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[sambojin]

Meh. Another bot, another report.

Damn I hope these things aren't prevalent. I mean, I'm on a guest pass for god's sake. There's nothing to find, nothing to sell, and about 1 1/2 hours to level to max in guest pass. I'm kind of glad I did save my money until next payday to buy this, if it gets overrun by bots this early, I'll be stuffed if I will pay my cash for it. Or I'll see what The Amazon Basin is doing. Or something......

Bleh, I couldn't be stuffed playing any more today. A bloody WD bot in normal. Bleh.

[Darkmere]

I guess I'm a bit late for the big ole' shitstorm but here, have 2 cents! And then some....

Normal is easy: Yes, normal in Diablo has always been easy. Normal in D3 is quite a bit harder, on average, than the other 2 games. It's sort of a franchise thing at this point. I look at it the same as Zelda bosses where you have to use the dungeon item on the boss 3 times. Every time. That said, I did die in act 1, right past the skeleton king, on normal my first time through.

And yes, you could stand out in the Blood Moor (D2, act 1, area 1) and zombies would basically ignore you.

D2 was so much better!: To play devil's advocate, D2 has skills which have been broken/bugged/useless for as long as I can remember. (inferno, fend, arctic blast come to mind. The first simply cannot function as designed because the game engine negates 80% of its damage. The last was a direct copy of the first, showing that Blizzard really just didn't care about documented issues).

DRM/RMAH/etc./etc. Personally, bringing these up here *without* discussing how they impact the gameplay itself seems to me like people are pushing a political agenda and using this game as an acceptable target/vehicle for soapboxing. Having an opinion on the state of the vidya gaem industry is great; I've been known to express my own on occasion. But I don't recall this much hubbub getting raised about other AAA titles that had similar issues. I'd prefer state-of-the-industry commentary be kept separate from ANY individual game threads, unless noted and discussed in relation to specific issues in specific games. Also, world peace.

All that said, were I to re-evaluate my opinion on the game after 2 weeks of play... and I were shall, it'd go like this:

Spoiler: The Good (click to show/hide)

-Combat pacing feels very smooth to me in nightmare and hell. The touted build diversity is definitely present in these difficulties.
-Shared stash is about 10 years overdue.
-Dat art, man. Dat art.
-Classes are all interesting to me. I couldn't pick a single favorite or least favorite; I will definitely be entertained with the game until I get 1 of everything to 60.

Spoiler: The Bad (click to show/hide)

-The writing. I'm one of those "oh no, you don't play it for the story lol!" guys, and I'm still embarassed for them. Seriously.
-Itemization is flat and boring (nah, I don't give a damn about legendaries), at least partially because:
-Inferno is drastically over-tuned, on purpose. The only things that matter are damage stat, vit, resists. Unless you're in later inferno... then you stack all the damage you can and don't get hit. For a WD, anyway. Act 1 is fun enough, but the rest feels a bit steep.
-The economy is suffering from inflation already. Gold sinks aren't worth using. US commodities AH has been down for... well I don't remember when it was last up.

The gameplay-related downers are mostly fixable, but in spite of myself I do think the company is going slowly senile. I hope they can pull this one off in the medium-term, because I'm kinda sick of watching my favorite Blizz franchise be the bastard child of the company and get locked in the attic to be tormented by Uncle Bob thwacking the second-floor ceiling with a broomstick.

Re: bots.
I'd love to see a bot farm any meaningful content at 60. By meaningful I mean champ packs in A4 Hell and onward.

[Valid_Dark]

I'm getting the full game on the 14th,     soo far away.

and I have an opinion to weigh in on the real money AH,

Spoiler: opinion told using smileys (click to show/hide)

at first I was like 
and then I was like 
but, then I was like      ........          .........     

Think back to D2, there were all those websites that sold items, they just didnt want that to happen with D3, so they beat them to the punch and just included it as a feature,
the only thing I don't like about it is that there is the $1 fee to sell an item on the AH.

one whole U.S. dollar, that seems like a lot of money to sell a virtual item.  I thought it would be free, or like 5 - 10¢

[Aptus]

Think back to D2, there were all those websites that sold items, they just didnt want that to happen with D3, so they beat them to the punch and just included it as a feature,
the only thing I don't like about it is that there is the $1 fee to sell an item on the AH.

one whole U.S. dollar, that seems like a lot of money to sell a virtual item.  I thought it would be free, or like 5 - 10¢

They did not not want that to happen, they just wanted a cut from the profits.

