Diablo 3

[Shinova]

Do I have to log into the companies servers to play? check
Do I have to agree to the same EULA that I would for WoW? check
Can I be banned from playing it because someone hacked my account and did bad things with it and I can't prove otherwise? check
Can people use the same tactics they do in MMORPGs to steal my data? check
Can my game be unplayable because servers owned by Blizzard are full or overwhelmed despite my PC being more than able to handle it, on a single player game? check

Those are invalid reasons because if someone like say EA introduced a FPS game that was also online-only, those reasons you listed would apply as well.


And people are complaining about inferno because they expected to faceroll it within a few days like most other games. Well they can't. Blizzard said it could take months to farm proper gear to clear inferno, and diablo 2 was a lot like that; you could play endless hours and not get the gear you wanted (people eventually did thanks to all the duping that went around). Now D2 isn't as hard as D3, but there are people out there who are in progress of clearing inferno without using broken mechanics like force armor, but these people have put into well into hundreds of hours into their characters. Everyone will have to do the same, or shell out lots of gold on the AH.

The game reminds me somewhat of an MMO, mostly the grind for gear, so you can get better gear, so you can get more gold to buy better gear so that you can beat the game.

like Vendetta said Diablo was about this, and Diablo's been out for longer than the concept of MMOs even existed.

[TheFeniX]

On the MMO note, I'm pretty sure Blizzard is working on an armory page for characters to show off all their "1337 gears." Still dumb considering there's going to be thousands of grizzled white-haired Barbarians showing off their different colored bondage gear.

Diablo's been out for longer than the concept of MMOs even existed.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously? Maybe D3s concept of "gear > all" that WoW popularized would be a valid argument. But way more than just the concept of MMOs was being played even before 14.4k dial-up was a standard.

Anyway, they need to let you customize the "recommended" page on the AH. I'm tired of seeing Dex/Vit rings for 5,000,000 gold when I first enter. Also, the fucker needs to quit resetting your criteria every time you do anything and/or they need to let you inspect your PC without exiting and going through 5 menus. The only reason it doesn't piss me off more is that Blizzard does have a good grasp on making menu selection fast and fairly painless.

[Minischoles]

Do I have to log into the companies servers to play? check
Do I have to agree to the same EULA that I would for WoW? check
Can I be banned from playing it because someone hacked my account and did bad things with it and I can't prove otherwise? check
Can people use the same tactics they do in MMORPGs to steal my data? check
Can my game be unplayable because servers owned by Blizzard are full or overwhelmed despite my PC being more than able to handle it, on a single player game? check

Those are invalid reasons because if someone like say EA introduced a FPS game that was also online-only, those reasons you listed would apply as well.


And people are complaining about inferno because they expected to faceroll it within a few days like most other games. Well they can't. Blizzard said it could take months to farm proper gear to clear inferno, and diablo 2 was a lot like that; you could play endless hours and not get the gear you wanted (people eventually did thanks to all the duping that went around). Now D2 isn't as hard as D3, but there are people out there who are in progress of clearing inferno without using broken mechanics like force armor, but these people have put into well into hundreds of hours into their characters. Everyone will have to do the same, or shell out lots of gold on the AH.

There's a difference between challenging, and just flat out broken.

Nobody expected to faceroll it, and the mechanics that were used to faceroll it were broken (although the nerf to some wizard talents outright broke them).

Some of the mobs in inferno, flat out aren't possible unless you already outgear that act or even inferno - and once you do, inferno is as faceroll as anything else. But you're in a catch 22, you can't progress without gear, but can't get that gear without progressing. So you hope the people that managed to conquer inferno before their faceroll abilities got nerfed, flood the AH with items for you to buy - while you farm lower tiers.
Going off the gear you might reasonably get just leveling, you will struggle.

[AMT]

Do I have to log into the companies servers to play? check
Do I have to agree to the same EULA that I would for WoW? check
Can I be banned from playing it because someone hacked my account and did bad things with it and I can't prove otherwise? check
Can people use the same tactics they do in MMORPGs to steal my data? check
Can my game be unplayable because servers owned by Blizzard are full or overwhelmed despite my PC being more than able to handle it, on a single player game? check

Those are invalid reasons because if someone like say EA introduced a FPS game that was also online-only, those reasons you listed would apply as well.

