Poll: Torchlight 2, everything Diablo 3 should have?

[Coldie]

Yes, Blizzard is in fact the only company doing non-MMO online-online games right now. Ubisoft was the first to introduce that DRM, but the feedback was so bad that after releasing it along with just ONE of their games, they have never used it since. They already did the work of making that stupid mistake and having to retract it for Blizzard, so Blizzard should know better.

I have nothing against developers wanting to make money as long as it doesn't interfere with releasing the best, most diversely accommodating product possible. Blizzard used to do that. Now they're making design choices which limit your play style, and even limit some peoples' ability to play at all. Because of greed. That's when it becomes a negative. Especially given the obvious fact that the mad cash they already have flowing through to them due to WoW is not shared among the people that actually MAKE the games. It all goes straight to the top. To the heads and CEOs of Activision, mostly, and that means Kotick.

FYI, the game is going to get pirated anyway. Assassin's Creed 2, which was the first game to use online-only DRM, was one of the most pirated games ever released, because nobody wanted to support that type of bullshit business practice. And now Diablo 3 will probably overtake it as the most pirated game ever, as even people who buy it legitimately will want some way to play it offline.

1. Diablo 3 does not have online-only DRM, it's an actual online-only game, like any MMO. UbiSoft released many games with the always online DRM (AC2, some submarine game, SCConviction, Settlers, etc), although it was patched out of one of them (AC2). They also are using it in some upcoming games, as well (the new Driver, at least).

2. Activision is not at the top of Blizzard, they are off to the side. Blizzard has their own heads and CEOs, the companies just share a common parent company. Couldn't find a single mention of Activision on any recent Blizzard game box or in-game when I tried.

3. You can't pirate the game, the client is worthless without an account. You can't find some way to play it offline, as something like half the game (monster randomization, dungeon randomization, item drops, the outcomes of combat, among others) exists only on the Blizzard servers. Even if you cobble together a server emulator (quite a feat to begin with), you'd still not be able to play the real game, only a limited recreation at best.

And if you would settle for a limited recreation of a Diablo game, might as well go and buy the re-re-remake of Fate, Torchlight 2. The first four games were charming, but simplistic and fairly monotonous. Maybe the fifth time's the charm?

 

[Tony2077]

diablo 3 is what I'm getting it still has singleplayer it may be online but its still there since as far as its wiki page say the followers are sp only. anyone care to confirm or deny this.

 

[Tony2077]

diablo 3 is what I'm getting it still has singleplayer it may be online but its still there since as far as its wiki page say the followers are sp only. anyone care to confirm or deny this.

Any information regarding offline single-player was taken from posts made in 2009. It was just this month that they told us there will be none whatsoever. Of course you can still make/join an empty server and play alone, but there won't be any difference. Followers are available in a full server or one with just you.

care to be nice and give me the source of this. please be a blizzard person. i just like to confirm the info i get or have just so i don't look stupid when i tell someone else

 

[Maniclings]

Snip

Ebay doesn't charge a person for listing an item, charge the buyer to buy it, and then charge the seller again for taking out their money once they've sold the item. Blizzard is doing all of these things with the cash auction house. Essentially, this:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/checkpoint/114/ (thanks Dexter)

All the best items will be listed on the cash auction house, so yes, you will either be forced to use it or have a lesser character than everybody else. So forget PvP, which in my mind, is a big part of the game.

Yes, Blizzard is in fact the only company doing non-MMO online-online games right now. Ubisoft was the first to introduce that DRM, but the feedback was so bad that after releasing it along with just ONE of their games, they have never used it since. They already did the work of making that stupid mistake and having to retract it for Blizzard, so Blizzard should know better.

I have nothing against developers wanting to make money as long as it doesn't interfere with releasing the best, most diversely accommodating product possible. Blizzard used to do that. Now they're making design choices which limit your play style, and even limit some peoples' ability to play at all. Because of greed. That's when it becomes a negative. Especially given the obvious fact that the mad cash they already have flowing through to them due to WoW is not shared among the people that actually MAKE the games. It all goes straight to the top. To the heads and CEOs of Activision, mostly, and that means Kotick.

