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Diablo 3 Release Date: May 15 [Orders & pre-loading up today]

I preordered via retail (standard edition). Is there a way to download the game client now and just pop in the code later or do I need to preorder digitally to get the game client?
 
I preordered via retail (standard edition). Is there a way to download the game client now and just pop in the code later or do I need to preorder digitally to get the game client?

I think you'll get something like a grace period to enter your code and download the game. It's how Blizzard have handled this kind of thing before.
 
I preordered via retail (standard edition). Is there a way to download the game client now and just pop in the code later or do I need to preorder digitally to get the game client?


dl the client now. just pop the code in when you get the ce into battle net. patch when servers go live.

don't preorder the digital version.
 
Unfortunately with the character limit on the battletags I had to settle for my NeoGAF tag.

Sarcasm

Add me on there. I am all moody cause I can't use my tag I been using for yeeeaarrsss. Only place where I can't.
 
Kinda neat
kYGga.jpg
 
Speak for yourself. I don't see any reason why I should skip Torchlight 2 for a pseudo-Diablo. Blizzard did almost everything to alienate fans of the original games, yet there'll be enough people who'll spend their money on the title only.

What is so different about it?
 
Well the graphics and art style is nothing like the old game for starters

Of course it's different, it's been twelve years since Diablo 2. As for the art direction it's close enough in my book. That's not what makes or breaks the game for me.

If people want Diablo 3 to be Diablo 2, why not just play Diablo 2?
 
Well the graphics and art style is nothing like the old game for starters


And that's a bad thing? Just coming off a beta, it's very hard to judge what we're going to see. But so far, everything I've seen and experienced is well done. Atmosphere is great. Sounds. Everything. I think people are jumping the gun here.
 
And that's a bad thing? Just coming off a beta, it's very hard to judge what we're going to see. But so far, everything I've seen and experienced is well done. Atmosphere is great. Sounds. Everything. I think people are jumping the gun here.

I think it's safe to assume that what's in the beta is pretty much what's gonna be there at release graphics wise.
 
I wonder if there is enough time for me to replay diablo 1 and finally play/beat Diablo 2 and its expansion before Diablo 3 comes out
Playing through part 2's single-player with your favourite class for the story is quite a treat. I had just done so myself a little over a year ago finally. Never bothered with the story till then since buying the game in 2004 because of being rushed constantly, heh
 
Four players, different approach to level cap, itemization, Blizzbucks, stats, skills, atmosphere, development team.

I don't know what you guys are on about. The game is pretty fucking Diablo.

Nice. Now get to work on that console version!

If they are working on a console version, I'm glad they're not doing it side by side with the PC version.
 
May...

So would it be too much to ask for someone to photoshop 'Poor Little Whiteboy' to read 'Poor Little Torchlight' with Max's head?
 
I don't know what you guys are on about. The game is pretty fucking Diablo.
I just listed several reasons why it's not "pretty fucking Diablo", and some of them are pretty big. Could you explain to me how it IS "pretty fucking Diablo"?
 
Four players, different approach to level cap, itemization, Blizzbucks, stats, skills, atmosphere, development team.

I just listed several reasons why it's not "pretty fucking Diablo", and some of them are pretty big. Could you explain to me how it IS "pretty fucking Diablo"?

Many of those are true, but you just listed intangibles that have no real impact on gameplay (other than atmosphere, though I'd argue we have barely seen the atmosphere of the game). I've played the beta and it feels a lot like Diablo - the many monsters to kill, the satisfying feedback, the loot. That is the core of Diablo, and it's still very much alive.

e.g. if you think having the level cap way beyond hell level is "Diablo", you're defining it way too narrowly. It's almost as if youre listing whats factually different without considering what changes what "Diablo" is.
 
I just don't think Blizzard would go through the trouble of unifying it's 3 flagship franchises through battle.net 2.0 and then split it's userbase when new platforms enter the mix. They'll make it work.

No, fuck that. There will be PC player outrage if they have to play with people using controllers.
 
