Games Discussion & Community Multiplayer Matches

[dolynick]

So it looks like Diablo III has a firm release date now.  May 15th.  Unless you live in Russia or Latin America, then it's June 7th.

$59.99 for the basic retail version.  There is also a $99.99 collector's edition that looks to be similar to the Starcraft II collector's edition boxed set.

The game seems to be launching without the PvP Arena that was talked about as a feature.  Sounds like they may or may not add that in the future.  Personally, I don't care if they do or not.

Blizzard Press Release

-dolynick

[Egglick]

Yeah.  I don't pay $59 for anything, so they can get bent.  Seeing as how Blizzard prices don't really drop, I'll be playing this in about 3 years.

[jwhx]

Ewwwww.....$60? Screw that. There's very few games i'll pay $50 for but none I'll pay an extra $10 to get my hands on. Looks like I'll wait for D3 to go on sale much like what i'm doing with ME3.

[astriir1]

If that's the box price why do they need dem' cash shops?

[dolynick]

Haha. Because Blizzard is used to having a cash generating cow now? After years of WoW's massive, ongoing subscription income, I'm betting that everything they release from now on will have something in it that will generate "ongoing" revenue for them.

And I agree, I'd much rather have seen a $50 price point like other PC games. Of course, Blizzard knows they can charge the extra and get away with it due to the massive popularity of the first two games. I used to like Blizzard but I don't have much faith in them or their "shining" reputation anymore. Still, it's been a long time coming for d3 and I'm not going to lie and say I will be interested in seeing how the new game has turned out.

-dolynick

[astriir1]

I think they decimated this franchise for previous fans. We'll see when it releases, but since they tasted pure success I doubt they'll revert back to a decent model.

[dryfter_09_19]

Holy hell. I thought that said MARCH 15th. I got so excited...

[sqitso]

I am willing to bet money that Diablo III will be the most pirated game in PC history. After what people have seen.. and the dissappointment that the public has shown for the new style.. I do not believe hardly anyone is actually gonna pay for it.

[Egglick]

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sqitso wrote:

I am willing to bet money that Diablo III will be the most pirated game in PC history. After what people have seen.. and the dissappointment that the public has shown for the new style.. I do not believe hardly anyone is actually gonna pay for it.

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Highly pirated?  I'm sure.  Nobody will pay for it?  I doubt that.  This will be one of the best RETAIL selling PC games in quite some time.  Since retail is the only thing that dumbass out-of-touch old man executives can understand, Diablo III will be on the shelves of most Best Buys and even Walmart. 

What does that mean for you and I?  Well, for starters, this game isn't dropping in price from $59 for a long long time.  Secondly, I'm predicting that an unusually high number of non-PC gamers will be buying low and lower-midrange graphics cards in an attempt to play this. Maybe not waves of people, but it will be noteworthy if you looked at statistics afterward.  Prices of cards in that range may reflect the higher demand.

Of course, people can't go too overboard with the cards, because that would require a PSU upgrade in their Dell.  Something like a 7750 would be about tops, and most of them will be buying <100 garbage.  And then getting mad and confused because it had 2GB of video RAM, reinforcing their aversion to PC gaming.

[sqitso]

^^ I don't know if I agree that people will actually upgrade.. from what I have seen and a huge MMO player.. most idiot PC gamers "The ones we are referring too that don't know a damn thing about computers".. Just run the game. Like in WoW.. I have seen countless players that had no idea what good graphics are. The people fire up games on their crappy laptops and 5 year old PCs.. get 10fps and figure that is just how it's supposed to be and play the game. I'm serious.. the idea of upgrading doesn't cross the mind of the majority of people who by Dells and other Walmart specials.  I know that idea is crazy to anyone reading this forum.. but it's true. For some reason they think that all PCs are created equal.. there is a small percentage that think different... and most of them aren't actually thinking for themselves.. The ad they just read in an email or magazine says the computer is "better" than another one.. so that is the one they bought.