FYI, the game is going to get pirated anyway. Assassin's Creed 2, which was the first game to use online-only DRM, was one of the most pirated games ever released, because nobody wanted to support that type of bullshit business practice. And now Diablo 3 will probably overtake it as the most pirated game ever, as even people who buy it legitimately will want some way to play it offline.

I highly doubt that you can't understand why people would have problems with these design choices. You just discount their gripes as not valid because you believe Blizzard can do no wrong. Which is, obviously, a ridiculous notion. The part of me that loved their previous games and loved Diablo 2 has not changed. Blizzard has changed.

How does the auction house system work?
Players can open the auction house interface from anywhere in the game to make purchases or list items for sale. Items can be sold from the shared stash (storage shared among all the characters on your Battle.net account) or from any individual character?s inventory. When posting the item, the seller picks whether it will be sold in the gold-based auction house or the currency-based auction house. The item is then held by the auction house system until the listing expires or a purchase is made. Items that are not sold are returned to the seller?s shared stash, and items that are sold are delivered to the winning bidder?s shared stash. In either case, the auction house system will deduct a nominal fixed transaction fee from the seller, the amount of which is determined by whether or not the item was sold (see below). For the currency-based auction house, players will have a few different options for how to pay for item purchases and receive funds for item sales, as discussed elsewhere in this FAQ. There may be differences in how this system will work in different regions of the world. We?ll provide further details at a later date.

How is the transaction fee determined?
A nominal fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. Because the listing portion of the fee is charged even if the item doesn?t sell, it will be in the seller?s interest to list items he or she believes other players will be interested in, and to do so at a competitive price. Specific details related to the transaction fee for the currency-based auction house will vary by region and will be announced at a later date.

Please note that we plan to waive the listing portion of the fee for a limited number of transactions per account. In other words, for these transactions, the seller will only pay a transaction fee if the item is successfully sold, and that fee will not include the listing charge. We?ll have further details on this as well at a later date.

http://www.diablowiki.net/Auction_House_FAQ

Could you please point me to where the seller pays a fee to buy the item.
Their system is made to combat low level item spamming, ridiculous pricing, and to some extent counter gold farmers, as it will cost you money to post large numbers of items, but everyone gets a number of free item listings. If the game is anything like diablo 2 rare items aren't going to be falling out of the sky and you will not be finding masses and masses of them.

Why do you need to be able to play the game offline so bad? unless you have bad internet what exactly is the reason? why does it effect you in such a huge negative way that you won't buy the game??
Coldie already gave good reasons why this game would be kinda silly to pirate and I agree with everything he said.
Honestly do you really have nothing to do if your net connection goes down? personally I have books to read, other games I can play, people I can speak to. It isn't going to kill me if my net goes down and I can't play d3 for the period that it is down. Are you really going to be effected in a big way by it being online only? Honestly?

 

[Cheesus333]

I'm getting both. I loved Torchlight, it was a greeat game even if it was essentially a cartoony HD remake of Diablo with the names changed. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to the sequel, which should improve on it in every way.

But Diablo 3 I've been waiting for for at least 8 years. That's more than half of my life. I'll be damned if I'm giving up on it now that it's so close!

They'll probably play really different anyway, I reckon they'll be very distinct experiences.

 

[Joseph Alexander]

both.
diablo will likely have more of a life time then TL2.
the auction house is a plus for me as i will be putting stuff up for sale rather then buying from it.
i doubt blizz won't have an offline mode and this whole thing is a PR stunt.

torchlight was fun but i ended up only playing it once.
nice art design on both game, with diablo going for a more grim depressing(from the levels we ahve seen) and TL sticking to a cartoonly frivolity.


ALSO BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN'T SEEM TO LEARN:
DIABLO 3'S AUCTION HOUSE ONLY CHARGES FOR LISTING IF YOU GO ABOVE YOUR WEEKLY ALLOWANCE OF LISTINGS.
THIS IS THERE TO PREVENT PEOPLE FOR PUTTING 1000 STACKS OF 10 GOLD ON THE AUCTION OR FLODDING IT WITH WORTHLESS CRAP.

 

[Coldie]

words

Hey, World of Warcraft could very well be enjoyed solo and offline, but there's no outcry (anymore, anyway). There are always people that will make their displeasure known, but the outrage with the DRM got so big mostly because some of the games protected by it are single-player only and that's just unjustifiable.