Many of those are true, but you just listed intangibles that have no real impact on gameplay (other than atmosphere, though I'd argue we have barely seen the atmosphere of the game). I've played the beta and it feels a lot like Diablo - the many monsters to kill, the satisfying feedback, the loot. That is the core of Diablo, and it's still very much alive.

e.g. if you think having the level cap way beyond hell level is "Diablo", you're defining it way too narrowly. It's almost as if youre listing whats factually different without considering what changes what "Diablo" is.

The four-player limit impacts the game by impeding those of us who want to play with more than four people. Blizzard's two justifications of this decision -- that no one played with more than four players anyway and that the game was too spam-oriented with more than four players -- have run in direct contrast with my (long) Diablo 2 experience, which has consisted mostly of eight-player games. Having to split a group of eight into two is certainly tangible.

The different approach to the level cap means one less thing to grind and improve in end-game. Blizzard has replaced this with different things, which is fine. But it's different from Diablo and Diablo 2, where the level cap was basically the largest grind (moreso in Diablo where itemization wasn't deep).

Their take on itemization is another different but not necessarily worse trait. We'll see how this one pans out; it's an aspect of the game that I'm actually optimistic about. But it is, again, different, which was the question posed in the first place.

Blizzbucks will have the consequence of illegitimizing any accomplishment at all from playing softcore considering the game basically endorses cheating. As well, by integrating a monetary component into the game, farming takes on a real-world purpose, thereby contributing to the devaluation of basically everything in the game's economy (see: Diablo 2). It doesn't affect the game for me because I'm going to be playing hardcore but it affects it for everyone who finds anything on softcore.

Automated stats take certain decisions (decisions that were admittedly more relevant on hardcore than softcore and expansion than non-expansion) away from the player, most notably max block versus vitality. It also makes the lead-up to the level cap (or, in Diablo 2, the point at which stat totals stop being relevant) less interesting by not allowing you to bias your stats to achieve certain goals at different times. The pervasive uselessness of energy is not an argument against the concept of stats as a whole, either; energy wasn't useless until the expansion gave gear ridiculous amounts of mana -- if there were a version of Diablo 2 where mana was not in infinite supply and dexterity controlled block% (there isn't), stats wouldn't be mostly straightforward like they are now.

The change in skills is absolutely huge and I don't even think I can dedicate enough time to explaining how much of an impact this will have on the game. Cooldowns basically didn't exist in Diablo 2 (universal cooldowns on frozen orb, meteor, blizzard, and valkyrie notwithstanding) meaning that the proportion of damage that you could deal with an individual skill is basically insane. It also changes how damage scales, affecting the difficulty curve and how advancement feels (I would argue that the old system incentivizes improvement more than the new one does) Hell, it changes the controls. In Diablo 2, ninety percent of the game's skills were active skills that did damage or created something that did damage. That's a pretty massive departure. And really, passive skills were downplayed in Diablo 2 because they're not interesting; it's exciting to receive a new form of attack. It's not exciting to attack slightly faster.

The atmosphere has yet to be fully-realized because we've only played a small section of the game, and I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

I'm actually planning on buying this game on launch day, but that's mostly because Diablo 2 is my favourite game. I'm quite sceptical of the game, although I was also quite sceptical of Diablo 2 before it launched. So I'm hoping I'll be wrong.
 
Based on what do you presume that the game cannot be balanced for more than four players?

Well sure unless you want the game delayed another 6+ months. Besides in my experience I never saw more than 4 people co-operating in Diablo II unless it was for CS runs and Cow level exploits.
 
Well sure unless you want the game delayed another 6+ months. Besides in my experience I never saw more than 4 people co-operating in Diablo II unless it was for CS runs and Cow level exploits.
I've been waiting almost twelve years, I can take another six months. The player cap is a pretty key gameplay feature to me.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said that the majority of the time that I've spent playing Diablo 2 has been in eight-player games. Cow/Baal/River/CS/Trist/Tomb/Sanc runs notwithstanding I've gone through the entire campaign in groups of eight people more times than I can count.
 
Based on what do you presume that the game cannot be balanced for more than four players?

I do not want to start this argument again, so I will suggest that you let this one go.
For 8 player experience, you can continue to go to Diablo II.
For 4 player experience, you might be able to actually ENJOY Diablo III (and if it turns out well, you can potentially enjoy it just as much or more than DII, I know, heresy!), once you let this arbitrary requirement that you have.
 
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