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It has been 11 years since Lord of Destruction, the last entry in the Diablo series, was released. Now that Diablo 3 is finally available for all of us mere mortals, the question that looms above the incredible cloud of hype is, "does it live up to its namesake?"
The answer is more complicated than I would like it to be.
Ordinarily I would start this review by talking about the first thing one might normally encounter in the game, the character creation and all of the available class options, but this has not been an ordinary launch. In fact, it has been one of the most frustrating poorly-executed launches in recent memory. With a torrent of traffic slamming Blizzard's servers, especially in the early stages of the game's launch, players around the globe were locked out of the game with a parade of error messages.
Once this issue subsided and players were finally able to enter the world of Sanctuary en masse, the servers proved to be unstable. They crashed intermittently, realms were taken offline without warning numerous times, and the lag was atrocious.
By now, the servers have stabilized to the point where they are no longer crashing and locking players out of the game, but a fraction of the lag persists.
Like vanilla Diablo 2, the third game in the series places five distinct character classes on the table, each with their own resource system. It's worth noting that, functionally, one class' resource system varies in only very small ways from the others. The Wizard's arcane power is quite similar to the Witch Doctor's mana and the Demon Hunter's dual resource system, and the Monk's spirit is quite similar to the Barbarian's fury.
These traits are not what make the classes diverse, though. Indeed, the classes of Diablo 2 all shared the same resource mechanic. What sets each of them apart, what makes them flexible and fun, are their abilities. After having played each class, I've been hard pressed to find many abilities or runes that aren't fun, or useful in some way, though some are more situational than others.
The lack of traditional skill trees was, admittedly, something I was worried about. At first glance, it appears entirely inflexible, almost as if to discourage customization. One culprit for why this impression exists is a certain game setting, elective mode, being toggled off by default. What elective mode does is it allows the player to use his 6 hotbar slots in any way he or she sees fit; mixing and matching abilities from different categories. For instance, with elective mode off I cannot use both Meteor and Energy Twister because they are both force spells and I only have one spot available for force spells. With elective mode on, however, I can mix and match as I see fit.
That aside, this new skill system has not only turned out better than I expected, it's the mechanical highlight of the game. Dare I say it, it outshines the skill system that came before it. Each class has about 12 passive abilities, 25 active abilities, and each active ability has 5 runes tied to it. At any given time, a player can utilize 3 of their 12 passives, 6 of their 25 actives, and each of those 6 chosen actives can have 1 rune modifying it. Runes often drastically change the properties of an ability. For instance, the Wizard can summon a 3-headed hydra to rapidly dish out a small amount of damage with each hit. Its associated runes can give it arcane area-of-effect damage, increase its damage output per hit, slow enemies with cold damage, or create pools of poison beneath stationary enemies.
By not locking you into a set build, the game opens wonderful vistas of experimentation up to the player. With this system, Diablo 3 also bypasses the need for a respec system. Abilities can be swapped out on the fly, and play styles can change at a moment's notice. One might decide to try out a completely different build on a whim without being punished or inconvenienced for wanting to experiment. This incredible diversity in builds also lightens the tedium of repetition that is a chief complaint surrounding this type of loot-grinding dungeon crawler. At the end of the day, it's still going to amount to an RSI-inducing amount of clicking, but you can at least take comfort in knowing that you're playing in a way that fits your preferences.
Though I am supremely impressed by this system and the amount of customization it allows, the later difficulties put a bit of a damper on that customization. That isn't to say there isn't a relatively huge pool of options available for the game's final tiers of difficulty, but those options shrink as the game gets harder. Most builds don't become entirely obsolete, but survival becomes paramount, and most enemies on Inferno will one-shot you without certain essential skills.
In fact, the difficulty curve is puzzling. The game's starting difficulty level, normal, is a walk in the park as is to be expected. Players seeking a modicum of challenge will have to finish the game once to get to nightmare mode which is where you start to encounter difficult groups of special enemies with a combination of nasty abilities designed to ruin your day. Some of these enemies can lock you in place while getting in your face and leaving a blazing trail of fire at their feet. Still, nightmare presents a fairly manageable challenge that you can easily overwhelm by carefully out-gearing the enemies. Once you reach Hell and Inferno, standard enemies can nearly one-shot you, and unique packs of monsters gain even more life-threatening abilities.
The challenge is not unwelcome, though the disparity in difficulty between settings is jarring. Barbarians also seem to have the short end of the stick on Inferno difficulty where their enormous health pools are no boon against enemies that one shot them indiscriminately, and they lack the ability to kite as effectively as ranged classes.
As with the skill system, I had some initial concerns regarding how the game would feel being played with others this time around. Socializing with Battle.net 2.0's hamstrung chat proved to be a chore in the empty chat channels of Starcraft 2, but the WoW-like chat pane of Diablo 3 seems to be slightly more abuzz with chatter.
The removal of lobbies and reduction of game sizes from 8 players down to 4 was also a cause for concern. While the lack of lobbies is still a pet peeve for me, the player-count trimming has produced no noticeable negative impact.
In all other regards, the multiplayer has done nothing but improve since the days of Diablo 2. Enemy health and damage scaling feels just right, and the matchmaking system ensures that there is usually a companion aside from the game's pathetically weak AI followers. Players are no longer in a bitter race to click the fastest and beat their fellow cooperative chums to a shiny new item. Each player gets their own loot drop from a fallen enemy.
Most of the time that loot is junk; junk that cannot be sold for a price that makes it worth the time and inventory space of picking up. It is usually better to salvage eligible items for crafting materials than to sell them to vendors. Crafting from the blacksmith is akin to gambling in Diablo 2 except more of an investment. The jeweler, with his ability to combine your lower quality stat-modifying gems into higher quality ones and his ability to salvage gems from socketed items, proves to be a far more valuable craftsman most of the time. Still, the blacksmith has the unique ability to craft exceptionally rare legendary and set items.
Of course, you still have to get the plans for those set pieces and legendary items, and those plans may be more rare than the equipment they lead to. Which isn't surprising given that drop rates for legendaries, which replace Diablo 2's uniques as the highest item-quality in the game, are staggeringly rare, especially in comparison to Diablo 2. Not that makes a huge difference given how poor the game's itemization is. Blues and well-statted rares are far more common than legendaries, and many of them are far better than a perfect legendary item is anyway.
