Bloodheroics
09-09-2011, 05:27
From what I have seen of the beta footage, the outdoor areas look like relatively narrow pathways that remain the same on every playthrough.
Diablo III should have been designed with large, randomly-generated outdoor areas the way DII was. If not, running through the exact same outdoor scenes over and over again will get boring. The outdoor areas in DII had just enough variation to keep things somewhat fresh, but this is lost when the player is forced to run through the EXACT same narrow path with that EXACT same bush in the EXACT same place every time.
A game world that repeatedly shuffles the player along a narrow corridor will not be as replayable as one that allows him or her to occasionally get lost in a large, randomly-generated outdoor environment. These environments help create the illusion of a world that has yet to be fully explored. Sure, it can be frustrating when you take the wrong turn and need to backtrack, but that is a small price to pay for the feeling of existing within an expansive setting. Static outdoor areas only work to predefine and ultimately limit ones conception of the setting.
Last night, I logged into Diablo II and ran around the first act for a while. Although it all looked very familiar, I was still observing combinations on the levels layout that I had never seen before. In a way, I visited a unique dimension within Sanctuary that I, or anyone else for that matter, had never explored. Will people be able to have this experience ten years from now when they log into Diablo III’s first act?
Can any beta testers comment on how much variation they have seen on different game sessions? Do the outdoor areas remain exactly the same every time? Hopefully, large blocks of the outdoor maps change from game to game.
Diablo III should have been designed with large, randomly-generated outdoor areas the way DII was. If not, running through the exact same outdoor scenes over and over again will get boring. The outdoor areas in DII had just enough variation to keep things somewhat fresh, but this is lost when the player is forced to run through the EXACT same narrow path with that EXACT same bush in the EXACT same place every time.
A game world that repeatedly shuffles the player along a narrow corridor will not be as replayable as one that allows him or her to occasionally get lost in a large, randomly-generated outdoor environment. These environments help create the illusion of a world that has yet to be fully explored. Sure, it can be frustrating when you take the wrong turn and need to backtrack, but that is a small price to pay for the feeling of existing within an expansive setting. Static outdoor areas only work to predefine and ultimately limit ones conception of the setting.
Last night, I logged into Diablo II and ran around the first act for a while. Although it all looked very familiar, I was still observing combinations on the levels layout that I had never seen before. In a way, I visited a unique dimension within Sanctuary that I, or anyone else for that matter, had never explored. Will people be able to have this experience ten years from now when they log into Diablo III’s first act?
Can any beta testers comment on how much variation they have seen on different game sessions? Do the outdoor areas remain exactly the same every time? Hopefully, large blocks of the outdoor maps change from game to game.