Time Capsule from PoE Closed Beta -- a classic PoE vs D3 thread circa 2012

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Erevos wrote:

lol, GGG just moved to "Off Topic" in a lightning speed a thread that informed players about D3 Open Beta Weekend! nice move! lol

So? Posting solely about D3 is off-topic on the PoE-boards (contrasted to D3 vs. PoE threads). Plus, PoE discussions on Blizzard forums? Insta-moved to off-topic. And rightly so.


Anyway, back to "Posting on Blizzard forums/you need a game account to post": Does anyone remember when Blizzard tried to enforce posters using their real name? Round about that time, I started wondering if they were controlled by small worms in the back of their heads (you know the ones with breathing gills sprouting from their necks).


And back to Diablo's haunting music: I think it might have to do with the fact that Matt Uelmen left Blizzard after Burning Crusade was launched. His touch is very noticeable in Torchlight's music, though.

And I very much (very, very, very much) agree with Disillusioned's assessment of the music in Diablo: It felt very ominous and foreboding, it evoked the explorer in us.
To this day, I get the shivers whenever I hear that four-drum piece: Thrummm-thru-thru-thrummmm.

There is, for me, only one musical score that even comes close: Trent Reznor's brilliant music for Quake.

And both are games 15 years old or older. Makes me think a lot about how music in our games evolved. Or maybe it's me. But I do doubt that, because I still have those very defining audible moments in other areas (just recently with "Snakes In The Grass" by "The Sparrow And The Workshop"). I think the last time music was so good I appreciated it outside the game was Dragon Age: Origins and the first Mass Effect. Both had scores that stay with you.


Gaming music however seems to have devolved a fair bit into very generic territory. Which might be par for the course since the rising popularity of VG.
It's hard work to design music that underlines a game in a way that makes it stand out without it becoming too obvious (and ultimately you grow sick of it - like eating Pizza every day for a month).


by the by, I very much like PoE's music. There are tunes that remind me a lot of Diablo II. But I'd have a stroke from happiness if they implemented a piece that comes close to the Cathedral theme in terms of awesomeness.

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Skills/Stats: I've seen a lot of people say that the amount of customization available in D3 is far superior to the previous titles. Alright, I won't argue with that. What I do not care for, is the fact that all meaningful decision making has been removed from the building of your character. In fact, I don't see it as building your character anymore. A character build is something you work on throughout the time you put into said character. Stats, skills, and even the skill runes, are now unlocked in an oppressively linear fashion. I feel like I'm unlocking new loadouts in a casual action game, which is actually what I now view Diablo 3 to be. And many people seem to have this preconceived notion that the only alternative to the current system are the broken mechanics found in D2. There could have been other solutions, I assure you. This system also pretty much kills replay value. Even those people that will grind in Inferno difficulty for a while, will rush out to buy any expansion released by Blizzard, because, let's face it, its not like they can build another character of the same class, and have different results. Its that money making machine.

Well..where to start.. Let's just say your whole argument here is in my eyes invalid..plain and simple. D3 system is designed to fulfill one simple task.. allow people to have fun in way they like. PoE is not offering this.. Yet.. which is IMHO sad.. but okey, I understand their arguments ..I just don't agree with them.

Replay value in Diablo 2 was never achieved only via non-stop never ending rerolling.. Don't get me wrong..I love playing same characters with different builds from the level 1. But actually farming is the biggest part what kept Diablo 2 alive to these days.

D3 is just offering options.. you love rerolling? Go ahead. You are free to do that. But what about these tons of players who just don't find rerolling fun and they just want to experiment with different builds? Or just farm? there is tons of them. And GGG is sadly ignoring most of them. Blizzard is not. No-one is telling you how you should play D3.. you can play it in way you want. While I am pretty much forced in PoE to play in way they want. And while I don't have much problem with it, because in fact, it's my playstyle anyway. Most of my friends abandoned the idea to play PoE because of these..in my eyes..pointless limitations.

I actually think the POE system gives quite a bit of flexibility in terms of skill and gear selection, especially since you can increase all 3 stats (to a certain degree), no matter your starting location in the passive tree.

