Who here is excited for D3? And anyone know when it is coming out? When it does a bunch of 2+2ers should party up and start grinding it out. Try to get on the top 10 leaderboard.

I can't wait to ruin my already shaky social life with this game... heh

I don't know the release date because it's Blizzard and will be pushed back regardless anyway.

What sucks is I'll have to buy a new PC that can handle it..

I doubt it comes out this year.

I expect it to come out shortly before cod6: universe in crisis

Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click


I can't wait.

f

You forgot the "hold down alt key".

fyp

holding down alt key will be an outdated feature

I'm so excited

starcraft 2
diablo 3

bam bam bam gogogo

Three out of 5 classes are known as far... Barb, wizard and witch doctor. Personally I think they should have atleast 7. Bring back all the old characters and add a few more. But after D3 comes out they are probably going to make an expansion pack like they did for D2. More money for Blizzard.

Auradin says, lol n00b.

i'm taking a 2-4 week break from poker/social life when this comes out. this will consume me.

hardcore mode ftw

I'm sure I'll pick it up, but I'll probably wait until it's a bargain. From what I've seen of the gameplay, it operates in a lot of ways like WoW, which is a big thumbs down from me. But, the fact that they can ramp up the graphics and the action due to it being a single player game will still definitely make it playable.

Starcraft 2 on the other hand.... can't wait. I'm still a bit peeved that they're releasing three games and that each one only features one campaign (so you have to buy all three to play all three races in single player) time will tell on this one. If SC2 comes out and each part of the trilogy really does have the depth of a full game (as Blizzard claims it will) I will happily snap them up. If it looks like a ploy to get people to pay triple the price for one game (which with Blizzard certainly seems like a plausible business model), well, then I'll just wait until 2020 when the Starcraft 2 Battle Chest is on sale for $10.

If Diablo 3 operates like Diablo 2, then the gameplay is nothing like WoW. Obviously they are operate similar because they are both MMORPG. WoW is more like a "real world" RPG simulation. Diablo is more arcadey style gameplay. Much more action based game, but it lacks the overwhelming large virtual world WoW creates.

And true it is pretty gay that Blizzard is releasing three seperate SC2 games. They force you to pay for three seperate games because they know people will buy it anyways. Consumers hate it, but I don't blame Blizzard, they always make great quality games and the hype for SC2 and Diablo 3 is huge. Any company would take advtange over this.

Yeah, it's just that the memory of Blizzard being a different and better game company gets to be more and more of a ROFL.

WoW actually fixed a bunch of the annoying crap that happens in Diablo 2 (carpal from clicking being a big one). Respec'ing talents, making gold useful (easier to trade items), etc.

They'll keep some essence of diablo 2 though, i hope, with the randomly generated Rare item stats and the ability to move items between characters (I hope). Also, the ability to be able to farm everything by yourself (magic finding) was probably the most attractive element which gave Diablo all its replay value. As mentioned the big extensive virtual world versus every game being instanced for only 8 people. Should be easy enough for Blizz to make Diablo 3 a significantly different game than WoW.

I didn't hear about the Starcraft 2 thing. That sounds like complete BS and I hope that they don't split the game like that. Part of the awesomeness of the ___craft series are being able to play the whole single player campaigns and follow the story, but it makes the game way less attractive if they aren't going to keep everything together. Also how's online play going to work then? You can only play as the 1 race you bought?

Yes, ofcourse it will be different. That way that'll have WoW crackheads playing diablo 3 during the downtime instead of cod4 or DoTA

They are doing it.

They are breaking the game up into 3 different games. I'm not sure about pricing, but the way it will work is that the Terran game will be released first. In buying that, you'll be able to play Terran single player only, but multiplayer you'll be able to play all three races.

Then when they release the next game (let's say it's Zerg), you'll then be able to play the Zerg missions. You'll also be able to play all the other races in multiplayer as with the first game. The catch, though, is that they will be releasing new units for all races in the new game. Thus, as was the case with broodwar, anyone that takes the game seriously will buy the new one for the new units and maps, and also because more multiplayer activity in the new game.

They will then repeat the process for the third game.

