nostalgia, items in D3 feel irrelevant in any but numerical terms. Might as well have no equippable items and just 14 charm slots, wouldnt make any difference.
Patch 1.0.3 will not address a single issue listed here Nor will the future patch where legendaries are made "stronger"
Nobody cares how "strong" the items are in the game, thats purely relative to the other numbers in the game. They could be +50 damage or +50,000 damage, it wouldn't matter if the enemies were 50 hp and 50,000 hp. What matters is that this game blows hard on a fundamental level, with incredibly flawed design that can not be easily fixed
Items today are just numbers.
I hope they notice this, it's the first time I play a diablo game that makes me concern about "how these numbers will raise my dps or my defense capabilities".
I wanted to get an item which shoots grenades randomly while casting spells, or summons a floating orb like that of wizards, and stuff.
The D3 crew really doesn't have an excuse for why this game is lacking such basic features. Even a 12 year old should know better than to create unique items with affixes like "+372-573 cold damage, +27% enhanced damage, +0.3% chance to stun for 0.00347 seconds"
I've been playing d2 on and off for years, and never once got tired of remaking expired characters on closed bnet. It was completely due to those mechanical features mentioned in the very memorable unique items, and how they affected my gameplay.
It's all now a grind to get a higher number in *only* dps, vit, armor, and resist all. And the grind is mainly for getting gold to get those numbers raised from AH -_-.
Was holding judgement until I reached end game, and now that I'm here, can say I'm disappointed in the variety and significance of individual pieces of gear and will wait for some improvement to this part of the game before I'm willing to jump back in.
but in the meantime, I'm feeling buyer's remorse -_-
This sums up my feelings.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Has nobody even bothered the read the official 1.0.3 patch preview?
The item finding problem will be sorted for endgame along with plenty other changes. What's the point in complaining about it when blizzard have already said they are going to change it?
The game easily deserves this score, especially once that patch lands. Many people, like myself, have put over 200 hours into the game and arn't even a little bit bored with it. I'd go 9.0 if there was some kind of randomized free roam maps added to the endgame... hopefully in the future.
Ha, I have heard this one before. "No way man, this patch will solve everything!"
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Why has no one mention the constant 300 - 2200 latency, the Item Duping the Gold Duping... The complete failure of the South Korean (Asia) servers... 800 Billion in duped gold and items causing a massive shut down of the Asia server and flooding of the American servers causing latency to a constant 1000+ for almost 2 days. And this was just in the past few days. It has been out almost a month and it still has server stability issues. Just on 6/11/2012 a ton of hardcore characters met their end due to server-side issues (massive lag for everyone online). This game starts out as fun, but the inability to travel back and re-do bosses like in Diablo 2's waypoint system, currently makes D3's waypoints utterly useless. To re-do a boss you have to leave a game, change quest, start that quest over, re-find waypoints, and then kill the boss. Rinse and Repeat. Yep great fun.
ROFLMAO
/end rant
For those mentioning Torchlight 2 looking better, it is because some of the developers of Diablo 1, Diablo 2, and Diablo 2: LoD and Torchlight 1 are Working on Torchlight 2. ^_^
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.
Quoting sites that even tell you that sales in the first week are lower than what D3's were proves that you need to learn how to read.
Will D3 ever reach 16 million sold? Consideriong the price of games like this drop down to something like $10 typically, I'd say it might, but right now you take the 6.3 million copies sold and add to that the 1.5 million copies that people got with the WoW deal, and you have 7.8 million in the first week.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
I know it's cool for the MMO hipsters to hate on Blizzard. But facts are facts: This is a very, very good game. Score is appropriate.
i can see this if D3 is your first arpg or just a flat out blizzard fanboy but bad game is bad. for any ARPG fan D3s flaws are painful and obvious.
Titan Quest, which came out 6 years ago, is better in just about every way and was made on a smaller budget. Thats absurd. Hell Grim Dawn will probably surpass that which is being made on a even smaller budget! Games made from "blood sweat and tears" are the best.
Bottom line, Blizzard made tons of money off WoW and now none of their games feel like any hard work was put into it.
Blizzard caters to everyone therefore they cater to no one. This is also why their games are crap.
How much did Blizzard pay you for this review? Just curious.
Also this review is from a person who admits to not liking the previous 2 games why can they not find a writer who liked the first 2 to write about the 3rd?
I think people are nuts to pay to "rent" a single player game for that price. You never own it, the game isn't even playable without the internet. Shame to all who support this scam.
The game is alright only if you play hardcore. Otherwise it's just as pointless as Diablo 2.
