Trailers: Diablo 3: Demon Hunter

[Jewrean]

Wow, that looked pretty cool. Now I'm seriously starting to look forwad to this game next year, along with Guild Wars 2.

Don't hold your breath if you're thinking next year. Late 2011 or 2012.

 

[Littlee300]

shitty cgi is shitty

Please go back to /b/
_____________________________
They need new writers and and should stop trying too hard to be bad ass but the art was pretty good.

 

[ntw3001]

To point a few examples, the Demon hunter's abilities "fan of knives" which is directly copied out of Wow's rogue ability, the grenade ability is exactly identical to the witch doctor's fire bomb ability (ignoring aesthetics), and finally it's use of crossbows and engineering are almost identical to wow's hunter class. To give due credit, the bolas thing is pretty cool and new. Best part of the trailer in my opinion.

While you're right that Blizzard are big fans of revisiting game concepts and systems that have worked well before, it's a stretch to compare the demon hunter to the WoW hunter. The only real similarity seems to be that they both specialise in ranged weapons. Not much of that trailer seems to indicate a character whose playstyle involves holding the target at range while standing stock-still and sniping.

 

[iLikeHippos]

Man, when I was hearing "Demon Hunter" I thought I was going to see a dude with abs, being blindfolded and have two warglaives, using demonic strength and power to best them at their own game, but it seems to be otherwise.

...And the cinematic didn't seem to be up to standards. I mean, shooting and jumping ONLY?
*Shrug* This class will be able to solo things quite easily still I suppose.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Bleh, I like my heavily armored, defensive based classes like Paladin or Templar. Even Fighter in Diablo 1 could be dressed up in such a manner. I'll take a pass on this game unless an expansion releases a class that looks interesting.

 

[Tiagojdferreira]

Everybody and their mother has said that. It really is not that "cartoony". Now, Warcraft 3? That's cartoony. WoW Vanilla as well as a good portion of BC? That was cartoony. Compared to those, this is not even close to cartoony. Unless by cartoony, you mean different than horrid 90s era graphics.

What I meant by cartoony is that in a way to avoid the uncanny valley Blizzard opted to drop some of the realism and get something more "cool" and "stylish" that wont make you look at the characters as if they were trying to be human and yet looked creepy because there was something wrong with them. That is fine by me, but a decision like that drives all the game design decisions in a new direction. That is why Diablo 3 is more of an hack and slash than it's predecessors. I do know that the 90's graphics were worst, but already back then you had games that decided to look more realistic and others less realistic. What I mean by more cartoony is that they don't try to be realistic. They try to look awesome, and they succeed at that, just like (e.g.) Final Fantasy graphics do. That doesn't make them bad in any way, it just makes them more fantasy and less real. And i personally prefer more realism (this is a matter of taste, and I've never questioned the quality of Diablo's 3 graphics).

Diablo 1 looked like pixelated pig-feces. Everybody looked like they were made of clay blobs that somebody rubbed with charcoal. It was only slightly immersive due to the fact that the sound/music department did their work well enough to create a nice ambiance for each level, whether it was the windy acoustic guitar of Tristram or the dark howls of the lower levels. Also, D2 was the superior game, bar none. Better graphics (within reason), same sound/music competence, better voice acting and better gameplay by far.

Diablo one was made, like you said, in the 90's. There were no state of the art graphics back then. Diablo 2 did have better graphics, and a good flavor to it, but the game had a different concept behind it. I wouldn't say better, I would say different. You can't compare Chess to tetris, and even though the gap between Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 isn't that big, the truth is that both games are completely different experiences. While I was a great fan of Diablo 1 (and still am), I've only beaten Diablo 2 once, because it just didn't made that click for me.