[Egglick]

^^  Yes, most people are morons; that's a given.  Still, a percentage of people I know would/will give it a shot.  Most of my close friends would ask me, but the others would go to Best Buy or Frys and buy something in the $70-120 range with the most memory.  At best, they might make sure it's from the current or previous generation of cards.  When I was in Best Buy a couple months ago, they still had ATI 9200's on the shelf from over 10 years ago.  That's borderline robbery.  Someone, somewhere deserves a swift kick in the nuts.

Even so, I'm still sticking to my guns that there will be a noticable uptick in low-end graphics card sales, and a modest improvement in lower-midrange cards.  If they put the sales figures in front of you, you'd be able to see it.

[FiSH]

I understand that the game will eventually be released on consoles, which is how I would prefer to play this style of game. Unless the PC version supports the 360 controller, I'll wait. I imagine the UI will be need to be simplified for consoles.

[dolynick]

I can't help it Fish, but everytime you say that (in regards to this game), it makes my brain hurt. Lol.

-dolynick

[sqitso]

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Egglick wrote:

^^  Yes, most people are morons; that's a given.  Still, a percentage of people I know would/will give it a shot.  Most of my close friends would ask me, but the others would go to Best Buy or Frys and buy something in the $70-120 range with the most memory.  At best, they might make sure it's from the current or previous generation of cards.  When I was in Best Buy a couple months ago, they still had ATI 9200's on the shelf from over 10 years ago.  That's borderline robbery.  Someone, somewhere deserves a swift kick in the nuts.

Even so, I'm still sticking to my guns that there will be a noticable uptick in low-end graphics card sales, and a modest improvement in lower-midrange cards.  If they put the sales figures in front of you, you'd be able to see it.

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Ugg.. the you mentioned Best Buy in rehards to upgrades.. that stung a bit. Best Buy is the closest thing I have to an electronics store here. My God! Have you ever seen the selection of video cards Best Buy offers? It's atrocious. They offer cards that have shit tons of ram.. but are some oddball ass chipset you never heard of. Or they offer something like a GTZ 581x w 2.5GB of ram "Hypothetical but you get my drift". The card looks like something badass.. and unless you know what you are doing.. some nimrod would buy that card just because it's naming structure looks similar and it has a bunch of ram. To make things worse they include very cool games in these shit cards to make the sale even easier on the idiot buyer.

Then you have the educated shopper who gets screwed at best buy because they usually don't keep any, or a very small amount of high end cards. The reason I say this sucks.. is I ask for stuff I can't afford for birthday gifts and christmas.. if the people buying can't walk into a store and buy it.. then I don't get it. Same with anyone else who wants a gift like that

[FiSH]

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dolynick wrote:
I can't help it Fish, but everytime you say that (in regards to this game), it makes my brain hurt. Lol.

-dolynick

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Clicking an area on the screen for your character to move to verses having full control?  It's a no brainer.  Blizzard feels the same way.  

[jacobvandy]

It's not just about moving though, there are so many things you click on, there's no way to have the same style of gameplay without a cursor.

[Natedog51]

With the 360 keypad those can all be mapped easily.

[jacobvandy]

You can't map "attack this guy, but not that one or that one" to a button... At best you can have some target selection thing that lets you cycle through enemies, but that's very cumbersome. There's no way in hell you will be playing Nightmare mode with a gamepad, sorry.

[Natedog51]

Right Trigger + left analog pad............... Or the Madden games use just a button (X on PS3) to cycle through players on the field to play as. I don't know about you but I can cycle pretty damned fast if I have to...plus I don't want to play the game on nightmare mode. That just sounds like an assbeating waiting to happen, and not in a good way

I do understand where you are coming from. I can't play FPS games on consoles because of their stupid trigger/stick firing system. I really do need a mouse and keyboard and the mouse/keyboarders on console usually clean up too.

[jacobvandy]

Okay, but that would be a directional thing, you wouldn't be able to target things effectively unless they were all neatly lined up around you. How do you choose to target the mage in the back while you're surrounded by melee? Or if you're cycling through them, is the game going to be paused? Because otherwise, you won't be able to do that fast enough on anything but the easiest difficulty where you are never in danger.

