View Full Version : New Diablo 3 Alternative Out ATM
Of course when I say alternative, I mean more of a game to play while you wait. It's called Legend Hand of God. It's pretty simplistic but it's fun to play. It has nice graphics and similar D3 ideas. In the starting area which was dark for those all dark happy, I went up a hill and noticed a town in the distance from below the hill your on. Similar to how in D3 you can see rainbows and water far below in the distance. Pretty cool so far. I'd recommend it to kill time waiting :crazyeyes:
cool, i'll might check it out later this night :)
Minervian
31-07-2008, 03:16
Thanks for the recommendation! I just checked it out on the net - looks interesting. And it's being released..... tomorrow!
It was released in Europe last year, so the game's already patched, which is good news.
Will likely try it out.. for 2 months before Sacred 2 comes out!
I'd also like to recommend Titan Quest to every Diablo fan who's never heard of it.
Dragnskull
31-07-2008, 08:00
looks cool...ashame id ont have a paycheck for another week D:
might try it out
TenYearsGone
31-07-2008, 21:10
I'll second the Titan Quest recommendation.
Thanks for the heads up though.
I'll third the Titan Quest recommendation. Make sure you have it's x-pack, though. You will probably also want to get TQVault (muling program) and the unnofficial fan patch to fix some bugs.
Mcwhopper
31-07-2008, 23:08
Just get sacred2, in a month or so. That game *might* actually be fun. TQ is not worth $30,- or what ever they charge you currently.
ThulRasha
01-08-2008, 00:14
It's $20 from Amazon and the expansion is $5.75
Not that over the top for a good game. Sacred2 might be a bit more than 1 month away, so if someone really is desperate for a Diablo like game, then I'll fourth the Titan Quest recommendation ;)
stillman
01-08-2008, 00:46
What about that divinity devine divination diva game or w/e it's called? Is that any good?
Divine Divinity was real good. But I think a lot of time has passed and it doesn't hold up well. Animation is really awkward and fighting isn't that addictive. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was awesome for it's time. But so was Diablo 2, and Diablo 2 is still awesome if you know what I mean...
This is probably a stupid question but, what is Sacred2?
This is probably a stupid question but, what is Sacred2?
A sequel to another popular Diablo clone. Personally, I didn't get into Sacred, but it's combat system is supposedly a step up from typical ARPG. Maybe Sacred 2 will entice me; I am getting close to finishing Titan Quest in terms of playing all the builds I am interested in.
TQ is not worth $30,- or what ever they charge you currently.
False. Titan Quest is a very well done take on action RPG. It's only real faults are rubber banding (a performance issue that apparently relates to the game's insistence to not use the computer's RAM properly) and lack of proper multiplayer.
False. Titan Quest is boring, simplistic and poorly balanced. It is worth a play but not for the price of $30... Of course 95% of TQ players simply got it for free via torrents.
http://www.unleashthefury.com/
When I was still part of the GW community I remember some GW pvpers being pretty optimistic about this, touting it as what GW's pvp should have been, never checked it out personally.
edit:Not an arpg though... actually, pretty mutually exclusive demographics I'd imagine for the most part. Probably forget that one if you a fan of grind orientated games.
ThulRasha
01-08-2008, 13:16
It is all opinions people. But it's a moot point, because the cost isn't $30.
ThulRasha
01-08-2008, 13:21
This is probably a stupid question but, what is Sacred2?
Well, not really stupid, but you could have made a little more effort to search for yourself.
Adding a www. in front and a .com in the back would have told you a lot more already.
Titan Quest is worthless, I hope this standin will be better.
ciphernemo
01-08-2008, 18:54
Similar to how in D3 you can see rainbows and water far below in the distance.
Hahaha, was that a jab at D3's current color-tastic look?
Sein Schatten
01-08-2008, 19:03
Sacred is under 10bucks now. If you haven't played it, get it and give it a go. It is pretty good, imo. It did hold my interest for 2 playthroughs. Which is something I can rarely say about games nowadays.
Well, not really stupid, but you could have made a little more effort to search for yourself.
Adding a www. in front and a .com in the back would have told you a lot more already.
I've been reading this forum since before D2 came out and you guys are pretty much on top of things here so I figured I'd ask. Since people here share the same interest as me, i.e. Diablo, I value your opinions.
Thanks for the help btw. :thumbup:
False. Titan Quest is boring, simplistic and poorly balanced. It is worth a play but not for the price of $30... Of course 95% of TQ players simply got it for free via torrents
False. It's no less boring, simplistic, or worse balanced than Diablo 2 is. In fact, it has more viable skills and many better designed game mechanics than Diablo 2. You can get it and the expansion for under $30.
