Sep 4, 2017 - Open you Javazon Bot profile on the Version Hack Etal manager and put a tick. If you are in hurry and you have any troubles with Diablo II, ETAL Version Hack, Etal 2.0. Primary skill to boss (diablo/meph/Duriel/andy).
Sara's Rift-a-Sin PVM Introduction Hi everyone, after making many Martial art and trapper sins, Ive come to find a combo of items that allows one to have fantastic balance of melee kick some butt goodness without giving up much on damage in the trap tree. This can be played equally well on either side. The downfall normally for kicker sins is the lack of an aoe attack that actually takes enemies down. Insert Rift Sins are the true swiss army knives of builds, able to run everywhere in the game with ample crowd control, multiple damage sources and even summons. As a comparable build, the Rift-a-din does less physical damage and attacks slower. He does not get summons nor the crowd control a sin is capable of. My character requirement that Can take down the ubers and run every other spot in the game.
If the char cannot solo Everything, then it's of no use to me. The down side, is this build is another one based on game items and if you do not have most of the ideal items you lose effectiveness.
The info collected here is nothing new, and I cannot claim credit for anything but the time I'm taking to compile it for you. Here is another Rift sin oriented build, with enough difference between our approach to make it worthwhile for me to attempt another guide for it. By Ava What makes this Rift sin different is the focus I went for on this build in eeking out the max orb damage possible, while balancing durabilty.
At the same time we want max trap damage and good kicker stats too. This is a Hardcore char afterall. Enough jibba-jabba though, onto the meat 1a. Common Abbrv. Click to expand.There is only 2 scepter's that this can be made in War scepter (ideal) and Caddie's.
War scept is both easier to find and cheaper to repair. These have a base wsm of -10. This means we need another 30 ias to hit the quickest kick followup, Shooting for 8/3/3/3/3/3 fpa.
This gives us over 5 attacks a second. While the added elemental damages are nice cake mods, the real reason we're using rift is the chance to cast Frozen orb.
With the right combo of items we can actually put out as much frozen orb damage as an orb sorcy. What advantage we have over the sorc counterpart is the fact we do not suffer a casting delay. It's very common to kick out 3/4 and even the rare 5 orbs in a single attack cycle. This gives us ultimate AOE in addition to all the usual kick damages the target will also face. However you cut it, these are the finished char goals 48 or 86 FHR 75+ all res in hell. Overstack of 120% for Uber Meph 1200 min base life before bo or sages 50% min chance to block 8/3/3 kicks or better. The ability to have at least 50% cb via stashed item for bosses and ubers.
Lifetap via dracs or wand. Critical for uber running.
Skill Layout in simple Fashion: Martial Arts Tree 20dtalon Dragon Talon is chosen for it's ability to apply various mods like the chance to cast on our Rift. This attack is among the fastest in the game which means proc'ing mods is a cinch. Because it's also physical we have something to leach with. Full 20 points advised for Maximum phy damage, and a Hefty Ar bonus.
It helps if you can get enough points for a total of 6 kicks. This requires a skill level of 30 Dragon Tail = 1 Dragon Claw = 1 Tiger strike =1 Cobra strike =1 This skill is very useful early on for supplying Mana/life leach Dragon Flight=1 point.
A useful way to summon stack via enemy-assisted teleport. Useful for picking out boss type monsters and things like Shamans Trap Tree 20 Death sentry Useful for it's ce and added light damage 20 light sentry our main trap huge damage and another form of damage. 20 Shockweb Increase light sentry damage and is more useful then charged bolt sentry. As a sin we're allowed 5 traps out. For me I choose to use 4 lightsentries, and 1 deathsentry. Picking shockweb gives us the option to at least use the synergy skill in conjuction with our regular in play traps.
Shadow disciples 1 in all skills except: Shadow Master. Put enough points in this skill to hit level 17 master with final items equipped. I ended up with 2 hard points in this skill. Bos is our primary aura in use on all but some specific situations where we may need the extra res from fade. Either one of these skills is good at level 1.
They will be boosted to adaquate levels. Some people may want to add another point in bos if it means hitting the next ias bp. Once these core points are assigned any extra point should go to increasing your trap damage. The alternative is rest in venom. Stating Strength As you can guess enough for gear. As a kicker we will have more str then most other chars.
This is because we need to equip hurty boots. I advocate using double up'd goblin toes, the highest str req item we.need. requires 172str Dex Enough for Max block with Sanctuary Shield. Shoot for 50% block on Head hunter glory Vit Everything else. Equipped Stuff First off, again this build is not cheap. I am also not going to list every wep possiblity either.
Just what I feel fits the theme and are a couple of the more popular options. As always Rare items have the potential to be the best.
Good luck finding those. Primary Wep: Rift War sceptor. I know you guys never saw this one coming.
Primary Shield. Head Hunters Glory shield, 3 socketed with 5/5 level cold facets. We get 15% skill damage much needed for boosting Frozen orb and another -15 enemy res. This coupled with infinnty merc means -100 all enemy res. This is the only unique shield in the game that has 3 sockets to make the most with.
