Diablo III or Bust *UPDATED*
June 24th, 2008I just thought I’d put up my 2 cents that if Blizzard’s newest teaser is for the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King, something we already know about and have plenty of information available on already, and which is only aimed at people who have level 70 characters (or close), then that would be a massive disappointment.
For all the Diablo clones out there, for some reason, nothing has been able to match up to the original (and especially its sequel). Perhaps nothing ever will, but that doesn’t mean that a sequel to the 2000-released Diablo II (and 2001 expansion) isn’t extremely anticipated. A WoW expansion means nothing to me and only something to a (smallish?) subset of the 10 million WoW subscribers who have or are close to level 70. But a Diablo sequel… that’s something that I, and probably a hell of a lot more people than the mentioned WoW subset, can firmly get behind.
*UPDATE*
Well, more teasers today from Blizzard but Diabloii.net supposedly has confirmation from “inside sources” that Diablo III WILL be announced this weekend at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational (WWI for short). Here’s hoping their sources are right (and that the game doesn’t take another several years to make it out).
Posted in Jeff, PC, Rumor |
June 24th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I’d be thrilled if it really was Diablo 3.
Also, if anyone out there really enjoys Diablo 3, I STRONGLY urge you to give Titan Quest a try. It’s essentially what I would expect from a 2006 era Diablo 3. The gameplay is solid, the “tech” trees are cool and pretty rewarding. The baddies are relatively varied once you get past the multitude of satyrs and the weapon upgrade systems is nearly identical to diablo 3 but with more variations possible. The graphics are fantastic and you don’t have to have a herculean machine to run it. My 8600GT handles it nicely.
June 24th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
“Also, if anyone out there really enjoys Diablo 3″
Should read, “Diablo _2_”.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Cisco-
I played through Titan Quest… pretty fun, but still lacking that special *something* that Diablo had… I’m not even sure what it is, but nothing has really grabbed my attention like the Diablos did. One aspect that may be partially responsible is the awesome music that accompanied Diablo. I know that’s sort of silly, but I think it probably has a lot to do with creating a compelling atmosphere.
The other thing missing (I think) was hotkeys that actually changed your secondary mouse button, rather than just launched a spell. While some people derided Diablo as a “button-masher”, there was nothing quite as frenetic as a battle where you were constantly switching between 3-4 skills to take out armies of bad guys… I didn’t get this feeling at all from Titan Quest. In fact, I felt like a lot of my abilities were sort of worthless. Part of that may have been related to my chosen class, or basically being overwhelmed with options and having no idea what to do with them, but that basically describes my first play through the game.
In any case, I actually bought the fairly well-received TQ expansion as well when CC had it for $10. I still haven’t installed it yet, though. If you have any interest in playing through Coop w/ the expansion, though, let me know. I’ll install the expansion and we can figure things out from there.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
“One aspect that may be partially responsible is the awesome music that accompanied Diablo. I know that’s sort of silly, but I think it probably has a lot to do with creating a compelling atmosphere.”
I TOTALLY agree. And not just the music, but the sounds effects and audio profiles as well. Diablo audio was leaps and bounds ahead of other games at the time.
I didn’t pick up the expansion for TQ simply because I have so many other games on my ever lengthening “to play” list, but give me a week or two to pop around and see if I can find it cheap somewhere.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Oh, and Jeff, please accept or deny my LIVE friend request, I’m starting to get a complex.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
cisco-
Didn’t I accept it? I’ll double-check… I could’ve sworn you’re on my friends list now…
It took me a week or two because I was focused more on MGS4 and Boom Blox (lots of fun, btw, and subject of my last column, which I neglected to post a link to up here. =) ) But I’m back to playing GTA4 (still fun, but honestly getting a little tiring now… the game lasts forever, and the narrative is starting to bore me… still some fun and surprising things come up, like the marriage of a main character and then having all my friends call and congratulate me/him).