I have to question your experience with the action-RPG genre if you think a gamepad would work well at all. UNLESS they drastically change the gameplay, which is what happened with Dungeon Siege 3, and I know Fish loved that. I even agree that the gamepad worked better with that game (mostly because they did a terrible job with the KB/M controls), but it is nowhere near the same type of game as Dungeon Siege 1 or 2, Diablo 1 or 2, Titan Quest, etc.

[dolynick]

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FiSH wrote:

Clicking an area on the screen for your character to move to verses having full control?  It's a no brainer.  Blizzard feels the same way.  

---

Lol.  No brainer my ass.

It's not about movement.  It's about targetting, as Jacob has already pointed out.  I shudder to think of having to somehow cycle through targets or having to get "lined up" with what I happen to want to attack/pick up/use.  I don't really have a problem with having optional keys (WASD?) for direct movement but losing the mouse for selection/attack would be completely destructive to the gameplay of Diablo and/or this style of action-RPG.  Movement in combat has never been a primary issue in Diablo anyways... There is a little dodging but it's fairly simple and can be done easy enough with the mouse.  This isn't a 3rd person action game like Darksiders or God of War.  It's a top-down/isometric RPG style.

I know that Diablo has always been regarded as a "clickfest", and in some sense it is true.  I have to question though if those who label it so and wonder if they've actually spent much time with the game.  The majority of the constant clicking is easily avoided with a simple press and hold of the mouse button if you so desire.  You just have to be on the ball to re-click-and-hold on a new target once the old dies if you go that route.  Movement is even easier, just click-and-hold and you'll run/walk forever... and moving the cursor even changes direction based on it's position relative to your character on screen.

So sure, go ahead and add directional keys but I can't see how anyone who's spent a lot of time with Diablo and it's type are going to see how making a controller somehow work anywhere near as well as the mouse is even possible.  Hell, they can even add controller support and offer the option but they better keep the far superior and intuitive classic control style as well.

-dolynick

[Natedog51]

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jacobvandy wrote:
Okay, but that would be a directional thing, you wouldn't be able to target things effectively unless they were all neatly lined up around you. How do you choose to target the mage in the back while you're surrounded by melee? Or if you're cycling through them, is the game going to be paused? Because otherwise, you won't be able to do that fast enough on anything but the easiest difficulty where you are never in danger.

I have to question your experience with the action-RPG genre if you think a gamepad would work well at all. UNLESS they drastically change the gameplay, which is what happened with Dungeon Siege 3, and I know Fish loved that. I even agree that the gamepad worked better with that game (mostly because they did a terrible job with the KB/M controls), but it is nowhere near the same type of game as Dungeon Siege 1 or 2, Diablo 1 or 2, Titan Quest, etc.

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Haha, I question my experience too!! "Was that game an action-RPG? Or something else? I'm not sure."

Seriously though, it might not be perfect but I bet they could pull it off well enough to satisfy all but the Jacob Vandy's of the world. I'd set up targeting macros for the mage thing, btw.

[dolynick]

The Jacob Vandy's of the world isn't even relatvent. Diablo has a control scheme more in common with an RTS than anything else. I'm sure it can be done, as there have been RTS' for consoles but I'm not aware of any case where it was deemed in any way equal or superior to having a mouse.

-dolynick

[astriir1]

I could not play Diablo III without point and click movement. This is all hypothetical, because that game can burn in hell as far as I'm concerned, but it just isn't simply THAT type of franchise. I would be shocked if they alienated the third diablo in that way.

[FiSH]

I'd like to give the game a try with the kb/m controls. I may very well like that better. I just envision using a 360 controller because of the top down nature of the game. It appears that a lot would have to change for the controller were to work effectively.

I just watched a YouTube vid with some guy playing it with the 360 controller mapped out using Xpadder, which I have. He was essentially using the controller to move the cursor around and it looked to be totally ineffective. It would take a console version adapted to utilize a gamepad for character movement and cycling through targets, which is why the controller hasn't been made to work with the PC version. I'd just like to play a demo of the game so I can decide if I like the kb/m controls.

[jacobvandy]

If you sign up for the beta, you'll probably get in. Just about everybody has by now, and it lets you play the first 1-2 hours of the game with any class. I wouldn't be surprised if they release it as a demo later on, actually.