A 4 socketed faceted monarch would also work, but you'd give up other stats the Head hunter offers us. If you wanted to sacrifice a bit of damage the only other option that jumps out at me is a Mosher's shield with 2facets Switch wep: Hoto: chosen to use for our trap laying and prebluffing every sin skill we have. Shield: Spirit monarch. Helmet: Only one will do, Nightwings for the added cold skill damage and +2 skills that helps both our trap and melee attacks.
15 ias jewel with ammy let us exceed the 30 ias we need for preffered ias. Belt: Tgods is my preffered Hardcore belt of choice on any char.
Nos coil String of ears get mention. Gloves: Dracs. The ow and str help a ton. Oh yeah free lifetap woot boots: Double Up'd Goblintoes (my pick), Up'd Goreriders or Shadow dancers Jewelry Rings: 1 Ravenfrost. We need cbf somewhere. Dex helps with block and we even get a little cold damage.
Yaay 1dwarf star for more life, mdr and firesorb. Take the sting out of fire damage Ammy: Rare or Mara for prebluffing venom, shadow master and bos. After that I'd look at an ias ammy like Highlords or Cateye if your bos cannot meet your 8/3/3 kicks. Armor: My top pick is COH. +2 skills and much needed res.
Everything else it offers is nice. Alternatives: Many good choices here like Treachory, Lionheart, Smoke, Ga plate or even Gbane. Whatever you use ensure your hitting the char goals. Stashed wep's for boss killing and uber hunting: Shealed Fleshripper, Lastwish pb or Stormlash. The goal here is good speed with CB/OW Stashed shield: Sanctuary Troll nest Merc Act2.
Whichever your preffered guy is. I use a Might merc to increase my physical portion of my kick damage.
Holy freeze doesnt seem that handy since our sin has fantastic crowd control with COS and FO and a Shadow Master Wep: Infinnity is hands down by far the best option. Increases all of our elemental damages. As a bonus this wep puts out great physical damage and even has cb of its own. The only downside here is no leach and it's slow. Armor: treachory.
Has nearly everything the merc needs. More ias, res through Fade and pdr too! Helm: Vampgaze. Basicaly this slot is needed for life leach. The dr% offered here is a real boon. Because it came from my zon, it has a 15% ias jewel in it. Tal helm, Crown of thieves and Andy's helm are also fitting.
What about the Evil IM curse? Play as a trapper. With our better then avg gear we have full powered LS/DS Bust out our 1 point Blade fury Throw Gimmersheds at stuff Unequip boots and keep kicking. We still get the ctc's and elemental damage. Without a boot on we do so little physical damage we can kick with impunity Play by Numbers: For Level 82 Hardcore sin of mine BeatenByAGirl Full physical damage Dragon talon + All the elemental added damage from gear/charms Level 21 frozen orb, by itself pulling about 270-275 damage per shard. +30% skill damage from Nightwing's and facets put us about 350+ shard damage -100 enemy res puts our effective orb damage to non cold immunes at 700 damage.
This is more then my partial Tal orb sorc mf'er still maxing shockweb for more damage but. Light sentry damage 4700 per trap. 5 traps available. After conviction we're looking at around 7K+ light damage per trap. Holy cow its only getting stronger. Shock web: currently at about 1200 As Always, use charms to cover what your missing.
Fhr, Res, Life and after those are addressed Skill gc's would be next. I feel Trap Gc's would be the most useful for this build. For Ubers I remove Rift and the Cold shield and use Fleshripper+ sanctuary shield. So thanks for reading. In conclusion I want to say this is one of the most effective do it all chars in the game. With all the fireworks going off it's also one of the flashiest.
This is my 1st attempt at a guide here so feedback is welcomed. Re: Sara's Rift-a-Sin PVM Tai hun, If only you knew the amount of high level char I've got going right now, pally and non of course.
You'd probably tell me I play way to much. Speaking of which It's been a longtime since we've gamed together. This Sin is on account Sara4eF and she's getting alot of play to date.
Hotkeys are the bread and butter of sin play. Mine are as followed. A= Dtalon S= open, currently using cobra strike here d= Dflight F= Death sentry G= G for go home, TP E= BOS Z= Cloak of Shadows X= Mind Bomb Poor gear will work just fine for the trap side, ie use some shopped +skill to trap/sin skills claws. Poor gear will work fine for regular boss hunting.
Ie Fleshripper Poor gear will not work well for Ubers Poor gear will not provide substantial frozen orb damage. Poor gear will result in weak summon or weaker traps if you need to add more to the master. +skills really adds alot to everything we do as a sin. With 1-2 points invested: I've almost a full powered master. I pull over 1000%ed if I want to use tiger strike and Dtail. Close to level 20 venom.
