Zero Punctuation: Diablo 3

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I laughed when Salman Rushdie showed up.

Have to agree that Diablo III is far easier than previous titles, and that if all you want to do is play singleplayer, the online requirement is a *****. I had a nice hole cleared in my schedule the other day and I couldn't log on because the game went offline for over 12 hours while they patched it and then tried to fix whatever the patch broke.

Also the writing is laughably bad: "You cannot judge me! I am justice itself!"

 

[cricket chirps]

So Croshaw hit the nail on the head again.

Its a good game but yea everything he said was true. I HAVE IN FACT been looking for a better pair of pants for the last 6 level ups. I DID IN FACT hate that second act boss because of the laggy-jumpy-thingy that grew tiresome everytime i saw it...which was every time i saw a new group of enemies.

On another note, HE SAID "/" THAT IS A PUNCTUATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[VonBrewskie]

Hilarious. I feel very much like a rat in a cage. I hit a bar in the cage and a pellet drops out. Yum yum. The real shit thing about it is sometimes a pellet drops out, yum yum, and sometimes a line of goddamn cocaine drops out, up up and away. It's almost as bad when nothing drops out. "Just one more mob".

 

[Axyun]

Hmm interesting. You don't share loot with other players online. Wonder how much of his review is based on actual game time.

Oh well, I'm here for the comedy, not the "review". Could have been funnier. Lot's of really bad spots in the story and dialog that could have served as a jumping-off point for some ball-busting.

In the end, I think everyone who was going to buy D3 already bought it. No point in swaying opinions either way. Time to go back to my HC Demon Hunter.

 

[Brotherofwill]

It's a shame Yahtzee didn't play it through until the end. The final boss fight was so anticlimactic and the ending comes close to mass effect 3 bad. I was really looking forward to him bashing on that part.

Oh get off that high horse already. D3 had a predictable Blizzard style ending, and you had an actual final boss fight. ME3 did not actually have a final boss fight, and had an ending that was unexpected, illogical, and abrupt. Comparing games that have mediocre and predictable endings to ME3 is just plain rude.

Correction, it has a typical Metzen style ending...that is to say the usual, cliched high fantasy, chosen one, save the world and create rainbows and puppies ending.
The previous games didn't. Diablo 1 and 2 had pretty murky bittersweet endings and D2's expansion ended on a cliffhanger with it heavily hinted that your actions only made things worse.
Diablo always had a somewhat peversely satisfying approach in that way...no matter how well you do you always lose somehow in the end. Pretty fitting for gothic/pseudo-low fantasy.
Then 3 came along with a new writer, bucked out all the old tropes and story style and inserted generic black and white, chosen one saves teh wurld plot # 460175

Game's good enough, if you don't like dungeon crawlers it won't make you like them though.

That's a real good way to describe the differences in story. At some level I think the developers didn't understand the initial appeal that Diablo I and II had (which are both really different games anyway). On top of that they changed it for the worst to get a new audience, leaving old and new fans kinda dissapointed.

The game is like a really well made copy by someone that can't analyze the original. A copy-paste with all the good bits missing.

 

[Graill]

Havent purchased a single blizzard product in over ten years. My last was warcraft 2. The sun outside is great and this review makes the world a slightly happier place. Grin.

Sadly my brother is a blizzard fanatic. His wife does keep him in check though.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It's a shame Yahtzee didn't play it through until the end. The final boss fight was so anticlimactic and the ending comes close to mass effect 3 bad. I was really looking forward to him bashing on that part.

If they gave you a conclusive ending, they wouldn't be able to keep churning out sequels over and over again.

 

[Kermi]

It's a shame Yahtzee didn't play it through until the end. The final boss fight was so anticlimactic and the ending comes close to mass effect 3 bad. I was really looking forward to him bashing on that part.

OK, but seriously, who plays Diablo for the story? Literally your only interactions with the world are clicking things to death and selling their trousers to the merchants. It's not like your character has any personality.

Which is kind of why I now feel compelled to go and play Diablo 2. I would play Diablo 1 but the version I actually have on CD stopped working about 3 versions of Windows ago. I'm hoping a pirated version of D2 might be more likely to run.

 

[scw55]

You can fully customise your action bars by havingboth evil dogs and the ability tomake enemies shit themselves.

Options -> Gameplay -> Bottom Right Option whose name I forget because it's a shit term.


It's a shame Blizzard doesn't exactly tell anyone this. The only way you discover this is by accident or Chinese Whispers; which is what i'm doing now, rather a CHINESE SHOUT.

He mentions that in the credits.

Nope. He talks of "Reassign the Primary Attack" which is very vague. So I assume it's swing the weapon equip.

 

[Dangit2019]

But Yahtzee, changing out the pants is the part of dungeon crawlers that really drawers you in!

I might have to send a ninja assassin after you for making that pun.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

I haven't played the game yet, but from what I've heard, the story is pretty crap. That's too bad though, because the story and the atmosphere were always the two things I found the most appealing about Diablo 1 and 2. It's only made worse by the fact that, even though it does seem to have a very distinct "Neo Blizzard" look, the game's atmosphere seem to be pretty much spot on.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well one time I didn't. Don't ask me to explain it, 'cause I don't really understand it either.

