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DeSo · Mar 7, 2014

After all these years and so many games, I always come back to this one. And unlike most of you, I always played it single player and still do. And this is a big part of why I love it. It doesn't punish you for playing single player.

I love making heaps of characters with different builds, I love finding that awesome bit of loot that pertained to the class I was playing, I loved the action, I loved the story. Okay, the story was nothing groundbreaking but it was told so well. And the cinematics are still badass as hell to this day. I mean, come on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD8fOTlMt1Q

Love to hear your thoughts, GAF.

Isurus · Mar 7, 2014

Agree it is a great game and one I love to go back to as well, but definitely not via single player. Leveling and looting take far too long and the more advance gear setups simply aren't possible with single player. Battle.net all the way for me.

Dark_castle · Mar 7, 2014

It's a dungeon-crawler, not so much ARPG.

Absolutely loved this game. Lord of Destruction made vanilla D2 even greater.

AllIsOneIsNone · Mar 7, 2014

Completely agree. D3 is great now, but it isn't the same type of game and just can't compare.

gruenel · Mar 7, 2014

It's still a great game, but I like D3 better, especially after 2.0.

xDUMPWEEDx · Mar 7, 2014

D2 is my 2nd favorite game of all time. Even to this day I also agree it is a FAR superior game than D3. 1.09 was the best patch IMO, those were the glory days of D2.

1.10+ was cool, with the addition of synergies and all that, but the overpowered runewords completely ruined PvP (mostly Enigma) (and some overpowered synergies like blessed hammer).

Joining a public pvp game with my barb, hostiling all 7 other players, then blowing them all up and camping their corpses were some of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had.

Raide · Mar 7, 2014

Great game but after you play Diablo 3, even with its faults, going back to Diablo 2 is hard. Something about the flow of combat makes me prefer D3 over D2. Of course, there are elements in 2 that I would prefer in 3 but the patches are slowly making those things possible.

Morokh · Mar 7, 2014

Completely agree about the story-telling, the story itself is nothing special, but the cinematic just told this very simple story in a way that made it completely awesome !

It's clearly still among the best games in the genre, but some aspects of it start to feel a bit dated.

There are other games that do great things differently that are equally great, but it's quite hard to compare since some of the most recent ones are constantly evolving through patches (in good and bad ways).

D3 looks,and feels nothing like it sadly, even if it finally starts to look like a proper ARPG and not like some arcade beat them all.

Copenap · Mar 7, 2014

ARPG is a too broad term for me to agree with you but if we're talking Looting and Leveling than you might be correct.

eot · Mar 7, 2014

Frozen Orb is my favourite spell ever. It's so good, I love the 'whooosh' sound it makes.

There'a also nothing quite like seeing "Ring" or "Amulet" in golden colours after you kill a boss.

anonymous_abc · Mar 7, 2014

D2 with LOD is close to perfection.

Stay a while and listen.

Frayne Daddy · Mar 7, 2014

eot said:
Frozen Orb is my favourite spell ever. It's so good, I love the 'whooosh' sound it makes.

There'a also nothing quite like seeing "Ring" or "Amulet" in golden colours after you kill a boss.

Oh man agreed. So many feels as I read this

pieatorium · Mar 7, 2014

diablo 2 is good but it didnt become great till LOD and 1.09

Damigos · Mar 7, 2014

It is indeed the best
But it's a hack n slash RPG, not ARPG

Ploid 3.0 · Mar 7, 2014

I wish I played Diablo 2 back when it was sorta new. I still haven't played it, and I'm hooked on ARPGs, Titan Quest sorta being my first (one of my favorites).

Sentenza · Mar 7, 2014

Dark_castle said:
It's a dungeon-crawler, not so much ARPG..

More specifically a hack'n slash dungeon crawler.
And yes, H'n'S are very different from ARPGs.

DeSo · Mar 7, 2014

Copenap said:
ARPG is a too broad term for me to agree with you but if we're talking Looting and Leveling than you might be correct.

I'll take that for sure.

As for Diablo 3... I didn't like it overall. I'm Australian so playing with over 200ms ping is ridiculous for an action game. I didn't like the lack of character progression. There was no ownership of your character, like you didn't build it like you do in D2. The loot and story were both huge disappointments. I'd like to play it again but not without local servers, not going through that again. One thing it did do incredibly well was the action.

Anyway this thread is about Diablo II, just thought I'd say my piece on D3 since it was coming up so often.

AllIsOneIsNone · Mar 7, 2014

Ploid 3.0 said:
I wish I played Diablo 2 back when it was sorta new. I still haven't played it, and I'm hooked on ARPGs, Titan Quest sorta being my first (one of my favorites).

Play it, dude, just play it. You'll get past the visuals.