[LASD]

I agree, it's mind boggling why they made the point of entry into the game so very simple. I understand that there must have been discussions about the fact that many gamers have never played D1 or 2 but I don't think this was the best solution. I suspect it was to extend the gameplay in addition to easing new players.

WoW is the only game some people have ever played. I think Blizzard wanted to make sure Diablo 3 could be that kind of game too. The early game is expertly crafted to slowly introduce new elements into the game while the player learns the basic mechanics of the game without much far of dying. It's a great tutorial, especially for people who haven't played much games at all.

The problem is that you have to go through it every single time you start anew, but I absolutely get why they did it. It is also fun, as much as a tutorial-y thing can be.

[Neonivek]

That dollar is also intentional. It is so the gold market isn't crippled. So only items worth more then a dollar are put on market.

[IronyOwl]

The early game is expertly crafted to slowly introduce new elements into the game while the player learns the basic mechanics of the game without much far of dying. It's a great tutorial, especially for people who haven't played much games at all.

The problem is that you have to go through it every single time you start anew, but I absolutely get why they did it. It is also fun, as much as a tutorial-y thing can be.

"Expertly" might be too strong a word, but yeah, some people just have absolutely no idea how video games work. Plus, as they've pointed out, if it's stupid filler for you you'll just blow through it pretty rapidly. It's not ideal, but it's not a huge hindrance.

Except that it's arguably tutorial for the entirety of Normal difficulty, that is. As others have pointed out, that's an awful long time to force players to slog through Useless Mode.

That dollar is also intentional. It is so the gold market isn't crippled. So only items worth more then a dollar are put on market.

I'm guessing that had less to do with not wanting the gold market crippled and more to do with not wanting the RMAH flooded.

[Levi]

So, I'm a little stuck on accessing the following spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hidden cow level.  I collected all the items and crafted the staff, and went back to nightmare difficulty(which I have completed), but the cow king that I am supposed to talk to at the glowy red pit doesn't seem to want to show up.  Is there a trick to this, or does he only show up occasionally?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You have to get to Act 4, any mission, and there's a chance that the Quartermaster (directly east of where you spawn) will have a recipe for a Nightmarish staff, for one gold. It costs 200k to upgrade to Nightmare, 500k for Hell, and 1 million for Inferno, and all are gotten the same way via Act 4. Again, it's a chance, so you may have to join/leave new games in order for it to appear.

Ah okay.  Thanks!

[Rez]

Perhaps the more important issue, than the DRM itself, is that major design decisions were based around the AH and the RMAH.  Always-on DRM is needed so no one can dupe items.  Low drop rates are needed to create the scarcity needed to force people to use the AH.  Small group sizes mean that every person in the group has to have better gear to be able to matter.  Removing stats and skill builds means that the only thing that requires serious thought or investment are your items.  The game is seemingly designed around buying item and legalizes RMT. 

This is a major factor in what makes this feel like a cash-in.  Blizzard has earned themselves a bad name in my book, both due to D3, but more significantly due to their conduct regarding Valve and Dota.

And I don't know why you're saying D2's normal was all easy.  This is, of course, subjective, but Duriel rocked my day every day.

[Andir]

Perhaps the more important issue, than the DRM itself, is that major design decisions were based around the AH and the RMAH.  Always-on DRM is needed so no one can dupe items.  Low drop rates are needed to create the scarcity needed to force people to use the AH.  Small group sizes mean that every person in the group has to have better gear to be able to matter.  Removing stats and skill builds means that the only thing that requires serious thought or investment are your items.  The game is seemingly designed around buying item and legalizes RMT. 

This is a major factor in what makes this feel like a cash-in.  Blizzard has earned themselves a bad name in my book, both due to D3, but more significantly due to their conduct regarding Valve and Dota.

And I don't know why you're saying D2's normal was all easy.  This is, of course, subjective, but Duriel rocked my day every day.

Agree.  And I seem to remember deaths on Blood Raven.

