@Klei said:

@Fredchuckdave said:

Well if you're really into D3 now I hope you enjoy the 30 million gold it requires to buy simple upgrades, and inflation is ever increasing so it might be 50 million in another month, and 100 million a month after that. Price of gold was 25 cents for 100k a couple months ago, it is now 65 cents for 1 million, should be a quarter for 10 million in another 6 months or so; fantastic.

I beat inferno without using the Auction House.

Yeah I beat the game much earlier than anyone on this forum I'm sure, that doesn't change how few and far between drops that are actually upgrades are. Diablo 3 might be a good game in 2 or 3 years after numerous patches and balance changes, but its far from it right now. Mediocre D2 clone at best, shame it sold so ridiculously well; one would hope faith in Blizzard's omnipotence wanes over the decade it takes for Diablo 4 to come out.

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg15/scaled.php?server=15&filename=screenshot023jx.jpg&res=landing

Put another way I had 25 friends online when D3 launched, now I have 0 consistently. Public games were at 25000 or so a monthish after launch, right now its at 600. I realize people might be completely and utterly oblivious like game reviewers but it's not that hard to see precipitous decline.

It's that bad huh?

Another metric is looking at forum views, click the "advanced tab" on the upper right (or just mouseover the thread with simple): http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/5386230/

5 or 6 views per post?

Compare with D2Jsp's hardcore forum: http://forums.d2jsp.org/forum.php?f=102

Not as active posting wise but certainly a lot more people paying attention.

I actually just got into the first Torchlight, I like it and am glad I don't have be connected to play and it's just way more charming than Diablo 3. I loved Diablo 3's combat but it just had no charm and seemed like everything around the combat tries its best to make me hate it.

Still put in 60 hours to Diablo 3 and might try it again later after I'm done with Torchlight and Torchlight 2, ooh and mod tools make it better automatically.

Edit: And I still have a D3 avatar lol.

After finishing Diablo 3 once I will never go back to that game - I had forced myself to finish it, hoping that things would get better but they never did (I call it "the FF13 syndrome"). T2 is more fun but I can only take it in short doses.

@Ravenlight said:

This thread is making me wonder if D3 would have been better received overall if TL2 had launched alongside it.

@EXTomar said:

Tourchlight 2

Esoteric pun or simple typo?

Wishful thinking and a typo. He meant to write 'Torque Light' - an ARPG set in the bikergang scene of post Y2K greater Los Angles.

I really liked both games, even though each had their issues. Diablo 3 had that dumb always on DRM that streamed content in and, even on a really high end system, would make the game stutter from time to time. The auction house also broke the game for me to the point that I had to ban myself from using it. I would never even look at the stats of the gear that dropped in game since they were never better than what I bought in the AH. Torchlight 2 just has some weird stuff in it, the most glaring of which are camera issues. Who thought that it was OK to just wire-frame your character when your camera is obstructed by geometry instead of actually cleaning up the view? At the end of the day though, Diablo 3 took a step forward in the genre and tried some new things that worked and was super polished and fun to play for the first two times through the campaign. Torchlight 2 on the other hand has incredibly fun gameplay and frantic pacing that keeps you on your toes and engaged. I have no idea what is going on in the story but I'm killing hoards of bad dudes and having a blast. There is definitely room for improvement in both games, but I wouldn't exclude either from its place in the market.

@Fredchuckdave said:

Well if you're really into D3 now I hope you enjoy the 30 million gold it requires to buy simple upgrades, and inflation is ever increasing so it might be 50 million in another month, and 100 million a month after that. Price of gold was 25 cents for 100k a couple months ago, it is now 65 cents for 1 million, should be a quarter for 10 million in another 6 months or so; fantastic.

... that's not how its going to work out. Sellers are not very price elastic but prices are going down, when the game came out, 1200 dps 2handedr was only for people with 1million+ now you can get it with about 50-100k. This isn't wow, the economy changes when there's a RMAH, that won't happen. This system is very well thought out economically.

I like Torchlight 2 more because in Diablo III I decked my Barb with 75% armor and the enemies still kill me in 2 hits, and starting a new game is way too easy. Veteran in Torchlight 2 is a good diff for me. Also, leveling up feels more rewarding because of the points to allocate.

The auction house killed Diablo 3 for me. I enjoyed playing through it and finished Hell. After that, there was too much grinding to progress and an over reliance on the auction house, which sucked out all the fun.

Torchlight is obviously a lower budget game, it doesn't have as much polish in certain areas and I do wish they copied the skill system to some degree. But overall, I find it far more involving and enjoyable. It feels like the bigger game, there's more variety, a better balance of loot and I'm sure I'll be playing it a lot longer, even without mods.