Re: Sara's Rift-a-Sin PVM Very nice! I learned several new things.one of the most important being that +% cold damage from Nightwing's and facets does work with elemental damage released from procs. I wasn't aware of that. In fact, that's going to serious affect my thinking about a 'Rift' Necro I've been gathering equipment for and my VoR Conviction Zealot rebuild (he was my project this last weekend). I have quite a few pieces of equipment needed to make a Rift-a-Sin, although I'll need to find another Lem to make my 'Rift' War Scepter.
I have an almost perfect one and an Ormus's Robes w/ cold facet in it on my Frost Nova Sorc. And I'll need an 'Infinity'.dang it. I'd better start to trade for more Guls then to cube. Does this +% and -% cold damage bonus from Nightwing's and facets also work on a Merc? (The reason why I'm asking this is because I might kit a 'Rift' Merc for that Necro build I mentioned.) Also, I was surprised when you mentioned that up to 5 Frozen Orbs can be released by kicks. The best I ever got from my 'Rift' Merc (currently on my VoR Zealot) is 3 Frozen Orbs in a row, and I can get up to 3 Frozen Orbs with my VoR on Zeal.
4-5 Frozen Orbs would do a whopping amount of damage at the damage you mentioned. 'Rift' is one of those great overlooked rune words.
Almost no one uses it on Bnet, but yet it's so powerful in the right builds. Click to expand.You should read. It will answer most of your questions.
I will test out this build as soon as I hit some decent level. Ontopic: Got a full cold sorc setup that I'm not using and a Rift that I can't get sold. Might aswell test it out Think I will use 20 Venom / 20 DS / 20 Dtalon / 20 Blade Shield(filler) + prereqs.
Got a pure pvp trap/kicker already so I want to try a 'pure' melee char this time around. Not sure if I will work in a Beast/Phoenix switch or Enigma yet.
Think there's 1 to many things to cover with tele aswell. (CB/OW/Fhr/Kick speed/Venom/Overall damage.). Re: Sara's Rift-a-Sin PVM Thanks for the input. So you just keep kicking into groups and watch Orb go off?
I saw you mentioned that 'on Attack' means as long as you are pointing to an enemy, clicking, and not actually hitting. Would this also work with Blade fury?
As well as just being half a screen away and holding 'shift' + 'attack' click? And you could potentially start spamming Orb?
Are there any other strong characters out there utilizing CtC off of runewords. I know there are the Dual Dream sorcs out there, but they seem very 1 dimensional as Lit Immunes will be all over them. I like the Sin because you get Physical dmg + 2 elements. Are there any other effective phys+2 or 3 elemental damaging builds?
It's almost amusing how they can spare staff to produce 70 minute soundtrack CDs, 24 minute DVD titles, a f.cking DnD based paper RPG, and a manual signed by the development team when they can't even get product out the door. It's quite possible that the only contribution of the programming development team to this whole effort was their signatures. Game programming takes a whole bunch of people, most of whom don't have the skills to help finish the code.
So instead they do the fluff while the code weenies furiously try to whack the game engine into shape. My God man, I'd be.happy. if Diablo II was only six months late. I'd be playing it already! In fact, I'd probably be DONE with it! Blizzard may have a reputation for releasing well polished final products, but they also have a reputation for releasing them late-as-all-fscking-hell.
Starcraft was years late. (and the original release was the most non-playbalanced thing I ever played) Diablo II seems to be just as late. Diablo was a fun, easy to get into dungeon hack. But since then, everyone and their dog has jumped into the quick dungeon hack market, with titles like Darkstone and Nox.
Diablo II should be able to compete, given how pretty it is, but that logic only follows through if they RELEASE IT! Doesn't 'collector's edition' imply that there are people out there who actually collect these things? I've personally never played a computer game that kept me remotely interested more than six months or so. Signed by the development team? If any of these 'extras' are worth anything, sell them as separate products, or at least make them more permanently available somehow.
If not, why make them in the first place? Anyway, the only thing that kept my interest in Diablo once the novelty of multiplayer mode wore off was the bug that allowed you to clone objects in your inventory.:-). Why are they releasing the game on 4 CDs and a DVD? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to write everything to a DVD?
I remember playing the original game online and being slowed down by my measly 4x CD-ROM. The group would finish a level, decide to go to another level, and at that point it was a race between systems. The fastest CPU/CD-ROM combo would load the new level fastest, and I would wade through the carnage until I caught up to the other adventurers. Is it just me or will adding a disc swap to this just increase the waiting times? I'm not suggesting that a DVD release is the only way to go but, why not put it on there if you are going to distribute a DVD with the set. Baldur's gate suffered from too many crippling flaws to come near diablo as far as my experience went.
I've played through diablo 3 or 4 times and never got more than 3/4ths of the way through baldur's gate. Not because of difficulty, but because it just wasn't much fun to play. It took forever to search through the enormous wilderness spaces with nothing in them, the quests had a tendency to be along the lines of 'Oh no, X is missing, help me find it!' With no hint as to where X might be, or a reference to a place but with only vauge directions as to where that place might be. But even those could have been ignored if it weren't for the Awful interface.
