I knew about elective mode, but what’s this about clicking and dragging your weapon?
I also think he has the most like-able voice. Too bad his twitchy behavior doesn’t match up with his warm, semi-gentle attitude. His voice sounds like it should belong to Ormus, the potions guy from act 3 in Diablo 2.
well it’s strange that everyone is saying how lame the music is. They have the soundtracks on Youtube and they sound pretty impressive to me.
+Soundtrack+HD+&oq=Diablo+III+[BETA]+Soundtrack+HD+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=youtube-psuggest-reduced.12…132553.132553.0.133793.1.1.0.0.0.0.219.219.2-1.1.0."]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Diablo+III+[BETA]+Soundtrack+HD+&oq=Diablo+III+[BETA]+Soundtrack+HD+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=youtube-psuggest-reduced.12...132553.132553.0.133793.1.1.0.0.0.0.219.219.2-1.1.0.
I mean, this song is pretty cool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d17ZJsyPKEA&feature=relmfu
I don’t get it too. I pretty much liked what they have composed. And people didn’t even listen to the full soundtrack.
I think the reason is fairly simple, if I have it right; I am just guessing, after all. But, I do think the reason is that the music in Diablo 1 (with the exception of Tristram, which was undeniably catchy and moody as hell) is more ambient music than anything else. Take the music in the caves, for example. It’s comprised more of screams and wails and moans than anything else, and that made it spooky as fuck. In diablo 3, it’s actually music, which makes the experience feel more like a triumphant fantasy movie than a spooky dungeon crawl. Diablo 2 had music, too, but it was very slow and melodic, with almost no orchestral influences. Take this song for example. Granted, there were pieces with instrumental styles, but they always fit into the atmosphere of the area in question.
In diablo 3, from what I gathered of the music in the beta (although that skeleton king piece you linked up above was pretty damn good and actually refutes the points I just made, but it seems to be an exception), it’s all orchestral and fairly heroic, but doesn’t actually fit well with the particular environment pertinent to the song. However, I am just dying to be proven wrong with that.
Actually, I’m gonna have to disagree with that. I love D1 and D2 music, but one of the things I didn’t like about D2’s ambient tracks is that they were just ambient tracks with bits and pieces of a melody, but it’s usually very weak and quick - whereas one of the reasons I love Diablo 1’s music so much - is, even in the devilishly spooky music of the game, every single piece has a melody throughout, and they all still manage to sound like musical pieces and not just tracks for ambience (while being made of a lot of ambient noises).
Diablo 2’s ambient tracks are more a collection of sounds with bits and pieces of melody thrown in at certain points (there are exceptions to this like the rogue encampment, blood moor, lut gholein, etc) - there’s nothing wrong with that and it fits the game great and makes it scary - but I actually go out of my way to listen to all of Diablo 1’s music from time to time, where the only music I go out of my way to listen to in Diablo 2 is the non-spooky pieces - because in the atmospheric tracks there’s not much to listen to.
Even the wails and screams in the D1 parts still have a certain “flow” to them and take the dungeon piece for example - 1:57 on to 2:44 is a collection of wails and screams, but they serve as a buildup to the ending of the piece whereas in this piece (the inside segment at 1: 37) from Diablo 2 it is much more straight up ambience. It sounds fine, but it just doesn’t have the same effect because it lacks that “melodic flow” of the originals if you will and it’s not something that would randomly pop into my head, whereas This one is much less creepy (but still dark) but is much more enjoyable to listen to. (not sure if I’m explaining this right) This is something I was hoping the diablo 3 guys would take a look at but instead we got a lot of heavy orchestral stuff which IMO, just doesn’t fit. And the atmospheric tracks I heard while playing in D3 seemed even less melodic (and noticeable) than D2.
Another big part of it is the Diablo series music generally evoked a lot of emotion and fit the locations, thus giving the player more of an attachment to the game world (though I didn’t find LoD’s music to do that) and when I listened to the D3 tracks they didn’t seem to do any of that.
