Diablo III Dev: Adventure Mode is Worth The $40 Price Tag

[MazokuRanma]

I think it's at least on par with LoD in terms of content. LoD had 2 classes, 1 act, runewords and charms. RoS has 1 class, 1 act, enchanting, transmogrification, bounties, rifts and more active and passive skills. Or if you only include the differences, LoD has 1 class, runewords and charms while RoS has enchanting, transmogrification, bounties, rifts and more skills. So it's not that RoS has less content than LoD but rather it has different content to LoD. And personally I think the new ways to play the game that RoS is bringing along with enchanting puts it leagues ahead of a class and a couple of types of loot.

And $40 is a "hefty price tag"? How? It's the standard expansion price that's been used for over a decade. Hell, LoD launched at $40 and with inflation (+~$13) it actually makes RoS quite a bit cheaper. And another note on the pricing, here in Australia buying the physical collector's edition of RoS is STILL cheaper than buying most games on release ($10-20). So I don't think anyone can realistically complain about it's price, it's definitely worth it.

lol maybe it's because you're used to australian prices..but the last time I spent more than 20 dollars on a full game...it's been probably since mass effect 3. Hell I'm getting south park: the stick of truth on release and I'm spending 40 bucks, and that is me at my maximum for a whole game, not just an expansion pack. Thanks to steam sales/GoG/greenmangaming/humble bundle I haven't spent more than 10-15 bucks average on most of my library, for a grand total of ~400ish games, I see no reason why I should remotely think about giving blizzard 40 dollars for this, they might catch my interest at 15 bucks, but even then, that's going to require me reactivating my account through blizzard because my account got hacked 2x because of D3's horseshit always online shit.

Now I am spending 40 dollars on south park, so I can't exactly talk much, but I am getting it for a whole game, and this is a once a year sort of purchase.

Where do you live that South Park is $40 on release? Even the PC version is releasing at $60 in the US, which is also the same price as every other new release AAA title in existence. There are no AAA titles that release at $40, only expansion packs, or sometimes the HD remasters of games, but those were all $60 when they came out the first time.

 

[black_knight1337]

lol maybe it's because you're used to australian prices..but the last time I spent more than 20 dollars on a full game...it's been probably since mass effect 3. Hell I'm getting south park: the stick of truth on release and I'm spending 40 bucks, and that is me at my maximum for a whole game, not just an expansion pack. Thanks to steam sales/GoG/greenmangaming/humble bundle I haven't spent more than 10-15 bucks average on most of my library, for a grand total of ~400ish games, I see no reason why I should remotely think about giving blizzard 40 dollars for this, they might catch my interest at 15 bucks, but even then, that's going to require me reactivating my account through blizzard because my account got hacked 2x because of D3's horseshit always online shit.

Now I am spending 40 dollars on south park, so I can't exactly talk much, but I am getting it for a whole game, and this is a once a year sort of purchase.

Ah right, full retail prices are so high because you are only buying things on sale. Fair enough view point but isn't that relevant. You need to be comparing similar purchases ie. Other games at full retail cost on release and if you do that it's at a very fair price point.

While this seems like a good attitude for comparing the expansion additions, it seems like you're forgetting something fairly important:

Diablo 2 already had enchanting and transmogrification (via Horadric Cube) in the base game, so it didn't need to add those in an expansion.

When you consider that, it's LoD's extra class, runewords and charms vs RoS adding bounties, rifts and skills.

Err, what? Since when did the Horadric Cube do anything more than combining items to make new ones (ie. crafting which is in D3V)? Looking at multiple sources I can't see where it says you can change the look of an item to another nor replace and reroll stats.

Ya no all adventure mode do is give you random quests (that were already in the game and part of the story) to do and once you do them you get a special box reward that gives you a map you can go clear for better loot. They basically said "lets copy torch light, and path of exile" I might of bought that had they made new quests but no you just do story quests you've already done, like kill the wraith king or save deckard cain to get a map you can go to.

Except that's just not true at all. The only bounty quests which are a part of the main story are the boss kill bounties. You only get 1-2 of those per zone out of 5. The others are made up of events, unique kills and zone clears. Events only ever had a chance to spawn (in 200+ hours I haven't done them all) and the unique kills and zone clears are *random*. Plus there isn't even a bounty at all related to Deckard Cain. Doing bounties gets you a Horadric Cache (which is just a box of loot) along with rift shards. Five rift shards then unlock a nephalem rift which is a random dungeon with random enemies, random length and a random boss. The only point you arguably got right was the similarities with other games in the same genre. But even then it is still implemented in a completely different way.

 

[Skeleon]

Eventually there will be a gold edition of Diablo 3. I will not buy it. Perhaps there will eventually be a gold edition patch to get rid of the always-on requirement. I might buy it then.
Do people still like the game? How many were playing before the Loot 2.0 patch? How many are playing now, was it a significant increase? How many will play once the add-on is out and for how long will it hold their interest? I'm really curious because I kept away from Diablo 3 from the moment I learnt about the auction house and the always-on stuff and don't know too much about its current demographics.