You could "pirate" the client, but it's unprotected and useless on its own. You can't pirate the server, you don't have any way of accessing it. It's quite impossible to pirate such a game. It is, however, possible to emulate the server, bypassing the legitimate ways of playing the game. Said emulation, on the other hand, is not capable of recreating the server code with any degree of accuracy, only an approximation based on observation. The only way to get a full, "authentic" if you will, "game experience" is to buy an account. World of Warcraft hasn't been pirated so far, after more than 6 years, neither will be Diablo 3. StarCraft2 has no remote server components and just a periodic-check-in DRM, so it could be and was pirated. Fast.

For the strawman in the end, I'll bite:
0. Diablo 3 simplicity in comparison to TL/Fate is unknown at this time, but the number of systems and mechanics in D3 looks promising. TL2 so far looks like it was inspired heavily by D2, with all pros and cons that it involves.
1. Was Hellgate: London getting it "more" right than Torchlight? Perhaps there's more to game development than a few specific people. Or maybe those specific people were holding Blizzard North back? There's no way to know, so it's in no way relevant.
2. Newbies or not, there is no indication that any other team would have done anything differently.
3. The alleged and undefined "dumbing down" of WoW is entirely unrelated to Diablo 3.

TL2 and D3 are different games, each with their own audiences. I might play both, if TL2 is released first and is more similar to D2 than TL1.

 

[Tony2077]

diablo 3 is what I'm getting it still has singleplayer it may be online but its still there since as far as its wiki page say the followers are sp only. anyone care to confirm or deny this.

Any information regarding offline single-player was taken from posts made in 2009. It was just this month that they told us there will be none whatsoever. Of course you can still make/join an empty server and play alone, but there won't be any difference. Followers are available in a full server or one with just you.

care to be nice and give me the source of this. please be a blizzard person. i just like to confirm the info i get or have just so i don't look stupid when i tell someone else

Sure. The source was an interview with Bllizzard by PC gamer. This article links to all of it:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/01/diablo-iii-no-mods-online-only-cash-trades/

well i can play by myself so I'm good hopefully down the road they won't change that

this is ?Now, that doesn?t mean you can?t play a game by yourself ? of course you can. You can go into and start any game that you want, you?ll just be connected to the Battle.net servers, and we can authenticate your character.? why i'm good

 

[Maniclings]

http://www.diablowiki.net/Auction_House_FAQ

Could you please point me to where the seller pays a fee to buy the item.
Their system is made to combat low level item spamming, ridiculous pricing, and to some extent counter gold farmers, as it will cost you money to post large numbers of items, but everyone gets a number of free item listings. If the game is anything like diablo 2 rare items aren't going to be falling out of the sky and you will not be finding masses and masses of them.

Why do you need to be able to play the game offline so bad? unless you have bad internet what exactly is the reason? why does it effect you in such a huge negative way that you won't buy the game??
Coldie already gave good reasons why this game would be kinda silly to pirate and I agree with everything he said.
Honestly do you really have nothing to do if your net connection goes down? personally I have books to read, other games I can play, people I can speak to. It isn't going to kill me if my net goes down and I can't play d3 for the period that it is down. Are you really going to be effected in a big way by it being online only? Honestly?

Oh okay, so just the seller gets assraped by fees twice. Not the buyer. How is that better than listing stuff on eBay for free again?

As for offline play, while my internet connection is, and to some extent always has been, just fine, I still preferred to play offline with a separate character at times. Diabllo 2 was also a great game for LAN parties and travel. Diablo 3 won't be playable in either of those scenarios. More than that, I address the issue for all those players still stuck with dial-up or no connection at all. Why would Blizzard want to lose the revenue generated by that part of the fan base? What do they stand to gain?

You don't even know what the fee is or how many free uplistings you get, the seller only gets charged for listing when they are listing alot of items. On ebay listing items is free so you get things like "AIR GUITAR WITH AIR CASE $5 with $3 shipping"
they don't want the system spammed with bs, so a cost on listing after you have used your free listings is their solution. Do you have a better idea? please provide a better idea to counter low level item spamming and ridiculous price listing.