That, and this is just downright holy shit
TL;DR - the reason D1 music stands out (to me, at least) is because it is one of the few musical compositions which manage to be highly atmospheric while still sounding like music
Ok, on your two primary attack buttons, the ones assigned to your mouse, click and hold down on one of the abilities, then drag that ability off towards the screen, it will default back to the normal attack. That lets you use swords, bows, axes, whatever weapon you want instead of your skills, which I don’t know why you would want to. Normal attacks are far weaker than any of your abilities.
Interesting:
Blizzard North’s Diablo 3 (alpha) back in 04/05 - https://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/600
VS
Will there be a secret cow level? That’s the big question! 
Screw that, they need a secret cow ACT
Well, you say you disagree, but we are really agreeing- the music in previous diablo games is better (immersion wise) than the current music. That’s really what matters. And yes, that hell music is fucking… just… jesus. Terrifying.
It’s more aesthetically pleasing. Also, there are times when I really just don’t care to kill lesser demons with my big powerful spells, I’d rather just hit 'em in the grill with a sword.
That first demon design is really cool, but the environments are really, well… bland. And that skeleton and flayed hound at the end of the gallery look terrible and goofy. I do think the current team did a good job with the game world, and making it look alive and interesting, but it’s too damn stylized. Dark and creepy is the way Diablo has been, and should be. I’m sure there will be mods a’plenty to fix this, though, so I’m not really concerned.
That demon design is really frightening, though. I like it.
Okay you guys, I’ve played D2 ever since forever, or, well, at least while ActivisionBlizzard was still Blizzard.
Oh, what to make of the beta…
The combat is the best. No fuckin’ doubt there - everything’s punchy (lol monk amirite), all the skills feel great to use, all the monsters feel rewarding to explode into chunks, strip the flesh out of, electrocute, whatever have you. It’s smooth, it’s satisfying and it might just tide me over to play Diablo 3. Cause of right now the combat’s probably the only thing that has it in for me.
The looting itself felt unrewarding. I don’t know if it was the low number of magic mods (pre/suffixes) in the beta or the overall generic feel to the loot (both in aesthetic and subject matter). For an aspect, dare I say, integral to the Diablos it was very underwhelming.
The skill and leveling mechanics, well… constrictive for one. Casual for another. As a side note, if I felt any more entitled I’d consider Elective Mode an outright insult to me as a player. The fact that Blizz doesn’t trust me to allocate my skills on those WHOPPING 6 or so keystrokes (+2 mouse buttons) so they have to make it a checkbox in the options that’s OFF by default is asinine. But no, no, as I said, in the end that was the least of my bothers as its just the tip of the iceberg.
In hindsight such a restriction was needed due to the way the skills are segmented in the pane. I realize this also has to do with the new mechanic of unlocking skills per level but that does only little to justify the problem. Said mechanic is fine by me, by the way, a bit stale perhaps, but it ensures that you have something to look forward to every other level or so. Again, felt unrewarding. The thing not being a skill-tree’s not a problem either. No, it’s the needless obfuscation in the GUI. Put them in a grid, you twerps. Or a list, hell I dunno. Good GUI examples: the Dota 2 item shop, the Skyrim menu. Bad GUI examples: Diablo 3 skill panel. Who fucking needs those huge headers and sections dudes, are you marketing the game to grandmas with glaucoma and no sense of interface design?
On the runes, yeah I guess they’re pretty cool and all, though the method of obtaining them worries me. I wonder if you still find them in the wild and the “unlock at level X” mechanic they slapped on them was just for the sake of the beta. You know, to showcase the runes in a more immediate way to the testers, rather than have them do 30 Leoric runs for a chance of a rune drop? If someone has info on that I’d appreciate it. I guess I reserve judgement for now.