Eh that doesn't make it invalid. If they created a game where the single game required you to do the above I'd consider it to have most of the online FPS drawbacks with little of the FPS bonuses.

[Darth Yan]

I for one liked the diablo 3 ending. the others were too bitter; it's nice to see the heroes have a truly solid victory, and I still think that it sets up interesting plot developments. The previous angel of wisdom is implied to be corrupted, and I see Imperius undergoing a lucifer style transformation. I remember reading in the tie ins that Tyreal was as prejudiced as Imperius was until he witnessed the mortal Uldyssian sacrifice his life and god like powers to save those he loved and the world he cherished (as such he realized that no abomination could do such a noble act and was the deciding vote to spare Sanctuary.) Imperius never forgave him for that and I think that the fact that when Heaven was in it's darkest hours it was mortals who saved the day and defeated Diablo just what he was on the cusp of triumph when he himself blew it is going to make him even more bitter.

[Stofsk]

I'm sorry but the ending wasn't a 'truly solid victory'. Spoiler

Leah was betrayed by her own mother to become a vessel for Diablo, and from every sign it appears she's toast. So what if Diablo was defeated, Leah was killed off and she was arguably the protagonist of the story. She didn't even rate a mention in the ending cinematic. This is almost certainly a sign that the inevitable expansion will be about saving her soul or whatever, but that hasn't come about yet. As of right now, I find the ending incredibly bleak. And the ending cinematic totally runs counter to that and is incongruous.

[Darth Yan]

the forces of hell (tathamet) or whatever the fuck all the prime evils combined are defeated forever, Spoiler

and the black soulstone vanished with diablo and the forces of hell don't have a backup plan. As far as I'm concerned that's a victory. Yes there was sacrifice but Diablo finally recieved his long overdue comeuppance. There was sacrifice but Humanity beat the forces of evil for good and now Heaven will kind of have to acknowledge Humanitie's worth. That's more bittersweet. Diablo's grand plan for the first three is confirmed to have been defeated.

It's like how in WOL; the dark voice's army is still coming, Arcturus Mengsk is in power but the Zerg have been broken, Raynors finally faced the ghosts of his past and Kerrigan can now work to achieve redemption for her sins.

[Stofsk]

Spoiler

Yeah except the black soulstone wasn't accounted for, and it's smart money that its ultimate fate will be part of the expansion, along with getting a resolution to Leah's status and Where In The World is Adria Santiago?

You also completely missed the point I was making about how Leah's arc ended the way that it did and yet the ending didn't even acknowledge it at all. It was an artificially bright and cheerful ending for fuck's sake, and was really lame in an otherwise serviceable story. Saying 'yeah sacrfices were made but whatever BAD GUYS DEAD SUNSHINE AND HAPPINESS AT THE END GG BLIZZARD' doesn't make a good rebuttal any more than it makes a good ending.

[houser2112]

Spoiler

Yeah except the black soulstone wasn't accounted for, and it's smart money that its ultimate fate will be part of the expansion, along with getting a resolution to Leah's status and Where In The World is Adria Santiago?

You also completely missed the point I was making about how Leah's arc ended the way that it did and yet the ending didn't even acknowledge it at all. It was an artificially bright and cheerful ending for fuck's sake, and was really lame in an otherwise serviceable story. Saying 'yeah sacrfices were made but whatever BAD GUYS DEAD SUNSHINE AND HAPPINESS AT THE END GG BLIZZARD' doesn't make a good rebuttal any more than it makes a good ending.

I look at it like this: Spoiler

This "sunshine and happiness" ending is an ending in name only, similar to the ending of ANH. It's obvious there's going to be an expansion to cover all the dangling plot points you mentioned. I don't think Blizzard honestly expects people to treat is as an actual capstone ending to the Diablo saga, there are too many unresolved questions.

[TheFeniX]

I don't really see the problem: the ending was CGI porn barely worth watching. They closed up the main plot point from the last 2 games and they left shit open on more than a few fronts so they can bang out expansion packs to keep the game rolling for the next 5 years.

