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From reading what everyone has mostly been saying since this forum opened, and looking back at what folks have said when the subject of Diablo 3 has come up from time to time previously, I thought I'd throw in an "opposition" viewpoint on the matter. I really plan to address two prevailing comments:
1.) People who say "I don't want it to be an MMO / Pay to Play game"
2.) People who say "I want it to be the same, or have X feature the same"
To understand the MMO pay to play model, you just need to adjust your viewpoint of what the payment is for. An MMO constantly grows and changes (hopefully for the better). There's always new content, skills, quests, items, etc... being developed. Part of the montly fee to play goes towards paying the staff who continuously move the game forward. This constant state of development does have it's problems (the game is /never/ bug free for example), but it brings with it a lot of benefits. For one, you don't get locked into playing the same story repeatedly. With an MMO, there's always more storyline being revealed. You also have way more patches, more frequently, that address issues like balance, etc...
The other thing to realize is that you're paying for entertainment time. I play Diablo 2 and WoW. I play D2 about 10-12 hours a week on average, and WoW somewhat more like 20 hours a week. Some weeks it's more! For the most part, that time is very enjoyable. So ... the cost per hour of entertainment for me is something like $0.18 ...
Let that sink in. A trip to the movies with my wife would yeild lets say three hours of entertainment. Tickets are $12 each, so that's $24 if all we do is get tickets without having a meal out or any concessions. There's also likely a gallon of gas to figure in, so another $4. So $28 for six total hours of entertainment. That's $4 per hour. That means going to the movies is 22 times more expensive in terms of cost per time. That's staggering.
The bottom line for MMO's is that yes there's a fee. BUT ... You would have to play for less than four hours in an entire month for it to be more cost per time than a trip to the movies. Most people play for vastly more time than that. Even if you only play 20 hours a week, you're getting a very solid bang for your buck in terms of entertainment costs.
The monthly fee for an MMO is both reasonable and worthwhile. How many times have we all lamented and wished there were more patches for Diablo 2? If Diablo 3 works on a monthly fee model, that will not be a conern again. To me, it's worthwhile to pay to play.
So, that point addressed ... moving on to #2.
I for one would like to see and Diablo 3 that is a totally new game experience. Start with World of Warcraft as a base, and then break the mold in every area. Blizzard over the years has done a lot of firsts. I would love for Diablo 3 to be a totally new concept in gameplay.
I do NOT want anything from Diablo 2 gameplay wise honestly. I don't mind some references to D2 stuff ... be it with items carried over into D3 or some basic classes retained. Other than that, let's see something fresh and new. I don't want my "endgame" to be farming the same boss 500,000 times in order to collect every item in the game.
I VERY MUCH would like to see the game be playable single player if one chooses. I know that's completely outside of the realm of current MMO game design but Blizzard has never played by everyone else's rules before ... why should they now?
I guess the bottom line for me is this. If Diablo 3 is just Diablo 2 with new graphics, a new storyline and other than that it plays and feels the same... I'd just as soon stick with Diablo 2. When it comes to the Diablo series, I don't think Blizzard can give it the "Starcraft 2" treatment and have it really succeed.
This post is, of course, just my opinion. I'd love to see what other people think of it though...
I personally disagree, I would like to see D3 like D2, I like the idea of farming the boss 500,000 times to collect grail, I dont like playing online with other people, as I personally dont have all time in the world to play and will be left behind very quickly, and what I hate most is ladder resets, where you just have to start over.
If they do make D3 an mmo, there are a few things they need to do to make it work:
1. It must be fast passed with fairly easy leveling. Many people play d2 because there is little to no grind involved. It also seems that mmo's are getting more grindy every time one gets released. I for one, don't have enough time these days to sit down for 6 hours to gain one level.
2. Tons of items... tons. MMOs don't tend to drop a decent amount of loot to keep the item finder happy. Sure you get a decent amount of vendor fodder, but not that many uniques/sets/rares.