You said that farming is what kept D2 alive all these years. With all due respect, that is an opinion. I've seen people say the same about PVP and re-rolling new characters.

And its not that I love re-rolling, as much as I love building a character that is different from the last one. Those might seem like the same thing, but they aren't. I do not relish the idea of starting over at the beginning of the game every time. But Diablo 2 made that pretty easy since you could be in-game and on your way to the Den of Evil in a few minutes.

Now, in D3, changing your build is as simple as swapping a few icons. It removes all of the individuality from the game. This may seem like a shallow principle, but in my opinion, is a large part of the "Role" in "Role Playing Game." I'm not saying they should have used a "Use one of these three builds or your character will be broken" system, but the freedom to experiment with your character, and the ability to make lasting, important decisions with how you play with your character, should both be important elements of these games, in my opinion.

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ManiaCCC wrote:

D3 is just offering options.. you love rerolling? Go ahead. You are free to do that. But what about these tons of players who just don't find rerolling fun and they just want to experiment with different builds? Or just farm? there is tons of them. And GGG is sadly ignoring most of them. Blizzard is not. No-one is telling you how you should play D3.. you can play it in way you want. While I am pretty much forced in PoE to play in way they want. And while I don't have much problem with it, because in fact, it's my playstyle anyway. Most of my friends abandoned the idea to play PoE because of these..in my eyes..pointless limitations.

But why would you re-roll a class in Diablo III? There is no incentive to.

Re-rolling in Diablo II worked because you could experience a familiar class from a completely different angle. There were flavours of class. You could "collect" them.

Now, every toon of a class is basically the same. You can switch them from one "build" to another without a second thought. I get that many people like that: It leaves you more time for the parts you consider fun while cutting down on the parts you consider unfun.
For me (and apparently others) the reverse is true: This level of flexibility cuts down on the part we find fun while not giving anything in return.

One allure of RPGs in general for me is the ability to build my character up in a specific way. Make decisions while I play about how I play them - and live with the consequences.
If I built a monk in D&D (3.5 I think it was), I just had to live with the fact that I'd never swing swords or wear heavy armour. If I played a Paladin, I would never get to tell some annoying peasant to prick off without losing my alignment of Lawful Stupid.
And that's what made those games fun for me.
In Diablo III; I'm a jack of all trades at the press of a button. And I excel at any trade.
And that bores me to tears.


Anyway, slightly off-topic (it's not strictly PoE/DIII):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

This expresses nicely how I feel about many of today's games: too much hand-holding, too little freedom to just see what one can do and come up with.


edit: Nicely written posts, thedarkwolf333. I wholeheartedly agree - Kudos!

Could you please elaborate on these so called...

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pointless limitations.

As you have criticised/judged alot but specifyied nothing to isolate what you are talking about.... Aside from arbitrary hints.

Keen to hear reply.

Hah, I loved Quake. Actually, I really loved the soundtrack for Doom II: Hell on Earth even though a lot of it was taken from real songs. Hearing "South of Heaven" in Soundblaster during the Living End stage was amazing.

For me, even if they did channel Uelmen and make some great tracks for D3 I don't think it would work the same due to artistic representation. It worked for D1/D2 since it all fit together to make this flawless package.

However, D3's music is good. It's just not my type of music, I'd say.

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Tagek wrote:

You guys are taking a rather poorly drawn piece of concept art way out of context here.
Diablo doesn't look bulky in D3, but he's nothing like that concept art.

It's Blizzard's drawing, wiki says it is how Diablo appears in Diablo 3.

thedarkwolf333, Avireyn... your choice is permanent as much as you want. No limits there.

I am sure you both are aware Diablo 2 has full respec system too these days. I have 5 high level Sorces there.. all are above level 80 and yet.. all of them have all free respec unused.

Game shouldn't be about artificial limitations. My builds in D2 are permanent because I want it to be that way. I want experiment with different builds from the scratch.. This is how I play, how I enjoy it and if this option would be taken away from me..I would be annoyed...but it's not.

