Diablo 3 is finally rumored to be in development. Some images apparently have begun surfacing(this early?) and the one word that keeps getting kicked back and forth is “colorful”. Not the dark and oppressive atmosphere of previous Diablo games but more like World of Warcraft. Petitions have been filed on both sides of the argument. One from detractors who want the return to the dark and dingy look. One from supporters who love the new colorful look.
Um. . . Isn’t it too early to complain? One thing is almost certain, though. It looks like the 3/4 isometric combat will remain untouched. Huzzah!
Rumored? What do you need other than several minutes of gameplay videos, official announcements by Blizzard and an official website with a ton of information and media in order to be certain that it’s actually being developed? A copy in your hands?
As for the complainers, we’ve seen too little of the game. It does seem it’s taken a cue from World of Warcraft for its visuals but I’m sure it’ll offer some pretty dark and gritty environments as well. Blizzard wouldn’t show the very advanced areas when the game is so far from a release. It probably gets progressively more evil and twisted looking the closer you get to the various boss encounters and such.
Either way, it’s not like the games were actually ever scary, heh. Whether it’s got an overkill of gore and grittyness or not, I’m sure it’ll at least look fantastic because Blizzard are just that good. For the gameplay however…
For me, Diablo II got boring VERY fast mainly because of the simplicity of the combat even though I really enjoyed the loot grinding. It seems they’ve updated mechanics a lot since that barbarian mows down hordes of monsters using all sorts of different moves and it just looks FUN so I may actually buy this when it arrives. I hope there are more things to do cooperatively rather than just have people playing “solo together” like it felt in II. Taking a cue from WoW would probably be good here also, just not to the same extent like having pure tanks and healers, all should be DPS focused and able to PVP.
I also like they put less focus in carrying a load of potions with you to achieve anything against tougher challenges. If there’s one thing I’d like it to totally take from WoW, is to have the game balanced without potions in mind so that they’re only used sparringly and have a cooldown so you can’t spam them. Make the game challenging, not have you win over things you shouldn’t just because you filled your inventory with potions.
Well there you go then. Thanks. So it’s more than a rumor.
I can only say one thing. “FINALLY!”
One thing’s for certain. They need to nerf the necromancer. Playing as a paladin with a necromancer companion and watching his goons get all the kills was certainly not fun.
Necromancer seems to have been replaced with the witch doctor shown on the website. At least he seems to have very similar skills so it would be weird to also have a necromancer. Explore the website really, it has a lot of nice things. The classes pages have additional videos of various class skills, Kain’s journal is a good way to remember the previous games’ storyline (it includes a lot, if not all of, the D2 FMVs) etc. A great website, just overcluttered with flash and running slow at times. Tyrael rocks though.
The Barbarian could be the only returning class, if there’s actually only going to be 5 originally. But I dunno how recently you’ve played D2 dragoonlover, the Paladin is maybe more overpowered for regular play now than ever. Skeletons are always annoying when they’re not yours… but after patch 1.10 there seem to be two single skill super builds, one of which outclasses everything else against hordes of monsters, the other outclasses everything else against the uber-bosses (which drop the new unique charms) and they both belong to the Paladin. So while Blizz clearly abandoned any pretense of balance anyway, the gap between the Paladin and everyone else makes any other possible need to nerf’s completely irrelevant.
I can’t even be sure how much I’m relieved it’s still isometric view, or how much I’m disappointed they aren’t trying for something fresh. Cause on the one hand I don’t automatically trust Blizz to pull off anything radical anymore, but the fact they’re playing it safe on the most basic level means there will be NO major surprises… more of the same is the entire mandate.
I’m sure I’ll give D3 a go (in a couple years?) but at this point I regard Blizzard as somewhat permanently typecast, I know what to expect and it’ll always be fundamentally disappointing. With all the skills to choose from in D2, about 2/3rd are abjectly underpowered now, and WoW became a statement of the same philosophy very early, when the class options that stood out as most popular become the only priority for balance, and the rest are deliberately marginalized to a point of uselessness.
At one time Blizzard were the undisputed masters of balancing complex faction driven games… now they’re simply the lone practitioners of Blizzard-Balance.
Well it looks like combat is far more energetic and reactive now than before so there’s at least that one major change. At least to me D2 seemed to be holding down left click (or re-clicking for a new target), using right click for the assigned skill and hammering the potion hotkeys. The barbarian does more things concurrently in that short video than I seemed to do throughout the whole of Diablo 2 really. It looks way more fun using a diverse range of skills via hotkeys rather than a single skill assigned to your right click. You can probably come up with a lot of cool combinations of moves both alone and combining forces with other classes, at least I hope so.
As for balance, it’s primarily coop to me so I don’t care if some other class is bound to always defeat me in the case we duel or if they can defeat boss x in 2/3rds of the time I can in solo mode since I’d rather we work together with friends… Of course, if one class is so much more powerful I guess everyone would end up using it so I’m sure they’ll try to make it a tad more even. Starcraft II is bound to be balanced to perfection at least. If not, nobody will play it after a while and just go back to the original…
Yeah, I’d think Starcraft 2 is a very special case anyway. I bet by the time it ships it’s gone though ten times the playtesting as any game in history… and that just by Koreans!
almost all the popular games are dark and dingy T_T why complain at a colorful one (though it is kinda ironic ^_^)