Yes, D2 did have nice variety. What's wrong with that? Also, are you implying that D1 was full of tension and D2 wasn't? I don't know about you, but those little murdering psychopaths from the Kurast jungle and those demon beetles from the Anaroch desert always made me tense due to the former butchering me like a bunch of demented children would tear apart a birthday cake (Ohohoho) and the latter shooting off a thousand sparks of electricity whenever I would so much bump elbows with it. D1 in comparison was pretty tense during the first few levels and your encounter with the butcher, but after you hit your stride, the game eases up.

There's nothing wrong with the variety, the thing is that the intensity of the experience is smoothed by that. If you feel like there's a threat, and that every obstacle you face has that threat's signature you embrace the experience in a completely different way than if it isn't. In Diablo 1 pretty much everything is focused around Diablo. All the problems in the village are some how related to an evil presence and you see the whole story unfolding in front of you, building up to the point were you fight the prime evil (which, by the way, was from being the hardest part of the game).
In Diablo 2 you do quests here and there and you don't get that feeling that there's something greater behind it. Of course, in Diablo 1 you didn't knew the story right away and the game could explore Diablo. If they stick with that in Diablo 2, it would probably be boring. But making you kill Mephisto, then Diablo and then even Baal is like saying "You're the biggest hero in the world". In the first game killing Diablo felt like something unique. In Diablo 2 it's like "two bad guys down, one more two go".
It's true that the "those little murdering psychopaths from the Kurast jungle" were a pain in the ass, but the thing is that there need to be a bunch of them for them to be threat. The game was more hack and slash, and that isn't wrong. That's pretty good, but I still prefer Diablo 1 were you needed to stay in front of a door so only one enemy could attack you at a time and stuff like that. In Diablo 2, you could try to face a lot of enemies at the same time and succeed, whereas in Diablo 1 if you got surrounded by 6 or 7 enemies you'd probably be dead.

The enemy was a threat in D1? Only if you were some kind of incompetant, water headed caveman. Granted, in D2 a majority of the enemies weren't too big of a threat alone, but when you put together a horde of 20 thousand, you'll quickly find your moistest meat being served at the demon bar-be-que. Not to mention some enemies were quite the thorn in one's testicles (see above for midget cannibals and demonic gnats). The bosses in D2 were fair challenges ,though in some instances, quite unfair. (Go back to your fecal pit, Duriel and take your holy freeze with you.)
Lastly, I do hope you realize that all of these trailer and examples of the various classes abilities are just EXAMPLES. They will not do that much damage in the final game, this is all just to show the ignorant masses that grenades explode and molten arrows burn. None of these abilities will instakill all enemies or make the game a cakewalk (I know...)

You were expressing yourself so well, why did you need to use the "incompetant, water headed caveman"? Apart from that, you said something that is quite truth full.

the enemies weren't too big of a threat alone, but when you put together a horde of 20 thousand

It's true! Diablo 2 is a harder game than Diablo 1. No doubt there. But like you said, a horde in Diablo 2 as opposed to few in Diablo 1.
The boss fights were great and I really remember Duriel (actually it's the part that I remember best from Diablo 2).
I do know that this vid is just an example of how awesome and indestructible they want you to believe that the Demon hunter is, but as I said before (and more then once) the game focus on killing hordes instead of having problems with each enemy. Diablo 2 was and is a great game, but it's not the same genre as Diablo 1. That's not bad, it's just different. It's a matter of taste which one you prefer. I personally loved Diablo 1, beaten it more than ten times and yet, in Diablo 2 I've never felt even compelled to beat the game twice. I've finished it once and it was enough for me.

Wrapping up here, see above posts concerning how most enemies are easy alone, hordes rip out your flesh, certain monsters, bosses, etc, etc. I'm not going to say that you're stupid, because that would be rather presumptuous of me. What I will say is that you are a tiny bit naive in assuming trailers and ability examples would work the same way in the final product.

Wrapping up here, I didn't say that Diablo 2 was easier, I said that individual enemies don't oppose as much of a threat when compared to enemies from Diablo 1. The game went from being hidden and killing one enemy at a time to out in the open, mass killing machine a la hack and slash (it changed in genre). Being the two games different and with different genres, I prefer the first one above the second one (but that's a matter of taste). Saying that Diablo 1 is better then Diablo 2 would be something stupid to say, since they are different at their very core. What I said was that I preferred it.

