Trailer decent enough. And the gameplay looks like Diablo. So long as they tell me its not and never will be a MMORPGer and that there will be free online cooperative play as long as we like, I'm a happy man. If they pull a monthly fee or a 'pay more for access to special items' bullshit...fuck em.

I might have to remember my password and dust off my D2Jsp credits once this comes out. Got about 4,000 sitting around from the last Diablo 2 bender I went on. (happens about once a year) My sorc had some sweet (now disappeared) items. Wish I would've sold em off before I stopped playing.

Got to get in on the earliest days before everyone makes workable bots, get some kickass items, than gouge some fuckers on Ebay for it.

QUOTE (Stego @ Jun 28 2008, 10.33)

(And people who complain about 15 dollars a month for endless entertainment annoy me to no end. Sorry guys, but you spend more than that going to see a single movie in a theatre. Or by buying a hardcover book. Or a 2 hr DVD. For a month of entertainment.

A video game...ANY video game is $50 tops. If you buy the right one, it should provide near endless hours of enjoyment for that $50. I do not fancy spending $300 over 2 years for one single fucking game. That's a bit insane. There is no game that is worth that. Monthly fees are reserved for full fledged services that offer a hell of alot more than one fucking game. $300 is not a video game. Its a fricken video game system.

Nor do I want the added pressure of feeling that I MUST play the game since i'm paying a damned fee for it. I'll play whichever game I like at my leisure. I don't want to be playing Civ thinking I should be playing WoW instead just to get my money's worth. Kind of like a gym membership when you hate working out.

QUOTE (Stego @ Jun 28 2008, 10.54)

I understand your thought process, but it's foolish. There is no game that continues to give free content forever.

Games with a strong modding community or ongoing support/minor upgrades provide what approaches new content. The first patch of Diablo 2 LoD is pretty much night and day compared to the most recent version. New quests added, damned near whole new item classes, pretty much changed the entire game economy, tweaked and rebalanced powers, etc. Of course the last significant change was probably 2-3 years ago. But for a game approaching 10 years old, that ain't half bad.

And modding pretty much makes Civ endlessly replayable. It extends the playing experience of BG2 and a few others. The main EU2 mod is bigger than the fricken game itself. And I'm sure there are others. No extra cash. Games that remain replayable years down the line.

Yeah most games don't have that. But the ones that do = 'Endless enjoyment' for 'not $300'. The cash ain't hard to come by, I just can't wrap my head around paying a monthly fee for a video game. For $15 a month, you essentially pay the rate of a brand new game every 3 months. I doubt they give you a full game's worth of new content every 3 months.

QUOTE (Stego @ Jun 28 2008, 10.57)

Watch the video. They stated it will be free on Battle.net.

Good to hear. In that case, I'm in.

QUOTE (SwordoftheMorning @ Jun 28 2008, 11.14)

IMO, I call Diablo the most successful game I've ever seen. I'm sure there are fanboys who'll be frothing at the mouth with stats and numbers about this game of that game that outsold, etc. etc. etc. But in terms of longevity and player base, I don't think anythng compares to Diablo. The hype we'll see and the inability to log into Battle.net when D3 is released I think will bear my opinion out.

I don't doubt this for a second as Battle.net is always crowded and D2JSP (trading site with its own home made currency) is probably the busiest message board website I've ever seen. (post something during peak hours and it'll be on page 2 in less than a minute. And this is even with strict forum rules to limit posting) But some of those are certainly double sales from people who like multiple CD keys so they can be on 2-3 accounts at once.

QUOTE (Werthead @ Jun 28 2008, 11.14)

Correct me if I'm wrong about this, but you can suspend your membership of WoW and the paying of the monthly fee, and reactivate it at a later date, right? So if you're going to go off on a massive Civ IV or BG2 bender for a few months, you don't have to pay for not paying WoW.

Still a decision you've got to make on a monthly basis. And my video gaming preference tends to be a day to day thing.

QUOTE (Werthead @ Jun 28 2008, 11.20)

However, in overall sales and the number of people who play it online, StarCraft is still ahead.