Another problem afflicting the game's itemization is that, unlike skill customization, there just isn't enough thought or meaningful choices that go into choosing how to gear one's character. This is because everything scales with weapon damage to an obscene degree, making a 2-handed maul the more appealing choice for a spell-caster than a wand. It is also because there aren't enough useful stat modifiers in the game. Each class scales with weapon damage, and after that the only major decisions left to make on gear comes down to whether or not it has vitality, sockets, and the primary attribute (strength, dexterity, or intelligence) that scales with each class' damage output. As a sorceress in Diablo 2 I might choose between The Oculus being my weapon, because it will increase my overall spell damage, or I might choose Death's Fathom because it increases just my cold damage to a greater degree, or I might choose the Wizard Spike because I need the increased casting rate to reach a certain casting speed breakpoint (note: Diablo 2 used a series of breakpoints to determine how many frames of animation it took to cast a spell. Any number between those break points made no difference in casting speed. For instance, the two fastest sorceress BPs were at 105 faster cast rate and 200; any amount of FCR between 106-199 made no difference). In gearing my Diablo 3 wizard, every piece of equipment is either a clear upgrade, or a clear downgrade, with no thought of trade-offs because items sport so few stats, and even fewer that make a significant impact.
I would be lying through my teeth if I said these itemization failings overshadowed the fun I had while building my character and unleashing devastation, but it does demonstrate a way in which the series has taken great strides forward and subsequently leapt backward.
Favoring gameplay over story, the four acts of the game are something of a mixed bag. Given that players will be completing the campaign over and over again, the fact that the game is full of action, hidden dungeons, newly introduced event side-quests, environments that are diverse and beautiful in a grim way, and rampageous fun is appreciated, and in this case it would certainly be better to have a fun game than one with a well written story, but that's something of a false dichotomy - such a tradeoff was unnecessary.
For starters, loose ends from Diablo 2 and its expansion have not been addressed. At the end of Lord of Destruction, the archangel, Tyrael, destroys the sacred Worldstone. The consequences of his actions remain unclear. Not only does the game not address loose ends, it creates even more by the time the credits roll and leaves a trail of plotholes and retcons in its wake. One character, the character who brings Diablo back into the world, disappears at the end of act 3 and nobody seems to care at all. This character is never addressed again. The game also employs a number of hackneyed twists straight from the book of M. Night Shyamalan.
Furthermore, Diablo's latest incarnation, resembling the alien queen from Aliens, possesses the souls of all 7 of the series' 'Lords of Hell' - the primary antagonists over the course of the series. He is given these souls by a plot device introduced in act 2, the 'Black Soulstone.' This item is used to imprison the two Lords of Hell who have not been dealt with up until this point in the series. Despite the fact that none of the remaining five big baddies have ever interacted with this plot device before dying in previous games, the Black Soulstone somehow contains their souls. Two of them were previously killed in a way that is, in Diablo 2, stressed to the player as being the only way to permanently vanquish them, including Diablo himself. Nobody expects Diablo not to come back in a game titled after him, but he could have been written back into the game in a way more elegant than this.
I would also like to add that Belial, the Lord of Lies, is terrible at his job.
There's no getting around it, this review is getting long in the tooth, but that is the consequence of reviewing a game that is absolutely packed with things worthy of praise and things worthy of censure. Before closing out, there are still a number of less prominent details I want to address briefly (I promise) in this paragraph. The identification and town portal system have both been greatly revamped for player convenience and no longer require a tome of scrolls taking up inventory space to do. The game of Inventory Tetris has been greatly simplified now that items take up a maximum of 2 spaces vertically in the inventory. Your stash can now be upgraded to hold a far greater number of goods than in Diablo 2, and those goods, along with all of your gold and your blacksmith and jeweler's levels are shared across all characters on your account, except for cross-server characters and Hardcore (perma-death mode) characters. Gold is still plentiful, but the gold sinks available will keep a gold-based economy reasonable for some time to come. The auction house works exceptionally well by filtering a large number of options, but very broad searches are a bit of a hassle. Given that the auction-house controls the in-game economy, bartering for items with other items is far less common now. Diablo 3 has not learned from Torchlight's system that allows you to send your pet/companion back to town to sell junk for you. Finally, it is simple to load up the final quest of an act and travel, via waypoint, right to the boss' doorstep for farming runs, but champion mobs and unique packs of enemies yield far better loot than bosses in this game, and a stacking buff granted by killing these packs of enemies makes the prospect of clearing an act, rather than repetitiously farming bosses, more enticing.
There. That was brief...wasn't it? *crickets*
While it's easy to ignore these glaring issues while wrapped up in the truly fun gameplay, the poor itemization, the lack of PvP, the wonky difficulty curve, the sloppily penned story, and the problematic launch are no less issues, and they undermine an otherwise remarkable game and tarnish what would be an experience otherwise filled with far more positives than negatives. Still, it's worth repeating that the game is fun, and that's why it can be so easy to get caught up in things and ignore the aforementioned flaws.
What the game does right may not absolve it of what it does wrong, but that cuts both ways.
So, does it live up to its predecessor? It pains me to say that it does not. It improves on Diablo 2's design in some ways, but fails in others. It is worth the money for its compelling fun-factor alone, but despite the fact that I will enjoy it for some time to come, I would be remiss not to also point out how much potential was squandered here.
6.5 / 10
 
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Excellent review. But you gave the game only 6.5 out of 10, how come? As far as I can tell you had a lot more positive stuff to say than negative. Apart from the story you sounded quite optimistic about the game.
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Pretty nice, although you reviewed virtually everything except the auction house. Some of the problems with loot can easily be addressed by spending a bit of time on the auction house. The ability to trade items is awesome; items that grew useless as a character leveled up or items that had the wrong +stats can now be sold off on the AH instead of languishing in a stash or sold for a crappy amount of (useless) gold to vendors. Some people absolutely love the AH; they’re probably spending more time playing the AH than playing the actual game.
You mentioned certain problems with the story in great detail without giving out too much of the plot. I think that some obvious parts that are missing (Adria) were intentionally left like that in order to facilitate an expansion. If you kill Diablo and the rest of the Prime Evils for good, tying up all the loose ends, then the series basically ends. The other plot hole that you mentioned about the black soulstone mysteriously containing the souls of all the seven evils: When you encountered the black soulstone, Adria mentioned that she went around collecting all the souls of the fallen demons after they’ve been defeated. How did she gain “access” to the black soulstone? Let’s attribute that to her “witch” powers =P
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On May 23 2012 04:29 surfinbird1 wrote:
Excellent review. But you gave the game only 6.5 out of 10, how come? As far as I can tell you had a lot more positive stuff to say than negative. Apart from the story you sounded quite optimistic about the game.