I think it's very selfish to want have game built around your needs. D3 is good example that good game design can actually allow enjoy the game to wide spectrum of players without limiting others.
Avireyn, you said older games were about freedom and new games are to much hand-holding. But in fact.. D2 or PoE are just more limited than D3 will ever be. (if current design wont be changed)

You touched also D&D 3.5. I was Dungeon Master for 12 long years. And you just can't compare these two games. in D&D we could spent even days without swinging the sword once. RPG elements had very different meaning to ARPG games. D&D characters weren't about actual builds much..but about ...how they talk, act, what is their background, what is their relationship to other characters etc etc.. ARPG are all about fights, combat and skills. Don't ever try to compare RPG elements of Diablo to classic D&D.

But even in my D&D career.. I always allowed to switch character, if they didn't found their current characters fun. Okey, I said them that they are allowed to retire/leave their characters and at any point and may roll the new one at appropriet level but I am free to use their old characters in any way I want (so maybe retired character became nemesis of the next day)..but I understood that Fun is the most important thing in these games..

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tachi203 wrote:

Could you please elaborate on these so called...

"

pointless limitations.

As you have criticised/judged alot but specifyied nothing to isolate what you are talking about.... Aside from arbitrary hints.

Keen to hear reply.

pointless limitation is just limitation which provides nothing at all. I am talking about respec system here. There is one.. but it's bad.. It's based on RNG, it's tedious and it's not working. I know what they said.. that they want players to reroll if they want try different build..

But what is the point of that? It's not good marketing, nor good design to tell players how they should enjoy the game.. Many people just don't like rerolling.. yet..they are told.."but you should"..wait..what? They should proved platform where can players enjoy the game they want..

As for game-music none of the games are near the classical status of Chrono Trigger, Monkey Island, Bubble Bobble and Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. But then again, it will take years before we really learn to appreciate game-music and by then it is probably gonna be less of a factor since both games will be so different or even so far gone that it doesn't matter.

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Avireyn wrote:

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ManiaCCC wrote:

D3 is just offering options.. you love rerolling? Go ahead. You are free to do that. But what about these tons of players who just don't find rerolling fun and they just want to experiment with different builds? Or just farm? there is tons of them. And GGG is sadly ignoring most of them. Blizzard is not. No-one is telling you how you should play D3.. you can play it in way you want. While I am pretty much forced in PoE to play in way they want. And while I don't have much problem with it, because in fact, it's my playstyle anyway. Most of my friends abandoned the idea to play PoE because of these..in my eyes..pointless limitations.

But why would you re-roll a class in Diablo III? There is no incentive to.

Re-rolling in Diablo II worked because you could experience a familiar class from a completely different angle. There were flavours of class. You could "collect" them.

Now, every toon of a class is basically the same. You can switch them from one "build" to another without a second thought. I get that many people like that: It leaves you more time for the parts you consider fun while cutting down on the parts you consider unfun.
For me (and apparently others) the reverse is true: This level of flexibility cuts down on the part we find fun while not giving anything in return.

One allure of RPGs in general for me is the ability to build my character up in a specific way. Make decisions while I play about how I play them - and live with the consequences.
If I built a monk in D&D (3.5 I think it was), I just had to live with the fact that I'd never swing swords or wear heavy armour. If I played a Paladin, I would never get to tell some annoying peasant to prick off without losing my alignment of Lawful Stupid.
And that's what made those games fun for me.
In Diablo III; I'm a jack of all trades at the press of a button. And I excel at any trade.
And that bores me to tears.


Anyway, slightly off-topic (it's not strictly PoE/DIII):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

This expresses nicely how I feel about many of today's games: too much hand-holding, too little freedom to just see what one can do and come up with.


edit: Nicely written posts, thedarkwolf333. I wholeheartedly agree - Kudos!

What he is trying to tell you is that just because D3 lets you change skills on the fly, you DON'T HAVE TO, its optional, you can play as you wish! you can have 5-6 total diferent Barb builds with 5-6 different Barbs.