Blizzard to announce something at PAX - Page 16

On March 02 2013 07:48 Meatloaf wrote:


for the better ? D3 was a pointless grind and left out a big part of the original diablo game that was choices to make your char... they oversimplified the game to the point that its a mindless grind to get better and better gear , and oh yeah you have RMAH woot! lets go grind moar bc there is no point in making another barb if i have one already...

On March 13 2013 23:32 Locke- wrote:
Blizzard Allstars in StarCraft...

On March 13 2013 23:39 Crownlol wrote:



I have a theory about that, too.

See, at first announcement of the MOBA, I don't believe that Blizz really thought MOBAs would be *that* popular. At the time, SC2 was still the undisputed king of esports.

However, with the recent explosion of LoL, Blizz might have realized what a lucrative market MOBAs are (whether the genre will die with LoL is debatable). Noting this tasty new market, they may have called a meeting and decided that instead of providing a fun minigame for people who already own SC2, they should put a full team on this new MOBA idea and release it as a separate game.

This explains why we've heard literally nothing about All Stars for so long- they're completely redoing the original idea, and giving it a full treatment.

Thus, the big reveal at PAX will be a standalone MOBA on a gorgeous engine, with the smooth, fast controls of HotS and shiny graphics, plus neat new physics. This announce will indicate a beta playable within 6 months.

On March 11 2013 22:05 Martijn wrote:


No skilltrees, game design experts called it a huge leap. Sirlin did a write up; http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/5/3/diablo-3s-ability-system.html

On March 13 2013 23:48 Manit0u wrote:


All is cool and dandy, if it actually mattered. First of all, you could do just fine in D2 by not using "the only true build". I know a guy who put 1 point into every skill on every tree and had loads of fun. Not everyone is hardcore competitive player you know. Sure D2's system was flawed (as was entirety of D2 compared to D1, but that's another story entirely) but no one cared and a ton of people were playing it for years both on battle.net and single-player/LAN.

Now, let's go the other way around and compare D3's UI/skills to D1. In D1 each class had exactly 1 skill, you couldn't improve it so no worries there. The stat points were there, but what was the most important were the limits (different for each class) so you couldn't just dump everything into vitality as in D2 and the big red + button served more as a progress indicator than anything else. Then you got the excellent system of learning and improving spells through books, which was tied to your intelligence stat, giving your warriors and rogues additional tools and at the same time leaving mages on top of that because they could get all those spells to much much higher levels.

All in all, it wasn't a "build your character" game. What was important there was hacking and slashing (and blasting) the monsters, which this games should be all about and both D2 and D3 have kind of lost their focus there.

There is a reason why I'm still playing D1 (just running around solo, hacking and slashing) and not D2 or D3, which I tried and abandoned (D3 after a week, D2 provided more entertainment).

On March 13 2013 23:48 Manit0u wrote:


All is cool and dandy, if it actually mattered. First of all, you could do just fine in D2 by not using "the only true build". I know a guy who put 1 point into every skill on every tree and had loads of fun. Not everyone is hardcore competitive player you know. Sure D2's system was flawed (as was entirety of D2 compared to D1, but that's another story entirely) but no one cared and a ton of people were playing it for years both on battle.net and single-player/LAN.

Now, let's go the other way around and compare D3's UI/skills to D1. In D1 each class had exactly 1 skill, you couldn't improve it so no worries there. The stat points were there, but what was the most important were the limits (different for each class) so you couldn't just dump everything into vitality as in D2 and the big red + button served more as a progress indicator than anything else. Then you got the excellent system of learning and improving spells through books, which was tied to your intelligence stat, giving your warriors and rogues additional tools and at the same time leaving mages on top of that because they could get all those spells to much much higher levels.

All in all, it wasn't a "build your character" game. What was important there was hacking and slashing (and blasting) the monsters, which this games should be all about and both D2 and D3 have kind of lost their focus there.

There is a reason why I'm still playing D1 (just running around solo, hacking and slashing) and not D2 or D3, which I tried and abandoned (D3 after a week, D2 provided more entertainment).

On March 14 2013 00:10 andrewlt wrote:
I loved D1. It was the deepest, most tactical game in the entire series. In order to play D1 well, a player had to utilize the environment to their advantage. Warriors used doorways, chokes and other impediments to reduce the number of monsters they have to fight at any single time. Rogues and sorcerers did the same thing to kite better or shoot monsters at range with impunity. Warriors also used said impediments to corner ranged attackers like succubi who loved to run away.