It's summed up at the end: problematic launch, the itemization is pretty poor (in stark contrast to the flexibility offered by the skill system), the lack of PvP, and the story. The less-than-smooth difficulty curve is a bit of a negative too, but not quite as significant an issue.
Scoring is always tricky because it's trying to precisely quantify a ton of words, in this case something 2,600, as a number. Sometimes, a game is very clearly bad and gets a 1-4, sometimes a game is clearly average or just slightly above average and deserves a 4-6, and sometimes a game is clearly good and deserves a 7-10. Sometimes a game is Diablo 3 and is deeply flawed in a number of ways, but still good at its core.
In this case, I felt like it was too good of a game to deserve a 4-5 denoting that it might be either bad or mediocre, but at the same time it has too many irredeemable problems to warrant a 7.
Another way of looking at it might be, "if these flaws didn't exist, what would I have given it? Take that, and start subtracting points until it feels balanced." Hardly a full proof method for determining what score a game 'deserves,' but then again the whole idea of a numbered score is kind of arbitrary anyway.
It's a weird discussion to have when you think about, but scoring is a convention that's hard to get away from in reviews (though I certainly didn't have to post the score along with the text, in retrospect). In any case, though, the short of it is has flaws that cut deep, but with that caveat that they tarnish some of the fun, but never completely ruin, therefore it gets lumped in with average/above average section of the scale even though it can certainly be argued that it is much better than just an above average game.
Thanks for reading.
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On May 23 2012 04:31 Heh_ wrote:
Pretty nice, although you reviewed virtually everything except the auction house. Some of the problems with loot can easily be addressed by spending a bit of time on the auction house. The ability to trade items is awesome; items that grew useless as a character leveled up or items that had the wrong +stats can now be sold off on the AH instead of languishing in a stash or sold for a crappy amount of (useless) gold to vendors. Some people absolutely love the AH; they’re probably spending more time playing the AH than playing the actual game.
You mentioned certain problems with the story in great detail without giving out too much of the plot. I think that some obvious parts that are missing (Adria) were intentionally left like that in order to facilitate an expansion. If you kill Diablo and the rest of the Prime Evils for good, tying up all the loose ends, then the series basically ends. The other plot hole that you mentioned about the black soulstone mysteriously containing the souls of all the seven evils: When you encountered the black soulstone, Adria mentioned that she went around collecting all the souls of the fallen demons after they’ve been defeated. How did she gain “access” to the black soulstone? Let’s attribute that to her “witch” powers =P
The auction house didn't strike me as being particularly remarkable, so I just mentioned my slight issues with broad searches being a hassle as opposed to the really specific ones that it excels at performing. My issue with items isn't their availability, though the drop rate on legendaries does strike me as being excessively low when compared to the drop rate of uniques in D2. My issue is the lack of choice and tradeoff when it comes to gearing a character. For my weapon slot, I'm looking almost exclusively at how high it's damage is, and beyond that the only thing I look for on any character is 1) A socket, 2) Main attribute (because each class gains 1% damage per point of their primary attribute; strength, dex, int), 3) Vita. There aren't really that many other stat modifers, and virtually none of them have a significant impact the way the ones listed do. That leads to the problem where a piece of gear is either just a straight upgrade or downgrade because it will either have more or less of all of the desired stats. In other words, there isn't any "Oh, this piece has +fire damage and damage reduction %, but it's got less faster cast rate and vita than what I have now. Do I need to cast as fast as I do? Is the tradeoff worth it." There simply needs to be a greater number of impactful stat mods in order to make gear more diverse.
I would love to have gone into greater detail about my story gripes, but the review was already 2,600 words (it was 3,500 before trimming >.<) and I didn't want to go too far into spoilers. With that said...
+ Show Spoiler +Yeah, leaving in sequel/expansion hooks is to be expected, but it very sloppily written. There was simply no reason for Leah being Diablo's daughter, nobody even mentioned Adria after she fucked off, not even an ominous word about how the person who unleashed Diablo onto the world again is still out there unchecked.
Furthermore, everyone clearly knows that if you kill a prime evil they will just come back. That's the entire reason why they had to imprison Meph and Diablo in soulstones and then destroy the soulstones at the Hellforge. That's also where the Black Soulstone plothole comes in, because their souls were supposedly gone for good, not to mention the fact that Duriel, Andy, and Baal were all killed before the black soulstone was activated, making it logically impossible for them to be trapped in it. I didn't catch the bit about Adria tagging the souls the first time, but even after I heard that bit it didn't sit right with me, particularly because of Diablo and Meph who shouldn't have been in the picture because of the Soulstone/Hellforge thing.
It seemed more like a copout because the writers painted themselves into a corner.
I'm still not clear on how Diablo still exists. Obviously they have to contrive a reason to bring him back for the game named after him, but the onus is on their writers to come up with a less plot hole ridden way of resurrecting him.
I'm not saying Diablo shouldn't have come back, or they shouldn't have left a few loose ends, but they handled things poorly, and failed to address the loose ends introduced 11 years ago at the end of LoD.
I'm struggling to remember some of my other issues with the story at the moment. Some other oddities: Why did Leah have to be his vessel? Because she is his daughter? That doesn't make any sense given his previous vessel. Also, it's awfully convenient that he would think so far ahead of time to impregnate a mortal for that purpose, assuming my previous thought is correct. Why is Belial, the lord of lies, so terrible at being sneaky and deceptive. Why in the hell is Izual back?
It took the Hellforge to destroy the soulstones, why is nobody concerned about the still-intact black soulstone given that it just felt to Earth? Again, I understand setting up a sequel/expansion hook, but for nobody to express concern about the thing that almost ended the world is both silly and inconsistent. All it would have taken would be a short sequence after Tyrael's ascension where he declares it prudent to find Adria and the black soulstone to ensure that it cannot be used again, followed by angels searching the site where the soulstone landed only to find that it's missing. Cut to black. Cliffhanger accomplished, characters have acted in a way that makes sense.