As for more idiocy, I found two Legendaries (the same one) on the AH for 40k a piece that were level appropriate (double my DPS). Bought them, equipped one, then slapped myself for being a dumbass when I tried to equip the other. My is 50 now, so we're going on to Hell difficulty this weekend. Should be fun.

[TheFeniX]

Man, if I spent as much time gaming as I did reading about developer fuck-ups.... well, I'd probably be single again, so it's probably a good thing. Anyway, Forbes of all sites had a pretty good article on this whole hacking debacle which has caused a massive fanboy response of bullshit spewing from Blizzard whores. Is there a "Blizzard Defense Force" site? There has to be somewhere.

Forbes writer gets hacked and his response to Blizzard whore blow-back and providing a few more details on the situation. Both are a pretty good read, and the comments section makes me die a little inside (which isn't exactly specific to this site).

The case for supporting session spoofing:

The hackers only stripped the very last character played, no matter its level or the level of the other characters on the account. It stands to reason that a hacker looking for high level gear who managed to get their hands on someone’s password would take everything. How does it make sense that a level 25 monk is stripped bare while a level 60 barbarian is left alone?

Normally I would create a lvl 1 named "Eat Shit" (oh wait, that would get tagged by Blizzards name filter), but even logging in last with him: my gold is held by my account, not character.

Off-Topic worthless side-note:I don't know why, but Blizzard's "just roll back if we they get hacked" reminds me of a bet I had years ago with another tech who wanted to run our website on an NT4.0 box. I told him we'd get hacked within a week tops because NT had major issue with the way it handled password hashes. On a larf, I setup an old P1 with a 500MB HDD, installed and patched NT and IIS, put it in the DMZ, and left work. I got in the next morning and it had no HDD space because some script-kiddie had rooted it and loaded up half of some pirated movie. Why was I reminded of this:

Brutal hilarity time, Battle.net password are not case sensitive. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the system couldn't differentiate between 8 and *. Also, looks like our old tech got a job with Blizzard, because fuck security, we only own 3 of the most popular IPs in the world.

[Keevan_Colton]

The more I see about this the more I think Blizzard need taken out back and beaten mercilessly. So, apparently they cant manage any sort of security without an authenticator widget...my fucking bank manages just fine without one, my accounts for every other fucking game, steam and a shitload of other things gets by just fine. The lack of case sensitive passwords is just a bit of extra hilarity for their bullshit. The best part there is people championing it as saving customer service rep time by not having to tell people to turn capslock off...

[Eulogy]

The more I hear about Blizzard's bullshit, the more glad I am that I didn't buy Diablo 3. And from the looks of it I won't be buying their games until and unless they get rid of the shitheads in charge, and Activision become a good company again (fat chance, I know).

[Gandalf]

Well, there's a patching problem. Once more, there's no logging in.

Come on Blizzard!

[Stofsk]

Well, there's a patching problem. Once more, there's no logging in.

Come on Blizzard!

I just logged in now Gandz.

[Gandalf]

It's not working for me. I get the same "Go get the patch!" message every time.

*grumble grumble*

[Stofsk]

Aren't you supposed to auto-patch before your game even starts?

[Gandalf]

The launcher says that the game is up to date.

When I log in, I get an error stating that the game needs patching. The game autoexits and fires up the launcher.

[Stofsk]

Well if you haven't already I'd check to see if this is a common error and/or contact Blizzard directly.

[Gandalf]

Yeah, it's all over the Blizzard forums.

The reps are saying "Yeah we're sorry. It'll be fixed in time."

[Stofsk]

It's weird that you can't get into the game, yet I can. The autopatching went well for me. Why didn't it for you?

[Karza]

Incidentally, do achievements work now? Last night when I finally got through login I noticed they were broken. Again.

[Stofsk]

They work for me.

[Thanas]

So, after completing the game, I find myself being utterly uninterested in it anymore. Does this also happen to you guys or are you still levelling up?

[Shinova]

Play nightmare mode and above. Waaaay more fun than normal.