What is blizzard losing by ignoring the fan base that has no internet connection? 1% of the possible people that will buy the game at the most? how many people do you know that are interested in gaming and don't have an internet connection?
Do you really still go to lans? Personally I have never been to one, but I have heard they are a great place to go to get free pirated games. My little brother lans with his friends but they always have a net connection while they lan, he even can chat to me on steam while he is lanning.
I don't see that you are getting some huge rip off by not being able to play offline, what is the gain? I enjoyed d2 the most playing online with my bf, or playing online with friends.
I remember you said the auction house will mean you can't pvp anymore unless you use it, but people already bought items for d2 so I don't really see what difference this will make for pvp in d3 except people will be buying their items through d3 instead of ebay or some other 3rd party source. Rather than some other party making a profit from items created by blizzard, blizzard will make the profit.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I'm getting both at some point, Torchlight first as it will be cheaper, then D3 when it's 10-20$ on ebay.
But I am in no hurry as these grindy dungeon crawlers aren't my thing anymore, just a bit of mindless mayhem and I get my fill.

 

[Coldie]

words

So it all boils down to:
1. Activision = bad.
2. Simple = bad.

Good to know. Considering how irrelevant Activision is to the enjoyment of a game and how little is known about the complexity of the systems beyond 'easy to learn' and difficulty of the game beyond 'first act/difficulty is easy', I'd say the game is in good hands.

The hivemind-like hatred for Activision is amusing.

 

[Coldie]

Activision did not start out as a hated publisher. They had to earn that. So while others may just be jumping on the bandwagon of hate, people like me can cite very specific examples of franchises/developers they have ruined. And now you can add Blizzard to that list.

You know what? I think you've got that backwards. Blizzard was the first to do all the things that people hate Activision for.

Selling games for $60 and general priciness? That's been around with Blizzard for a while. Diablo 2 Battle Chest is still $40 or EUR 30.

Removing cutscenes from a game and releasing as a separate DVD? That made some noise when Kotick "invented" it. Yeah, Diablo 2 and Starcraft Cinematic DVDs did that first. Here, the bundle with both + Warcraft 3 is still in stock on Amazon.com [http://www.amazon.com/Blizzard-Entertainment-Collection-Warcraft-Starcraft-Pc/dp/B00006SG4T], it can be yours for just 70 bucks.

Activision didn't invent addictive games or skinner boxes or whatever. Diablo 1 and 2 were extremely addictive, as was World of Warcraft. Addictiveness, however, does not exclude fun, it's just a different form of entertainment. Grinding can be fun, too.

Blizzard is also pretty good at merchandising. They have tons of stuff to sell to the fans, from mouse pads to CCGs, to figurines. And they have at least two regular conventions of their own, BlizzCon and Blizzard Invitational. Meanwhile, Activision is musing about adding subscriptions or minitransactions to their shooters.

Activision has a lot to learn from Blizzard about making money. The reason they are hated for things they are taking from Blizzard's book and Blizzard isn't, is because Kotick talks too much and doesn't actually do anything useful, while Blizzard stays quiet and provides great service for great games. So unless Blizzard already was on that list and you're just listing it for the second time, adding it now is a little late.

 

[Maniclings]

snip

Better idea = don't do a cash auction house. The solution to crack use is not to legalize crack. The solution to gold farming is not to legalize and encourage more gold farming.

Holy shit, are you really that ignorant? There are whole first-world countries out there still that have either bad internet availability, or limits on the amount of data you can transfer via your connection. 1% my ass.

Yes, I still go to and enjoy LAN parties. A local college hosts a rather large yearly one, and it's fun as heck. I guarantee there are LAN parties that happen often in your area too, but you don't have to be social. That's your right. But here we go again...because someone has a differing opinion from you/Blizzard they must be doing something wrong, correct? Must be a pirate or something to want to play the game with other real people present and not just online. Derp. I don't care how you played Diablo 2. I care about how I played it, and how I would want to play Diablo 3. And Blizzard has taken away a good 50% of how I enjoyed playing it.

