So did these guys leave Blizzard North after Diablo 2 came out, or we they shown the door because Activision-Blizzard wanted some of their people on the development team? My Google-Fu isn't getting much right now.
@NoBullet: I haven't played this one, but the gambling merchants in Diablo 2 were a great way to blow all that gold that wouldn't fit in your stash much later in the game. It wasn't something you used when gold was still precious early on.
@TitillatedOcelot: He only hated it because he got an item he cant use. Hence, a gamble. Its a ridiculous negative on the game. Youre either going to be lucky or get something crap. Dont mark this as a negative because you got a crappy item.
Personally, I loved all the discussion this has generated!
Now I have to spend more time with the game and see what I feel about it. I've run across the vendor, but I was reluctant to gamble with my spoils as well. Time to roll the dice for me.
Man, I have to abstain from getting this game until the multiplayer version (or MMO version, whichever they are working on) comes out. Diablo clones are much more fun to me playing with other people than alone.
Though I wish that Mythos had been Flagship's first "main" game and Hellgate wouldn't have even started to be developed until years later (years after it started development). That game had CLASSIC written all over it.
It's a fun little game for us OCD lewt collector types.
Was I hallucinating, or are a good deal of the sound effects and even the music taken straight from diablo? I swear the moody guitar strumming is the same as the town music in the original.
I love the dozens of comments decrying the lack of multiplayer as if it's the end all opinion on why the game will fail when there is, in fact, still many thousands of players who play Diablo 2 single player.
@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.: I didn't realize that they actually had the Diablo Sound Designer on staff until this review.
I'm glad they had him though, his music fits this game perfectly.
I'm playing Dragon Age right now. It's awesome. But every time I come to a moral "choice" or try to use poisons or potions effectively, I have the thought:
"Wow, Witcher did this SO much better."
The original release was so buggy, but I played the rerelease with all fixes, and it was just a better game. It's funny, Dragon Age really is awesome but after playing The Witcher it falls short in some really key areas. So I have high hopes for the sequel.
@Naeros: Well, if you have the original, I'm pretty sure the others are just patches. Google "Witcher Enhanced Edition Patch" and "Witcher Director's Cut Patch."
I'm not usually one to re-play games, but if you're inclined to re-play The Witcher, definitely do get the patches.
@Koztah: Sorry? You lost me at "...Dragon Age on a console."
Why on Earth would you put yourself through that kind of pain?
d^_^b Seriously though, yeah, Dragon Age is punishingly difficult. But even that is a kind of shortcoming. I like a good challenge, but I don't like playing the same fight fifteen, twenty times before a lucky break enables me to continue the game.
I like both games. But for people who haven't played The Witcher, I tell them to get that instead of DA:O.
@alaren: Because I wanted to play it real bad and my PSU is blown. I got this new modular jobbie to put in but I'm too swamped with shit on weekends.
The control really isn't that bad - it's just when positioning is supremely important (such as the dragons) that it becomes a great big giant pain in the fucking ass and I want fucking keyboard shortcuts argh. This radial menu thing is a pretty good idea given the limitations of a controller but goddamn it, I usually play this shit on PC.
@Gambit09: As a developer, I would say it probably has something to do with the XNA framework used to create PC and XBLA titles being free and readily available to anyone with a 'net connection, whereas developing for the PS3 involves blood sacrifice and dark rituals known only to a privileged few.
Disclaimer: I own a PS3 and not a 360, don't think I'm being a 360 fanboy here. #gyromancer
@ryoshi: This is SQEN and popcap games I doubt the cost of a dev kit was the issue. I think it might have more to do with what Pop Cap knows best. The PC. Once you code up a PC version a port to the 360 is not that hard. it's more recompiling than porting. So a PC/360 Live release is not significantly more expensive than just a PC release. #gyromancer
@kingmanic: I was also trying to imply that with the "blood sacrifice" part - it's just exceptionally easy to create a PC game and port it to the 360, whereas trying to bridge the gap to the PS3 requires a lot of code-wranglin'. #gyromancer
@ryoshi: I think they may come out with a PSN version later. tools to port to the PS3 exist and the toughest job is to replace 'fast' effects on the 360 with an equivalent on the PS3. I don't think this game would be demanding on the hardware so they could just port without too much care to what the 360 does better than the PS3.
I'd actually prefer this sort of game on my PSP or iphone. In that case they'll have optimize more.
@kingmanic: We're definitely in agreement here: we'll see a PSN version someday, but not right away. I think you're oversimplifying porting, though - the PS3 has a pretty weird architecture from what I understand with its seven-core processor and whatnot. #gyromancer
@ryoshi: I'm not a PS3 dev (or actually a game dev at all) even so I'm pretty aware the task is nontrivial. However there is money to made so as long as the task doesn't outrageously exceed the profit it'll happen.
The cells a weird monkey but in many ways the systems are equivalent. I even read MS licenced some of the tech from IBM that went into the PS3 for the 360. ie. Sony indirectly subsidized the 360.
Both are stripped down PPC cores with roughly 512 megs of ram with GPU's around the same generation. Both have spare 'cores' to help with peripheral tasks.
The big difference is the PS3 splits it's ram into two differently timed chunks; The PS3 went with 6 super fast specialty cores while the 360 went true multi core; 10mb of edram attached to the 360 CPU; bisexua... errr universal shaders on the 360;
So porting just needs to address that. And if you really don't tap the power much you just got to program for a PPC core.
