How do you propose to do that? There's no offline single-player, it's online-only. Fair enough, but I wouldn't hold your breathe. Diablo 2 is still $20, and it's 12 years old. A few years ago, when Diablo 3 wasn't so close to release, it was still $40.
That's just another reason why I'm not buying. They did the same stupid thing with Starcraft 2 with no lan support. I'm pretty sure there will be a hack so you can play the mission off line but I no longer really care about this game. They turn this game into an ugly colorful and cartoony looking like WoW. I have play already enough of Diablo 2 so this isn't bringing anything new to the table but just better graphics. Starcraft 2 is a clear indication.
^I feel you. I was always drawn to Diablo because of the rendered, unsaturated dark and grisly, gothic art style. It wasn't overdone and it fit the atmosphere within the context of the story and lore. This reminds me of when Mortal Kombat first went from 2nd to 3rd on the N64. The graphics were technically better but the art style suffered. I read interviews where the main designer started to question what they did when complaints arose but he felt they were too far in development to drastically alter anything. Now it's like 2d graphic novel to cheesy 3d CGI.
Fair enough. I played Diablo 2 all single-player myself, and probably would have kept playing it single-player if not for the dumb online-only thing. Let me know if you figure out a way to get it to work offline. I'd be impressed. I doubt it's going to happen.
I know I must sound like a covert Bilzzard employee at this point with all the defense of this game I've been doing, but I think the graphics look fine. There was that big stink years and years ago when they hired a new artistic director, and everyone seemed to think the game was too colorful. But now I've played the beta and looked at the screen shots for later acts, and I really don't see what the problem is. I mean, you didn't think the beta was dark? Looked pretty dark to me. *shrugs* To each his own. Then again, I've never actually cared much about graphics at all. I still play PS1 games that look like crap. But who really cares what the game looks like if the gameplay is good?
More about the art style than the technical graphics. It's dark but not a natural gothic type dark. It's oversaturated and looks dark for the sake of being dark..hard for me to explain. I'm sure the core game will still be great and I don't want to be major buzzkill here. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. I may get this when I get a new computer soon.
Well, we're all annoyed by different little things that are hard to explain. I have my own pet peeves when it comes to these things. No accounting for taste. Let me ask you this, though -- what exactly do you mean by "gothic"? It seems to be one of those terms that people throw around a lot that's so vague that no one actually knows what it means. Wikipedia tells me it's romanesque art style from the 12 century. But it doesn't look particularly dark (at least from the Wikipedia samples and Google image search hits). Nor does it look much like Diablo 2, at least from what I can tell. Gothic art mostly seems concerned with big ol' churches, which all three Diablo games seem to have, but not a lot... for D2 it was really only for Act 1. So anyway, when you say "not a natural gothic type dark," I'm really just not sure what you mean.
The color palette is what I'm not crazy about. It's too colorful and bright and it just look a little too cartoony for my liking. On top of that the terrible and lazy boxy(low poly count) design of props and the environment around them is another big turn off making it even more cartoony like design. As a visual person and a big fan of fantasy genre I like it to be done right. Blizzard is well known for turning their franchise into cartoony looking game and design. WoW is a good indication.
The only thing that's comparing to the like of console vs pc of this game is MODS. No modding is another nail to the coffin for this game and online is the reason for that.
I'll buy the first changed screen. The second one seems like major overkill. And I still don't understand what "gothic" means. Apparently it's just a synonym for "dark" or "monochromatic."
Its an art style. Basically means dark, gritty, demonic, vampire (not the teen vampires in Twilight), ghouls, etc.
So very incredibly disappointed by the Real Money Auction House. Not because people can buy stuff with money, but the fact that Blizzard can spawn 1092819081092901 items and sell them off for maximum profit. Just admit it's a cashshop and stop pretending it's 100% player driven....
It is 100% player driven. There might be a lot of items that Blizzard has on stock in the beginning, but I bet you they will be generic weapons that won't be as special as the loot players will end up finding especially when players max out their levels and run bosses in hell difficulty.
You guys are talking as if Blizzard will be selling items that players haven't picked up. They've already said they're not going to do that... if they did, it would indeed be pretty despicable. That's not to say that I don't think their fees are outrageous. $1 for each item sold, or 15% if it's a stack of things like crafting materials. And THEN, if you actually want to cash out to PayPal, it's ANOTHER 15%. Then throw on the fact that you have to have a particular kind of phone, etc etc. Jay Wilson spewed some BS about how he "thinks we won't *lose* money on the RMAH." Please. Like anyone believes that. I'm sure they'll be getting a nice revenue stream out of it.
You truly believe that Activison-Blizzard will not spawn expensive items on their own and pretend to sell them like they're player-found?