Locales themselves - the aesthetic is nice but I feel it betrays the mood of the previous games. And I don’t mean graphically, I mean it in the sense that this is the same damned place from D2’s Act I. But it’s not. And I don’t take “but its been 20 years lol” as an excuse. Tristram looks like the town of Torchlight, the Cathedral gate looks like the spooky mansion from Pokemon. It’s all so small and obviously NOT randomly generated at above-ground level. Now I know the act itself must’ve had content cut from the beta - jeez at least I hope so - but are you telling me you didn’t have the manpower to produce enough doodads or lines of code to enable randomized town/wilderness areas, Blizzard? You, of all companies?
Ugh, what else, what else. I can’t really critique the graphics, animations were smooth and all except for the fact that I was running the beta maxed and my textures still looked like they were out of ahem Torchlight. Not saying it’s a bad artstyle, in fact I dig it, but you’re a PC company, Blizzard, put some effort, eh? Your “High” texture setting feels like I’m running TF2 on dx8 with everything set to low.
I’ve run out of things to say. Or to complain about, lol. There was probably more, but I can’t be bothered to recollect anymore. My final verdict is, well… eh. Perhaps some of the posters here are right. Perhaps we all did expect too much of D3, but are we to blame? It’s going to be a successive game, sure, a solid game, a great game perhaps. Critically acclaimed if only because it’ll be published by Activision. (Why do CoD games keep getting 9s and 10s? MAGNETS.) But it’s not going to have the essence that made the previous Diablos, methinks.
You know you get that air about a game company developing a title? Like, you have faith in them on the basis of their first two entries in the franchise but then you start hearing more and more disturbing stuff about #3? Like Jessica Chobot starring in it? And all the cast suddenly looking like the Jersey Shore cast? And then you hope so bad that the title is still going to be good despite all the bad omens? And then it releases and HAMBURGER HELPER GOD FUCKING DAMN IT WHY. Ahem. Yes, I feel it’s the same situation w/ Blizz and D3.
In the end, the game feels simplified to me, to the point where it’s not even necessary on a design standpoint. It feels dumbed down to appeal to the masses, reduced to the most poisonous aspects of its genre - an interactive slideshow where there’s no gain to be had but the fireworks themselves. I know this is a very fine line that I’m threading, and that everyone derives their enjoyment from different parts of video games, but there is a difference between addictive and enthralling. To showcase in Blizzard games: WoW is the former. Diablo 2 is… well, to be fair, Diablo 2 is addictive too, but it is also the latter. That is the reason why I’d keep playing, not to get to the next act, not to cap level 70 in Northrend, but because it was enthralling. And I guess what I’m trying to say is: Diablo 3 is neither. I shit you not, at the end of the weekend I didn’t even feel a compulsion to spend the remaining time trying out the other two heroes I didn’t play as. Didn’t feel the need to do another Leoric run simply because it would be fun. Cause it wouldn’t. It just felt like a casual game you’d play on and off on your lunch break. And that’s worth :60bux:?
Welp, that’s that Blizzard. Guess I’ll just wait 'till Path of Exile comes out of closed beta. No hard feelings.
PS: Belial from that cinematic is totally a rip-off from Warcraft’s Pit Lords. Oh u Blizzard. Remember your Diablo 2 Act III ending cinematic? Yeah. Yeah.
Well what I was disagreeing with was the part where you said D3’s music was “actual music” compared to the others where I was trying to say Diablo 1’s is atmospheric and downright scary - but at the same time it still sounds like real music. I should’ve pointed that out instead of just stating disagreement.
Also the blandness could be to do with the fact that it was at the time pre-alpha stuff.
Also I swear Diablo 3’s environments really do look like a mix of WoW with torchlight, but slightly more realistic. Seriously, even the cathedral looks very similar just with less cartoony textures.
And something that always struck me about Diablo 1 (and 2 to a degree) was how believable things felt.
look at this for example.