It has an active fan community that supports the game with mods, a forum and a fanpatch. You may think it sucks, but that game is objectively a cult classic by now. That alone warrants attention.
Minervian
02-08-2008, 16:37
I played Titan Quest and Immortal Throne, its expansion, for two solid years and enjoyed every moment of it. It's a fantastic game - it's gorgeous graphics alone is something D3 will have to stand up to. To me TQ is the first true realistic 3-D isometric ARPG. And bear in mind TQ was launched 2 years ago.
Titan Quest was also special to me because it made defenses and resistances meaningful. This made for a game that was more than just simple hack and slash. You had to *gasp* strategize your character build.
I just saw the Sacred 2 stuff yesterday at the website and it's looking real good. Another big competitor for D3. While I think no Action RPG will have the art quality that Blizzard will put into D3, I think a lot of them will be technology on par if not better than D3 already looks. But like I said, art can make up for a lot of technologies it might lack. Look at games like WoW and Wc3. Cartoony yes, but the art involved? Unmatched.
blankblank
03-08-2008, 10:15
TQ is quite decent Diablo clone with fun builds altho not all trees have fun skills. Still, graphics are gorgeous and with an active community support, even Iron Lore's demise is not that impacting.
I played Sacred before but got tired easily because it is so open ended and I got bored travelling around and around that I got lost.
Let's see if Legends can be worth a shot.
Naw, that's what makes TQ great - every mastery combination is viable. Every tree has skills that complements skills in another tree. Every tree has something to offer that ranges from viable and powerful. Items can scale skills very well (-100% recharge Elementalist comes to mind). Naturally, the side effect of this is that some mastery combinations are BBQ IMBA, but it's a nice change of pace from most ARPG's.
Yeah, they are skills that make you think "so why did they add this crap?"; but then you have situations when caster oriented masteries combine magnificently with melee oriented masteries (Spirit and Warfare, for example) and you forget about the crappy skills.
Hopefully, once the fanpatch irons out the bugs, they will start working on a balance patch. Vitality, Bleeding, Electrical Burn, and Poison based builds need to be made viable in Legendary without insane gear. After that, fix some specialized skills, and you will have a game where over 95% of the skills don't suck.
Of course when I say alternative, I mean more of a game to play while you wait. It's called Legend Hand of God. It's pretty simplistic but it's fun to play. It has nice graphics and similar D3 ideas. In the starting area which was dark for those all dark happy, I went up a hill and noticed a town in the distance from below the hill your on. Similar to how in D3 you can see rainbows and water far below in the distance. Pretty cool so far. I'd recommend it to kill time waiting :crazyeyes:
Thanks for letting us know about it, i am just heading to their website for more info and checking videos/screenies. You know the wait can be a quite long one... :thankyou:
False. It's no less boring, simplistic, or worse balanced than Diablo 2 is. In fact, it has more viable skills and many better designed game mechanics than Diablo 2. You can get it and the expansion for under $30.
It has an active fan community that supports the game with mods, a forum and a fanpatch. You may think it sucks, but that game is objectively a cult classic by now. That alone warrants attention.
Maybe it's better balanced than D2. (I only played it for ~100 hours, and tried only few builds, so I don't really know)
But it's boring after 20 hours played. Maybe the fact that the fights are the same (it doesn't matter when you are in A1 or A4, you will still have the same mix of melee, archer and mage combos).
+ Rubberbanding kills it, the graphics could be nice , but lagging graphic is allways awful. And it is present even on good PC systems, not only on below average...
And it's nowhere near the cult. Warcraft is the cult, Diablo is the cult, Heroes of Might and Magic is the cult. Maybe Wizardry. But not TQ.
BTW: Living community - I just checked TQ forum and it has "currently" 108 users active, 18 member and 90 guests). I think it's quite good.
Now checking this forum - 998 active users (230 members and 768 guests)
Minervian
04-08-2008, 10:35
Since we're on the subject.... I personally don't think TQ has reached cult status, and I do agree that Diablo is cult. However, I am proud to be part of the tq.net community. It is one of the friendliest, most helpful, most civil gaming communities I've been part of all my gaming life. To cut a long story short, I don't feel the same way for diablo communities, petitions & controversies, big egos and all. Having said that, this is probably one of the prices of being a cult franchise. :)
Should I mention Throne of Darkness just to mix things up? :P That game was a terrible wannabie of Diablo at the time. Set in the asian world of samurai's and bushido talk. It was like you controlled a party of 3 or 4 at 1 time and could rotate between the characters. I think the biggest part that lacked for me in that game was the sound effects. Believe it or not, sound effects are what make Diablo as great as it is.