Remove the South Koreans and I figure Diablo tops it.

QUOTE (Weekapaug Groove @ Jun 28 2008, 11.38)

The Baldur's Gate series was, and is still, far superior. I played through both of them (plus expansions) more times than I can count.

After trying Diablo 2 on three separate occasions, I still haven't ever played it all the way through. No story to speak of, point and click with no strategy, just blah. I might give this one a chance, but I doubt it.

Is BG2 a better game first, second, and third time around? Yes. Is it better the 1,500th time? Absolutely not. The genius of Diablo is that the item generation system and character customization makes for endless possibilities. If you've got a bit of ADD and OCD in you, you'll literally play it for weeks on end to get the next coolest item or to level your 92 lvl guy to 93. Yeah there are a few mods, different characters, multiple ways to go item wise or party wise, but BG2 still remains essentially the same game. Once you've seen all the party interactions, tried every class, every item and party configuration...its largely time to call it quits. But Diablo promises something new every time around.

The D2 quest is fun enough to play through. But the real gem of it is the game economy, the trading, dueling, Baal runs until your ass goes numb. (actually, that's not as fun as it sounds...but I fucking do it anyway) Running the pit with your MF sorc. Hitting the Council with your GF barb. UberTrist runs with some schmuck who you just know is gonna run in there and steal the torch.

QUOTE (Space Bandito @ Jun 28 2008, 12.11)

If you want to see a model for how things might or might not go read about semi failure Hellgate London (a game I own, sadly).

It tried to do a fee for "elite" content. It was made essentially by all the creators of Diablo II.

I thought about getting that up until I heard about the fee. Its just a bad setup. You don't get the promise of regular new content, maintainence and access that a full fledged MMORPGer offers, but if you don't pay the fee you can't escape the conclusion that you're only allowed to play half the game. And everyone else online with it have you at a competitive disadvantage. I really think it was a model destined for failure from the start.

QUOTE (Weekapaug Groove @ Jun 28 2008, 12.27)

The multiplayer aspect of Diablo 2 may be fun, but that is more a reflection of the people you are playing it with rather than the game itself.

Heh...spend an hour on Battle.net with those fucking 12 year old asshats. No...its not the people you're playing with. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Its the game itself. 100%. Than again noone on multiplayer actually plays the game all the way through. Its all about new items, new character buildings, MFing, GFing, dueling, etc.

In my experience the two most popular characters on Battle.net, at least since the most recent update, are Paladin's and Sorcs. Sorcs because they're easy to use and cheap to outfit effectively. And Paladin's because under the latest few patches, they're without a doubt the strongest character in the game.

Barbs essentially served two purposes. Party buffing (Battle Orders mainly) and goldfind. (dual wielding ist'd Ali-baba's/leap/and a SUPER Merc to do the actual killing)

Summon necros were great, but they'd inevitably slow down a loaded game and were banned from most Baal runs. Poison nova necros could supposedly make some super quick pit runs, but I never used ones. Bone necros were fairly popular too.

I never ran into many who actually used the MA assassin. The lightning trap seemed to be the big deal more so than anything else. Not great soloing probably, but better for team games.

Zons were moderately popular, both bow and jav.

Druids...they ended up grossly overpowering their pelts and every other druid specific item (level bonsues that you couldn't sniff for other classes) and it still had few takers.

My favored class was a sorc Meteorb. (Max Meteor/Fireball/Fire Mastery-Max Frozen orb for a secondary weapon) Mainly because it was self-sufficient and with a good merc could kill even fire and ice immune creatures. Paladin's were simply too expensive to outfit, didn't want to go that route.

QUOTE (DJDonegal @ Jul 1 2008, 18.10)

Didn't the Barb have a higher chance of finding rare items when he killed something? I think that was the main reason I liked using one.

The barb could re-loot a body for extra/gold items. But outside of select situations, it wasn't all that useful since by the time he got done looting, a faster killer would have cut down dozens of more enemies. Outside of BO party support, his ownly really useful purpose was Council goldfind runs.

