Diablo III

[Mogul]

I will admit Diablo III looks cool, and I will be playing it because I will have it for free, but aside from the excitement of loot, I never really understood the addictive appeal series veterans claim.

To me, Diablo is about spam clicking like crazy. And as far as gameplay goes, that's about it. Oh and chain-potting, which is incredibly dumb design. I know you can't chain pot in D3, but it looks to be the same kind of never-ending clicking marathon as the others... so, Turb or some other legit Diablo fan, can you help me see what is cool about such a game?

[obsidian]

At first, I was perplexed but I'm actually quite glad that I have no idea what you are talking about when you say stuff like "chain-potting".

[Psyche911]

At first, I was perplexed but I'm actually quite glad that I have no idea what you are talking about when you say stuff like "chain-potting".

Really? I've never heard that term before and I immediately knew what it meant...

I haven't played D2 since I finished my first run through the expansion.

[SoM]

i know, i played with him and elk.

let's find him and do his ass like ghadafi's

bring it...

and Diablo(Turb) rises out of hell

good to hear from ya

[Mogul]

"Chain-potting" means using health or mana potions in rapid succession to cheese your way through periods of heavy damage, etc. It can only be done in silly games with no potion cooldown, such as Diablo.

[xer0s]

Any new news on this fuckin game?

[Mogul]

Yeah, but not much meaningful info unless you're in the beta and understand the ramifications. They're doing some significant game system changes and there's a wealth of info about it, but from my outside-of-beta view, it doesn't mean much to me.

There were rumors that it was coming out in February but the beta build with these big changes just went out a week or two ago and they're still sending waves of invites 100k at time. It sounds like release isn't anywhere close to imminent. Maybe April, I'm guessing.

[xer0s]

April isn't that long away...

[Mogul]

It's a lot further than February 1st and February 7th, both rumored (and the second advertised at Gamestop stores) and both obviously false, at this point. April was a guess too, and for all I know it could be October.

February was a reasonable guess going off of the timelines between their previous WoW expansion betas and their release dates, but that doesn't seem reliable given the latest build with extensive system changes.

Short answer is who the hell knows.

[Transient]

I'm in the beta, and I think it may be even further away from launch than April. Just before I got access, they released a patch that removed several features from the game, stating that they weren't working as intended and needed to be tinkered with. We also only have access to content up to level 13, half of the first act.

Several of the choices they went with while developing the game worry me. There's an in-game auction house where players can put up items they find for real money (and ingame currency, I think). They also dumbed down the skill system so that every player who makes a, say, monk will have access to every monk skill in the game. Only up to 6 can be active at a time, but whenever you want you can swap them out for whatever other skill you want. They still unlock based on your level, though. The game is also much, much less gritty than its predecessors. Less blood, less gore, and the darkness at the edges of your vision is pushed way back. It looks too much like WoW in my opinion.

[scared?]

i fuck men...

[obsidian]

Isn't Diablo supposed to be really dark, hellish and scary? What's up with all the bright colours, seems too WoW'ish. Hopefully they're just showing one of the earlier levels.

Hmm...

[shaft]

seemed dark to me

[SoM]

Isn't Diablo supposed to be really dark, hellish and scary? What's up with all the bright colours, seems too WoW'ish. Hopefully they're just showing one of the earlier levels.

Hmm...

ya, it needs the necro with CE

[Mogul]

http://www.gametrailers.com/side-missio ... d_facebook

[xer0s]

Bummer. Oh well. As long as they make it good, they can take all the time they need...

[xer0s]

in other news, diablo3 on may 15th.

Really?!? Fuck, that gives me little time to get my PC ready...

[bitWISE]

Already got it pre-downloaded. Wish they would just let you install it. Not like you can do much without access to servers.

[scared?]

Really?!? Fuck, that gives me little time to get my PC ready...

Jesus dude...it only takes a few minutes to build an entire computer...moron alert?...

[Mat Linnett]

Let alone which, D3 is probably purposefully made to run well on gear up to 5 years old

[Mogul]

Well, it runs on my machine (core2quad, 4 gigs of ram, but a modern video card), but it's not nearly as smooth as you'd imagine by looking at the screenshots. You honestly do need a reasonably modern processor and video card, not one or the other. Even on the lowest settings for physics and graphics, it chugs when entering a new area or there are like 30 monsters on the screen.

So yeah, upgrade.

[Tsakali]

sounds like lazy programming to me. Let me guess, this is a PC only title right?
yeah, this is an interesting example.

[SoM]

but who uses a dual core 9800 and XP, unless geoff.

[MKJ]

Scalability is usually #1 for Blizz. I'll be most surprised if their 'low' settings fail to run on anything from a dual core, 9800 and XP.

Indeed

[Mogul]

I am sure it will run, as you say. But on my reasonably powerful machine, there is a lot more choppiness than I anticipated.

On Monday I am upgrading to an i5 (from core2 quad) and 8 gigs of ram (from 4). My video card stays (GTX 570). I expect it will run nearly flawlessly at that point.

Just trying to give you guys a decent ballpark idea of how your machines might run this game.