Thanks for the recommendation! I just checked it out on the net - looks interesting. And it's being released..... tomorrow!
It was released in Europe last year, so the game's already patched, which is good news.
Will likely try it out.. for 2 months before Sacred 2 comes out!
I'd also like to recommend Titan Quest to every Diablo fan who's never heard of it.
Hmm yeah Sacred 2 should be interesting. I played trough Sacred 1 and tbh I think thats the only other hack&slash type of game I've played a bit more along with Diablo ofc :)
I think the biggest part that lacked for me in that game was the sound effects. Believe it or not, sound effects are what make Diablo as great as it is.
Actually I agree with you - most Blizzard games have good sound effects and it really adds to enjoying killing monsters when they die in screams... Also the music is really good and it plays all the time. When I want atmosphere, it's not about the cink*cink in the distance...
Even after all those years I still play with music on sometimes - especially when playing untwinked hardcore...
EDIT: thinking about the game with better sound effects - Wizardry8. The voices of your party characters were something really extraordinary. I re-played the game not only because I wanted to try other classes, but also because I wanted to try other voices.
About Sacred2 - from what I have seen it has not a fixed camera view... Well I am really sceptic about that, it usually brings more problems than good in hack@slash games imho...
Not a single Blizzard game qualifies as a cult classic by now. Blizzard is as mainstream as it gets. HoMM has a cult following in the US, but it's big outside of it. Europe and Russia, most gamers know of it and still play it.
*for the record, by cult, I mean has a small devoted following. TQ seems to fit both fairly well. Blizzard, what, just had another 1.5 million in sales by simply announcing Diablo 3?
*for the record, by cult, I mean has a small devoted following. TQ seems to fit both fairly well. Blizzard, what, just had another 1.5 million in sales by simply announcing Diablo 3?
Well the TQ following is very small.
Sacred and Legend both look terrible imo.
Well the TQ following is very small.
Sacred and Legend both look terrible imo.
Sacred actually was pretty good. Sacred 2 looks awesome but I haven't played it. Legend is a budget action/RPG. You get what you pay for, put it that way. :crazyeyes:
Sacred actually was pretty good. Sacred 2 looks awesome but I haven't played it. Legend is a budget action/RPG. You get what you pay for, put it that way. :crazyeyes:
I meant sacred 2 and legend hand of god.
They don't look smooth at all but more importantly they don't look fun.
That's just my opinion of course, and how much is legend hand of god then?
AbrielNei
05-08-2008, 08:17
Legend - Hand of god is not even close to Diablo or even some better ARPGs released since D2 was released (Titan Quest, Sacred, Dungeon Siege). The controls are weird, combat/char movement is not fluid at all, it doesn't have anything unique to it. It's just not polished enough. But I guess it can be fun if you are really desperate.
I still think Titan Quest is the best ARPG since D2 and trying Legend Hand of god just made me play TQ again. All these ARPGs have a problem - they don't have any (or not enough) random generated dungeons. It gets boring when you play for the n-th time through exactly the same dungeons even though for example TQ has an extremely high replayability if you consider skills only. It has 9 masteries and each char can pick 2 of them, that makes 36 possible combos and additional 9 if you just want to have an extra excitement and don't pick the 2nd mastery.
So if you want an alternative NOW i strongly suggest TQ with expansion pack.
If you can wait a bit longer there is Sacred 2. I'm looking forward to it as it seems like a nice game but we won't know for sure until we play it.
I honestly don't see why people are obsessing over the environment of all things. Diablo 2's "random environment" wasn't what made the game great, addictive or added any real real replayability. In Diablo 1, relative to the game, it was done fairly well as the game was one giant dungeon. In Diablo 2, the world didn't feel like an actual world to me.
I wasn't excited every timed I started a new character with the phrase "Oh boy, time to see what awesome new random environment this game cooked up! Holy moley, the game put the exit for Rogue camp ON A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SIDE! And Cold Plains is a different shaped rectangle! What replayability value! What great environments! I am totally getting turned on by this random map generator!"
Titan Quest's environments were a big step over most of Diablo 2. Granted, the fact that the game was setting was based on mythology and planet Earth limited the variety of the environment; the artists turned what they had to work with into something magnificent.
**As far as I understand, Diablo 3 will be taking the best of all 3 worlds (D1, D2, TQ) - awesome randomized Dungeons, unique and/or fresh environments, beautiful static outside locations, and proper randomization within the gameplay such as quests and monsters instead of butchering the environment.