QUOTE (Circle Breaker @ Jul 2 2008, 12.58)

The Diablo 3 announcement prompted me to play some D2 for old times sake. As of Version 12a what are the viable builds for classes? I remember when frequent patches were coming out and nerfing some of the overpowered skills (I'm looking at you blessed hammer + concentration, pre-expansion).

Man, I just fell off the wagon after being 'clean' for over six years.

Even nerfed, your Hammerdin or Smiter are still the most powerful classes for Baal runs. Blizzard sorcs are popular for MFing, but lightning sorcs are the biggest. Most damage. Elemental hybrids happen, but since the synergies they're weaker than their single class counterparts. (but with all immune monsters in hell, I still use them) i'm particularly fond of the meteorb, but its main asset is that its self sufficient for soloing. (until your merc dies, so avoid Chaos Sanctuary alone)

Every party should have a BO barb, but otherwise they're useless. Essentially a support role. I'm fond of Council running Goldfind barbs, but they essentially do one single thing over and over...gets a tad old.

I don't duel much so I'm not up on the best builds there. Bone and summon necros seem to be popular. Poison ones a bit rarer, but effective from what I've heard.

The zon's are always there in the middle somewhere.

You'll see lightning trap assassins more often than not and various druids since they grossly overpowered their class specific items and pelts...I still don't like em.

Tons of build guides here

Some of those guys are a tad bit dated, so you may want to play around with a few of them. Others are fairly up to date.

I'd still start off sorc since a paladin is so expensive to properly outfit. Sorcs are cheap, easy to use, and reasonably effective. Second most popular class probably. The only super costly items for them are their torches. Super-elite sorc equipment is a bit costly, but who needs HOTO or better when you can get Occy for pocket change?

Motherfucker. Got the urge myself and I can't find my fucking CD either.

Motherfucker again. I searched the whole computer desk. Went through every CD rack around it. Twice. Went through every old computer box. Checked each CD container to ensure none were mislabeled or double stacked.

And I completely fucking forgot about the IKEA CD rack I had hanging on the wall which had my Diablo CD and a dozen other of my most played games sitting up there. I am looking straight ahead at my computer now. That wall rack is just within my peripheral vision. The LoD CD is the first one on it. Clearly visible.

But I just wasted an hour searching everywhere but right fucking in front (really to the left) of me.

I suck.

I too have succumbed. USAEAST has always been my server of choice. Got my sorc up to lvl 15. Gonna do some tombing.

QUOTE (Shryke @ Jul 3 2008, 12.36)

People bitched about the same thing from Diablo -> Diablo 2.

Yes they did. But to be completely honest, I still prefer much of the D1 look over 2. Hard to explain, but it did appear more solid/less cartoony. (yeah, I should really write game reviews with those hardcore, insightful descriptions ) But it wasn't that big of deal. The D2 look grew on me fine. And its certainly nowhere near a game breaker.

Orb is great for nightmare, but loses good share of its effectiveness in Hell, especially the heavily multiplayer games. The damage just doesn't scale up quite as much as other skills. Still a quality secondary weapon up there though.

QUOTE (Grim Shady @ Mar 17 2009, 12.49)

Can't really bring myself to get back on Bnet, I hear horror stories of the community and I hate that my characters go bye bye after a certain period of inactivity.

Bliz says they're working on patch 1.13 for D2 and it'll be a content patch. Nice to see they're still willing to do that for an old game, an old friend.

Recently refired D2 myself. Sometime early last year they stopped expiring characters due to inactivity. You'll still get the day countdown and the 'Character expired' title by them, but you can load them back up even months after that happens and the character will return to normal with all items, levels, skills, etc. So inactivity is no longer an issue.

I've heard that this is intended to be a final patch, that Blizzard is taking suggestions on what to include at Battle.net, that they expect it early summer, and that there MIGHT be a ladder reset along with it. (I only play ladder myself, so that's a plus)

As for D2 community, there really isn't one. These days it seems like there's more bots running than actual players. (advert bots, baal bots, etc) But still, I can't really play single-player anymore. It just gets old.