 

[ninja51]

Hahaha! You want me to pay 40 bucks for an expansion to a lesser Diablo experience? Ha! Path of Exile is free, more creative with its mechanics, it holds true to the brooding tone and style of OG Diablo, oh yeah, and its free! Diablo III screwed the pooch out of the gate, and still hopes to gouge money from whatever they can get. There may be fun to be had in Diablo III for some, but in my mind, Blizzard isn't the noble innovating game developers behind Diablo 2 and the Warcraft/WoW games, they're a greedy creatively bankrupt husk of a developer still trying to hold on to wealth while the world moves on developing better games with better moral practices behind their monetization.

 

[Augustine]

Adventure mode just unlocks all waypoints and all difficulty levels, while removing the story mode?

How does just giving you control over what you experience when really improve replayability?

The two other new features are bounties and nephalam rifts. Wow what are those?

Bounties are MMORPG-like quests: Kill this monster/boss for extra xp/gold. Yawn.
Nephalam rifts are a random mix of monsters/level elements that create weird combinations of maps. It sounds kinda interesting to me.

Loosely explained:
Adventure mode allows to do bounties. Bounties are special random quests that reward special stones, among other things.
Stones can be used to open rifts which create crazy wildly (and I mean REALLY crazy... we're talking pony level+sewers crazy) random dungeons which are filled with major loot. Inside these rifts, there are certain unique conditions apply.


Having been a chap who played a lot after the release, then quit for something like 2 years, I must say, I see great improvements in 2.0 and upcoming changes. All my old gear is now all special "legacy" like in WoW. Amusing.
And Wizards still kick ass

I do think, however, Blizz should have given people who suffered through release of the original a discount or something...

 

[black_knight1337]

Do people still like the game? How many were playing before the Loot 2.0 patch? How many are playing now, was it a significant increase? How many will play once the add-on is out and for how long will it hold their interest? I'm really curious because I kept away from Diablo 3 from the moment I learnt about the auction house and the always-on stuff and don't know too much about its current demographics.

While I can only answer those from my own perspective I think it could paint a reasonable picture. Prior to this patch, I'd estimate it at somewhere around 5k people concurrently based off of the pub counts. Now I'd estimate it at 15-20k people concurrently, again, based off of the pub counts. I'd say most if not all people actively playing now would get it and the sales look pretty good, the CE is selling out in a number of places. Personally, at least a 1.5 years or so and by that time Blizz will probably be teasing the next expansion. But beyond that I'd be playing it off and on.

innovating

I don't think you know what this means. Here's the definition for you "make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products". Diablo 3 fits right in the middle of this.
With PoE, it's all down to personal preference. In directly comparable areas, Diablo 3 is leagues ahead thanks to it's classic Blizzard polish but in the stuff that matters it falls down to opinion. Whether you want a punishing, theory-crafting heavy arpg or a fast paced pick up and play arpg that rewards experimentation. It's really just up to the person playing it.
And I'd argue that they aren't being greedy, not with Diablo 3 at least. If they were they'd a)Keep the RMAH. b)Wouldn't make a well-priced expansion. c)Would be cramming in as much DLC and micro-transactions that they can. That, would be greedy. And it's something (minues the RMAH) that many others do with their games all the time.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I really liked Diablo 3 (600hours is my play time in it) and I will purchase the expansion, but not for the adventure mode.

I want to see how the story continues and since I am a lore fan as well I want to see the back story of the paladin as well, which will probably the class that I'm rerolling with.

 

[The_State]

Can a monk still equip a two-handed sword and then still use her fists for all of her attacks?

Is there still absolutely zero real character building/customization outside of equipment choice?

Does damage from every one of your abilities still key off of your primary weapon?

Is the game still designed like an MMO, sacrificing all sense of player individuality in the name of game balance?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Wait a second, can you play the console version offline then? Or must you still connect to battle.net servers?

I don't have a PS3 or 4, or Xbone, but I do know that most X360 games have a hissy fit if you aren't connected to the internet (you can play the games, just not the DLC you bought for it). I do recall them saying that the game on consoles doesn't need an always on connection, but as for the consoles themselves...

So it could be a case of; Yes, but not really.

 

[RA92]

Blizzard overcharging for their content? Mein Gott! Next you know, Steam will have a sale and Activision will make another Call of Duty!

 

[black_knight1337]

Can a monk still equip a two-handed sword and then still use her fists for all of her attacks?

Is there still absolutely zero real character building/customization outside of equipment choice?

Does damage from every one of your abilities still key off of your primary weapon?

Is the game still designed like an MMO, sacrificing all sense of player individuality in the name of game balance?

Depends entirely on what skills your using. It's the same for all of the classes, some skills are just designed to have their animations in a certain way so it makes sense. eg. Fists of Thunder is going to be punches, Grenade is going to be you throwing a grenade etc.

In terms of character customisation you've got your skills, gear and paragon points. You get 1 paragon point each level beyond the base level cap with it taking turns for what category it's in. Each of the categories have 4 different stats you can put the point into. eg. Offense has Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage. There'll all balanced so that they are pretty close in terms of how much you want them. All of them except for your main stat and Vitality cap out at 50 points so at paragon level 800 it'll go back to everyone having the same stats although that's a incredibly high amount, I personally haven't seen anyone at even half that.