[nenjin]

You could die pretty easily in the middle of a swarm in normal D2. Rarely did you get gear so good that you could laugh off half an act because of it. Even if your DPS was high, theirs was too so you could still get cut down with enough damage coming in. Bosses were also much, much more unforgiving. Blood Raven maybe not so much, but Andariel and Duriel, very much so.

[forsaken1111]

Perhaps the more important issue, than the DRM itself, is that major design decisions were based around the AH and the RMAH.  Always-on DRM is needed so no one can dupe items.  Low drop rates are needed to create the scarcity needed to force people to use the AH.  Small group sizes mean that every person in the group has to have better gear to be able to matter.  Removing stats and skill builds means that the only thing that requires serious thought or investment are your items.  The game is seemingly designed around buying item and legalizes RMT. 

This is a major factor in what makes this feel like a cash-in.  Blizzard has earned themselves a bad name in my book, both due to D3, but more significantly due to their conduct regarding Valve and Dota.

And I don't know why you're saying D2's normal was all easy.  This is, of course, subjective, but Duriel rocked my day every day.

Agree.  And I seem to remember deaths on Blood Raven.

I've died a LOT in act 1 on nightmare or whatever it is that comes after Normal.

[sambojin]

That was just the step up between difficulties. What was great in normal was barely good enough in nightmare, same with nightmare->hell. Although in nm->hell you would also find that a lot of skills weren't effective anymore (basically, single element attacks, especially fire based one) so you'd better have a backup attack. Or remake a character from scratch. Or respec, but respeccing came much, much later (last and final patch actually).

I've died to all kinds of stuff in normal and nightmare in D2. Duriel, the Council, forever-raising skellies in the desert tombs, got mobbed and flamed in hell stair bits, got under-ground punched by stuff early in act 5 because I couldn't get to them to kill them because it was blocked by mobs, weird stuff in andy's tomb. Just all kinds of stuff. That's without gloam mobs, viper-spear-death, freaky boss packs or immune-to-all-my-attacks Izual in hell-first-play-through. Yes, Izual, the shame

While a lot of it was my own fault (laziness, stupidity, alcohol and D2 didn't mix), there was usually something you had to watch out for.

I don't know if the skill system in D3 is a good idea. I'll only ever need one of each character, with even niche gear kept in my shared stash. I can respec on the fly, re-gear in about 30 seconds, teleport to where the action (or my party) is in 15secs. I never have to begin all over again, the party never has to withdraw from action - we can always reinforce, I never need to find the gear and skill-up for a cool niche build I want to try out.

I know my characters won't feel unique (all 5 of them that I'll ever need), but I still don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe hardcore will become the only real way to play D3. You might not feel unique, but at least you're a high-level character with cool skills and runes, and you're still alive to use them.

Thinking about it, imagine if there was always-online DRM, hard-to-dupe items, a gold and RM auction house and limited (or no) respecs in D2. They would have made an f'ing fortune!!!! More than they ever will out of five insta-respeccable characters per player, a shared stash and only a few stats being of any use to any particular character. Maybe Blizzard didn't think this through too well afterall.....

[Rez]

There's always speculation that when a game gets made simpler that the developers are trying to make the game more 'casual'.  Often times developers also say things like "we want to appeal to the CoD audience".

To some degree, the 'casualization' is an effort to produce video games that don't require any special thought or effort, to make console and PC games equivalent to angry birds.

Basically, what I'm suggesting is that Blizzard wanted a game where they could get 8 million people playing it and using the RMAH, which would probably be harder if people got pissed when they built a totally useless character and couldn't respec whenever.

[sambojin]

Anyway, I decided I'll buy the damn game anyway.

What early skills and runes (from guest-pass/beta) do people still use late into the game in the full version?

I'm thinking that Entangling shot(chain gang), Caltrops (supa-slowed) and Vault (with any rune) will still probably have a place on my DH for a long time to come. CC/AoE attack that's a rage generator, a good CC'er to kite and escape with and a movement escape (that I'll rune with something fun) all seems too useful to not have, regardless of difficulty. Plus rapid-fire (withering fire) uzi's of death, but that's just so I can see how long I can keep a sustained burst going for, not actual practical use (it's already pretty scary with a tiny bit of hate-regen, can't wait for preparation-hate-runed sustained bursts. Should be pulling 30sec+ firetime I hope).