Diablo 3 is undoubtedly all the rage in any PC gamer’s world right now. After all, after such an astounding hit that Diablo II was, the 2000 game’s successor could only be better, right? Especially after it’s been in development for, oh, eleven years?
Wrong.
Given the fact that I playing D2 faithfully back in the day, I was definitely excited at the prospect of a real chance to see D3, but the more I read about it, the less excited I became. There are just too many faults with this game that I’ve seen, and the game’s not even out yet. One of the biggest problems is that we’re facing a brand new version of Blizzard in 2012. This isn’t the same wonderful company that brought us D2, the great Battle Chess port, pre-Burning Crusades World of Warcraft and other similar titles. This is post-Activision, post-horrible-decisions Blizzard we’re dealing with here, and after the terrible demon that Burning Crusades, Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria were, that’s one primary reason I’m dreading May 15th.
I’m even willing to overlook the bad voice acting and four-player party size limit (might I add that this is the maximum party size allowed on consoles… just a hint); I get extra amusement for poor voice acting and I dealt with this same party size limit in The Old Republic. What I can’t overlook is how incredibly easy the game is now, not to mention its absence of originality. It’s essentially a D2 reskinning but made dumber for the younger generation of Xbox kids who grew up on easy games. The fact that it’s currently in open beta is not an excuse for this either; there are things that aren’t going to magically be fixed in the next couple of weeks.
Another thing I’m despising is the absence of PvP at launch. It might not really be an MMO, but the fact that you’re not ready to present PvP means that, even after eleven years of development (allow me to stress that again, eleven years), you’re still not prepared to give players the full game. This doesn’t just make me concerned for D3, but it makes me gravely concerned for the upcoming (read: rushed) WoW expansion too. Along with this absence of PvP is a total absence of PKing and hostile toggle.
Remember getting your best skills up and truly creating a personal character in D2? Well, that’s not going to happen with D3… with everything else being so generic, why would it? Now you’ll have the benefit of unlocking skills that you’ll never use.
I’m not going to get too far with the real money auction house. I think it’s a terrible gimmick for a company that can easily afford to go without it, but if you want to waste your hard-earned money on cartoony pixels, then more power to you. Or if you want to make a killing on the other side, enjoy turning into a pseudo-gold farmer.
There’s absolutely nothing redeeming to me about Diablo 3. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel like installing Diablo 2 and giving that another playthrough. Either that or just hug the box really, really tightly. Maybe once the game comes out and I give it another go, I’ll change my mind, but I’m not liking what I see so far.
I like reading alternative views on things, but I think some of your points are invalid.
I’m not sure how you think it’s a reskin for todays gamer generation of making things easier, but really Diablo 2 wasn’t all that hard until nightmare. They actually made the game harder as time progressed. Some classes were a bit weak to start until you got some skills, and this time it’s not so much the case, which I think is actually better. It makes you feel less alienated to play with a character you want to use. It’s also been clearly stated by Blizzard that normal is meant to be easy, but later levels are going to ramp up significantly.
Making a personal character in D2 was more an illusion, as most people like in WoW just stuck to builds. You would have a couple different ones that would pop up for each class, and play one based on your style.
While 11 years may of passed, I bet at most they’ve been working on it for half that time. Blizzard would of spent development resources more on WoW since then. At most maybe some concepts and ideas came out, but it’s kind of tricky to draft out pvp balance until you have the characters set out in detail.
I agree that I have no interest in the auction house, but really people were doing this anyways in Diablo 2, so I think blizzard wants to control that transaction instead.
Don’t get me wrong, blizzard isn’t perfect. I’m not feeling excited for D3 myself, but I do feel it will be a fun game.
I agree with you 100% ! I hope that more people/rewievers will notice that instead of giving it a straight 10/10 just because it is Diablo franchise. Peace
…and that’s all the faults there are. So 10% evil and still 90% awesome for me. Personally I like all the decisions Blizzard made, everything is very polished, but I am just worried that there will be a lack of variety in terms of building your character, especially since a lot of stuff was taken from D2 and also a lot of stuff was dumbed down like identifying, town portals, etc. I always enjoyed toying with my CUBE and RUNES, now what?
They did good decisions, probably all of them were good, but it’s not enough, it’s too polished and streamlined – which is good, but the game really needs more. And gtfo with witch doctor, gimme voodoo necromancer!!