What's the point of farming gear for your softcore toon after beating Diablo on Inferno? Seriously I'd like some softie give an answer to this. You've beaten the game, you can die as many times as you want, you have no purpose and yet some people still play Diablo on softcore. I always wondered about this in Diablo 2 as well. I know for a fact being casual isn't the reason, because several people played softcore as much as the top dogs did hardcore.
Playing this game hardcore makes it a lot more enjoyable. As a plus there's no RMAH there either (at least so far). Once you play hardcore you never go back to being a spineless coward with ridicilous dps gear and obnoxious one-hit-wonder spec, you actually get better in the game and care about your toon.
Still, it's much worse than Diablo 2 of its time was, there's way too many compromises and dumbing down. I'd like to see what the sales would be like if Diablo 3 was mostly just a remade version of Diablo 2.
The game is alright only if you play hardcore. Otherwise it's just as pointless as Diablo 2.
What's the point of farming gear for your softcore toon after beating Diablo on Inferno? Seriously I'd like some softie give an answer to this. You've beaten the game, you can die as many times as you want, you have no purpose and yet some people still play Diablo on softcore. I always wondered about this in Diablo 2 as well. I know for a fact being casual isn't the reason, because several people played softcore as much as the top dogs did hardcore.
Playing this game hardcore makes it a lot more enjoyable. As a plus there's no RMAH there either (at least so far). Once you play hardcore you never go back to being a spineless coward with ridicilous dps gear and obnoxious one-hit-wonder spec, you actually get better in the game and care about your toon.
Still, it's much worse than Diablo 2 of its time was, there's way too many compromises and dumbing down. I'd like to see what the sales would be like if Diablo 3 was mostly just a remade version of Diablo 2.
Let's face it, Diablo 3 would have sold if it was an empty box with Diablo 3 painted across the front. The name sold it alone.
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.
The story is very linear and not really in any great depth. So basically what you are getting is a hack and slash dungeon crawler with pretty graphics that you play through on one or two of the difficulty modes and then forget about the game. I think, Bill, we are really talking 7.5 out of 10. Game isn't an mmo and the RPG depth just isn't there. Though I did have a fun few hours playing through the game.
Ahhh this review talks so good about the game that i asked for a full refund to blizzard and they gave me thank you for made me realize the mistake it was buying the game
=========================================== Refunded Items =========================================== Customer Name: xxxxxxxxxxxx Order #: xxxxxxxx
A good review, except for the rating it got for replayability and social value. I managed to get two characters to level 60 and one HC character to 54, so a total of 10 and a half playthroughs. By this time I was utterly sick and tired of the maps, most of the dungeons, predictable trash mobs and no gear dropping.
And despite the online requirement the game is a solitary experience. The only "community" there is is the impersonality of its e-bay simulator.
These two areas should give the lowest scores I think.
Basically, you need to purchase gear from the auction house to play, as the drops are crap.
The mechanics of their "champion packs" are potentially the worst in any game I've played. You literally fight them the same way, and that's kiting. If you don't have expensive gear, you'll die in seconds. Most people just log out to reset the quest to get a different pack. Inferno is not fun, and you are forced to farm for gear to purchase from their AH, because you will not get gear to drop for your class. And when you find "Legendary" items your excitement is gone when you see there are a hundred of the same ones, with better stats, on the AH.
It would be worth it if the game was $15-20 but it's a huge waste of money. Avoid at all cost.
Also, if you play WOW, I would be terrified of what Blizzard could do with a WOW 2. They completely ruined Diablo with this release.
just felt too short to me loved the game but i played straight through and gear grinding with a little more difficulty doesnt really make me want to play through the same story multiple times i cant really say its not worth the money or anything as ive payed the same for games shorter but i just cant get pumped enough to play it already knowing the story just my personal gaming preferances id rather have the game last till cap then play the same game over and over to get sumthin a little more better just for the same ending just a little harder to reach each time
It's ironic how the difficulty goes from trivially simple, to being one-hit killed and kiting like a madman. The way they have changed some skills since launch has reduced build diversity significantly. There are still technical issues (apart from latency) for example micro stuttering that affect the overall gameplay experience. the game is fun for a while it has some very serious flaws that still need sorting out.
So, news related, i played this game for 1 month and now to find that all the effort in constant grind to find a way to gear myself in a decent way to advance in this game was a joke, because it seems that the only exploits in this game are not only AH and small farm oriented...no no no, you can also have tons of fun selling gear in the RMAH to people that are oblivious to this exploit. Thank God i never did spent a cent on that RMAH.
So this exploit allowed you (or according to some users in battlenet forums, it still allows) to become invencible with a Wizard, thus allowing you to break game balance by reaching end game content and end game farming and doing it all over gain and again and again.