3. NOT based on wow(basing it on WoW was mentioned earlier in the post). Sure WoW is successful, but the graphics don't lend itself to d2. It needs a much darker atmosphere and overall better artwork especially on the characters. One of the main reasons I do not play WoW is due to the graphic style. They aren't bad per say, but too me they look like poorly drawn cartoons that are out of proportion.
When I said based off WoW, I meant as a starting place. I would expect the world to be much darker. BTW, I've put in something like 40 or 50 hours so far on level 93 for my Blizzard sorc and have not yet leveled ;p
As for items... that would be the hardest part really if they make it an MMO... balancing wealth.
@Bodis - Essentially what you're asking for is a graphics overhaul and a new set of storyline quests (or ACTS) for diablo 2. I'm not sure that would be the best bet for Blizzard.
There's an MMORPG out on the market right now that's free called Minions of Mirth. It's being developed by a couple people under the company name Prairie Games. If interested, you can google it. The graphics are not great by any stretch. What is appealing about it to me though is that you can play solo on your computer without anyone else.
Or you can connect to a server and play with people. It's completely up to you... and only the very toughest things in the game require more than solo play. You can level faster and have a social aspect if you play with other people, but it's not required to advance and enjoy the storyline at all.
If Blizzard can somehow make Diablo 3 a game where you can play solo or go online, that would be the best of both worlds IMHO. I'm just not sure that Diablo 2 with a new storyline and some whitewash (graphics) is what would be the best to me.
That said, I'm incredibly excited that D3 may be a reality soon, and no matter what it is, I'll most certainly be buying it.
When I said based off WoW, I meant as a starting place. I would expect the world to be much darker. BTW, I've put in something like 40 or 50 hours so far on level 93 for my Blizzard sorc and have not yet leveled ;p
At least it didn't take 15 months to reach level 93.
:P
The problem with making Diablo 3 an MMO like that is that it becomes a time sink. You can be godly in D2 and only play for maybe 10 hours a week. I played WoW and to stay on top of the game (which is what I like to do because I'm sort of a video game perfectionist) it would take 30 hours or more a week. You had to go to raids every other night, then you'd have to farm materials for raids. I just don't want to see D3 turn into a huge time sink, it needs to stay something that you can play for an hour then walk away from and not feel like you've missed anything. The fact that D2 isn't an MMO is probably the reason it's stuck around so long. That's my 2 cents.
And one more thing, I didn't like having to be in guilds like on WoW to be good. D3 needs to stay something you can play by yourself while online and still be just as good as everyone else.
As I already posted in another thread WoW is too cartoony, looks like Tiny Toons for kids and made with basic graphics for masses, so it works on almost any PC. It was their cash cow, but I hope they wont make same thing with Diablo. Main thing is to make dark scary ambience with high quality graphics.
I'm against MMORPG. There are many of them already, like Guild Wars, Final Fantasy to mention few. I just don't get the principle to stay in queue to kill ONE monster !! But it could be MORPG with limited number of players till 12 or 16 per game like in D2 with 8pl.
For DIII I would like to see more interactive environment. For example we could:
- burn trees with meteor or firewall
- could broke (not just open) chests/barrels with feet, hand or some weapons
- explosions could use complex particle physics so the debris always flow in random directions and on impact could do some damage on environment (brun grass, make holes etc)
- arrows could stack in bodies, ground or walls and depending of material make deep or shallow holes or just bouncing away
- killed monster bodies could decompose more slowly and in more complex way, lets say depending of environment (for ex. in desert they dry out, in rainy forest they slowly disappear in ground and decompose)
- when killing monsters you could chop off body parts - legs, hands and if he is still moving chop of head.
- you could see real damages done on armors, for ex. bumps from mace hits or holes from arrows and of course depending of material used do different protection of wearers body.
- could dig holes in ground or in wall (just for fun :laugh)
- more blood, blood stays on your helm, armor.
In theory that all will be possible in near future with new physics engine. nVidia promises control of 8million particles in future. Who interested can read article here
I don't have much to say on this issue, but I would hate to see them ruin D3 by making it P2P online. I like playing battle.net, but I refuse to pay real life money for a virtual game. If it comes down to it, I'll stick with Diablo 2.
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