It was clunky, it was non-intuitive, and the combat system was moronic. For those of you who haven't played it, Baldur's Gate's combat system consisted of pausing the game, telling each character in your party what to do, then unpausing and hoping they did what you told them to. If you wanted to use something in your inventory you had to go as fast through the inventory screens as possible since accessing it un-paused the game, leaving your characters open to attack while you can't even see the display. The party system was almost well made, except that it seemed like every time you found a character worth having, they were attached to some worthless sidekick who you couldn't get rid of short of getting them destroyed in combat. As far as the graphics go. I personally preferred Diablo's over Baldur's Gate.
Diablo might not have had the detail that Baldur's Gate did, and Diablo was tiled, not individually rendered, but too many things in Baldur's Gate looked like they'd taken a photo of some grass or a tree or whatever and pasted it on top of the environment. Some scenes were stunningly well done, but too many were just lackluster. That and in too many situations it was impossible to see things because, unlike diablo, they didn't provide a partially-transparent effect to intervening walls, meaning characters, enemies, and equipment could dissapear behind a wall. Now, before you say it, yes they could fix all these things in the sequel and make a wonderful game. But from their own statements they're hardly altering the engine at all. Baldur's Gate II will basically just be a standalone expansion and I for one probably won't buy it for the same reason taht I haven't bought Planescape: Torment. I was really looking forward to Baldur's Gate as a real d&d game and it really let me down.
Diablo might not have been deep, but it was insanely fun as a hack'n'slash and even if Diablo II were just a standalone expansion of Diablo I i'd still want it. I never found much appeal in Diablo. How bout we get some more real role playing games back?
It's been a long time since a decent one came out. We need a return to the days of D&D.
I suggest you try Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and watch out for Icewind Dale and BG2 (all from Interplay, who now have the AD&D license). Having been a fan of the old SSI D&D computer games I think it can be safely said that there are at last some more good RPG's being released.
For less traditional RPG fun, I hear that the Fallout and System Shock series are good, though I haven't played them myself. #include sig.h. It's comments like this that make the software industry what it is today.
If more companies spent the time and energy to create excellent, nearly bug-free games (which Blizzard has an excellent history ot doing) the world would be a much better place. I am perfectly willing to wait for a game that works out-of-box, without having to download a patch before I can play the thing Hey, I have no problem with software companies 'getting it right' and wish more would do so.
But give me a break, how many times has this thing been redone? Has anyone at Blizzard actually heard the phrase 'feature freeze?' As another posted refered to it, 'The most anticipated game of 1998, 1999, AND 2000!' From what I understand, Blizzard was gearing up to release well over a year ago, and decided against it after seeing what Interplay was doing in the form of Baldur's Gate. Why does this annoy me?
I honestly don't know. Maybe I'm just pissed off after being deluged by the Blizzard marketting machine from Hell(tm) for the past three years. Maybe I'm just annoyed at Blizzard in general for ripping out the extra expansion pack promised in the Warcraft II platinum edition (later to be known as Battle.net edition). Maybe I'm just pissed that my girlfriend put down cash at Software Etc. For a pre-order after the promised Dec24 1999 ship date? I don't know, but it bugs me all the same.
FWIW, the developers are probably not involved with things like the video or the soundtrack. These things are usually handled by other teams, or even other companies. In other words, they are done by people who, if they weren't working on that stuff, wouldn't be working on anything that contributed directly to the game anyway. Things like title screens, intros, marketing fluff, and in many cases the start-up UI are usually not handled by the game developers, at least not at larger game companies like Blizzard.
Actually, I was just being grumpy. I liked diablo for what it was, a fairly mindless diversion vaguely related to the dungeon crawls I played in my youth. I was not attempting in any way, shape, or form to compare it to a roguelike.
Some of the roguelikes are so remarkably evolved that they boggle the imagination (ADOM comes to mind). Diablo is superficial and really doesn't have a lot of depth, but it's sorta fun all the same (just like Q3 is fun although it's mostly just about blowing people up). Still, they used to have to kick me out of the computer lab at 3 am because of my Moria habit.
Diablo never kept me up that late. '.domain speculator who has used the alias domainiac to refer to himself.' Is this a practice anyone here wants to advocate?? I personally think it is a disgusting practice, and is one of the problems with the existing domain naming system. Many smaller companies have been forced to take 'less than optimal' names because of this practice. Third, I'm surprised at this post. Clearly this isn't a case of the little guy getting squashed by the big evil empire.
He still has the site, and he had all kinds of lawyers and other mumbo-jumbo on his side as well. Don't cry for 'domainiac'.
This kind of attitude is the reason I don't read /. As much anymore. It is really kind of disappointing. The 'Top 10' Reasons to procrastinate. For all of the critics out there to proprietary software, I would have to say that there are not a lot of people with the time or money to do a project like Diablo open source. I sure haven't seen anything like it yet, atleast.
