Unfortunately, from reading the reviews on Amazon, it seems that Blizzard has royally botched the launch of Diablo III. Numerous very angry reviews complaining that Blizzard's servers crashed under the strain of so many people attempting to log on to Battle.Net. People sitting for hours attempting to log on and getting nothing but error messages. And those that did manage to log on were generally unimpressed with the gameplay, saying there were no innovations that justified the 10+ year wait for this sequel. Of course, the gaming community has been up in arms for months over the issue of D3 requiring a mandatory active internet connection to play, even in single-player mode. Now comes the word the the disc you shell out $60 for doesn't actually contain the game - instead it contains only a download program. The actual game files are all on Blizzard's servers. So I guess all you're really getting for your money is a registration code. If Blizzard's servers go down, you're screwed. At least Demon Souls gives you the option of offline single-player mode or connecting to servers for on-line co-op play. I was really excited for this game, but now I'm having some serious second thoughts.
Installing now. It's been about half an hour and it's at 10%. If this trend of downloading shit from servers just to play the game even in single player continues, I'm going to have to rethink buying these games. The only reason I really bought it is a bunch of friends peer pressured me into it and wanted me to play. They are cute Asian girls too, so how am I suppose to resist? I like Diablo II well enough, but not enough to put up with this new-fangled copy protection bullshit. And really, that's essentially what it is. They can make up excuses as to why they did it this way, but in the end, that's all it is.
Hmm, looks like then if I want to fire up a LAN game of Diablo, I'll stick to DII then. At least there, when it's patched up, I can just install it once, copy it onto a thumb drive and paste it onto the other computers on the network, figure out which computer deigns to be found as the host, and get the game going since I don't play online through Battle.net. (Same with Starcraft I, as well.) Copy protection is a bunch of bullshit in the end, IMO. World of Warcraft (while strictly online play) does at least have a 'shareware' form of the game with its Starter Edition.
^Diablo 3 does that too. There are about 3 game cards you can use to play with your friends over battlenet. Of course, they also include a trial to WoW to see how many new addicts they can gather.
Yeah... a couple of my friends finally convinced me to join them in the Guild on WoW. Based on what I've been reading on the shenanigans with D3, I think Blizzard will only be collecting money from me for WoW's expansions and monthly fees. On a side note: I'm still pissed off that Vista (and 7?) doesn't support IPX networks. Means a lot of older games are a lot harder to play in LAN mode... like Warcraft II.
So Scorp, have you been able to play yet? What's your verdict on the gameplay? The bitching continues at Amazon. Approaching 500 1-star reviews. Of course, all the folks complaining bought a copy of the game, which is all that Activision/Blizzard will care about in the end. Having to log into Battle.Net to play might not be such a big deal, except that it reportedly causes such severe lag issues that it renders the game virtually unplayable. What a shame. I was looking forward to this game for the past two years. What should have been a triumphant day has instead turned into one of the biggest debacles in the history of gaming.
My roommates and all their friends are having the times of their lives playing it. I guess YMMV, but I'm considering buying it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Diablo. I've played the hell out of Diablo II, and I would like nothing better than for Diablo III to be the life-changing experience that was promised. But I'm not sure I want to support these kinds of business practices. That, and for $60, I don't really get to own anything. At least with Diablo II the game was portable.
I have only really dabbled a very very short time in the game, (you can thank the 2+ hour install time partially) so I don't think I could give it a fully honest assessment at this point. But from the hour or so I did play, it seems a lot like Diablo II, with slightly improved graphics. It's been so long, so maybe I'm remembering it wrong.
I read that assignable stat points joined the dodo. Doesn't sound good; my bowazon in DII doubles as a melee tank for those moments when I've got a kick ass melee weapon that outdoes her bow and the situation's too hairy forcing me to fight my way to retreat. Doesn't look like I could pull cross-grain characters as easily here.
Cooler than the Cow Level? http://www.shacknews.com/article/73850/diablo-3-players-find-level-of-rainbows-unicorns
I'm glad I waited to buy because people are beating the game in just seven hours so it's not really worth the price. I expect more game time than that.
I haven't played any of the Diablos, so I dived in a bought a copy from Battle.net. After about 90 minutes in, it's ok. The game reminds me of when I tried out the free trial for World of Warcraft, but less tedious. If it was $40 instead of $60, I'd say it was a decent game.