May I pretend that you found the secret diplomacy pathway, creating a splinter universe where everyone just talks out their problems over tea and the Angels, Demons and Humans all realize that there wasn't really any purpose to the Eternal Conflict and then they all go home and leave each other alone except for once a year when they have a picnic and water balloon toss?

(captcha: like the dickens)

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

 

[maninahat]

It's always fun to read the forum after Yatzee gives a popular game a bad review.

At least wait for people to start whining in the comment section before you start mocking them. The front page of posts consists of people being patient, understanding and in agreement. Boring really.

 

[ildon]

I could be wrong, but I think part of the idea of randomly generated dungeons is, besides replayability, is that your experience will be different than your friend's experience so you can stand around the water cooler comparing.

My wall was over there and a shirt with +1 dropped.

-Really? Mine was over here and pants with +1 dropped.

Did you fight that boss and do that one story bit?

-Well... yeah... But the path there was... different, I guess. Sort of.

If they made it at all like Diablo 2, then sometimes you won't even fight some bosses, or have some quests available, because they weren't generated. It does make for different games.

I remember on one playthrough of the first Diablo I didn't have to fight the Butcher.

You always have to kill the Butcher in Diablo 1--it's a main story quest.

I just registered an account to explain this to you. The Butcher is not "the main story quest" of Diablo 1 any more than the poisoned well, the missing sign, or the Skeleton king are "the main story quest." They are all randomly generated Act 1 quests... for single player. In multiplayer, presumably because the other quests often involved picking up items and returning them to NPCs or moving items around the world or using levers or who knows why, they hard coded the Act 1 quest to always be The Butcher.

My point being that I believe the only reason The Butcher is the Act 1 quest for multiplayer is due to some technical reason or because it was the one least likely to cause problems in a multiplayer game, not necessarily because it was "the main story quest." In terms of the game's overall plot, The Butcher isn't even that pivotal to the story. "Lazarus led some guys into the dungeon to save the prince, but it was a trap and the monsters got them" is plenty sufficient for the overall story. The Butcher is cool and all but in terms of "normal" people versus the hero player character, it might as well have been a pack of skeletal archers that killed the rescue party.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Also since posting this morning I logged in to discover my account had been hacked and they'd made off with everything. Never been to any dodgy sites where I could be keylogged, only ever played with my brother.

Great job Blizzard, loving how the whole 'online only' routine has made the game experience so much more secure. Think that's my cue to not waste 80 dollars on any more of your crap.

 

[maninahat]

While I do enjoy Yatzee's rants I do find him to be oddly narrow in the taste department.

He hates RPGs, MMOs, MMORPGs, RTSs, TBSs, QTEs, Multiplayer games, Games on the PC and Games on the Wii to name a few.
So basically he hates quite large percentage of the alphabet.

He doesn't hate them - though there are some genres he doesn't bother to review at all (especially strategy games). To be honest, that is typical for critics, and for audiences too. The thing is that on, say, IGN, they have a battery of reviewers so as to cover all genres and platforms, whilst Yahtzee is just one guy with only enough time to play a couple of games per week.

 

[algalon]

As me and my guildies would chant on raids back in the old days, "DROP MY PANTS!"

 

[Caffiene]

Steam games don't have real money auction house to protect, you can't dupe items because those are server-side as well. You are comparing tomatoes to hamburgers.

The question you were initially answering was "If the real money auction house is being suspended indefinitely, what is the point of having always-online?"

Im not sure that an answer of "they need to protect the real money auction house" really works to explain why they cant use a Steam-style system in that context

 

[HeallunRumblebelly]

I could be wrong, but I think part of the idea of randomly generated dungeons is, besides replayability, is that your experience will be different than your friend's experience so you can stand around the water cooler comparing.

My wall was over there and a shirt with +1 dropped.

-Really? Mine was over here and pants with +1 dropped.

Did you fight that boss and do that one story bit?

-Well... yeah... But the path there was... different, I guess. Sort of.

If they made it at all like Diablo 2, then sometimes you won't even fight some bosses, or have some quests available, because they weren't generated. It does make for different games.

I remember on one playthrough of the first Diablo I didn't have to fight the Butcher.

You always have to kill the Butcher in Diablo 1--it's a main story quest.

He's always there in single player. Not always in multiplayer. Some quests appear only in single player (think veil of steel or poisoned water) but never showed in multiplayer. No quests were multiplayer only. D1 was a damn fine game. D2 damn fine game. D3 is making me not want to play it :| Got two 60s, both in act 3 inf, and there's so many cheesy ways to get gear / ah mats that it just doesn't even feel like playing anymore.

 

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Steam games don't have real money auction house to protect, you can't dupe items because those are server-side as well. You are comparing tomatoes to hamburgers.

The question you were initially answering was "If the real money auction house is being suspended indefinitely, what is the point of having always-online?"

Im not sure that an answer of "they need to protect the real money auction house" really works to explain why they cant use a Steam-style system in that context

D3 is setup to give the player only a small portion of the data client side to help prevent hacking and such :3 They need to remain that integrity because of the RMAH.

If they have random ladder resets with RMAH, the amount of rage among the playerbase, my god...

~ buys 15$ sword
~ ladder reset week later

That said, getting all 5 classes to 60 takes maybe 20-25 hrs each, casually. Gonna be a short game without ladder resets.