[dryfter_09_19]

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jacobvandy wrote:
If you sign up for the beta, you'll probably get in. Just about everybody has by now, and it lets you play the first 1-2 hours of the game with any class. I wouldn't be surprised if they release it as a demo later on, actually.

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Just as a correction (at least it's longer for me), you get to play through the first act. I'm pretty sure it's longer than 1-2 hours, though I haven't played it in a while. I want to say it was closer to 5+ hours. Or maybe I play really slow. I was clearing out EVERY area.

[ZeroGuardian]

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jacobvandy wrote:
If you sign up for the beta, you'll probably get in. Just about everybody has by now, and it lets you play the first 1-2 hours of the game with any class. I wouldn't be surprised if they release it as a demo later on, actually.

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Apparently not... I still haven't gotten my invite...

[jacobvandy]

It's not that great, you'll just get blue balls, lol. But I mean, it would let Fish try the controls for free.

[dolynick]

Lol. I have always said that Blizzard is just a big tease...

-dolynick

[Egglick]

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dolynick wrote:

 

I know that Diablo has always been regarded as a "clickfest", and in some sense it is true.  I have to question though if those who label it so and wonder if they've actually spent much time with the game.  The majority of the constant clicking is easily avoided with a simple press and hold of the mouse button if you so desire.  You just have to be on the ball to re-click-and-hold on a new target once the old dies if you go that route.  Movement is even easier, just click-and-hold and you'll run/walk forever... and moving the cursor even changes direction based on it's position relative to your character on screen.

So sure, go ahead and add directional keys but I can't see how anyone who's spent a lot of time with Diablo and it's type are going to see how making a controller somehow work anywhere near as well as the mouse is even possible.  Hell, they can even add controller support and offer the option but they better keep the far superior and intuitive classic control style as well.

-dolynick

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I dunno Doly.  I spent many solid months of my youth on these games (that's not really something to be proud of), and as such, I think your memory might be hazy.  Not every character in the game is a melee-based barbarian.  I challenge you to try playing with a ranged character (arrows, magic attacks) without turning into a clickfest.  

That said, I agree with everything you said about gamepads.  I'd just like to see Blizzard make some fundamental improvements to the KB&M controls.  For instance, maybe a sort of configurable auto-target feature for ranged attacks, but with an easy manual override.  By configurable, I mean you could tell it to attack weakest targets first, strongest targets first, closest targets first, etc.

[Natedog51]

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ZeroGuardian wrote:

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jacobvandy wrote:
If you sign up for the beta, you'll probably get in. Just about everybody has by now, and it lets you play the first 1-2 hours of the game with any class. I wouldn't be surprised if they release it as a demo later on, actually.

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Apparently not... I still haven't gotten my invite...

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You want mine? I got two.....

[ZeroGuardian]

If you don't need it, I'll take it.

[FiSH]

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Natedog51 wrote:

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ZeroGuardian wrote:

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jacobvandy wrote:
If you sign up for the beta, you'll probably get in. Just about everybody has by now, and it lets you play the first 1-2 hours of the game with any class. I wouldn't be surprised if they release it as a demo later on, actually.

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Apparently not... I still haven't gotten my invite...

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You want mine? I got two.....

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If you're not using the second one, I'll take it.

[Natedog51]

If you guys know how to get them unlinked from my battle.net accounts I will gladly send them to you two.

[dryfter_09_19]

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Natedog51 wrote:

If you guys know how to get them unlinked from my battle.net accounts I will gladly send them to you two.

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Not possible to my knowledge. You "could" attach an authenticator to your second account (like a wow one) and then just give them you're password (or change that to something simpler). You need the authentication code to go into the account management, but you don't need it to get into D3.

Pretty much they'll have half the peice of the puzzle to do anything important. It probably goes against the EULA, but it works....

[Egglick]

On the subject of Battle.net, I went and signed up last night.  It felt very awkward; kinda hard to explain.  A little like "signing up" to go do something at my old high school.  Anyhow, I had the numbers in a text file, so I registered my old copy of Diablo II and LOD.  Also my original Starcraft   That allowed me to register for the Beta.  We'll see how it goes.