Making money has always been the economies solution to providing incentives to create new and better products. Sure in a perfect world, all the software would be open source, but realistically, in order for such a grand project to come into fruition (4 CD's of pure hackfests!!), there has to be knowledge hiding to keep the hard work that software designer's have done from being stolen. If you don't like the product, don't buy it. But I think that the price you pay for the dynamite games that blizzard comes out with is well worth the cost. Just kidding, but you don't seem to think that the OSS community has any ethics. I will buy the game for windows if I have to, for linux if I can. I have no problem with commercial software.
I like the OSS ideals and I will release any software that I program that I feel is usefull under open source. I however expect to work for a software manufacturer when I get out of college.
Whatever they release will probably be closed source. I don't have a problem with that either, since I need to make money to live. I would love to be able to write OSS and get paid for it but most places simply don't do that. I'm quite sure that I'll be under some kind of non-disclosure contract that will keep me from using the code that I do for work in my own programs. However, just by writing code every day my skills will improve and any software I write and release as open source will reflect that experiance. So, in and indirect way the company will be helping the OSS community. Not all of us are zealots.
Some of us are reasonable, a little idealistic, and ethical. I would never want to see legislation to force a software company to port programs to ANY platform. I'm quite sure that you were not completely serious, and this was not intended to be a flame just some thoughts. I'm not the designer.I'm just a reviewer.We've been begging the boss guy to ditch the lame logo, and get rid of the kiddie font. But he likes all that sh-stuff. I think what he needs is some constructive reader criticism.
=) Our problem is that nobody ever says anything about anything on our site. I've gotten a total of 4 different emails. 2 cuz I flamed some retarded company's game, and 2 others for hints after I posted reviews. Maybe some 'feedback' for the dude would help. My character was a Detective when my house got robbed.but I had burglar alarms in the other areas of the house.so the five-o got him.he jacked a chair and my stereo, but I got a bunch of insurance $$$, so I bought the best stereo after that. When was the last time you could depend on a software store to give you a release date when the COMPANY hasn't listed one. Here's my favorite story from one of the Blizzard customer service/tech support guys that used to work with me.
Guy calls up: 'I called Software Etc, they say they've got copies of Diablo in the stores, but they won't sell it to us because you have an agreement that says they can't sell it for 3 months! (I may be wrong about time span.) My friend: 'What kind of stupid policy is that? We WANT your money.why would we do something that would PREVENT us from getting your money?' So in short.don't believe EbWorld, unless you see some corroborating evidence from Blizzard. And don't buy your games from UGODirect/Gamedealer.com. I preordered The Sims from them on 2/1/00.they're apparently still waiting to restock it. Playing the game with N other people, trying to keep everyone alive despite hoards of monsters and such.
Sorta like Gauntlet. Remember that game? Blizzard just tapped into that play style and architecture, and made it prettier and multiplayer. Monolith, the guys behind Blood, came out with getmedieval.com, which is pretty damn close to the original Gauntlet, as well as being mighty funny.
Somewhere I have a Gauntlet that ran on my old 286 and played all sounds thru the crappy PC speaker. 'Blue elf needs food, badly!'
Just came out like 'oo eff neez foo, badly!' Diablo I was just about the game engine. The interface was simple and nicely designed. The one thing lacking in diablo was an actual story line and actual locations. It was really boring just going down 16 levels into a dungeon and having a town with a whole 5 people in it. But the one thing I've seen from blizzard thus far is that they REALLY improve their games. Warcraft I sucked (compare it to dune 2 which came out before it) but warcraft II was way better.
Starcraft (in my opinion) was much better than warcraft ii. Besides, blizzard has announced that diablo 2 was going to be many many times bigger than diablo 1, it was going to have a good deal of npc's (including ones you can hire), and a huge array of places to go (so you're not stuck in one tiny town). They're actually going to have a story, I believe. If blizzard delivers, the difference between this game and diablo 1, should be as great as warcraft 1 to warcraft 2. Which isn't TOTALLY your fault, you shouldn't have to buy a Windows version in the first place.
I know this may come as a shock, but there are people who read Slashdot who don't run Linux. Or who run Linux, but are willing to boot to Windows to run apps (or games) that aren't supported on Linux. If a company doesn't want to support my OS, why should I have to change to run their products? What a strange question; it contains its own answer: 'Why should you have to change? To run their products.' Choosing your programs based on your OS is somewhat cart-before-the horse.
Do you have a computer to run an operating system? Or to do work (play)? I, myself, am much more interested in what I'm doing than in what OS is living underneath it.
If you want Diablo II, barring some new announcement by Loki anytime soon, you will need to be able to run Windows. It's that simple. Which isn't to say I wouldn't appreciate a Linux port of Diablo II; rebooting is annoying to be sure. But it's currently a fact of life, and sitting back and pouting about it won't make Diablo II magically appear for Linux. And I, for one, want to play the game and enjoy myself instead of being sullen about OS politics. Life's too short. So Blizzard, keep you pretty-ed up Windows version, we don't want it.
We want a game that will run on our computers and on our OS. If you won't support us, we won't support you. Please don't speak for me. Please don't speak for 'the community.' We don't all feel the way you do. I'm pondering this.