D2 introduced so much dumb stuff like acid pools, reviving monsters and all sorts of other crap. It balanced that out by letting players get to ludicrously fast run speeds with gear. The result was drastically changing narrow corridors from being a player advantage to a huge monster advantage. Conversely, the run speeds changed open fields from monster advantage to player advantage. People just ran around like Sonic the Hedgehog while button mashing their skills.

D3 lowered the maximum run speed that can be attainable through gear. But there are still plenty of abilities like arcane enchanted, desecrator and plagued. It still has D2's balance where narrow corridors is a monster advantage and wide open fields is a player advantage.

On March 14 2013 04:49 Slaughter wrote:
A new MMO: Eve Online but using the Starcraft universe. With less menu screens and with more on planet stuff.

On March 13 2013 23:39 Crownlol wrote:



I have a theory about that, too.

See, at first announcement of the MOBA, I don't believe that Blizz really thought MOBAs would be *that* popular. At the time, SC2 was still the undisputed king of esports.

However, with the recent explosion of LoL, Blizz might have realized what a lucrative market MOBAs are (whether the genre will die with LoL is debatable). Noting this tasty new market, they may have called a meeting and decided that instead of providing a fun minigame for people who already own SC2, they should put a full team on this new MOBA idea and release it as a separate game.

This explains why we've heard literally nothing about All Stars for so long- they're completely redoing the original idea, and giving it a full treatment.

Thus, the big reveal at PAX will be a standalone MOBA on a gorgeous engine, with the smooth, fast controls of HotS and shiny graphics, plus neat new physics. This announce will indicate a beta playable within 6 months.

On March 14 2013 04:49 Slaughter wrote:
A new MMO: Eve Online but using the Starcraft universe. With less menu screens and with more on planet stuff.

On March 13 2013 23:39 Crownlol wrote:



I have a theory about that, too.

See, at first announcement of the MOBA, I don't believe that Blizz really thought MOBAs would be *that* popular. At the time, SC2 was still the undisputed king of esports.

However, with the recent explosion of LoL, Blizz might have realized what a lucrative market MOBAs are (whether the genre will die with LoL is debatable). Noting this tasty new market, they may have called a meeting and decided that instead of providing a fun minigame for people who already own SC2, they should put a full team on this new MOBA idea and release it as a separate game.

This explains why we've heard literally nothing about All Stars for so long- they're completely redoing the original idea, and giving it a full treatment.

Thus, the big reveal at PAX will be a standalone MOBA on a gorgeous engine, with the smooth, fast controls of HotS and shiny graphics, plus neat new physics. This announce will indicate a beta playable within 6 months.

On March 13 2013 23:48 Manit0u wrote:


All is cool and dandy, if it actually mattered. First of all, you could do just fine in D2 by not using "the only true build". I know a guy who put 1 point into every skill on every tree and had loads of fun. Not everyone is hardcore competitive player you know. Sure D2's system was flawed (as was entirety of D2 compared to D1, but that's another story entirely) but no one cared and a ton of people were playing it for years both on battle.net and single-player/LAN.

Now, let's go the other way around and compare D3's UI/skills to D1. In D1 each class had exactly 1 skill, you couldn't improve it so no worries there. The stat points were there, but what was the most important were the limits (different for each class) so you couldn't just dump everything into vitality as in D2 and the big red + button served more as a progress indicator than anything else. Then you got the excellent system of learning and improving spells through books, which was tied to your intelligence stat, giving your warriors and rogues additional tools and at the same time leaving mages on top of that because they could get all those spells to much much higher levels.

All in all, it wasn't a "build your character" game. What was important there was hacking and slashing (and blasting) the monsters, which this games should be all about and both D2 and D3 have kind of lost their focus there.

There is a reason why I'm still playing D1 (just running around solo, hacking and slashing) and not D2 or D3, which I tried and abandoned (D3 after a week, D2 provided more entertainment).

On March 14 2013 00:04 paralleluniverse wrote:

It doesn't work like that unless the game is easy as shit and completely offline. If the game is hard, like D3 inferno at launch, or if it's competitive (optimizing farming, making money on the AH), then people demand efficiency and you're argument about people being able to do what they like is not correct. It's not viable, it punishes noobs who don't look up internet guides, and it's completely out-of-touch with how people actually play the game.

If you think about this objectively, instead of clinging to old and failed designs, like the D2 skill system, you'll see that D3 skill system is far superior and offers more meaningful and real choices than D2 could.