I already grew bored of D3. Now TL2's out I know I'll never play D3 again. So I'm the complete opposite.

@gamefreak9 said:

... that's not how its going to work out. Sellers are not very price elastic but prices are going down, when the game came out, 1200 dps 2handedr was only for people with 1million+ now you can get it with about 50-100k. This isn't wow, the economy changes when there's a RMAH, that won't happen. This system is very well thought out economically.

I realize you might just be underinformed or what have you but here's how it works out: You can beat Inferno with mediocre to bad gear now, doing so will not be enjoyable in the slightest nor will it feel like Diablo (and you won't have any fleeting enjoyment from it being pre nerf or pre pre nerf or pre pre pre nerf or pre pre pre pre nerf etc). You can never get passable to good gear through personal farming or through the auction house, actually good items will always be completely inaccessible to those who do not use the RMAH. I have 28 million on my character, to buy an actual DPS upgrade would cost 50 million, to buy a particularly good item would cost 100 million. When PvP comes out it will be utterly dominated by people with good gear, they will not have gotten that good gear through traditional methods.

I've realized one of the biggest problems in Torchlight 2 for me is that all the classes feel exactly the same. I'm spoiled by the completely different and unique classes of Diablo 3.

Also my D3 Wizard is currently using a Katana and is still totally viable. THAT. IS. FUCKING. BADASS.

I can see where you're coming from, but the latency issues (not sure if they've fixed that, can't really see how they would have unless they've invented latency free interwebs, or basically removed or completely changed how the always online thing works) really ruined D3 for me. Well, that, and the fact that the main campaign in D3 was horrible(my opinion). First playthrough was so boring and easy, it just felt like someone stole 12-14 hours from me. Second playthrough I bought some gear off the AH (not rmah, just standard ah) and plowed through it without breaking a sweat. At that point I'd played something like 40 hours, and I'd not enjoyed myself at all, just suckered into playing more because of loooooooot!!! and then it dawned on me, loot doesn't make this game any less crappy. Still going to play the same horrible content, so I quit.

Bought Borderlands 2 and TL2 last week. Maybe put 10-15 hours into each of them, and they're both fine games, I just don't want to play games that have very little to offer aside from character progression and loot. I wish someone would develop an ARPG with some depth and fun gameplay/locations and whatnot.

I have to say, as ARPG's go, Path of Exile is probably my favorite one the past 4-5 years. Not sure if it's mostly because I was surprised by how good PoE was, or if it's actually really good, but I had lots of fun with that game. Feels like the next step rather than a clone. It's kinda like the ARPG version of Guild Wars 1 in many ways. Worth trying if you're still hungry for ARPG's and D3 and TL2 didn't do it for you.

@Fredchuckdave said:

@gamefreak9 said:

... that's not how its going to work out. Sellers are not very price elastic but prices are going down, when the game came out, 1200 dps 2handedr was only for people with 1million+ now you can get it with about 50-100k. This isn't wow, the economy changes when there's a RMAH, that won't happen. This system is very well thought out economically.

I realize you might just be underinformed or what have you but here's how it works out: You can beat Inferno with mediocre to bad gear now, doing so will not be enjoyable in the slightest nor will it feel like Diablo (and you won't have any fleeting enjoyment from it being pre nerf or pre pre nerf or pre pre pre nerf or pre pre pre pre nerf etc). You can never get passable to good gear through personal farming or through the auction house, actually good items will always be completely inaccessible to those who do not use the RMAH. I have 28 million on my character, to buy an actual DPS upgrade would cost 50 million, to buy a particularly good item would cost 100 million. When PvP comes out it will be utterly dominated by people with good gear, they will not have gotten that good gear through traditional methods.

... your the one who makes random assumptions, i've killed diablo in inferno pre-nerf, and only 2-4 of my items were AH bought. and now the drop rates and item quality are even better than before. So no, its not ALWAYS inaccessible. Granted that the very best and rarest items will go for very hefty prices... but that doesn't diminish what I said in the slightest, its very affordable to get gear that's good enough to beat the game. Probably a full set for about 1 million(if you have to buy everything, which you don't). PVP is another story, don't make assumptions how the match making will work, you have no idea how that stuff will work out, and who cares if they did not get their items through drops anyway? even if they bought it, chances are they more than earned it by sinking alot of time into the game.

I finished the Torchlight II demo earlier today, and I have to say, it gave me a whole new appreciation for Diablo III.

Mind you, I never particularly liked the first Torchlight either, so I guess that's to be expected.