According to dairyqueenohio.com page, the first Dairy Queen store opened in 1940. Dairy Queen's 'Blizzard' was introduced in 1985. Blizzard Entertainment was founded in 1990 according to their blizzard.com, and they weren't even.called. Blizzard back then. I say we call Dairy Queen, and let them know that Blizzard.com is causing 'confusion of mark.'
Hell, I went to blizzard.com hoping to get some Ice Cream, but NOOOOOOOOOO.There's some damn Computer Game manufacturer there. Give him Head? Look at the praise this is getting.
3/4 of the slashdot community is drooling over a Windows game they want to pre-order. If they get your money with a Windows version, why bother with linux? Knowing damn well most of you would never buy a Linux version when you went out and got the Windows version. Which isn't TOTALLY your fault, you shouldn't have to buy a Windows version in the first place.
If a company doesn't want to support my OS, why should I have to change to run their products? If they want my $50, they will have a linux port. I'm not going to install Win98 because I get some goofy soundtrack, a pretty box, and a 'special edition' of a Windows version. It's just a little candy the big boys get to keep most of you would be linux version buyers happy with the Windows version. Same people that will by this, are the same people that don't mind their rights are being violated buy the MPAA, and buy DVDs because they look pretty. Yet they will bitch and moan about CSS until the cows come home, when it doesn't affect them because they already sold out to the MPAA. So Blizzard, keep you pretty-ed up Windows version, we don't want it.
We want a game that will run on our computers and on our OS. If you won't support us, we won't support you. The potential Linux audience is pretty small to begin with, and combined with the fact that it's already taking them forever and a day to get the product out, the extra hassle for little return doesn't sound like a great proposition. Maybe some of the folks at RedHat who became millionaires by selling other peoples' code could invest in well-financed Linux game-porting company. 'Til that or something similar happens, you'll have to keep paying Bill or Stevie J.
For an OS on which you can play the top notch games. Cheers, [email protected]. Anyone else see that? Took me by surprise because I figured that after all the both hype and bad press that this title (and John Romero) has received, I would've heard about it before then. I'm assuming it didn't really come out, because there would've been a lot of talk, whether good or bad, if it did come out.
It actually doesn't look all that bad to me, although I definitely am not on top of the gaming world (heh, that's probably an understatement, as the last games I've bought were Diablo, Carmageddon, and the Ultima 1-8 combo pack.) Would be nice if it were judged on the gameplay instead of all the politics surrounding it, but after this long, that's probably doubtful. Hey, I might even pick it up. Cheers, [email protected]. You know, Blizzard should probably spend more time actually getting the game ready to ship than worrying about 'special collector's editions.' There is STILL no actual release date listed on the website!
It's almost amusing how they can spare staff to produce 70 minute soundtrack CDs, 24 minute DVD titles, a f.cking DnD based paper RPG, and a manual signed by the development team when they can't even get product out the door. I think a better use of developer time would be finishing off the code, not signing autographs. Blizzard has been claiming the game is coming 'real soon now' for an even longer period than Origin did with that classic piece of vaporware, Strike Commander. You know, I wonder if they'll still be comparing themselves to Baldur's Gate. Pretty cool site, and I liked your review (I just learned last night that a burglar alarm would be a good idea and found that my guy being employed as a cop (well a rent-a-cop anyway) really doesn't help).
Since I liked it, let me tear the place apart;) It's all constructive criticism, take it in the spirit in which it is given. Anti-alias that logo. Makes your site look amateur and clashes with the more professional aspects of your site. Also, Anti-alias the 'GP Reviews' logo (any others on your site where you can see the jaggies on the diagonal lines).
I like your index of reviews. Conscise and helpful, don't change a thing. Spruce up your background though. Either go straight black in the background or get a new starfield, the one right now just looks like a dirty black background with dots every once in awhie. If you go all-black I'd recommend replacing your horizontal line (under the 'Browse' and 'Search' buttons) with a graphic that attaches to the left-hand side menu frame (I hope the meaning of that is clear). When I like something, I like to try to improve it, just ignore me if you like it better the way it is;) Esperandi.
Diablo did well because it had a mere sprinkling of roguelike flavor. The roguelike genre (Rogue, Nethack, Angband, etc) is completely ignored by big game companies even though they are by far the most addictive and interesting games in existence (Personally I've been playing for over 10 years, never beat one, and I'm still not bored). They made it replayable like a roguelike with the randomly generated dungeons. For people who liked the game, they could keep starting over and it'd never get old. If they had added even more roguelike features (extremely complex keyboard interface that feels like playing a piano and is just as natural once you play for a couple hours, thousands of creatures, thousands of items, hundreds of spells, etc) the game would still be selling off the shelves. Now, Diablo 2 isn't going to be adding any more roguelike flavor to it, sadly.
They've still got the randomly generated dungeon but its nowhere near as expansive as a real roguelike. Esperandi Drop by rec.games.roguelike.angband or rec.games.roguelike.development and worship the random number generator with us. Well, the announced release date originally was Xmas 99.