The difference is that the people buying/selling items out of game was a very niche thing. People tended to avoid it if possible because you could lose your account for it. You could still get the best/rarest items in the game with gold or trade with other items. But with the in-game auction house looming over the heads of people with the promise of actual cash, I can damn near guarantee that all of the best/rarest items will be found there and nowhere else. It's a matter of risk versus reward. Now there's no risk and the potential for a much greater reward. So yeah, Blizzard will be making the profit off of selling their game's soul. Good for them I guess? Already covered this. Desire for profit is fine until it starts cutting into the point which it hinders a player's ability to play how they want to play. And they way overstepped that line with this one.

How is having an in game auction house at all similar to drug use? That is a REALLY bad analogy, and I'm sure victims of drug abuse crime are much worse off than people who dont win in pvp because they didn't buy item x from the auction house. I mean people who gold farm are much better off than people you drug mule. Your analogy is really weird and comparing things from COMPLETELY different scales. I guess in the end (by your terrible example) you actually can't think of a better option for blizzard to prevent spam in their auction house, so it still stands as a good solution.

While at uni I had a very limited internet download, like 1Gig a month, the uni provided a little program that let me monitor the net useage, games that I thought would eat heaps of my data actually took very little, so i don't think D3 will be eating my net up like crazy, so i don't really think it will have a huge impact on dl limit. Please look at the numbers of people in the 1st world with no internet access http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, Now you can say there are some low percentages there but really compare it with the percentage of gamers in those countries and the percentage of them that are gonna want to play D3 anyway.
It's not going to be a cheap game, so people who can't afford a net connection will probably have issues with the starting price anyway. I highly doubt the number of people that will be effected by only online play is really going to make a dent on the number of people that will have completely no problem with it.

It's nice that you have fun at a local yearly lan, I'm sure you game more often than 1 year though... And I'm sorry but we don't all find the height of social fun to be in a room with a bunch of other people playing games that we could be doing in the comfort of our own homes in our spare time to relax from a hard days work. I spend my social time doing other things, like shopping, going out for a dance, having coffee, anything but not sit in front of a monitor in a room full of sweaty gross males.

I don't think that your opinion is wrong because it is different to mine(I'm not even sure how Blizzard comes into my opinion), I am asking for a valid reason why your argument that only online play and an auction house completely ruins your ability to play the game. It has nothing to do with opinion, it is to do with real reasons why the game is now impossible, or less enjoyable, to play.

So 50% of your enjoyment of the game was playing once a year at a LAN? single player when you had no internet? You don't even know how it's going to play, or how much enjoyment you will get from it vs diablo 2. So again Blizzard is making item selling legit and being able to make a profit from their own game, rather than ebay or some randoms in a forum, HOW TERRIBLE!!! all the enjoyment is gone because you can sell items in a store you don't even have to visit during the entire game experience.
So it is ok to sell or trade items for D3 gold, but not for real money? THEN PLAY HARDCORE MODE o;


Hardcore versus Softcore

Trade in the Auction House is separated between game modes. Hardcore characters cannot use the softcore auction house, and vice versa. In addition to this, hardcore characters may only use the gold-based auction house. Any and all items, including characters for sale, may only be purchased with gold.

 

[spartandude]

not sure if im getting either but if i do get one it will definatly be Torchlight

 

[rosefyre]

well it looks great, sounds great but when on earth is it due to be released?
especially here in australia

 

[black_knight1337]

Seriously is there any competition at all. diablo 3 is going to be a billion times better than the pos known as torchlight 2. i played torchlight 1 it go to the unplayably boring stage in less than 2 hours. both diablo 1 and 2 have never gotten there for me. the only reason why i dont play them anymore is because they look like shit compared to more modern games. i seriously can not see torchlight 2 being much of an improvement on torchlight 1. when i got torchlight 1 i was like ok i know im gonna enjoy this game because its made by ex diablo devs. but i was surprised when it turned out to be an absolute pos. there is no way that i will ever invest the $20 for torchlight. but i am more than willing to invest the $100+ in diablo 3 because i know it will be an awesome game and i know that i am going to be playing it for a very long time. and looking at wats coming out next year im thinkin diablo 3 is gonna grab goty.

 

[sanguis3k]

i have waited too damn long for a new Diablo game to skip it.

if it turns out utter crap then it just means i will not buy anything from Blizzard again which is highly unlikely in my opinion given their usual standards of maybe not being the most innovative but giving enjoyable games overall

and Torchlight 2 i will buy just because the first game was such a good dungeon crawler