Now there are some naibve people out there that are trying to suggest this is not game breaking....well, when the lions need to be fed, some lambs jump right into their mouths.
I wonder, if Blizzard bans the users that were using this exploit, are they to repay money other users spent in RMAH buying those items brought into the game by a non-legal game practice?
I wonder, will Blizzard repay in some form all the legit players trying to play a game that is broken?
I wonder, will MMORPG.com re-review this game NOW and give it the apropriate score for a broken game, or will the staff continue to allow game customers to continue being cheated by the score this website gave to the game?
Just a quick note to whoever it may help: If you are unable to deal with the difficulty level of Inferno - you need to start stacking defensive stats. This includes Vitality, Resistance to all elements, armor, and life on hit and/or lifesteal. I went from 32k dps on my witch doctor to 13kdps but added a bunch of life on hit and resistance to all elements. Now, inferno is much easier and I can farm act 1 with ease. Also, most elites I can kill without having to kite.
There are many useful guides for all classes on the forums so if you are really struggling, read up on what build and stats to go for and it will make your life much, much easier.
Gerat review! I found that the game could have had more levels and things to do. Playing through again on a different difficulty does not do this game justice.
Comments
I will never consider a $60 game 'value', especially not one very similar to other games like the free Path of Exile (which is more Diablo-like than D3 which is why I nicknamed it Diablo 2.5), and the $20 Torchlight 2.
Why the reviewer rated it 10/10 for value is beyond me. What's PoE and T2 going to be? 11/10? T2 will be moddable FFS.
That is my one major gripe with this review.
I'd comment on the game, but others have bashed it enough already and I'd only do so further. I knew when it was announced it wouldn't be a true Diablo game because Blizzard North left. Years later, I'm correct, which is very sad. But oh well, I have PoE to play, which is basically what I wanted in the first place.
Meh I give the game a 3 normal nightmare an hell laughably easy. Inferno just as easy just gear based no skillz required NEXT!
This sums up my feelings.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Ha, I have heard this one before. "No way man, this patch will solve everything!"
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Why has no one mention the constant 300 - 2200 latency, the Item Duping the Gold Duping... The complete failure of the South Korean (Asia) servers... 800 Billion in duped gold and items causing a massive shut down of the Asia server and flooding of the American servers causing latency to a constant 1000+ for almost 2 days. And this was just in the past few days. It has been out almost a month and it still has server stability issues. Just on 6/11/2012 a ton of hardcore characters met their end due to server-side issues (massive lag for everyone online). This game starts out as fun, but the inability to travel back and re-do bosses like in Diablo 2's waypoint system, currently makes D3's waypoints utterly useless. To re-do a boss you have to leave a game, change quest, start that quest over, re-find waypoints, and then kill the boss. Rinse and Repeat. Yep great fun.
ROFLMAO
/end rant
For those mentioning Torchlight 2 looking better, it is because some of the developers of Diablo 1, Diablo 2, and Diablo 2: LoD and Torchlight 1 are Working on Torchlight 2. ^_^
Quoting sites that even tell you that sales in the first week are lower than what D3's were proves that you need to learn how to read.
Will D3 ever reach 16 million sold? Consideriong the price of games like this drop down to something like $10 typically, I'd say it might, but right now you take the 6.3 million copies sold and add to that the 1.5 million copies that people got with the WoW deal, and you have 7.8 million in the first week.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
i can see this if D3 is your first arpg or just a flat out blizzard fanboy but bad game is bad. for any ARPG fan D3s flaws are painful and obvious.
Titan Quest, which came out 6 years ago, is better in just about every way and was made on a smaller budget. Thats absurd. Hell Grim Dawn will probably surpass that which is being made on a even smaller budget! Games made from "blood sweat and tears" are the best.
Bottom line, Blizzard made tons of money off WoW and now none of their games feel like any hard work was put into it.
Blizzard caters to everyone therefore they cater to no one. This is also why their games are crap.
anyway get your refunds while you can folks!
How much did Blizzard pay you for this review? Just curious.
Also this review is from a person who admits to not liking the previous 2 games why can they not find a writer who liked the first 2 to write about the 3rd?
I think people are nuts to pay to "rent" a single player game for that price. You never own it, the game isn't even playable without the internet. Shame to all who support this scam.
The game is alright only if you play hardcore. Otherwise it's just as pointless as Diablo 2.
What's the point of farming gear for your softcore toon after beating Diablo on Inferno? Seriously I'd like some softie give an answer to this. You've beaten the game, you can die as many times as you want, you have no purpose and yet some people still play Diablo on softcore. I always wondered about this in Diablo 2 as well. I know for a fact being casual isn't the reason, because several people played softcore as much as the top dogs did hardcore.