Captain Tuttle · Mar 7, 2014

Fantastic game, I go back to it once a year or so. From the previous Golden Age of PC gaming, it'll be interesting to see if the current one can live up to it

ExFalsoQuodlibet · Mar 7, 2014

Is it true that in Diablo 3 the story, setting and atmosphere are downgraded to turn the game into a happy lootfest? I never played the third chapter, but I loved the dark setting of the first 2.

Tom Penny · Mar 7, 2014

Right now it is much much much improved. Initially it was a hot mess.

Raide · Mar 7, 2014

Sounds odd but Dark Souls became my Diablo2 replacement when D3 came out and did not impress. Something about the rebuilding characters and trying out new things, even if they did not work, that reminded me of D2.

Hopefully DS2 will carry on that tradition, even if D3 is now much better than when it launched.

ExFalsoQuodlibet said:
Is it true that in Diablo 3 the story, setting and atmosphere are downgraded to turn the game into a happy lootfest? I never played the third chapter, but I loved the dark setting of the first 2.

After several times running through the game, you just don't care about the story. I think D3 is very atmospheric. Some nasty dark places there, more so than the small handful of places in D2. End of the day, the series is about loot collecting, so why expect anything else? That is why people play the Diablo series, since the story is just there to show off your first run and then it makes way for delicious loot!

Ourobolus · Mar 7, 2014

Still an amazing game

FUCK DURIEL IN HIS ENORMOUS ASS THOUGH

. Probably my favorite dungeon crawler, but D3 is giving it a run for its money.

n0tail · Mar 7, 2014

I absolutely agree. Diablo III is a joke compared to that. Casualized filth that should have sold no more than 100,000 copies. I guess people don't look up on titles prior to buying them, because I haven't seen any praising it. I am so glad I canceled my pre-order.

AllIsOneIsNone · Mar 7, 2014

ExFalsoQuodlibet said:
Is it true that in Diablo 3 the story, setting and atmosphere are downgraded to turn the game into a happy lootfest? I never played the third chapter, but I loved the dark setting of the first 2.

I don't think it was downgraded purposefully.

What's crazy to me is that D3 feels a lot more like an action game, but D2's action much better represents the feeling of progression in gear/skill allocation. I miss my Zeal Paladin; 5 hits in super quick succession was so damn simple yet satisfying. Monk's Way of a Hundred Fists is the closest thing to this, but Zeal's mechanic felt so much better to me.

I feel like D3 has way more boundaries and less interesting builds...which would almost make sense if there was the arena PvP in D3, but...

Raide · Mar 7, 2014

n0tail said:
I absolutely agree. Diablo III is a joke compared to that. Casualized filth that should have sold no more than 100,000 copies. I guess people don't look up on titles prior to buying them, because I haven't seen any praising it. I am so glad I canceled my pre-order.

Check out the Loot 2.0 thread that is on GAF.

Firemind · Mar 7, 2014

eot said:
Frozen Orb is my favourite spell ever. It's so good, I love the 'whooosh' sound it makes.

There'a also nothing quite like seeing "Ring" or "Amulet" in golden colours after you kill a boss.

Yeah, D3 FO just doesn't feel the same. I remember I could kill monsters way offscreen. It decimated the cow level.

Neither does Meteor. I love the fire graphic as well of the impact. Looks like real fire instead of shitty CG.

Also, I don't like how the term changed to PvE. Player versus environment? What is this? A playground? It'll always be player versus monsters to me.

/oldmanyelksatcloud

quest · Mar 7, 2014

I prefer D3 like the game play much more. It works so damn well with a controller on the PS3. Can't wait to get it on the PS4 with the RoS.

fluffydelusions · Mar 7, 2014

n0tail said:
I absolutely agree. Diablo III is a joke compared to that. Casualized filth that should have sold no more than 100,000 copies. I guess people don't look up on titles prior to buying them, because I haven't seen any praising it. I am so glad I canceled my pre-order.

Vanilla sure but 2.0 is pretty great IMO. RoS will make it even better. Also maybe you should check out the D3 threads lately. Most people love the changes.

Firemind · Mar 7, 2014

AllIsOneIsNone said:
I don't think it was downgraded purposefully.

What's crazy to me is that D3 feels a lot more like an action game, but D2's action much better represents the feeling of progression in gear/skill allocation. I miss my Zeal Paladin; 5 hits in super quick succession was so damn simply yet satisfying. Monk's Way of a Hundred Fists is the closest thing to this, but Zeal's mechanic felt so much better to me.

It used to be twenty hits in vanilla I believe. You could actually die if you missed your first attack because all you'd be hitting is air.

Also, I don't know about you guys, but the Durance of Hate scared the shit out of me when I was younger. You saw blood pits, corpses in torture chambers, motherfucking fetishes. And finally You're too late! [laughing]

Gothos · Mar 7, 2014

*sigh*

ihearthawthats · Mar 7, 2014

n0tail said:
I haven't seen any praising it. I am so glad I canceled my pre-order.