Even if they price the original version at full price and the next two at half price (like standard expansions), they'll still be making double profit out of the game. There is a chance though that the subsequent releases won't even be that much cheaper than full price (maybe more like 75%, or even 100%).

Blizzard sure knows how to make profit.

My understanding is as follows:

Game 1: Terran missions
Game 2: Zerg missions
Game 3: Protoss missions.

Supposedly, each game will be the same price/full retail, but each game will have 30+ levels, multiple paths through the storyline, etc. In short, the hype is "Starcraft 2 was so huge, we broke it into three full length games bigger than ever before!"

If true, fine. I'd gladly pay full price for a new SC title, and if they decide to release three new SC titles in the next 3-5 years, I'm cool with that.

If the Zerg and Protoss missions have a "minor expansion" feel, however, I'll be upset. And I just can't see them "reinventing the wheel" with tons of new units/gameplay for each expansion.

Who knows, though. Maybe they really did go all out for each of the campaigns, and it'll be worth the price.

I don't mind the split at all. Standard game companies charge 60 bucks for a game that we get tired of in a couple of weeks. Blizzard charges the same for games that are still played after 10 years. EA gets to release the same crap every year and people buy it. But Blizzard gets flak for demanding more revenue?? Relative to other developers they're being punished right now for focusing on quality instead of quantity.

Do we want to encourage developers to be another EA, or to be another Blizzard?

This is really a drawback of standardized $60 pricing. Blizzard's games are typically worth much more than the usual game, and it doesn't get compensated for it enough. A game that can provide a decade of entertainment SHOULD be selling for $180. And that's why it will.

well put

You're not really comparing apples to apples. Unless you're playing an RTS game entirely for the single player experience, which has basically become a pretty minor note in how well a RTS catches on and stays popular for a very long time now, RTS's are games that don't even really come into their own until you go multiplayer, and take long enough to get good at and play a lot that you don't play them for only a few weeks until the game is a total failure.

The new starcraft packages will be compared first of all to the first starcraft and then to other hugely popular RTS's like the multiple incarnations of Age of Empires and Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander and C&C when people ask whether Blizzard really delivered, not games that are quickly played through and have definitive endings where the game is all done.

By those standards, buying the same game three times to play it with a standard compliment of maps and units means the 2nd and 3rd part will have to deliver a lot -- and not just by filling in gaps purposely left open.

To drag in the example of that sort of thing I often bring up: Hellgate London copying Diablo 2's shortchanging of storage space in the initial release. Hellgate only offered the increased storage space necessary such an item-based game if you paid an extra ten bucks a month for their online additional perks. Diablo 2 only gave you more than a small storage space after you bought its expansion, so Blizzard has tried this kind of thing before.

I think we can probably expect Blizzard to short-change you so hard that you will immediately feel compelled to buy the second part of Starcraft 2 even if you feel like it's pretty much a rip off, and the same with the third part.

I'd guess what we'll really get is a bunch of paint by numbers extra missions making a single game masquerade as a game with two expansions.

I'd bet only a small percentage of us even plays all the missions anyway. Most RTS fans want to just play each other ASAP and not let the competition get too far ahead.

Blarg if you want I can hook you up with a good undertitle, I have connections with Ryan Beal. How about "tl;dr"

I actually buy blizzard games for the single player campaign, although its always the multiplayer that hooks me.

The majority of people who bought starcraft in NA never played on Battle.net. I think that might be true for Diablo 2 (although I'm not sure about that). I love the multiplayer aspects of all the Blizzard games but the majoirty of their RTS fans buy the games for the single player.

If the game relied on the people who only played single player in America for its long term viability and reputation, it would have been a much smaller game.

RTS games can easily be made or broken by their online community. So much so that there's little point in getting one without an online component if you want to experience much of what an RTS game is about or realize much of its potential. Single player is so easy and one-dimensional in comparison to multiplayer it can play like another game entirely.

The multiplayer component for a rts games are as important as they are for fps games. Even more so in certain cases. But diablo 2 is not an rts, and in that case I would say that the single player component for diablo1/2 is stronger than the multiplayer. In fact, i pretty much despised the multiplayer in diablo.