I played a bunch of D3 in the open beta. I didn't like it very much, there's hardly any atmosphere like the first two games had. It's obvious how much WoW influenced it, not just mechanics wise but in art design too. This thread has piqued my interest in the Torchlight series, I think I'll give it a go. Could always go back to D2 for my grindan fill.

Just wait a couple of years when people will be playing D3 (expansion...) and nobody will remember why everyone was so upset about the AH. Torchlight 2 is a fine game but people who think it is the new D2 just kid themselves. The whole reaction to D3 is something I can not understand. In the other thread people are posting stuff like " I played 300 hours and now I am bored, WTF Blizzard you ruined DIABLO! "....

Also the main PvP stuff will be in arenas where everyone gets the same gear, so they dont have to handle 1 billion threads about how the AH is ruining the PvP.

@gamefreak9 said:

@Fredchuckdave said:

... your the one who makes random assumptions, i've killed diablo in inferno pre-nerf, and only 2-4 of my items were AH bought. and now the drop rates and item quality are even better than before. So no, its not ALWAYS inaccessible. Granted that the very best and rarest items will go for very hefty prices... but that doesn't diminish what I said in the slightest, its very affordable to get gear that's good enough to beat the game. Probably a full set for about 1 million(if you have to buy everything, which you don't). PVP is another story, don't make assumptions how the match making will work, you have no idea how that stuff will work out, and who cares if they did not get their items through drops anyway? even if they bought it, chances are they more than earned it by sinking alot of time into the game.

Starting every sentence with an ellipsis and then following it with "your" doesn't really enhance your intellectual capacity in mine eyes. Define Pre Nerf, there were so many nerfs at this point, or just say the date. If it's after June 19th then you won at an easier version. Already said most of what you said in my post, the objective in Diablo isn't to "beat the game" it's to get really sweet gear from killing bosses over and over and over, if it's next to impossible to get interesting gear then it ceases to be Diablo and becomes an RMAH grindfest of boredom. That'd be why there's less than 2.5% as many public games as there were near launch.

@Balex1908 said:

Just wait a couple of years when people will be playing D3 (expansion...) and nobody will remember why everyone was so upset about the AH. Torchlight 2 is a fine game but people who think it is the new D2 just kid themselves. The whole reaction to D3 is something I can not understand. In the other thread people are posting stuff like " I played 300 hours and now I am bored, WTF Blizzard you ruined DIABLO! "....

What you're not comprehending is that people played 10,000 hours of DIablo 2 and didn't get bored (I'm not one of those people). Personally I played Starcraft Brood War for about 25,000 hours over the course of 12 years, Starcraft 2 (another press bloated game, though still much better than D3) only held my attention for 150 or so (Diamond in the first week etc). Say you play 2 hours a day of D3, which is a pretty light amount all things considered, that's 150 days, or 5 months (and almost no one plays that little, they either binge or they stop playing). D2 held people's attention for 12-13 years, D3 is holding it for 5 months at the very most, generally more like 1 month.

The problem with D3 is not the gameplay, it plays great! Better than TL2 by a mile. It's the design that's the problem, and it's the design of TL2 that shines through.

D3 is far too concerned with story (which is ok if that's your thing) but heavy story elements get in the way of the thing that makes this genre great. If you've played a lot of D3 you're probably already more than fed up with the same story beats, pressing the space bar all the time and the same boring world that never really changes. Also, the loot is bad.

As a lot of people say with much hyperbole, TL2 is the sequel to D2 that should have been, and I feel the same way! Also Matt Uelmen. Also, the first main zone has parts that sound just like D2's "Wilderness" track.

@Fredchuckdave said:

@Balex1908 said:

Just wait a couple of years when people will be playing D3 (expansion...) and nobody will remember why everyone was so upset about the AH. Torchlight 2 is a fine game but people who think it is the new D2 just kid themselves. The whole reaction to D3 is something I can not understand. In the other thread people are posting stuff like " I played 300 hours and now I am bored, WTF Blizzard you ruined DIABLO! "....

What you're not comprehending is that people played 10,000 hours of DIablo 2 and didn't get bored (I'm not one of those people). Personally I played Starcraft Brood War for about 25,000 hours over the course of 12 years, Starcraft 2 (another press bloated game, though still much better than D3) only held my attention for 150 or so (Diamond in the first week etc). Say you play 2 hours a day of D3, which is a pretty light amount all things considered, that's 150 days, or 5 months (and almost no one plays that little, they either binge or they stop playing). D2 held people's attention for 12-13 years, D3 is holding it for 5 months at the very most, generally more like 1 month.