It’s gruesome in almost every way imaginable - but for some reason the way they made use of the excessive gore in static areas and with death animations, how they used them fit well. (This is kinda hard to describe)
Maybe if i put it like this. A lot of other games like Doom 3 I see the gore and it feels like it was made that way because a couple of guys would have thought like “WOULDN’T IT BE COOL IF X CHAR DIES AND HAS BLOOD GUSHING OUT OF HIS MOUTH SO AWESOME!!!” whereas Diablo that never really ever crossed my mind - It just seemed much more “mature” the way it was used, in a way that made it more believable. If that makes any sense.
But playing Diablo 3 and killing things it just gives me the feeling of it’s there to be “cool” - maybe because it seems a little exaggerated when killing things with melee, but I’m not sure.
Tl;dr, you’re going to buy it regardless.
tbh, given the art, the sounds, the music, the enemies, I felt like I was playing a warcraft franchise game, felt way more like warcraft 3 single player campaign than diablo at all (I don’t mean game mechanics, I mean the mood)
also, it annoyed me how dumb the game is, it’s like they’re targeting 12 year olds, unlike previous games where they target more mature ppl
complex systems like runewords, item sets, unique items, gems, skill trees and synergies are all gone, the remaining systems got totally dumbed down like crafting (just pour money and single generic material), attributes (u can’t distribute the way u want), skills (gosh, they even tried to force the hotkeys u should use, they probably did put an option after ppl complained on closed beta), too much weapon restriction (why can’t barbarian use bow??)
all of this will kill replay value, cause what kept ppl playing d2 for years and years was making all those crazy builds… u could make limitless different characters, but in d3, u’re basically limited to 5 different style characters… lets not even talk about lack of proper pvp
and the final nail in the coffin, being required to play online for a goddamn single player experience… at first, the pain to log in with lots of server busy messages, ppl may argue that they were testing capacity, but tbh, I don’t like the idea of having to depend on both blizzards infrastructure and my ISP infrastructure to have a single player experience…
also, if u’re outside USA like me, u have to live with an annoying lag, I had several lag spikes which caused either teleporting or swinging weapon and not hitting anything at all… I used a proxy service I already pay for a MMO I play, which alleviated the problem, but didnt solve it at all, and on the second day, my internet went down, which kicked me from game, then I’ve got so pissed with what I had to go through just to be able to play a fucking single player game, that I decided to give up on the remaining time I had on beta at all
tl;dr version, this is not a diablo game and I won’t give activision 60 bucks for a laggy game without proper multiplayer
It was a stresstest, and they said many times that there will be problems. But they needed to test it, so they know what to expect on release day.
The graphics style is ok. It wasn’t cartoonish like Warcraft, for me.
I’m now happy with the runesystem. You don’t need to make a whole new character just because you skilled wrong. You can easily change the abilities. If you want to have a example of what kind of abilites (and the amount) you can unlock for the Barbarian, look here.
Items affect the abilites too, so you can make many choices for your character. And I don’t think that they have cut out itemsets.
Blizzard said, they might put PvP sometime after the release.
ITT: People judging the full game based on what they played in the beta.
edit: Yeah, that link DiePonte posted shows how many variations of skills you can unlock, including runes for each one. That’s just for the Barbarian alone. That’s literally millions of combinations you can combine and experiment with to form your build once you reach max level. And all without having to painfully respec your talent tree, or start a new character because you didn’t allocate points in the right area.
My gripes at this point in time are about things that can’t possibly change before the full release, such as the sound design and the art direction. They just feel wrong, almost weak.
The art style and graphics won’t change. It fits to Diablo 3, imo.
But maybe you will like this:
I mean, yeah, I knew about that, I figured things like that would surface. Therefore, it’s not too huge of a gripe. Just something I wish the developers had been a little more mindful of during development instead of ‘one art style should work for all three of our franchises, right?’
Complaining about the D3 art style is so 2008.
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