Whither Diablo 3?

[LightPhoenix]

Actually, World of Warcraft was under development for two years before it was announced at ECTS 2001. That's right; World of Warcraft began devlopment in 1999, over four years ago. Blizzard really likes to take their time with things.

The beta test for World of Warcraft is going to begin sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. I'm betting the final game will be out in fall 2004.

Announcing a game does not mean they start working on it, it means they're letting people know they are working on it. Big difference.

WoW began development in 2000, so I heard. Either way, announcing a game three years before it comes out is ludicrously early. You don't find many developers doing that. But, based on WoW, if they announced the game next month, we still wouldn't see it until 2006. I think that's a big long - they're gonna want a game out for Christmas of 2005, I think Diablo III will be it.

I concur on the release of WoW, they're going to release as close to Christmas as they can, IMO. That'll mean at least September 2004.

 

[Ristamar]

If and when a "D3" does arrive, I only hope it's arrival and growth isn't as half-assed as it was for Diablo 2. Poor server capacity and bandwidth and the continuous and prolonged tweaking of skills in various patches quickly killed my interest. It's almost like they didn't playtest the damn game.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I would be willing to bet their still making money off the first one... I ways I liked it allot better, maybe cause it was more original as I can't think of anything it did better than the sequel...

My big hope is that it's more open ended, and not nearly as liner with more worlds to explore that doesn't need to be but could be to max out your character.


My next big hope is that class isn't based upon gender. Female Necromancer would be cool, and so would a male Sorcerer. Obviously the Female would be the only Amazon.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Ooh, something I had completely forgot about, is the fact that they're also doing work on Starcraft: Ghost, coming out for XBox and PS2 sometime in 2004 as well.

For D3, I would like to see it more customizable - it's already pretty good, but I think they could go farther. Yes, NWN spoiled me.

Gameplay-wise, I would like to see an equal consideration of multi-player versus single-player. It's very obvious they're stressing the multi-player aspects of their games over the single-player ones (just look at patch 1.10s for DII). I wouldn't mind playing with people here, but battle.net is just a cesspool of hackers and leet-speakers, and for DII harvesters and bloody foothills/cow-runs, and very unappealing for me to find random games on.

I like sockets a lot, and I hope that jewels/runes are expanded on a lot. I like the idea MUCH better than enemies dropping random weapons. They need to work on class balance more, but I'd like to see more variety in the classes and skills.

 

[Mercule]

If and when a "D3" does arrive, I only hope it's arrival and growth isn't as half-assed as it was for Diablo 2. Poor server capacity and bandwidth and the continuous and prolonged tweaking of skills in various patches quickly killed my interest. It's almost like they didn't playtest the damn game.

I suppose that all depends on what you're looking for. I've been on Battle.Net servers a few times, but was never that interested in adventuring with a bunch of random strangers. And if I'm not going to do that, I might just as well play solo on my own machine.

Hey, I don't even like multiplayer Diablo 2 with people I know and like. We're looking at getting a new computer in the house soon, so maybe I'll multi with my wife, who is also an addict, but odds are we'll just both play our own solo games at the same time.

 

[Eldorian]

Diablo 2 is a much more fun game in multiplayer. Just make sure you play with friends you know from real life, as there are far too many hackers, children, and morons on B.net. Oh, and too many Koreans on the US servers, from back before they had 2 Asian servers. I've nothing against Koreans, I just can't stand them on b.net, cause many of them like to cheat. The language barrier isn't the easiest to overcome either =P

Eldorian Antar

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I've always enjoyed the solo game much more than multiplayer, for the reasons mentioned above. I once played for hours with a guy on the first act, going from the very beginning all the way to the Rogues Stronghold. When out of nowhere, the guy I'm playing with wastes me and takes my stuff. This was after a good solid 4-5 hours of play with the guy. I quit multiplayer then and there.

Tell me more about the 1.10 patch. All I'd heard was that it fixed some more bugs - I hadn't heard anything in the way of new content.

 

[LightPhoenix]

www.diabloii.net

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I've always enjoyed the solo game much more than multiplayer, for the reasons mentioned above. I once played for hours with a guy on the first act, going from the very beginning all the way to the Rogues Stronghold. When out of nowhere, the guy I'm playing with wastes me and takes my stuff. This was after a good solid 4-5 hours of play with the guy. I quit multiplayer then and there.

Opps!!! That was that you? : D [J/K] I would play with only people you know and there should be enough trustworthy souls on this board to get your fix on.

Remember the all-important saying "There is no honor among thieves."

 

[Starman]

As much as I loved both of the Diablo games, I would like to see Starcraft II before Diablo III.

Starman