I am one of the people who played 10k hours of D2 I can comprehend that. What I can not comprehend is how people are complaining that a game " only " gave them a couple of months of fun. This is still like ten times more then your average game, which usually only lasts for a couple of weeks. You dont like the story fine, you dont like the new skill system fine, you dont like the art fine, but dont complain about the endgame after you spent 2-3 months in it.

Its like complaining about the food after eating the whole buffet.

@Fredchuckdave said:

@gamefreak9 said:

@Fredchuckdave said:

... your the one who makes random assumptions, i've killed diablo in inferno pre-nerf, and only 2-4 of my items were AH bought. and now the drop rates and item quality are even better than before. So no, its not ALWAYS inaccessible. Granted that the very best and rarest items will go for very hefty prices... but that doesn't diminish what I said in the slightest, its very affordable to get gear that's good enough to beat the game. Probably a full set for about 1 million(if you have to buy everything, which you don't). PVP is another story, don't make assumptions how the match making will work, you have no idea how that stuff will work out, and who cares if they did not get their items through drops anyway? even if they bought it, chances are they more than earned it by sinking alot of time into the game.

Starting every sentence with an ellipsis and then following it with "your" doesn't really enhance your intellectual capacity in mine eyes. Define Pre Nerf, there were so many nerfs at this point, or just say the date. If it's after June 19th then you won at an easier version. Already said most of what you said in my post, the objective in Diablo isn't to "beat the game" it's to get really sweet gear from killing bosses over and over and over, if it's next to impossible to get interesting gear then it ceases to be Diablo and becomes an RMAH grindfest of boredom. That'd be why there's less than 2.5% as many public games as there were near launch.

In mine eyes? If your going to attack grammar at least be correct, not that I want to stoop down to internet troll level(though I did only use elipsis twice). I beat the game before the high repair cost patch, dno which one that is, but if you know, there you go.

On your goal of getting sweet gear, if sweet gear is not judged by beating the game, then it is only judged by comparing how easily you beat it compared to others, which means sweet gear is now relative. Now if everyone had sweet gear then nobody would have sweet gear which means that the best way to make "real" sweet gear, is the current set up, where you play for money and eventually you might make the money to get the real sweet gear. I'm sure that you will find a similar drop in public games for D2 after initial launch, maybe a little less drastic because back when D2 was released games were more for hardcore gamers(whilst now a lot of casual people are playing). With the paragon system in place i'm pretty sure that people will start floating back now. The game is already much better than it was at launch.

@Balex1908

I am one of the people who played 10k hours of D2 I can comprehend that. What I can not comprehend is how people are complaining that a game " only " gave them a couple of months of fun. This is still like ten times more then your average game, which usually only lasts for a couple of weeks. You dont like the story fine, you dont like the new skill system fine, you dont like the art fine, but dont complain about the endgame after you spent 2-3 months in it.

Its like complaining about the food after eating the whole buffet.

This is a problem with the industry, theoretically Blizzard produces products far and away above the average industry product and therefore must be held to higher standards. Or at the very least held to 88% metacritic standards (or 3.7 user reviews, I know those are silly but it's still amusing). Also action RPGs should be infinitely replayable in their standard Diablo 2 format, this is not something that I hold Borderlands to since it is still a shooter and 90% of the time you're shooting and that gets old, but in D2 you've got hundreds of different specs and dozens of different abilities, in D3 you had a handful of viable specs for a long time, that is gradually changing but it's going to take a really long time.

@gamefreak9 said:

In mine eyes? If your going to attack grammar at least be correct, not that I want to stoop down to internet troll level(though I did only use elipsis twice). I beat the game before the high repair cost patch, dno which one that is, but if you know, there you go.

On your goal of getting sweet gear, if sweet gear is not judged by beating the game, then it is only judged by comparing how easily you beat it compared to others, which means sweet gear is now relative. Now if everyone had sweet gear then nobody would have sweet gear which means that the best way to make "real" sweet gear, is the current set up, where you play for money and eventually you might make the money to get the real sweet gear. I'm sure that you will find a similar drop in public games for D2 after initial launch, maybe a little less drastic because back when D2 was released games were more for hardcore gamers(whilst now a lot of casual people are playing). With the paragon system in place i'm pretty sure that people will start floating back now. The game is already much better than it was at launch.

Listen fuckstick, "Mine eyes" is a fantastic phrase included in the wonderful Battle Hymn of the motherfucking Republic, how dare you besmirch it.

Since the game is continuously getting nerfed the definition of good gear with respect to beating the game alone is utterly meaningless; the only valuation of gear that is appropriate is therefore a comparison with those most geared individuals, and something like a 5% variance or so; didn't used to have an exact metric for this but now you do with profiles: http://www.diabloprogress.com/rating.stat_dps_unbuffed