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

That's a really good point, Gus. It makes one wonder why all the other dead Exiles we find strewn about the place didn't just equip a Firestorm gem and go to town.

The killing of Hillock I can more readily understand -- you do start with a weapon, after all, and you've found a few more before you reach him. You're clearly not a street urchin or petty criminal sent to this outcast's land (I promise I don't see it as Australia...), but instead some sort of maligned practitioner of a higher art, being swordplay, witchcraft, archery, etc.

But regarding the early game visual 'potency' of skill, I have no answer at all. I could BS one up for my personal satisfaction, but I think that's the sort of thing only GGG can respond to effectively.

Very good point indeed.
Account sharing/boosting is a bannable offence. No ifs, ands, or buts. No exceptions. Not even for billionaires.

Post this sentiment publicly and see how long it lasts here.
"
CharanJaydemyr wrote:
True, but it still looks kinda shiny. I can't explain it better than that. He or she might be clad in furs and little else, but it still feels crafted somehow. I don't get the impression the Barbarian of D3 killed for the furs being worn.

I don't know if I'd call it shiny, but it doesn't have the gritty look. To me it seems like there is no weather worn, world weary look to the early gear. It's all a little bit too polished. Almost as if the whole early gear is just a cliché of what a real human would wear, or an exaggeration.

BTW - are we sure that the exiles we play as weren't something special before arriving on the beach? We know little of the back story at this point. Maybe there is a reason we can use skill gems, overpower most of the locals and all that. Unless I'm missing something, a lot of that remains to be answered.
"I would have listened... I would have understood!" - Scion

Have you removed Asus ROG/GameFirst yet?
"
MaxTheLimit wrote:
BTW - are we sure that the exiles we play as weren't something special before arriving on the beach? We know little of the back story at this point. Maybe there is a reason we can use skill gems, overpower most of the locals and all that. Unless I'm missing something, a lot of that remains to be answered.
You're quite right, we're not sure at all as far as I know. But for me, while having them be something special - as Charan puts it, "not a street urchin" - makes more sense and is probably what the devs are going for, it also pushes things back into chosen-one territory and makes the whole start of the game a bit lame. Now it's a battered island of exiles who are fighting for survival - until you come along. You're only two steps away from being a gruff, shaved-headed space marine at that point.

None of this actually bothers me about the game, I might note; it's not what I'm here for. It's a game about killing thousands of monsters single-handedly; my suspension of disbelief is pretty high from the beginning out of necessity. :)

Which is, incidentally, kind of why I find all this arguing about which game is the "darkest" and most "horrific" kind of bizarre; for me, these games are not at all self-consistent enough to be dark or horrific in anything but a very superficial theme. ARPGs cater to an audience that loves to plan every little thing, but horror is about not being able to plan, or making your best plan and losing anyway. Indeed, optimising skill paths, finding bigger swords and slaughtering demon armies by yourself is pretty much the antithesis of horror. So if Diablo 3's version of a dark, horror theme uses more colours than just brown and grey, then I just see that as being appropriately self-confident, self-aware and, well, honest. Which is not to say PoE is being "dishonest", at all - GGG know their audience and their audience know perfectly well what to expect from the genre.
"
GusTheCrocodile wrote:
"
MaxTheLimit wrote:
BTW - are we sure that the exiles we play as weren't something special before arriving on the beach? We know little of the back story at this point. Maybe there is a reason we can use skill gems, overpower most of the locals and all that. Unless I'm missing something, a lot of that remains to be answered.
You're quite right, we're not sure at all as far as I know. But for me, while having them be something special - as Charan puts it, "not a street urchin" - makes more sense and is probably what the devs are going for, it also pushes things back into chosen-one territory and makes the whole start of the game a bit lame. Now it's a battered island of exiles who are fighting for survival - until you come along. You're only two steps away from being a gruff, shaved-headed space marine at that point.

None of this actually bothers me about the game, I might note; it's not what I'm here for. It's a game about killing thousands of monsters single-handedly; my suspension of disbelief is pretty high from the beginning out of necessity. :)

Which is, incidentally, kind of why I find all this arguing about which game is the "darkest" and most "horrific" kind of bizarre; for me, these games are not at all self-consistent enough to be dark or horrific in anything but a very superficial theme. ARPGs cater to an audience that loves to plan every little thing, but horror is about not being able to plan, or making your best plan and losing anyway. Indeed, optimising skill paths, finding bigger swords and slaughtering demon armies by yourself is pretty much the antithesis of horror. So if Diablo 3's version of a dark, horror theme uses more colours than just brown and grey, then I just see that as being appropriately self-confident, self-aware and, well, honest. Which is not to say PoE is being "dishonest", at all - GGG know their audience and their audience know perfectly well what to expect from the genre.