Yes, all of the skills are still percentage based and that won't ever change either.

Not sure what you mean by this. MMOs aren't the only games to have a lot of balance, it's more for multiplayer games in general. If you're referring to some of the insane builds that have been around, of course they've been nerfed. Outliers have no place in a multiplayer game. In terms of viability though, most skills can be used without sacrificing huge damage or survivability. There's still the odd skill here and there that could use a buff but otherwise you can pretty much use anything you want and still perform relatively well.

 

[Jumwa]

I bought the game for cheap on sale at a Walmart that was clearing out its inventory, basically the only way I could justify buying a DRM riddled product.

I got bored of it almost immediately and haven't touched it since. I never got that from other similar games, like Torchlight and its sequel, or Titan Quest. It was an unrewarding experience, without and real motivation to go on and the story, of course, was drivel, as per genre conventions.

 

[Ninmecu]

Blizzard overcharging for their content? Mein Gott! Next you know, Steam will have a sale and Activision will make another Call of Duty!

How is 40 for an expansion overcharging? Most dlc comes in broken down bits of 10 bucks, lets break this one down.

Adventure mode-10 bucks, whole new way to play the game

Crusader-10 bucks, whole new character to play as

Act IV-10 bucks, whole new content

Enchanting/Transmogrification/Level cap increase, 3 bucks each.

Loot 2.0 (Depending on the company.) 10 bucks or a free patch, defendably chargeable since it also unlocks new difficulty settings and all monsters scale to your level, while vastly improving the in game items stats to match the new tiers of challenge

Granted a "season pass" would get you the lot for less, but until this thing goes live, how can anyone say "Bleh bleh blhe blizzards fucking overcharging for everything, waah wahh wahh" It's like a hate train, yeah they fucked up D3, gues what? They fixed it, made it awesome, loot 2.0(While imperfect) is miles ahead of what was launched. Removal of Nephalem valor means everyone can experiment with their skills on the fly. New Difficulty scaling actually means you can challenge yourself from level 1 to 60(It can take me 2-3 minutes to take out an elite pack while I'm leveling because their health pools are huge and my damage is low, but I'm playing on Master or Torment 1 from level 1 onwards because I enjoy the challenge of it.)

 

[loa]

So there is no new act like in lord of destruction, just 1 more class and old content remixed?

 

[Ichigo]

I couldn´t care less. D3 was a bigger disappointment then DNF and ACM combined. I wonder if anyone from the Dev´s ever played the first or second game. The Story was complete Bollocks and the Itemfind so broken that it ruined the Game forever. Plus if you finished the game already there is absolutely no reason to grind more stuff.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

So there is no new act like in lord of destruction, just 1 more class and old content remixed?

There is a new act, act V, which will take place in Westmarch (for the most part most likely).

 

[black_knight1337]

You know would WOULD be worth $40? Not banning people who try and install mods on what is effectively a single player game and regard that 'cheating' because of your bullshit DRM. The game is still not worth a penny for me because of that fact. There will never be an inventive modification like DOTA for Diablo III because they have removed ownership of the game away from us.

Their statement is "We're motherfucking Blizzard !We can release what we want and charge what we want and you people will buy it regardless"

Yes! Every other developer lets us use modded clients on their servers so why doesn't Blizzard!?!?!?! /s
Not gonna happen. You say it as though it's only Blizzard doing it but pretty much every other developer tries to protect the integrity of their official multiplayer service. And go ahead, argue that Diablo 3 is effectively a single player game. It doesn't bother me if you argue that, you've just got to know that you'd be wrong. Not a "I think otherwise so your wrong" kind of wrong, a "The facts say otherwise" kind of wrong.

It's an undeniable fact that Diablo 3 (along with most other arpgs like it) are primarily multiplayer games. The developers have come out and said it a number of times(including the source for this article) and the actual design of the game and the way it plays out backs this up. It's why partying up has increased rewards, it's why they've got clans and communities, it's why it is so easy to jump into a game with friends and it's why there is no single player option (whether that be online(unless you cut yourself off from all the social features) or offline).

Just because it's Blizzard people like yourself just love to shit all over them for things which are already being done by EVERYONE ELSE. We don't get to use modded clients on official servers and we never "owned" games(It's almost always been a license to use it as it was intended) but no, it's Blizzard so let's ***** about it. I'm really getting sick of these bullshit arguments.

 

[tehroc]

And $40 is a "hefty price tag"? How? It's the standard expansion price that's been used for over a decade. Hell, LoD launched at $40 and with inflation (+~$13) it actually makes RoS quite a bit cheaper. And another note on the pricing, here in Australia buying the physical collector's edition of RoS is STILL cheaper than buying most games on release ($10-20). So I don't think anyone can realistically complain about it's price, it's definitely worth it.

$40 is a huge price to pay for such little content. The kings of DLC these days is Rockstar. Rockstar gave you an entirely new campaign (Lost and Damned, Ballad of Gay Tony, Undead Nightmare) for $20 each. You got a completely new story, new characters, new voice acting and still managed to not be a $40 release.