Also, here's an idea on how they could have killed two birds with one stone; patching up the major plothole I keep harping on while also making a Belial a much more menacing and clever character. The whole idea of the soulstones and the Hellforge in D2 was that the only way to vanquish a prime evil permanently was to imprison them in their soulstone and that shatter it at the forge. I think it's Tyrael who tells you this. Belial is the Lord of Lies, so it makes sense that back in D2, the Tyrael who gave you that advice was actually Belial in disguise. He could have directed you to destroy the stones with the knowledge that it would keep Meph's and Diablo's souls intact and available for use in a later scheme as opposed to being gone forever. Plothole dealt with, and Belial stays true to his namesake as being a master of deception with a long-term scheme.
It's a rough idea, and probably has its own issues, but I think the example does its job of showing how Blizzard could have handled some of its main story beats better.
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Saying that the wizard's system is similar to the WD's system betrays the fact that you haven't played both classes at a high level. The wizard's low pool-high regen plays totally differently from the WD just because they're both resources that come back my themselves doesnt equate them.
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On May 23 2012 05:16 Scribble wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2012 04:31 Heh_ wrote:
Pretty nice, although you reviewed virtually everything except the auction house. Some of the problems with loot can easily be addressed by spending a bit of time on the auction house. The ability to trade items is awesome; items that grew useless as a character leveled up or items that had the wrong +stats can now be sold off on the AH instead of languishing in a stash or sold for a crappy amount of (useless) gold to vendors. Some people absolutely love the AH; they’re probably spending more time playing the AH than playing the actual game.
You mentioned certain problems with the story in great detail without giving out too much of the plot. I think that some obvious parts that are missing (Adria) were intentionally left like that in order to facilitate an expansion. If you kill Diablo and the rest of the Prime Evils for good, tying up all the loose ends, then the series basically ends. The other plot hole that you mentioned about the black soulstone mysteriously containing the souls of all the seven evils: When you encountered the black soulstone, Adria mentioned that she went around collecting all the souls of the fallen demons after they’ve been defeated. How did she gain “access” to the black soulstone? Let’s attribute that to her “witch” powers =P The auction house didn't strike me as being particularly remarkable, so I just mentioned my slight issues with broad searches being a hassle as opposed to the really specific ones that it excels at performing. My issue with items isn't their availability, though the drop rate on legendaries does strike me as being excessively low when compared to the drop rate of uniques in D2. My issue is the lack of choice and tradeoff when it comes to gearing a character. For my weapon slot, I'm looking almost exclusively at how high it's damage is, and beyond that the only thing I look for on any character is 1) A socket, 2) Main attribute (because each class gains 1% damage per point of their primary attribute; strength, dex, int), 3) Vita. There aren't really that many other stat modifers, and virtually none of them have a significant impact the way the ones listed do. That leads to the problem where a piece of gear is either just a straight upgrade or downgrade because it will either have more or less of all of the desired stats. In other words, there isn't any "Oh, this piece has +fire damage and damage reduction %, but it's got less faster cast rate and vita than what I have now. Do I need to cast as fast as I do? Is the tradeoff worth it." There simply needs to be a greater number of impactful stat mods in order to make gear more diverse. I would love to have gone into greater detail about my story gripes, but the review was already 2,600 words (it was 3,500 before trimming >.<) and I didn't want to go too far into spoilers. With that said... + Show Spoiler +Yeah, leaving in sequel/expansion hooks is to be expected, but it very sloppily written. There was simply no reason for Leah being Diablo's daughter, nobody even mentioned Adria after she fucked off, not even an ominous word about how the person who unleashed Diablo onto the world again is still out there unchecked.
Furthermore, everyone clearly knows that if you kill a prime evil they will just come back. That's the entire reason why they had to imprison Meph and Diablo in soulstones and then destroy the soulstones at the Hellforge. That's also where the Black Soulstone plothole comes in, because their souls were supposedly gone for good, not to mention the fact that Duriel, Andy, and Baal were all killed before the black soulstone was activated, making it logically impossible for them to be trapped in it. I didn't catch the bit about Adria tagging the souls the first time, but even after I heard that bit it didn't sit right with me, particularly because of Diablo and Meph who shouldn't have been in the picture because of the Soulstone/Hellforge thing.
It seemed more like a copout because the writers painted themselves into a corner.
I'm still not clear on how Diablo still exists. Obviously they have to contrive a reason to bring him back for the game named after him, but the onus is on their writers to come up with a less plot hole ridden way of resurrecting him.
I'm not saying Diablo shouldn't have come back, or they shouldn't have left a few loose ends, but they handled things poorly, and failed to address the loose ends introduced 11 years ago at the end of LoD.
I'm struggling to remember some of my other issues with the story at the moment. Some other oddities: Why did Leah have to be his vessel? Because she is his daughter? That doesn't make any sense given his previous vessel. Also, it's awfully convenient that he would think so far ahead of time to impregnate a mortal for that purpose, assuming my previous thought is correct. Why is Belial, the lord of lies, so terrible at being sneaky and deceptive. Why in the hell is Izual back?
It took the Hellforge to destroy the soulstones, why is nobody concerned about the still-intact black soulstone given that it just felt to Earth? Again, I understand setting up a sequel/expansion hook, but for nobody to express concern about the thing that almost ended the world is both silly and inconsistent. All it would have taken would be a short sequence after Tyrael's ascension where he declares it prudent to find Adria and the black soulstone to ensure that it cannot be used again, followed by angels searching the site where the soulstone landed only to find that it's missing. Cut to black. Cliffhanger accomplished, characters have acted in a way that makes sense.
Also, here's an idea on how they could have killed two birds with one stone; patching up the major plothole I keep harping on while also making a Belial a much more menacing and clever character. The whole idea of the soulstones and the Hellforge in D2 was that the only way to vanquish a prime evil permanently was to imprison them in their soulstone and that shatter it at the forge. I think it's Tyrael who tells you this. Belial is the Lord of Lies, so it makes sense that back in D2, the Tyrael who gave you that advice was actually Belial in disguise. He could have directed you to destroy the stones with the knowledge that it would keep Meph's and Diablo's souls intact and available for use in a later scheme as opposed to being gone forever. Plothole dealt with, and Belial stays true to his namesake as being a master of deception with a long-term scheme.
It's a rough idea, and probably has its own issues, but I think the example does its job of showing how Blizzard could have handled some of its main story beats better.
The AH is massively good. You should really pay more attention to it. The interface is extremely clunky and finding items can be a chore, but it's not THAT difficult. I agree that the affix diversity kinda sucks though; when I was shopping for weapons on the AH, it didn't matter if the weapon added fire, poison or arcane damage. But then again, D2 (and its expansion) didn't have a ton of affixes either. LoD had the illusion of a lot of affixes because a bunch of them were died to uniques and rune words.