Excellent view on the situation you got there, I wholeheartedly agree.
''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters.
The silence is your answer.''

IGN: Vaeralyse
"
Tagek wrote:

Well it's an actual, extremely fundamentle part of the lore, starting right from the first game. I don't think it can be dismissed as a mere 'excuse'. Also, this wasn't even an issue in D1 and 2 because most of the humans' powers were being opressed by the worldstone.

I get what you mean though, but at the same time it also feels wrong to me that, in POE, I'm just a regular human yet I'm beating up hundreds of demons simultaneously.



In the end it's "Gameplay and Story segregation". In the game, you mow down dozens of demons. In the story, they are supposed to be scary (By the way, Diablo's monsters did feel threatening precisely because every monster by itself could be a threat if met head-on mindlessly; which was then done away with in Diablo II, where you slay thousands with impunity, just screaming and flinging fire at them. Or axes. or...)

Anyway, Diablo III tries to justify its gameplay with story. Which could work, but for me doesn't work in the case of Diablo III. The Demon Hunter, akimbo-crossbows shooting hundreds of bolts into hundreds of demons without reloading? Fine in gameplay. Horribly cheesy in story.

For me, there are two extremes which both work:
Total segregation and no segregation. Diablo III feels like it is somewhere in the middle, and for me, it fails on that level, because it tears down my willing suspension of disbelief.


That's why I refer to this "actually, you're more powerful than either demons AND angels" as asspull. It might be in the Lore since Diablo II, but I'm fairly certain that while a connection between humans, demons and angels might be implied in the first game, it doesn't state that mortals are more powerful than either, and only held back by the world stone. IIRC; the world stone was only introduced with the non-canon expansion Hellfire through the "Corner of the World Stone", and not expanded upon until DII.

It might of course be all there in the books. But as I said: Forcing players to rely on other media to understand the background is a dick move in itself.
12/12/12 - the day Germany decided boys are not quite human.
"
Avireyn wrote:
"
Tagek wrote:

Well it's an actual, extremely fundamentle part of the lore, starting right from the first game. I don't think it can be dismissed as a mere 'excuse'. Also, this wasn't even an issue in D1 and 2 because most of the humans' powers were being opressed by the worldstone.

I get what you mean though, but at the same time it also feels wrong to me that, in POE, I'm just a regular human yet I'm beating up hundreds of demons simultaneously.



In the end it's "Gameplay and Story segregation". In the game, you mow down dozens of demons. In the story, they are supposed to be scary (By the way, Diablo's monsters did feel threatening precisely because every monster by itself could be a threat if met head-on mindlessly; which was then done away with in Diablo II, where you slay thousands with impunity, just screaming and flinging fire at them. Or axes. or...)

Anyway, Diablo III tries to justify its gameplay with story. Which could work, but for me doesn't work in the case of Diablo III. The Demon Hunter, akimbo-crossbows shooting hundreds of bolts into hundreds of demons without reloading? Fine in gameplay. Horribly cheesy in story.

For me, there are two extremes which both work:
Total segregation and no segregation. Diablo III feels like it is somewhere in the middle, and for me, it fails on that level, because it tears down my willing suspension of disbelief.


That's why I refer to this "actually, you're more powerful than either demons AND angels" as asspull. It might be in the Lore since Diablo II, but I'm fairly certain that while a connection between humans, demons and angels might be implied in the first game, it doesn't state that mortals are more powerful than either, and only held back by the world stone. IIRC; the world stone was only introduced with the non-canon expansion Hellfire through the "Corner of the World Stone", and not expanded upon until DII.

It might of course be all there in the books. But as I said: Forcing players to rely on other media to understand the background is a dick move in itself.


I think you don't understand that this story existed before diablo 3, the humans were always this powerful.
As I said, it's the entire foundation of the D3 lore.

Also, every old game works this way really. No game explaines / explained it's full lore through the game.
There was no place for this in d2 especially.
''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters.
The silence is your answer.''

IGN: Vaeralyse
Last edited by Tagek#6585 on Apr 13, 2012, 11:38:41 AM
Well, the barb is obviously a super human, he already beat Diablo in Diablo 2 ^^;
PoE forums ignore list script:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/162657

0.4: added "ignore" button. ignore list is now saved locally.
"
Tagek wrote:

I think you don't understand that this story existed before diablo 3, the humans were always this powerful.
As I said, it's the entire foundation of the D3 lore.

