Hammeroj said:
A) First you fail to see how they made it any more like WoW, then you fail to see how borrowing from WoW is ruining the game. Someone's losing ground here. The changes are simple, and are easy to discern by 3 things. First, the models of the game are uncharacteristically blocky when viewed alongside the series' previous incarnations.
I'm afraid I have to throw my two cents in here. As someone who has played the original Diablo 2, Lord of Destruction, and a few Diablo 2 mods here and there, I can honestly say that the characters do not look "uncharacteristically blocky." In my opinion, the Diablo 2 character looks more "blocky." However, that's merely a matter of perception.
The second thing is the textures. Diablo 3's texturing is done
entirely in the same style WoW's texturing is done. It makes sense, because WoW's art director is also Diablo 3's art director.
Let's be honest here, if our topic wasn't Diablo here, you wouldn't think this is from the game.
Actually, I would think it is from the game. This is my honest thought process upon seeing the screenshot: Is it a third person camera view? Yes. Are there similar stylistic choices in the scenery when compared to previous Diablo games? Yes. (The pillar looking thing on the right side of the screenshot, the wooden shack on the left, those look incredibly similar(stylistically) to things that I have seen at least in Diablo 2.) Do the graphics make it look as if it is not a Diablo game? Not really.
I don't mean to be rude, this is simply what I thought upon seeing the screenshot itself.
The third is the exaggerated character animations. Everybody walks around, stands and does everything in exaggerated movements. Not the case with Diablo or Diablo 2. When you stand, you stand, not perform full body movements nonstop.
I cannot argue with you there, I haven't seen these character animations, I've tried to keep myself away from the majority of Diablo 3 related media, as I don't want it to affect my experience when it finally does come out. Could I possibly get a link to a video that shows their idle animations? I am now curious.
In short, the visual tone is completely different. If you don't see it, you've got some sort of problems, mental or physical. Like it all you want, I take issue with it, because I see this as their lack of artistic integrity. So that's that.
Of course, this is entirely your opinion, and I disagree. I can understand your opinion, though, and I accept it. Don't insult people who disagree with you though, please. Just because somebody else has a different perspective doesn't mean they have problems, it just means that you're looking at something in a different way.
As far as borrowing ideas from another game, that's not always a good idea just because the game is "successful". Different genres and different universes have different sensibilities.
This I can agree with, most definitely. However, I feel I need to try Diablo 3 myself before I can say that whether or not it was successful. I'm more of the type to try something before I can honestly come to a conclusion, though.
Removing stats and removing skills singlehandedly removed all the player input from character progression. I have a problem with this because, basically, every character is now the exact same thing. Now, that wasn't always the case with Diablo 3.
I might be confused, but they still have stats, don't they? They only removed certain stats and renamed/reallocated the scope of others, didn't they? I have no problem with that, even if it does reduce the amount of specialization a bit.
Edit: Hmm, I see what you mean now by stats. The Diablo 3 website itself said nothing about the change to the stats system, but I checked a wiki and now I understand. Your stat progression is static, I guess you could say. I understand what you were saying, now.
When Blizzard first announced that they'll be dropping stat points, they did come up with an alternative. Instead of stats, they gave us talents, which were pretty much copied from WoW. And you know what? That wasn't a bad idea. It compensated the lack of stats with choice in another system that still let you advance your character in a number of different ways.
They also changed the way charms worked and turned them into a stat-altering system. You can have a certain number of presumably hard to find charms which wouldn't be easy to switch out, so you could shape your character progressed in that way too.
Those sound like interesting ideas in a Diablo game, and I would have welcomed them whole-heartedly. Pity.
Skills weren't axed right off the bat completely, either. After the announcement, though? Most, if not all of the developments resulted in less choice, less variety, less complexity. Talents? Gone, replaced with 3 passive abilities you could switch out at any time. Skill trees? Stats? Gone entirely.
I did love the skill trees in Diablo 2, they were a lot of fun to tweak with and the idea of Min/Maxing certain skills to create your ideal build was always a great one, however I will need to see the new skill system in action before I can condemn it. Also, yet again, no stats? I'm awfully confused, could you point me to a link that says there are no more stats? Sorry, I just want to clear it up, and the article only spoke of changing the stats back to the basics that were in Diablo 2.
Edit: Don't bother replying to my question about stats again, I understand now
Variety is important. The things you say make me wonder if the removal of the last customizable feature in the game - items - would actually affect your view of the game negatively. Choice? What names so. Give me a generic one size fits all experience.
I actually went on to the Diablo 3 website for this to see what you meant, as you got me curious, and I am afraid I must disagree. While some of it seems to be limiting what you can do with your character, I checked the skill calculator myself and you get a combination of six skills of your choosing (after level 24, of course) which can be selected from 22 skills total, and then you may choose three passives from a total of sixteen(However, the third passive is only unlocked at level 30) for the barbarian class. I just checked some of the others and it seems to vary from class to class, but they all have a nice arrangement of choices. I'm not in the mood to calculate just how many different build options there are, as it is quite late, but I'm sure we can both agree that there are many.
Also, just as a heads up, simply because I've had this type of argument brought up before (I'm not saying that you will, I hope you understand that), saying that a single skill being changed in a build will not have a large effect is entirely false. The simple addition of a new skill can shift the focus of a build, which is a fascinating concept in my opinion.
Yes, complexity often comes at the cost of user-friendliness. And? Are games supposed to get simpler and simpler until everybody can pick up and play without investing any time into it? The fact that you think I hate all change is insulting. It's stupid.
I feel like you and I have different ideas of the concepts of simplicity and user-friendliness. A game that supports different playstyles by giving the players choice in how they play is user friendly. Does that make it less complex? Not always. Is this current system for Diablo 3 the best? I can't honestly say if it is or is not, but the fact remains that you get six skill slots with over twenty(on average) skill choices, creating a very high amount of flexibility in builds and character directions. Is that simple? No, not really.
Do other choices in the game simplify it? Most definitely. And I can agree with you that some of them may detract from the enjoyment I will receive upon playing this game. However, I would not bring myself to say that the games systems themselves are simple with the amount of choices I receive. This, yet again, is a matter of perspective. Thinking back on Diablo 2, many of my builds relied on one or two skills as primary attacks, and then two to three secondary skills that I would use situationally. You may have played differently than I have, so I'll simply drop that.
This sort of "you don't work at blizzard" rhetoric isn't really effective. One of the reasons is because as a consumer I actually care about the quality of the product, while a corporation only cares about money. And the other, which comes naturally from the first, is that corporations and everyone associated with them tend to bullshit, spin and sugar-coat through everything they say, because it affects sales.
You're deluding yourself if you think Blizzard is doing any of this for you or that it values your trust. And if you think "random people on the internet" never have any valid points to bring up.
I can agree with you on this as well, I honestly do not think that we should simply trust a corporation based on their words, we should judge it on the quality of the products in which they produce and how they choose to distribute them, along with many other factors.
I am honestly excited, now that I have seen the different systems in the game, to try it out for myself. It looks to be interesting, to say the least, and I cannot yet say if I will like it or not, but I can always hope.
I sincerely hope I did not come off as cross or rude in any way, I'm simply sharing my opinions and I am curious about yours as well.