So if you keep the ram requirements sub 256mb and never use alpha blending, never use screen-space ambient occlusion; never use anti-aliasing then you could port it pretty easily because their both PPC machines. Although I wouldn't have a clue where to start. #gyromancer
@kingmanic: Same here! Its secretly crushing my soul.
I'll tell you now, creating a web app to work baisically like access, using ria and silverlight 3, has been the worst decision i've ever made. #gyromancer
@Blore07: Thankfully my company goes with open source options so I'm coding in php/perl/java/python and on the back end I utilize MySQL and postgres. It's much saner. #gyromancer
@kingmanic: Its usually the same for me, but being the only programmer for my company (in the UK at least) I can do pretty much what I like, so I thought i'd have a go and see what the fuss is.
It all works, and its oh so pretty, but to do sometimes standard stuff, like call a single entity from a dataform, is a lot of work. #gyromancer
11/18/09
11/18/09
11/18/09
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11/18/09
That's gambling for some people. Huge highs / depressing lows.
11/18/09
Personally, I loved all the discussion this has generated!
Now I have to spend more time with the game and see what I feel about it. I've run across the vendor, but I was reluctant to gamble with my spoils as well. Time to roll the dice for me.
11/18/09
Though I wish that Mythos had been Flagship's first "main" game and Hellgate wouldn't have even started to be developed until years later (years after it started development). That game had CLASSIC written all over it.
11/18/09
11/18/09
Was I hallucinating, or are a good deal of the sound effects and even the music taken straight from diablo? I swear the moody guitar strumming is the same as the town music in the original.
11/18/09
11/18/09
11/18/09
11/18/09
11/18/09
11/18/09
I bought Titan's Quest when they had the Direct2Drive deal, but it just never hit the spot.
This, I do believe, shall.
11/18/09
Only thing I can really add is that the MMO version of this game will be eagerly anticipated here. Couple of years to wait still on that however.
11/18/09
11/18/09
I played in the Mythos beta and was eagerly following this game and waiting for it's release, so when it released I basically cracked out on it.
Hell, the weekend before it released I watched people play it on livestream for a good 30 hours over the course of fri, sat and sunday.
11/18/09
#speakup
11/18/09
Mmmm, that brought back memories. I love Diablo's music.
11/18/09
I'm glad they had him though, his music fits this game perfectly.
11/18/09
@Faulpyr: Ya the guy rocks.
11/18/09
I'm playing Dragon Age right now. It's awesome. But every time I come to a moral "choice" or try to use poisons or potions effectively, I have the thought:
"Wow, Witcher did this SO much better."
The original release was so buggy, but I played the rerelease with all fixes, and it was just a better game. It's funny, Dragon Age really is awesome but after playing The Witcher it falls short in some really key areas. So I have high hopes for the sequel.
11/18/09
11/18/09
I'm not usually one to re-play games, but if you're inclined to re-play The Witcher, definitely do get the patches.
11/18/09
Beating that fucking dragon should NOT have taken me that many tries. Accursed controller..
11/18/09
Why on Earth would you put yourself through that kind of pain?
d^_^b Seriously though, yeah, Dragon Age is punishingly difficult. But even that is a kind of shortcoming. I like a good challenge, but I don't like playing the same fight fifteen, twenty times before a lucky break enables me to continue the game.
I like both games. But for people who haven't played The Witcher, I tell them to get that instead of DA:O.
11/18/09
The control really isn't that bad - it's just when positioning is supremely important (such as the dragons) that it becomes a great big giant pain in the fucking ass and I want fucking keyboard shortcuts argh. This radial menu thing is a pretty good idea given the limitations of a controller but goddamn it, I usually play this shit on PC.
11/07/09
11/06/09
Since I cannot express how excited I am, I'm just going to let you picture me doing the happy dance.
Therein lies said happiness. #gyromancer
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
Disclaimer: I own a PS3 and not a 360, don't think I'm being a 360 fanboy here. #gyromancer
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
I'd actually prefer this sort of game on my PSP or iphone. In that case they'll have optimize more.
11/06/09
11/06/09
The cells a weird monkey but in many ways the systems are equivalent. I even read MS licenced some of the tech from IBM that went into the PS3 for the 360. ie. Sony indirectly subsidized the 360.
Both are stripped down PPC cores with roughly 512 megs of ram with GPU's around the same generation. Both have spare 'cores' to help with peripheral tasks.
The big difference is the PS3 splits it's ram into two differently timed chunks; The PS3 went with 6 super fast specialty cores while the 360 went true multi core; 10mb of edram attached to the 360 CPU; bisexua... errr universal shaders on the 360;
So porting just needs to address that. And if you really don't tap the power much you just got to program for a PPC core.
So if you keep the ram requirements sub 256mb and never use alpha blending, never use screen-space ambient occlusion; never use anti-aliasing then you could port it pretty easily because their both PPC machines. Although I wouldn't have a clue where to start. #gyromancer
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/07/09
I'll tell you now, creating a web app to work baisically like access, using ria and silverlight 3, has been the worst decision i've ever made. #gyromancer
11/07/09
11/09/09
It all works, and its oh so pretty, but to do sometimes standard stuff, like call a single entity from a dataform, is a lot of work. #gyromancer