Since there is a server update going on, I thought of writing something about Diablo III (well I just got a Diablo III break). I have been readings comments from many sites and Facebook statuses about players’ points of view of the whole game. Most of them were negative because of some specifics issues. I will address all these and put my judgment on it plus as a Diablo II veteran, how I am feeling about this game.

When Diablo III launched, things were not rosy for Blizzard at all since there were servers going down, lag issues and even some records like achievements were not recorded. I had to replay some parts of the game to get those achievements back. As for the server issue, I wonder how Blizzard is even coping with too much logged in players (say 100000) on the very first day.  Smaller companies would not even handle this amount of users on their servers and the servers may crash out. What amazes me is that Blizzard has been very much serious about putting emergency maintenance as quickly as possible and removes all the issues ASAP. Few companies can manage to keep this service so good. It only comes down to us: We gamers are usually impatient about everything, not to mention we do not appreciate the quality that the company has been giving to the players for decades. We should be thankful that we got the sequel anyway after 12 years and thankfully it did not fall in the leagues of Duke Nukem Forever (I have some positive views about that game).

The second issue I heard is the game being online only. Yes it is a very annoying concept along with the Blizzard’s DRM policy but we have to face this: almost all PC users around the globe are connected to the internet. Even the complains we are putting that Blizzard has ruined the game just because it made online only game, we are actually putting these complains online. I can safely say that no one will care about offline complains (who can hear them?).  As far as I know I even played Diablo II online with a very low speed internet connection and Blizzard do have regional servers around the world, serving everyone playing the game.

Now let us come to gameplay. Diablo III indeed kept that beautiful formula of hack and slash, kill everyone like crazy. The best part is that when you kill multiple monsters altogether. Corpse fly out, splatters here and there, chain reaction from the attacks you make and after effects and so on. In fact you kill these monsters more fanatically than you did in Diablo II (if you played DII).  Like day before yesterday I killed 93 monsters in few seconds and yesterday I killed 43 monsters at single blow (I got rewarded with achievements and XP bonuses). In Diablo the maximum I could kill at such intensity is just 10. I can clearly understand how fun it can get.

Figure: Me playing as Demon Hunter

This is how the skills are developed to keep area kills and single kills in check. Coming to skills, yes there are limited amount of skills per character and you have to rely six hotkeys (not more than that) to maintain all these. This really bugged me a lot when I was playing as a beta user (I was one of the chosen beta players from Blizzard). There are runes which improved your existing skills and these runes were unlocked as you progressed through levels. You can now select any skills you want anytime based on your likings and your playstyle. Not to mention each and every skill is important even in higher difficulty level. There is no way you can improve your skills to the next level or even change your character stats in this game. This is a both blessing and a curse. I did not understand the blessing while I was playing the beta since the game offered limited features (you can find my impression on the beta here in NF: http://www.noobfeed.com/preview_infos/view/175).

I was very much skeptical about the fact it will totally ruin the customization of the characters which made Diablo II such a great, hard, long game. In Diablo II, if you ever made a wrong character with wrong stats and skill sets, you are basically screwed (since you would not be able to withstand Nightmare difficulty and I am leaving out Hell difficulty).  Also in Diablo III if you died in Nightmare or Hell difficulty you could lose experience which you have gathered through hours of grinding. This is one of the reasons why people played Diablo II for 12 years. There were Faqs, wikis, discussions about strategies and character builds just to beat the game in Hell mode or even reach level 99. In Diablo III you have access to all the skill sets, which leaves out the beauty of customization and also a very crucial RPG element (which is quite bothersome). So having all these skill sets will definitely allow you to play Nightmare or Hell mode in Diablo provided you choose the skill sets right. You are wrong!!! In Diablo II, your correct customization choices would not guarantee your success in Nightmare and Hell. You have to get good items (Rare, Unique or Set items) just to make a stand. In Diablo III, it is just the same but only worse. Unlike Diablo II, getting rare, Legendary (Unique in Diablo II) or set items in Diablo III is tedious and super hard. Worst of all is that unlike Diablo II, even some earlier items do not provide elemental resistance (Fire, Lightning, Cold and Poison) which is very much alarming especially for people who are into Hardcore mode (The mode where everything is same except there is permanent death). So in Hardcore mode player has to be super careful since they do not have much elemental resistance which is so needed during the battle against Act 1 and Act 2 bosses. I am yet to find any item that provides such resistances which was so easy to get in Diablo II. This means I have to spend more time finding those otherwise I would not stand a chance In Nightmare. When difficulty increases the elemental resistances also go down. You might have to start with negative resistances at higher difficulties. The game itself is hard at normal mode but gets harder as the game progresses. For most players, the purpose is to finish hell mode. Unlike Diablo II, where the level cap is 99, the level cap in Diablo III is just 60. It really makes things tougher than ever since after that point the player has to rely solely on items they get. So they have to keep on playing for hours until they find right combination of items just to keep player survive higher difficulties which was the exact scenario for Diablo II where items really matter. To make matters worse, there is an Inferno difficulty waiting for players after they finish Hell difficulty and there is certain number of achievements that involved inferno difficulty. Getting there would not be a stroll in the park. There are also achievements related to Hardcore players in Inferno difficulty. Players with strong heart, determination, knowledge and skill can only reach that very point. I would definitely like to see who can actually reach that point.

I was very concerned about the longetivity of the game but as I played along the whole game, right now I am having thoughts that the game will take me a lot of time to finish every goals included in the game. You never know. Blizzard can bring out expansion just like they did for Diablo II and they can bring new bosses, new features and new goals and these can definitely keep the game running for over the ongoing decade.