Blizzard is always a minimum of 6 months late because they refuce to hire me as a project manager. So that means it'll prolly be out around June-July 00. The FAQ on their site seems quite pissed off (read: guilty) about people asking and says they'll try for first half of 2000, but they won't let it leave the office until it meets their rigorous standards. People say they'd rather wait for a game and not have to get patches than get a slightly buggy version and have to download patches. I feel exactly opposite, but I understand the companies stance.
Say they release Diablo 2 right now and in a week realize that theres a sword you can buy for 3 gold that kills most anything in one swipe. Players are buying it up by the bagful, but the patch obliterates the sword and refunds everyone the 3 gold. People are gonna hate that. Esperandi The community around a game is far more important than the game itself.
Designing your game so that a community will form around it is the dumbest thing you can do. Think about it. Surely you didn't just suggest that Diablo is a roguelike game? Now I'm not one of the freaky puritans that will cut my penis off if someone mentions that roguelikes might work with graphics or even in a 3D environment, but roguelikes gotta have certain things to be qualified as roguelikes. At least 5 races and 5 classes producing 25 combinations. This is a BARE minimum, most roguelikes have over 25 races and over 25 classes alone. Diablo fails with its 3 wussy classes.
Randomly generated dungeons. Diablo has these. The random number generator controls the game to an unprecedented degree (unprecedented in other genres I mean) determining what you find, what you run into, etc. Diablo fails. Unless I'm wrong here, you can't run into Diablo 8 levels out of depth. Thousands of items. Diablo fails.
Thousands of weapons. Diablo fails. Thousands of armor pieces. Diablo fails. Extremely complex keyboard control. Diablo fails.
Diablo fails. Single player only. Diablo fails. (Until there is a multiplayer turn-based roguelike, there are no multiplayer roguelikes. You go to realtime and you may not call your game roguelike.) Etc, etc. Diablo simply is not immersive enough to be called a roguelike. When you play a roguelike you can feel the definition in your bones, that's why its so hard to define.
Yeah for the first hour or so all you do is die and die and die and forget what keys do what, but after a couple hours you're playing the keybaord like a master pianist at his grand piano, formulating strategies, etc. Until i can be playing Diablo, get into a corner facing a Drolem and a Lesser Titan, and walk around my bedroom trying to think of what I've got on me that could possibly save me (teleport? What if I land in something worse? What if I fail?
What if I don't get recalled in time?), Diablo is not a roguelike. Esperandi If Diablo is a roguelike because it has random dungeons then Quake 3 is an RPG because it has player stats (health and armor). Hehe, isn't it fun to try to have ideals in this day and age when people vie ideals as stupid and impractical? I give the Linux community 2 years before they try to get the government to try to force people to port their products to Linux.
Look at anti-smoking people. What they should have done is simply not eat in any place that allows smoking, etc and tell the management why they're not eating there. Let them exercise some power. Instead, what do they do? They can't do without their precious steak for a few years to get the establishment to change its policies, instead they bitch to the government to make it law. Watch for it, I guarantee within 2 years the 8 or 9 people who use Linux and are gamers and would actually.PURCHASE.
the game and not pirate it in the name of Open Source (if there are that many) will be trying to force companies to port software for them. I just don't see Diablo 2 as a collector's item. Give me a break.
This is only a sequel. It's not like this game has a history. Sure, the original game was a top-seller, but that doesn't make me want to rush out and buy a copy of the sequel to place on my shelf and never remove from its plastic. Take Ultima Ascension, on the other hand. It was the last game in a LONG running series of games which spanned many computer platforms.
![Hack Hack](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125502590/314708653.jpg)
(Yes it was rushed out too early, but that's another issue). But as far as marketing. Yeah - this game made sense to release a special edition for collectors. I think some marketing goober at Blizzard saw this, and thought. Hmm I wonder how many extra copies I can sell for an extra $10 apiece. And the poor developers are probably the ones grumbling about carpal tunnel syndrome now, after signing their names a bazillion times;) Best regards, SEAL.
Have you ever actually played Diablo?? If you have then obviously you would know that you can shoot in far more than the four cardinal directions. Also, if you've played any real amount then you would know that there is a fair amount of strategy to the game as long as you don't play below your skill level. I won't go into it here, but obviously you haven't played the game much. If you don't like the game then say so, sure it isn't the classic RPG, but it does have RPG elements. It allows those who don't want to have to think about how much Charisma their player should have to gain entry to the genre.
Sometimes RPGs get so embedded in themselves that they become impossible/unfun to play (read FFVIII). I love RPGs, and I have no problem with Diablo calling itself one. Now if Quake were to do the same:). The 'Top 10' Reasons to procrastinate. First, let me preface this with the fact that I do not work for Blizzard (unless they want to hire me:)) It's almost amusing how they can spare staff to produce 70 minute soundtrack CDs, 24 minute DVD titles, a f.cking DnD based paper RPG, and a manual signed by the development team when they can't even get product out the door.