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On May 23 2012 05:20 m3rciless wrote:
Saying that the wizard's system is similar to the WD's system betrays the fact that you haven't played both classes at a high level. The wizard's low pool-high regen plays totally differently from the WD just because they're both resources that come back my themselves doesnt equate them.
Maybe you don't understand what similar means. Before you throw out accusations, look it up. I did not say they were the same, I said they weresimilar, which they are. All of the classes resource systems are similar to an extent, but the Wizard shares the greatest degree of commonality with the WD. You could probably also argue that it's more similar to the DH's hatred, but hatred is only half of the DH's resource mechanic. Like I said, though, they are all similar. The big difference is that the WD burns through his pool of resources less quickly (though he can empty it pretty quick if you really want to dump it) but regens less quickly making for a more steady stream of attacks, whereas the Wiz tends to blow her load quick and get it all back quick. She's using her big spells in a less consistent way, but they are still very similar in the way they play, and the way their resources work.
Again, the key word is similar.
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On May 23 2012 05:27 Heh_ wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2012 05:16 Scribble wrote:On May 23 2012 04:31 Heh_ wrote:
Pretty nice, although you reviewed virtually everything except the auction house. Some of the problems with loot can easily be addressed by spending a bit of time on the auction house. The ability to trade items is awesome; items that grew useless as a character leveled up or items that had the wrong +stats can now be sold off on the AH instead of languishing in a stash or sold for a crappy amount of (useless) gold to vendors. Some people absolutely love the AH; they’re probably spending more time playing the AH than playing the actual game.
You mentioned certain problems with the story in great detail without giving out too much of the plot. I think that some obvious parts that are missing (Adria) were intentionally left like that in order to facilitate an expansion. If you kill Diablo and the rest of the Prime Evils for good, tying up all the loose ends, then the series basically ends. The other plot hole that you mentioned about the black soulstone mysteriously containing the souls of all the seven evils: When you encountered the black soulstone, Adria mentioned that she went around collecting all the souls of the fallen demons after they’ve been defeated. How did she gain “access” to the black soulstone? Let’s attribute that to her “witch” powers =P The auction house didn't strike me as being particularly remarkable, so I just mentioned my slight issues with broad searches being a hassle as opposed to the really specific ones that it excels at performing. My issue with items isn't their availability, though the drop rate on legendaries does strike me as being excessively low when compared to the drop rate of uniques in D2. My issue is the lack of choice and tradeoff when it comes to gearing a character. For my weapon slot, I'm looking almost exclusively at how high it's damage is, and beyond that the only thing I look for on any character is 1) A socket, 2) Main attribute (because each class gains 1% damage per point of their primary attribute; strength, dex, int), 3) Vita. There aren't really that many other stat modifers, and virtually none of them have a significant impact the way the ones listed do. That leads to the problem where a piece of gear is either just a straight upgrade or downgrade because it will either have more or less of all of the desired stats. In other words, there isn't any "Oh, this piece has +fire damage and damage reduction %, but it's got less faster cast rate and vita than what I have now. Do I need to cast as fast as I do? Is the tradeoff worth it." There simply needs to be a greater number of impactful stat mods in order to make gear more diverse. I would love to have gone into greater detail about my story gripes, but the review was already 2,600 words (it was 3,500 before trimming >.<) and I didn't want to go too far into spoilers. With that said... + Show Spoiler +Yeah, leaving in sequel/expansion hooks is to be expected, but it very sloppily written. There was simply no reason for Leah being Diablo's daughter, nobody even mentioned Adria after she fucked off, not even an ominous word about how the person who unleashed Diablo onto the world again is still out there unchecked.
Furthermore, everyone clearly knows that if you kill a prime evil they will just come back. That's the entire reason why they had to imprison Meph and Diablo in soulstones and then destroy the soulstones at the Hellforge. That's also where the Black Soulstone plothole comes in, because their souls were supposedly gone for good, not to mention the fact that Duriel, Andy, and Baal were all killed before the black soulstone was activated, making it logically impossible for them to be trapped in it. I didn't catch the bit about Adria tagging the souls the first time, but even after I heard that bit it didn't sit right with me, particularly because of Diablo and Meph who shouldn't have been in the picture because of the Soulstone/Hellforge thing.
It seemed more like a copout because the writers painted themselves into a corner.
I'm still not clear on how Diablo still exists. Obviously they have to contrive a reason to bring him back for the game named after him, but the onus is on their writers to come up with a less plot hole ridden way of resurrecting him.
I'm not saying Diablo shouldn't have come back, or they shouldn't have left a few loose ends, but they handled things poorly, and failed to address the loose ends introduced 11 years ago at the end of LoD.
I'm struggling to remember some of my other issues with the story at the moment. Some other oddities: Why did Leah have to be his vessel? Because she is his daughter? That doesn't make any sense given his previous vessel. Also, it's awfully convenient that he would think so far ahead of time to impregnate a mortal for that purpose, assuming my previous thought is correct. Why is Belial, the lord of lies, so terrible at being sneaky and deceptive. Why in the hell is Izual back?
It took the Hellforge to destroy the soulstones, why is nobody concerned about the still-intact black soulstone given that it just felt to Earth? Again, I understand setting up a sequel/expansion hook, but for nobody to express concern about the thing that almost ended the world is both silly and inconsistent. All it would have taken would be a short sequence after Tyrael's ascension where he declares it prudent to find Adria and the black soulstone to ensure that it cannot be used again, followed by angels searching the site where the soulstone landed only to find that it's missing. Cut to black. Cliffhanger accomplished, characters have acted in a way that makes sense.
Also, here's an idea on how they could have killed two birds with one stone; patching up the major plothole I keep harping on while also making a Belial a much more menacing and clever character. The whole idea of the soulstones and the Hellforge in D2 was that the only way to vanquish a prime evil permanently was to imprison them in their soulstone and that shatter it at the forge. I think it's Tyrael who tells you this. Belial is the Lord of Lies, so it makes sense that back in D2, the Tyrael who gave you that advice was actually Belial in disguise. He could have directed you to destroy the stones with the knowledge that it would keep Meph's and Diablo's souls intact and available for use in a later scheme as opposed to being gone forever. Plothole dealt with, and Belial stays true to his namesake as being a master of deception with a long-term scheme.