Telefrog
05-08-2008, 23:09
To add to the list, Fate and Fate: Undiscovered Realms are both simple Diablo-clones with a cheap entry price. Basically, the developers boiled ARPG gameplay down to the bare minimum of kill/loot/stats. Decent enough.
Another one to add to the list. Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM). It is a freeware dos based game that is actually a lot of fun (if you don't mind playing in askii). It is very difficult as it is a roguelike game, and I have only finished it 3 times.
Here is the webiste for anyone that is interested adom (http://www.adom.de) and the guidebook (http://www.sweb.cz/adomgb/)
Starving_Poet
07-08-2008, 19:17
Big Fan of TQ: IT.
I never liked Sacred - something about how the item generation worked.
Panchito
08-08-2008, 00:28
Sacred had its good things, but I didn't like the skill system at all. A shame, I really wanted to like it.
Titan Quest is made of pure win, though.
Funny thing about Titan Quest. I have the game but until I get a new computer, I can't run it. I always start off and get into a farm thing and have to butcher these guys. The computer always freezes at that part. But the game looks beautiful graphically. I wish I could run it/handle it better. Guess I gotta wait for my upgrade :D Should be soon I hope.
I've played Fate UR. Better gameplay than TQ but unless you're a real sucker for the old character improvement hook I wouldn't bother, it's barebones to the extreme.
Also played Avencast, an ARPG but by no means a Diablo clone. It's kinda NWN with with an influence of Zelda (e.g. OoT) combat. Not much replay value (there's only 2 builds and it's single pass only), the item system is pretty dull and you don't feel like your build choices (other than the binary build decision) don't really make a difference (because they don't, basically) but a decent way to sink up to 30 hours.
I played Nox ages ago and think I found it fun enough to play through on 2.5 of the 3 basic build options.
Dungeon Siege 1 played as an arpg (when controlling 1 char I mean) was pretty poor, didn't try 2 but it sounded pretty much the same. Shares TQ's problems but offers less in compensation.
Titan Quest gets old incredibly fast but a good Diabloesque item system provides a hook if you can look past the minimal variation (not just in between different parts of the game, but between completely different builds) in gameplay.
Mythos may or may not be finished before D3, it sounded pretty promising but is no longer under development. I read some Korean company may be taking it on in which case I assume it'll end up with a Korean financial model (ugh). [edit:or not (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/hellgate-and-mythos-back-in-development)]
I'll have tried Sacred soon. I've also heard arx fatalis and divine divinity recommended as diablo clones. Played a demo for I think it was called lionheart ages ago, wasn't impressed.
Some Diablo mods make for far better D2 alternatives than commercially seperate clones, in particular playing an assassin on Median 08 is some of the most fun i've had playing any diablo-like arpg, including vanilla.
@above, you're probably playing a poorly cracked version. TQ is a fascinating case study in how NOT to try and counter piracy.
Wow...I completely forgot about Nox. That game was pretty damn cool. It felt more alive the world than Diablo because you could jump, move furniture around and objects. Had a more alive feel, but the enviroment was wack as was the player. You wear like sneakers or something, lol. But it was made by Westwood and back then, they were similar to Blizzard in that they put a lot of polish on their games and were extremely addicting. Loved C&C RA2.
Kudos. Nox was awesome. And it had the best ARPG multiplayer, ever.
Yeah I remember, it's multi was like Quake, LoL! Be firing fireball missles left and right at each other. I loved the effects when you hit a wall or something, the pieces that splashed around if I remember correctly. I think it was an overall, great game all around, but EA once again destroyed it when they took over. They completely shutdown support on the game in servers, patches, multiplayer, and the community pretty much. God I hate EA so much. EA are the students, Blizzard are the teachers, and it's time to begin class.
Sein Schatten
09-08-2008, 18:13
EA are the students, Blizzard are the teachers, and it's time to begin class.
EA is just bad. Spore gets SecuROM and 3 activation limit. YAY!
Image cloaking software like YASU is always so far ahead of crap like securom and safedisc I don't know why they bother.
Nox still has active mutliplayer, btw. I play it now and then.
http://www.noxforum.net/
Awesome man, that link you provided has the game to download in full with multiplayer and single included. Although I sold my copy to a friend many years ago, I don't see why I'm not intitled to download it as I did own an original copy of it at one point :D Hell, increase the multiplayer support for it, everyone dl a copy! :D
Sein Schatten
09-08-2008, 21:02
Image cloaking software like YASU is always so far ahead of crap like securom and safedisc I don't know why they bother.
It is a bit more complicated. ;)
http://www.securom.com/SecuROM_PA_Technical_Facts.pdf
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