Playing this game hardcore makes it a lot more enjoyable. As a plus there's no RMAH there either (at least so far). Once you play hardcore you never go back to being a spineless coward with ridicilous dps gear and obnoxious one-hit-wonder spec, you actually get better in the game and care about your toon.
Still, it's much worse than Diablo 2 of its time was, there's way too many compromises and dumbing down. I'd like to see what the sales would be like if Diablo 3 was mostly just a remade version of Diablo 2.
Let's face it, Diablo 3 would have sold if it was an empty box with Diablo 3 painted across the front. The name sold it alone.
The story is very linear and not really in any great depth. So basically what you are getting is a hack and slash dungeon crawler with pretty graphics that you play through on one or two of the difficulty modes and then forget about the game. I think, Bill, we are really talking 7.5 out of 10. Game isn't an mmo and the RPG depth just isn't there. Though I did have a fun few hours playing through the game.
Ahhh this review talks so good about the game that i asked for a full refund to blizzard and they gave me thank you for made me realize the mistake it was buying the game
==============================
Refunded Items
==============================
Customer Name: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Order #: xxxxxxxx
Line Item[s] Refunded:
(1) Diablo® III
Total Amount Refunded: £44.99 GBP
Beta tester maniac
A good review, except for the rating it got for replayability and social value. I managed to get two characters to level 60 and one HC character to 54, so a total of 10 and a half playthroughs. By this time I was utterly sick and tired of the maps, most of the dungeons, predictable trash mobs and no gear dropping.
And despite the online requirement the game is a solitary experience. The only "community" there is is the impersonality of its e-bay simulator.
These two areas should give the lowest scores I think.
Game was fun for a couple of weeks.
Basically, you need to purchase gear from the auction house to play, as the drops are crap.
The mechanics of their "champion packs" are potentially the worst in any game I've played. You literally fight them the same way, and that's kiting. If you don't have expensive gear, you'll die in seconds. Most people just log out to reset the quest to get a different pack. Inferno is not fun, and you are forced to farm for gear to purchase from their AH, because you will not get gear to drop for your class. And when you find "Legendary" items your excitement is gone when you see there are a hundred of the same ones, with better stats, on the AH.
It would be worth it if the game was $15-20 but it's a huge waste of money. Avoid at all cost.
Also, if you play WOW, I would be terrified of what Blizzard could do with a WOW 2. They completely ruined Diablo with this release.
How soon can we expect a re-review?
But from someone that actually played the game. Would be happy to write one free of charge.
I would say re-review is a waste of time untill patch 1.1 when they put in the PvP
just felt too short to me loved the game but i played straight through and gear grinding with a little more difficulty doesnt really make me want to play through the same story multiple times i cant really say its not worth the money or anything as ive payed the same for games shorter but i just cant get pumped enough to play it already knowing the story just my personal gaming preferances id rather have the game last till cap then play the same game over and over to get sumthin a little more better just for the same ending just a little harder to reach each time
http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/diablo-iii/1225520p1.html
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4941028405?page=3
So, news related, i played this game for 1 month and now to find that all the effort in constant grind to find a way to gear myself in a decent way to advance in this game was a joke, because it seems that the only exploits in this game are not only AH and small farm oriented...no no no, you can also have tons of fun selling gear in the RMAH to people that are oblivious to this exploit. Thank God i never did spent a cent on that RMAH.
So this exploit allowed you (or according to some users in battlenet forums, it still allows) to become invencible with a Wizard, thus allowing you to break game balance by reaching end game content and end game farming and doing it all over gain and again and again.
Now there are some naibve people out there that are trying to suggest this is not game breaking....well, when the lions need to be fed, some lambs jump right into their mouths.
I wonder, if Blizzard bans the users that were using this exploit, are they to repay money other users spent in RMAH buying those items brought into the game by a non-legal game practice?
I wonder, will Blizzard repay in some form all the legit players trying to play a game that is broken?
I wonder, will MMORPG.com re-review this game NOW and give it the apropriate score for a broken game, or will the staff continue to allow game customers to continue being cheated by the score this website gave to the game?
Just a quick note to whoever it may help: If you are unable to deal with the difficulty level of Inferno - you need to start stacking defensive stats. This includes Vitality, Resistance to all elements, armor, and life on hit and/or lifesteal. I went from 32k dps on my witch doctor to 13kdps but added a bunch of life on hit and resistance to all elements. Now, inferno is much easier and I can farm act 1 with ease. Also, most elites I can kill without having to kite.
There are many useful guides for all classes on the forums so if you are really struggling, read up on what build and stats to go for and it will make your life much, much easier.
Gerat review! I found that the game could have had more levels and things to do. Playing through again on a different difficulty does not do this game justice.