It's a rough idea, and probably has its own issues, but I think the example does its job of showing how Blizzard could have handled some of its main story beats better. The AH is massively good. You should really pay more attention to it. The interface is extremely clunky and finding items can be a chore, but it's not THAT difficult. I agree that the affix diversity kinda sucks though; when I was shopping for weapons on the AH, it didn't matter if the weapon added fire, poison or arcane damage. But then again, D2 (and its expansion) didn't have a ton of affixes either. LoD had the illusion of a lot of affixes because a bunch of them were died to uniques and rune words.
Not sure where you're getting the impression that I think the AH is *that* hard to use. It does specific targeted searches really well, but it doesn't handle broad searches as well. That's about the extent of my problem with it.
D2 had about as many affixes, the difference being that D2's were more impactful. That's not counting things like Enigma, HotO, the claws that gave assassin's WW (the name is escaping me), or Widowmaker providing new abilities.
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On May 23 2012 05:41 Scribble wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2012 05:20 m3rciless wrote:
Saying that the wizard's system is similar to the WD's system betrays the fact that you haven't played both classes at a high level. The wizard's low pool-high regen plays totally differently from the WD just because they're both resources that come back my themselves doesnt equate them. Maybe you don't understand what similar means. Before you throw out accusations, look it up. I did not say they were the same, I said they were similar, which they are. All of the classes resource systems are similar to an extent, but the Wizard shares the greatest degree of commonality with the WD. You could probably also argue that it's more similar to the DH's hatred, but hatred is only half of the DH's resource mechanic. Like I said, though, they are all similar. The big difference is that the WD burns through his pool of resources less quickly (though he can empty it pretty quick if you really want to dump it) but regens less quickly making for a more steady stream of attacks, whereas the Wiz tends to blow her load quick and get it all back quick. She's using her big spells in a less consistent way, but they are still very similar in the way they play, and the way their resources work. Again, the key word is similar. Edit: Show nested quote +On May 23 2012 05:27 Heh_ wrote:On May 23 2012 05:16 Scribble wrote:On May 23 2012 04:31 Heh_ wrote:
Pretty nice, although you reviewed virtually everything except the auction house. Some of the problems with loot can easily be addressed by spending a bit of time on the auction house. The ability to trade items is awesome; items that grew useless as a character leveled up or items that had the wrong +stats can now be sold off on the AH instead of languishing in a stash or sold for a crappy amount of (useless) gold to vendors. Some people absolutely love the AH; they’re probably spending more time playing the AH than playing the actual game.
You mentioned certain problems with the story in great detail without giving out too much of the plot. I think that some obvious parts that are missing (Adria) were intentionally left like that in order to facilitate an expansion. If you kill Diablo and the rest of the Prime Evils for good, tying up all the loose ends, then the series basically ends. The other plot hole that you mentioned about the black soulstone mysteriously containing the souls of all the seven evils: When you encountered the black soulstone, Adria mentioned that she went around collecting all the souls of the fallen demons after they’ve been defeated. How did she gain “access” to the black soulstone? Let’s attribute that to her “witch” powers =P The auction house didn't strike me as being particularly remarkable, so I just mentioned my slight issues with broad searches being a hassle as opposed to the really specific ones that it excels at performing. My issue with items isn't their availability, though the drop rate on legendaries does strike me as being excessively low when compared to the drop rate of uniques in D2. My issue is the lack of choice and tradeoff when it comes to gearing a character. For my weapon slot, I'm looking almost exclusively at how high it's damage is, and beyond that the only thing I look for on any character is 1) A socket, 2) Main attribute (because each class gains 1% damage per point of their primary attribute; strength, dex, int), 3) Vita. There aren't really that many other stat modifers, and virtually none of them have a significant impact the way the ones listed do. That leads to the problem where a piece of gear is either just a straight upgrade or downgrade because it will either have more or less of all of the desired stats. In other words, there isn't any "Oh, this piece has +fire damage and damage reduction %, but it's got less faster cast rate and vita than what I have now. Do I need to cast as fast as I do? Is the tradeoff worth it." There simply needs to be a greater number of impactful stat mods in order to make gear more diverse. I would love to have gone into greater detail about my story gripes, but the review was already 2,600 words (it was 3,500 before trimming >.<) and I didn't want to go too far into spoilers. With that said... + Show Spoiler +Yeah, leaving in sequel/expansion hooks is to be expected, but it very sloppily written. There was simply no reason for Leah being Diablo's daughter, nobody even mentioned Adria after she fucked off, not even an ominous word about how the person who unleashed Diablo onto the world again is still out there unchecked.
Furthermore, everyone clearly knows that if you kill a prime evil they will just come back. That's the entire reason why they had to imprison Meph and Diablo in soulstones and then destroy the soulstones at the Hellforge. That's also where the Black Soulstone plothole comes in, because their souls were supposedly gone for good, not to mention the fact that Duriel, Andy, and Baal were all killed before the black soulstone was activated, making it logically impossible for them to be trapped in it. I didn't catch the bit about Adria tagging the souls the first time, but even after I heard that bit it didn't sit right with me, particularly because of Diablo and Meph who shouldn't have been in the picture because of the Soulstone/Hellforge thing.
It seemed more like a copout because the writers painted themselves into a corner.
I'm still not clear on how Diablo still exists. Obviously they have to contrive a reason to bring him back for the game named after him, but the onus is on their writers to come up with a less plot hole ridden way of resurrecting him.
I'm not saying Diablo shouldn't have come back, or they shouldn't have left a few loose ends, but they handled things poorly, and failed to address the loose ends introduced 11 years ago at the end of LoD.
I'm struggling to remember some of my other issues with the story at the moment. Some other oddities: Why did Leah have to be his vessel? Because she is his daughter? That doesn't make any sense given his previous vessel. Also, it's awfully convenient that he would think so far ahead of time to impregnate a mortal for that purpose, assuming my previous thought is correct. Why is Belial, the lord of lies, so terrible at being sneaky and deceptive. Why in the hell is Izual back?
It took the Hellforge to destroy the soulstones, why is nobody concerned about the still-intact black soulstone given that it just felt to Earth? Again, I understand setting up a sequel/expansion hook, but for nobody to express concern about the thing that almost ended the world is both silly and inconsistent. All it would have taken would be a short sequence after Tyrael's ascension where he declares it prudent to find Adria and the black soulstone to ensure that it cannot be used again, followed by angels searching the site where the soulstone landed only to find that it's missing. Cut to black. Cliffhanger accomplished, characters have acted in a way that makes sense.