Seems like you see only what you want to see to justify your decision to cancel your preorder.

As for ARPG, I prefered stuff with wasd-style (or twin-stick) controls like the console Baldur's Gate and the similar games that followed (was BG the 1st?). Or something like PSO.

Fallout-NL · Mar 7, 2014

Agreed, vastly superior in every conceivable way to its sequel. And perhaps most importantly in terms of mood and atmosphere.

nicoga3000 · Mar 7, 2014

D2:LoD and MXL are what I compare all ARPG's against. I don't even know what makes D2 so amazing, but something about it is just magical. D3, TQ, PoE, and even MH are all wonderful games in their own light, but D2 really is something else.

Manu · Mar 7, 2014

Diablo 2 is in the top 5 best games ever made, imo. As close to perfection as you can get.

Aureon · Mar 7, 2014

It's a great game, but it's still not an ARPG.

Captain Tuttle · Mar 7, 2014

Ourobolus said:
Still an amazing game

FUCK DURIEL IN HIS ENORMOUS ASS THOUGH

. Probably my favorite dungeon crawler, but D3 is giving it a run for its money.

truthfact with that spoiler, worst part of the game

NaDannMaGoGo · Mar 7, 2014

D2 has too many flawed basic mechanics for me to really enjoy. I still understand that it deserves all the praise it gets considering it's old age and how good it was back then in comparison to what else was out there.

AllIsOneIsNone · Mar 7, 2014

Aureon said:
It's a great game, but it's still not an ARPG.

Blizzard calls it an arpg, wikipedia calls it a point and click arpg. It's a pretty vague category of games that I'm pretty sure Diablo falls into.

TheRealTalker · Mar 7, 2014

lost my original but still have the battle chest of the original 1 and 2 with the expansion

play it every few years just for the good times

MilkBeard · Mar 7, 2014

It's a classic game for sure, and I still have a copy, but I was only into it casually. I'm not really into the point and click style too much. I can see why so many love it though.

Cirdan · Mar 7, 2014

Agreed. I played only the single player for years also, didn't touch multiplayer after 03' or so. Just got tired of it. Been just popping in some progress on my characters whenever I feel like it. Not much lately after D3 though.

Anyway this isn't a D3 thread, but I'm one of those who got burned so badly by the vanilla state of the game during first 2 weeks of launch that I didn't touch the game again until a week ago. It's a lot better now. It can never be as nightmarishly great as D2 regarding to the haunting mood and other stuff, but they are doing what they can and at least they got me back in for now. AH/RMAH is out of the window soon and RoS adventure mode sounds great. Can't do much about the lag and lack of local servers for you sadly..

2San · Mar 7, 2014

DeSo said:
I'll take that for sure.

As for Diablo 3... I didn't like it overall. I'm Australian so playing with over 200ms ping is ridiculous for an action game. I didn't like the lack of character progression. There was no ownership of your character, like you didn't build it like you do in D2. The loot and story were both huge disappointments. I'd like to play it again but not without local servers, not going through that again. One thing it did do incredibly well was the action.

Anyway this thread is about Diablo II, just thought I'd say my piece on D3 since it was coming up so often.

Try the console version, it's pretty good imo. I was turned off by the Diablo 3 PC beta, but I've been having good fun playing D3 on the x360 with my brother locally. There is no auction house shenanigans either.

Fancy Clown · Mar 7, 2014

It's a game I've always wanted to like, just because the art and slaying all sorts of demons is awesome, but I just can't get into wandering around dungeons repeatedly clicking on enemies as pretty much the only form of gameplay. I always get burnt out after like two hours from the beginning of the game, I just don't think it's my style of game unfortunately

FrontalMonk · Mar 7, 2014

Yeah, D2 is excellent stuff. I still stand by my thoughts that it wasn't half the game it could have been without LoD, if only because 640x480 resolution makes me want to puke.

Oh, also that opening video STILL gives me chills.

"We traveled together...east. Always....into the east."

Thrakier · Mar 7, 2014

While I think the combat in 3 is great, I do miss the atmosphere of 1 and 2. It was so very special.

ryushe · Mar 7, 2014

Edit: Sorry, thought you meant Diablo III.

Moff · Mar 7, 2014

diablo 3 plays and feels extremely smoth and good, its incredibly fun to play.
diablo 2 was still the better game though, because everything else was superior.
diablo 1 had the best atmosphere, loved that game, too.

Matriox · Mar 7, 2014

Moo Moo moo..

Lothars · Mar 7, 2014

Diablo 2 is one of my favorite games of all time but I think one of the things that hurts it is the 800 x 600 resolution now.

It's just hard to play even though it looks decent still.

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