Also, every old game works this way really. No game explaines / explained it's full lore through the game.
There was no place for this in d2 especially.


Until now, I have somehow enjoyed discussing, but now I'm just not certain if you're trolling me or you haven't read/understood what I wrote. Oh, well.
12/12/12 - the day Germany decided boys are not quite human.
"
GusTheCrocodile wrote:
"
MaxTheLimit wrote:
BTW - are we sure that the exiles we play as weren't something special before arriving on the beach? We know little of the back story at this point. Maybe there is a reason we can use skill gems, overpower most of the locals and all that. Unless I'm missing something, a lot of that remains to be answered.
You're quite right, we're not sure at all as far as I know. But for me, while having them be something special - as Charan puts it, "not a street urchin" - makes more sense and is probably what the devs are going for, it also pushes things back into chosen-one territory and makes the whole start of the game a bit lame. Now it's a battered island of exiles who are fighting for survival - until you come along. You're only two steps away from being a gruff, shaved-headed space marine at that point.

None of this actually bothers me about the game, I might note; it's not what I'm here for. It's a game about killing thousands of monsters single-handedly; my suspension of disbelief is pretty high from the beginning out of necessity. :)

Which is, incidentally, kind of why I find all this arguing about which game is the "darkest" and most "horrific" kind of bizarre; for me, these games are not at all self-consistent enough to be dark or horrific in anything but a very superficial theme. ARPGs cater to an audience that loves to plan every little thing, but horror is about not being able to plan, or making your best plan and losing anyway. Indeed, optimising skill paths, finding bigger swords and slaughtering demon armies by yourself is pretty much the antithesis of horror. So if Diablo 3's version of a dark, horror theme uses more colours than just brown and grey, then I just see that as being appropriately self-confident, self-aware and, well, honest. Which is not to say PoE is being "dishonest", at all - GGG know their audience and their audience know perfectly well what to expect from the genre.



I can agree on that the hole game is not Dark and horrific. But it´s enough for me atleast in the places it should be.

I myself hope that what we have seen now is just a showcase of the different areas and themes we are going to see. And that we will experience a very bright & a very dark gothic Area/Act later on :)

The templar trailer i hope is a tease of what is to come in the coming act/act´s

I would be so happy if they would just go nuts with gore , darkness , horrific areas (Say the prison cages etc but v2.8). Just a area or full act ( i can wish ) in wreaclast where it all went to hell. And you are just mopping up what is left and try to save who ever is left. Or catch up to the potential humanoid in charge ( monster they set loose who did it.'

And GGG puts a sign before you go into that place that tells you

"This could be the time to turn blood off - Kind Regards - Chris"






On regards to the talk about making your character feel like you go from crap .. and get a little stronger as time go by now and then. I don´t really think ARPG´s are the market for that.

That sounds like what i would expect and crave to get when i play Baldurs Gate 1 or 2 etc.

I would not mind the more slower progression in the games. More like in Diablo 1, but if i am truely honest. I don´t think i myself would play it that much. If i had to work allot harder to get on with the Action in the action-RPG.

I think it´s just as good as Diablo 2 started. i got my summon skeleton lv 1. Me skeleton kills all, and soon i had 2 :)

Acutely when i think about it PoE intro is a improvement for me. Since here here i just don´t spawn at a point. here i start on the boat, then at the beach. But it is also a expected improvement since then.

Games more or less is just the same thing over and over. It´s about how you can build on that and make it better in some way. In my own honest opinion :)

And i must say i enjoy not knowing the full story/lore of the game. I saves so much to get to know as you play the game. Just like when i first played Baldurs Gate, i got to know more and more as i progressed =)

Cant have to much Junk in your Stash
"
Avireyn wrote:
"
Tagek wrote:

I think you don't understand that this story existed before diablo 3, the humans were always this powerful.
As I said, it's the entire foundation of the D3 lore.

Also, every old game works this way really. No game explaines / explained it's full lore through the game.
There was no place for this in d2 especially.


Until now, I have somehow enjoyed discussing, but now I'm just not certain if you're trolling me or you haven't read/understood what I wrote. Oh, well.


Yeah sorry, I posted this while reading over that part, I had to go because I was getting into a league of legends game.
''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters.
The silence is your answer.''

IGN: Vaeralyse

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info