I think a better use of developer time would be finishing off the code, not signing autographs. This has got to be one of the most bone-headed comments I have heard in quite some time. Don't you realize that all this stuff (with the exception of the paper RPG, but I believe this was not developed by Blizzard anyway) had to all be made anyway??
How long does it take to compile the audio from 4 CDs and dump it onto one for everyone's listening pleasure. Do you want a game shipped without a manual (and how long does it take someone to sign their name)?? Do you think that the DVD movie is much different than the cut scenes from the game (probably including some that didn't make it into the game)?? It's comments like this that make the software industry what it is today. If more companies spent the time and energy to create excellent, nearly bug-free games (which Blizzard has an excellent history ot doing) the world would be a much better place. I am perfectly willing to wait for a game that works out-of-box, without having to download a patch before I can play the thing.
@!$$%#!, I hate this mentality, but I'll stop now. The 'Top 10' Reasons to procrastinate. I play ZAngband, so I still eat ancient multi-hued dragons for breakfast. Or was that just a capital 'D' that kept changing colors?
Multi-hued dragons are for wimps! I eat the Serpent of Chaos for breakfast! Diablo (and all its graphical predecessors) took the mindless dungeon crawl out of the Alphabits era and into eyecandyland. Here's hoping the sequel is worth the wait and has more depth to the story. This is one area where I'm still not convinced that the graphical RPG has surpassed the older character-graphic Rogue-like games.
In terms of longevity and replayability, I still rate games like angband.org and it's many angband.org (Sangband, Zangband, Omega and others) more highly than a lot of the modern 3D/isometric eye-candy experiences. Hey - I even turned off the 16x16 graphic tiles and went back to the colour font displays because they are clearer and easier to analyse quickly. Maybe DungeonSiege will finally provide the immersive fantasy world with enough depth to keep the 'one more try to slay the X of Y' replayability but for the moment I'll stick with angband.org.
Cheers, Toby Haynes. What we really want is versions of Blizard's games for Linux, of course =) Unfortunately Blizard is a very profit driven company and they said it was unlikely any games would be ported unless it becomes more commercially viable.
But to be commercially viable for games, you need to have many of the most popular ones, so it's a bit of a cycle =/ Thankfully there's companys out there now that care more about building Linux as a gaming platform for possible long-term profits, rather than making a quick buck by selling only windows products. It's the value of shared experience. It's the rush of being in control.
It's the reflexes and timing and response time. It's chatting with other people, and sharing goods. A bunch of other things I can't describe right now. Playing the game with N other people, trying to keep everyone alive despite hoards of monsters and such. Sorta like Gauntlet. Remember that game? Blizzard just tapped into that play style and architecture, and made it prettier and multiplayer.
Tetris was a big hit, and not fundamentally difficult. Line up blocks! Gauntlet was a big hit.
Run around, grabbing power ups, and shooting every single thing that moved. Super Mario brothers! All about timing and reflexes and surviving.
What else do you want out of a game? For a lot of people, Diablo was perfect! Not that I played it, but I can see the appeal. If you want something else from a game, find something else! I agree 100% I saw Diablo in the store and it seemed fun, a nice 'entry' level CRPG, and most importantly it was available at a time when there really weren't many CRPGs out there. I picked it up and it was nice (although it still has one of my favorite 'Murphy's Rules': You cant wear a piece of armor because your not strong enough, but you can lug it around in your backpack:). I picked up Hellfire soon after it came out and it was good (heavenly choir sounds).
Then interplay.com apeared on the scene and Diablo was quickly forgotten. Baldur's Gate had a few problems, and only supported the AD&D system through about 6th level. Then they released Tales of the Sword Coast as an expansion pack.
This included all 3rd and 4th level spells, still not complete but nicely implimented. Now they are getting ready to relase interplay.com which includes even more features, should be mindblowing graphically (the original came on 5 CDs and the Expansion was a 6th, mostly packed with hand painted backgrounds and beautifully animated monsters), and is projected to hit the stores in the later half of this year (not counting the other projects underway from Interplay's RPG division blackisle.com). I think Diablo II might have been phenominal if it had come out when intended.
Now I have a feeling it might seem lackluster next to its 'competition'. Does this mean I won't buy it? Probably not, there are still too few serious CRPGs out there:). I'm not trolling, I'm seriously looking for a reason to like Diablo and to be excited about its sequel's release.
The first Diablo was inane, an insult to the name 'Role Playing Game.' You were one of three guys with either a big stick, a big sword, or a big bow (with infinite arrows for realism). You jump right down into hell and proceed to click the mouse button like a monkey on speed until everything's dead.
Does this strike you as an even less intellectual game than QUAKE? At least in Quake you can shoot in more than four cardinal directions. It's no more entertaining than that screen saver where you swat flies, people. And you get the same amount of exercise doing it.
Do yourselves a favor and spend your $50 on something more worthwhile, like RAM or mayonnaise or something.