 

[DeliciousCake]

<A whole great big massive wall of text that I won't bother quoting for the sake of others who may want to look at this thread>

At first I thought that was a pretty late reply on your part, but then I realized that I'm pretty late myself.

Well, I personally enjoyed D2 more than D1, but that's because I'm a fan of the hacky-slashy variety of games. However, D1 was still a hack-n-slash game, it was just a more unrefined game. Kinda like a prototype or a diamond in the rough. It had quite a few moments, but it always seemed to me that blizzard wanted to do a little more with its gameplay, but couldn't due to technology and possibly even time constraints at the time.

Now, I enjoyed the way the story was layed out in D2 because at first, you find yourself in some kind of random camp filled with people who you don't know or care about and you do a few things for them, fight a few demons, uncover a bit of lore here and there. Then you see tristram and hear deckard cain's story about how it was fucked and then, up until the 4th act, the game feels a bit like a chase to find the wanderer. There's no secret to who he is, but there is a bit of mystery as to what he is doing, apart from placing lords of hell in people's backyards to murder them for shits and giggles. It also always seems you're just 50 steps behind, up until you see him in the demonic flesh in the 3rd act, which I personally always fucking loved due to it being a rather good mix of gameplay and story. Even after having played through it for the 30th time, I always try to attack him, even though I know he's immune. Then, after a bit more lore, you find out that diablo was trying to get ressurected or whatever and you go kill mephisto. And then you kill diablo and everything is wonderful forever...OR IS IT? A cinematic shows that baal is still alive and trolls Marius hardcore by murdering him and taking his powerstone or whatever. Then after a ton of attempts to prove your worth and a retarded twist at mount arreat you kill baal and everything is again wonderful forever...OR IS IT? Destruction of the worldstone, great future perils, blah blah blah.

Now, the point of that terribly stupid plot synopsis was that though the plot in D1 was basically: "Find out who or what is making this town into a bad vacation spot", the plot in D2 was more "Find out what that wanderer guy is trying to do and catch up with him before he does it" The game's story also takes on a much wider scope than D1, and the 4th act ending cinematic has always been my favorite, because for a year: that was the end of D2: You did manage to conquer great evil, BUT it looks like you forgot one, silly you. And by the time LoD came out, it was apparent that you forgot probably the most powerful one.

Also, D1 had it's fare share of hordes too. Granted, not as many or as big as D2, but still a fair amount: the fallen ones always traveled in at least groups of 3 and sometimes as many as 12. Gargoyles were rarely found without a bunch of company as well as the imps. Not to mention the skeleton king's rooms which will filled with...well...skeletons. And on quite a few occasions I met up with a group of fat demons who smothered me in their greasy rolls. In fact, most of the times you engaged in battle, there were at least 4 or 5 enemies of various types standing near you. Double also, everybody moved so slowly in D1 that it was impossible to get surrounded, unlike D2 where not only could you run, but some enemies could run like the flash on a mix of cocaine and steroids.

But if you really like D1 over D2, then I suppose it's just difference in taste...and that whole wall of text I unleashed was rather pointless...

 

[dancinginfernal]

Oh, hey Sylvannas. Fancy meeting you here. In Diablo.

 

[Apophenia Overload]

I think people have to take into account what this class is based off of. It's clearly inspired by witch hunter or monster slayer characters from say Van Helsing or Warhammer Fantasy. It almost looks like a generic one, really. In that respect it's not too bad, though the heels are dumb and dual miniature crossbows are silly.

 

[Arawn.Chernobog]

Why hello Lady Sylvanas, what brings you to Diablo's universe?

 

[etherlance]

Am I the only one who's reminded of Kasumi from Mass Effect 2?

It's Kasumi's big sister!