Also, here's an idea on how they could have killed two birds with one stone; patching up the major plothole I keep harping on while also making a Belial a much more menacing and clever character. The whole idea of the soulstones and the Hellforge in D2 was that the only way to vanquish a prime evil permanently was to imprison them in their soulstone and that shatter it at the forge. I think it's Tyrael who tells you this. Belial is the Lord of Lies, so it makes sense that back in D2, the Tyrael who gave you that advice was actually Belial in disguise. He could have directed you to destroy the stones with the knowledge that it would keep Meph's and Diablo's souls intact and available for use in a later scheme as opposed to being gone forever. Plothole dealt with, and Belial stays true to his namesake as being a master of deception with a long-term scheme.
It's a rough idea, and probably has its own issues, but I think the example does its job of showing how Blizzard could have handled some of its main story beats better. The AH is massively good. You should really pay more attention to it. The interface is extremely clunky and finding items can be a chore, but it's not THAT difficult. I agree that the affix diversity kinda sucks though; when I was shopping for weapons on the AH, it didn't matter if the weapon added fire, poison or arcane damage. But then again, D2 (and its expansion) didn't have a ton of affixes either. LoD had the illusion of a lot of affixes because a bunch of them were died to uniques and rune words. Not sure where you're getting the impression that I think the AH is *that* hard to use. It does specific targeted searches really well, but it doesn't handle broad searches as well. That's about the extent of my problem with it.
I guess what I wrote was kinda different from what I was thinking. The first point is that I'm agreeing with you that the AH doesn't have the most well-designed interface, but also that it's not unredeemable. The second point is that you should pay more attention to the AH, it's pretty good.
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On May 23 2012 05:48 Heh_ wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2012 05:41 Scribble wrote:On May 23 2012 05:20 m3rciless wrote:
Saying that the wizard's system is similar to the WD's system betrays the fact that you haven't played both classes at a high level. The wizard's low pool-high regen plays totally differently from the WD just because they're both resources that come back my themselves doesnt equate them. Maybe you don't understand what similar means. Before you throw out accusations, look it up. I did not say they were the same, I said they were similar, which they are. All of the classes resource systems are similar to an extent, but the Wizard shares the greatest degree of commonality with the WD. You could probably also argue that it's more similar to the DH's hatred, but hatred is only half of the DH's resource mechanic. Like I said, though, they are all similar. The big difference is that the WD burns through his pool of resources less quickly (though he can empty it pretty quick if you really want to dump it) but regens less quickly making for a more steady stream of attacks, whereas the Wiz tends to blow her load quick and get it all back quick. She's using her big spells in a less consistent way, but they are still very similar in the way they play, and the way their resources work. Again, the key word is similar. Edit: On May 23 2012 05:27 Heh_ wrote:On May 23 2012 05:16 Scribble wrote:On May 23 2012 04:31 Heh_ wrote:
Pretty nice, although you reviewed virtually everything except the auction house. Some of the problems with loot can easily be addressed by spending a bit of time on the auction house. The ability to trade items is awesome; items that grew useless as a character leveled up or items that had the wrong +stats can now be sold off on the AH instead of languishing in a stash or sold for a crappy amount of (useless) gold to vendors. Some people absolutely love the AH; they’re probably spending more time playing the AH than playing the actual game.
You mentioned certain problems with the story in great detail without giving out too much of the plot. I think that some obvious parts that are missing (Adria) were intentionally left like that in order to facilitate an expansion. If you kill Diablo and the rest of the Prime Evils for good, tying up all the loose ends, then the series basically ends. The other plot hole that you mentioned about the black soulstone mysteriously containing the souls of all the seven evils: When you encountered the black soulstone, Adria mentioned that she went around collecting all the souls of the fallen demons after they’ve been defeated. How did she gain “access” to the black soulstone? Let’s attribute that to her “witch” powers =P The auction house didn't strike me as being particularly remarkable, so I just mentioned my slight issues with broad searches being a hassle as opposed to the really specific ones that it excels at performing. My issue with items isn't their availability, though the drop rate on legendaries does strike me as being excessively low when compared to the drop rate of uniques in D2. My issue is the lack of choice and tradeoff when it comes to gearing a character. For my weapon slot, I'm looking almost exclusively at how high it's damage is, and beyond that the only thing I look for on any character is 1) A socket, 2) Main attribute (because each class gains 1% damage per point of their primary attribute; strength, dex, int), 3) Vita. There aren't really that many other stat modifers, and virtually none of them have a significant impact the way the ones listed do. That leads to the problem where a piece of gear is either just a straight upgrade or downgrade because it will either have more or less of all of the desired stats. In other words, there isn't any "Oh, this piece has +fire damage and damage reduction %, but it's got less faster cast rate and vita than what I have now. Do I need to cast as fast as I do? Is the tradeoff worth it." There simply needs to be a greater number of impactful stat mods in order to make gear more diverse. I would love to have gone into greater detail about my story gripes, but the review was already 2,600 words (it was 3,500 before trimming >.<) and I didn't want to go too far into spoilers. With that said... + Show Spoiler +Yeah, leaving in sequel/expansion hooks is to be expected, but it very sloppily written. There was simply no reason for Leah being Diablo's daughter, nobody even mentioned Adria after she fucked off, not even an ominous word about how the person who unleashed Diablo onto the world again is still out there unchecked.
Furthermore, everyone clearly knows that if you kill a prime evil they will just come back. That's the entire reason why they had to imprison Meph and Diablo in soulstones and then destroy the soulstones at the Hellforge. That's also where the Black Soulstone plothole comes in, because their souls were supposedly gone for good, not to mention the fact that Duriel, Andy, and Baal were all killed before the black soulstone was activated, making it logically impossible for them to be trapped in it. I didn't catch the bit about Adria tagging the souls the first time, but even after I heard that bit it didn't sit right with me, particularly because of Diablo and Meph who shouldn't have been in the picture because of the Soulstone/Hellforge thing.
It seemed more like a copout because the writers painted themselves into a corner.
I'm still not clear on how Diablo still exists. Obviously they have to contrive a reason to bring him back for the game named after him, but the onus is on their writers to come up with a less plot hole ridden way of resurrecting him.
