Diablo 3 initial thoughts?

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

So now that I'm reminded that Mac folks can play Diablo, I'm tempted to go out and get it. I was curious about the gameplay and the online features of the newest version. I know I played Diablo 1 &2, but I was wondering how this gameplay works compared to #2. I've never done much online gaming (tf2 being the lone exception), how does it work on Diablo? Can I play single player?

Also noticed a trade warehouse. I pretty much refuse to pay money once I buy the game, so is that an aspect that you need in order to play?

[Bronze Fox]

I haven't played D3 yet, but the first thing you should know is that you always have to be connected to the internet to play. Even if you just want to play singleplayer, you have to be connected to the internet. And I suppose that answers your other question too, yes, you can just play singleplayer. Most of my enjoyment of D2 came from multiplayer but I seem to be in the minority now. I've watched my brother play D3 singleplayer and it looks really enjoyable if you enjoy hack-n-slash games.

As for the online item part, it's simply an online auction house. You basically find rare loot through gameplay and then put it up on Blizz's auction house. This might sound odd, but it was actually a smart decision on Blizz's part. People use to sell rare loot in D2 through their own sites. It was pretty risky for a number of reasons, but now all of it is done through an official system.

Really, if you don't mind always online DRM you should enjoy the game a lot.

[BigBiker05]

The controls are stupid and over simplified. Some of the bosses are pretty easy where as a unique or magic pack before them might be 500% harder. But that is natural, you can learn patterns in boss fights.

My complaint would it seems co-op is shunned upon. Everything gets ramped up pretty quick when you get more people in, so you aren't really killing stuff quicker. Plus as a group magic find is averaged, however, as solo-player you get 25% of your companion. This means higher MF solo than co-op, this should really be changed.

Other than that the game is pretty great. The story is way better than I would have ever thought. I predicted a lot of act 1, then they decided I would predict no more and I was totally thrown off. I'm having a lot of fun so far.

[E.T. EddieTorrez]

I pretty much agree with what Bronze said. The game is overall fun except for a few areas. It seems like every item now has a generic feel to them, even legendary's usually only have like two stationary stats with the rest being random. Not to mention with the more simplistic character design you don't really have the variety of skill point weapons that you had in d2. Also I frequently roll my eyes at the simplistic dialogue which your character endlessly spouts.

Other than these few gripes I find the game quite enjoyable.

[Cpt._Keyes]

my biggest complaint is that i had a legendary before lvl 15...lolwut? not really legendary is it...

[One_Medic_Army]

I found one legendary. I have 2 characters in act1 nightmare, and another in act 2 normal.
Legendaries are uncommon.

The game as a whole is quite fun, and there's lots of different ways to play.

[BigBiker05]

I haven't seen a single legendary drop. I'm not sure why they renamed them. I think unique was a much better name.

[Bronze Fox]

I haven't seen a single legendary drop. I'm not sure why they renamed them. I think unique was a much better name.

Legendary just sounds cooler. You could get the Unique Ring of the Fire Boar
or you could get the Legendary Ring of the Fire Boar.

[Cpt._Keyes]

i refuse to believe i was that lucky...i do not have that kind of luck with blizzard games...to be completely decked in unique and a legendary at level 20? I think its more of blizzards "epix for everyone!" plan they have been doing since the middle of Burning Crusade

[BigBiker05]

i refuse to believe i was that lucky...i do not have that kind of luck with blizzard games...to be completely decked in unique and a legendary at level 20? I think its more of blizzards "epix for everyone!" plan they have been doing since the middle of Burning Crusade

You mean rare and legendary, there are no uniques.
But keep in mind everything is level based. Hell, they give you a free rare item for killing the first boss in the game. A low level legendary will last more levels than a rare, a rare more than a magic. Then you have really rare legendary items like:

*EDIT: There is a huge general complaint right now that legendary are often items worse than equal level rare/magic.

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[frostdillicus]

In Diablo 2, many times, rares of equal level were better than any unique in the game. I don't kno why people are having issues with this now.

As for the name change to legendary, calling them uniques always bothered me. There were thousands of people with the same set of cookie cutter items, that does not scream unique to me. Rares were almost always entirely different from one another, hence they were truly unique. Calling things rare and legendary is a much better nomenclature in my opinion.

And Keyes, there were plenty of low level uniques in D2. The Diggler Dirk anyone?

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

Is there still a storyline that you play thru? I liked the RPG aspect of D2 compared to how the first one felt. I never played as co-op, but probably would with fellow Villuns if it made some sense. How does co-op play vs solo?

I liked the dungeon crawling combined with different locals in the second one. Does this game keep that same element?

[frostdillicus]

There is no more stat allocation so you can't make a Wizard with 600 strength anymore. Then again, if you did in D3 he would be completely useless as even int governs how much damage you do with melee attacks.

However, there are about 4 billion rune/skill combinations if you take an active skill from each category and don't double up. I haven't calculated how many there would be if you did that. There are tons of different builds though, so it's not like we lost much from not having 99 skill points.

[Bronze Fox]

Is there still a storyline that you play thru? I liked the RPG aspect of D2 compared to how the first one felt. I never played as co-op, but probably would with fellow Villuns if it made some sense. How does co-op play vs solo?

I liked the dungeon crawling combined with different locals in the second one. Does this game keep that same element?

Again, from watching my brother play, D3 seems to have a lot more story than D2.

For solo play compared to co-op play: it's just like it was in D2. Monsters become more difficult and that's about it.
Any loot that drops in co-op only appears to you. This keeps people from fighting over rare drops.

For the third and final part, saw my brother play some of Act 2 and it was a completely different area than Act 1.
So I'm sure each Act gives you a new town with its own locale.

If I'm wrong in any way feel free to correct me but I feel like this information is pretty accurate.

[ShiftyDevil]

We found it. The mythical hidden level:

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And forged a path of destruction!

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