I'm not saying Diablo shouldn't have come back, or they shouldn't have left a few loose ends, but they handled things poorly, and failed to address the loose ends introduced 11 years ago at the end of LoD.
I'm struggling to remember some of my other issues with the story at the moment. Some other oddities: Why did Leah have to be his vessel? Because she is his daughter? That doesn't make any sense given his previous vessel. Also, it's awfully convenient that he would think so far ahead of time to impregnate a mortal for that purpose, assuming my previous thought is correct. Why is Belial, the lord of lies, so terrible at being sneaky and deceptive. Why in the hell is Izual back?
It took the Hellforge to destroy the soulstones, why is nobody concerned about the still-intact black soulstone given that it just felt to Earth? Again, I understand setting up a sequel/expansion hook, but for nobody to express concern about the thing that almost ended the world is both silly and inconsistent. All it would have taken would be a short sequence after Tyrael's ascension where he declares it prudent to find Adria and the black soulstone to ensure that it cannot be used again, followed by angels searching the site where the soulstone landed only to find that it's missing. Cut to black. Cliffhanger accomplished, characters have acted in a way that makes sense.
Also, here's an idea on how they could have killed two birds with one stone; patching up the major plothole I keep harping on while also making a Belial a much more menacing and clever character. The whole idea of the soulstones and the Hellforge in D2 was that the only way to vanquish a prime evil permanently was to imprison them in their soulstone and that shatter it at the forge. I think it's Tyrael who tells you this. Belial is the Lord of Lies, so it makes sense that back in D2, the Tyrael who gave you that advice was actually Belial in disguise. He could have directed you to destroy the stones with the knowledge that it would keep Meph's and Diablo's souls intact and available for use in a later scheme as opposed to being gone forever. Plothole dealt with, and Belial stays true to his namesake as being a master of deception with a long-term scheme.
It's a rough idea, and probably has its own issues, but I think the example does its job of showing how Blizzard could have handled some of its main story beats better. The AH is massively good. You should really pay more attention to it. The interface is extremely clunky and finding items can be a chore, but it's not THAT difficult. I agree that the affix diversity kinda sucks though; when I was shopping for weapons on the AH, it didn't matter if the weapon added fire, poison or arcane damage. But then again, D2 (and its expansion) didn't have a ton of affixes either. LoD had the illusion of a lot of affixes because a bunch of them were died to uniques and rune words. Not sure where you're getting the impression that I think the AH is *that* hard to use. It does specific targeted searches really well, but it doesn't handle broad searches as well. That's about the extent of my problem with it. I guess what I wrote was kinda different from what I was thinking. The first point is that I'm agreeing with you that the AH doesn't have the most well-designed interface, but also that it's not unredeemable. The second point is that you should pay more attention to the AH, it's pretty good.
Oh. I already do. It's a way better method of gearing up (unfortunately) than hoping anything decent ever drops.
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Ouch. I expected something like a 7.5 or 8 after reading the review, guess not haha. One thing that has been quite strange to me in regards to items is how insanely good some of the plain magic items are. In d2 you would very very very rarely pick a magic over a rare, but here it's not that uncommon to see a blue as strong as a legendary. The actual game play i think is pretty cool, but I think D3 gets such a bad rap for how poorly the lore was done ):
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6.5? Must not be a fan of the series or understand how games are developed after reading your review.
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Very nice review. Except the score. Oh god, why is there a score?
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So a simple question:
Will you revisit this review and where deemed neccesary edit it once PVP is launched?
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On May 23 2012 08:25 k1mjee wrote:
6.5? Must not be a fan of the series or understand how games are developed after reading your review.
That's the impression you get from me pointing out that there are flaws? Sorry, you can love something while still acknowledging that there are problems with it. Also, I have a hard time believing you actually read the text if you think I don't love the series.
Nice strawman. Strawmen actually.
On May 23 2012 09:07 Ryhzuo wrote:
Very nice review. Except the score. Oh god, why is there a score?
Read above. As somebody who writes reviews for a living/hobby when not otherwise employed, it's a hard convention to get away from, and something I'm just used to adding. Not sure why it's a big deal given that I've already justified it within the review itself and other posts. It's an extremely
On May 23 2012 09:34 Aelonius wrote:
So a simple question:
Will you revisit this review and where deemed neccesary edit it once PVP is launched?
I wouldn't be opposed to doing a followup post when it happens, or if it launches with the expansion I'll definitely review that, but I don't believe in changing reviews well after launch unless I've said some that was, at the time the review was published, factually incorrect to the point where it invalidates my opinion.
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I love the game, and I love the series even more than just this 1 entry in it, but I also believe in actually calling out major flaws instead of living in IGN-land where ever half-decent blockbuster is an 8 or better, and if it is a 7 or below it's awful. If you don't see the flaw, or it weighs less heavily on your impression of the game, awesome. Ideally, Diablo 3 wouldn't have these problems and I could give it a better score and have no cognitive dissonance about whether a stupid arbitrary number sums up my thoughts on how well the game lives up to its potential.
So, does it live up to its predecessor? It pains me to say that it does not. It improves on Diablo 2's design in some ways, but fails in others. It is worth the money for its compelling fun-factor alone, but despite the fact that I will enjoy it for some time to come, I would be remiss not to also point out how much potential was squandered here.
That's the last I'll say about scores, because that is always the least interesting part of any review discussion.
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Excellent review. Seems like a lot of true D2 players are catching up to these setbacks of D3.
However, don't forget that D2 started out very bare and uninteresting.. ver 1.00.. then 1.03 - 1.05 where the rare items were much much better than uniques, remember Carrion Song bow?
Then comes 1.08... cow runs, javalin zons, nova sorcs and the birth of usable/sought-after unique items like strings of ear belt etc..Then 1.09 - 1.10 was the influx of new and powerful unique items, and even set items.. runewords.. crafting.. charms, anni, bla bla 1.11.. additional items.
Look at how much have changed in D2 from 1.00 to the current state? It IS a new game.
To be honest, I am really disappointed with D3 right now. Coming from D2 which I played since ver 1.03, D3 is like a huge downgrade in terms of itemization, game mechanics, replay value (boss runs, MF runs, PVP, so much more..)
BUT... I am optimistic about this game. I am sure, like D2, this game will evolve through the patches and versions to be another of history's greatest game yet.
I will continue to play this game as this is still at a very early stage of development. This game isn't complete. It is not in the matured stage like D2 is.
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EPT
