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Sure, there's been some bumps along the way, but is Diablo III actually...fun?
Earlier this week, our own Gaming Editor Kyle Orland reported on Diablo III’s recent problems with servers, programming, and notably, post-launch fixes to the game’s character skill building. Keeping all technical problems in mind, how good is the Diablo III experience?
Over at the Ars OpenForum's “Perpetual Diablo 3 Thread! GAME IS LIVE!”, readers have been discussing the title since early May, just before the game launched, and have evaluated the game from all sorts of angles in more than 3,900 posts.
The thread begins with a useful set of Diablo III resources that Jebus H Cripes posted for all players, which includes the Ars battle tag list, server status page, known issues list and more. But if you still haven’t decided if you want to invest in the game, the discussions inside the forum add some insight in addition to our review of the game, including updated thoughts on how the game has evolved since that review first ran.
Aside from purely gameplay-related discussions many users seem to be making a sticking point of the game's requirement for a persistent Internet connection. Xoa notes in the comments of the review that “Honestly, I was really, really unimpressed, and I'm so happy I didn't buy it. The always-on DRM, by itself, would be all the reason necessary to avoid the entire thing no matter what, but rather then that being a tough decision I don't feel like I'm missing anything at all. I don't find the engine vaguely impressive on any level, the writing, characters, and general feel of it was a huge let down, etc.”
Benhameen does think that the game provides a deep level of satisfaction. “Do you enjoy the "completionist" part of games? Some people love it—finding/earning all the things necessary to level up. If that's exciting to you then have fun. “
Part of this satisfaction, is also tied to the game’s auction house. hambone notes “So I'm coming from the gaming camp that more or less dismissed D3 as derivative and uninteresting. Paid it no heed all through its development. Assumed most of the people in this thread were fanboys and sheeps. And now here I am of course, having bought D3 two nights ago on pure impulse out of some combination of 10 years worth of nostalgia and latent addiction…I gotta say that—by far—the killer feature of D3 is the auction house. It's more addictive to play the market and buy cheap yellows than to play the game…However, I must give two enthusiastic and controller-friendly thumbs-up to the new skill system. It is flexible, the unlockable progression is its own reward, and sub-dividing the skills into four major categories (for the Barb at least) creates a sort of 'mix and match your superhero' vibe to the game, which I like.”
GirgleMirt’ doesn’t think the auction house works all that well: “Just a few thoughts on the game. So far, I think the auction house is a good idea in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work. Say you're level 6, you'll have some magical items, couple thousand golds. Let's say you find a random magical item. If you sell it to in game merchants, you'll get say 25 gold. This same item, if bought from the merchants, will cost you something like 2000 gold. You can buy a better item in the auction house for 100 gold, and you can most probably sell it for 100, which is 4x as much as you'd get in game...So anyway, AH = breaks the game. Not to mention that crafting gems cost a fortune vs. just buying them in the AH... And you find so much damn gold, very strong items cost peanuts on the AH, if you use the AH, it just ruins the game because you don't even have to hunt for items. It ruins almost everything. Ruins the challenge, ruins the thrill of finding items (you can just buy them for peanuts...), it ruins crafting, it ruins jewel crafting, it ruins buying/selling items in game, it just ruins the game!! (and no I'm not going to use it anymore )”
Anvilfang, just like many other readers in the OpenForum, notes that Diablo III’s customization is a winning feature. “The customization is surprisingly deep with this game. At first I wasn't at all interested in this game because of my perceived lack of character progression, but I was quite wrong. The runes for individual attacks, the passives, and the mantras all make very significant changes for your play style depending on what you choose.”
The story’s narrative worked for VirtualWolf: “Woot, finished the game on Normal. \o/ I really enjoyed the story, but Diablo himself didn't put up much of a fight! Though given I was at around 725dps in the final fight and mostly spammed Rapid Fire...”
Raptor’s Broomstick, who also commented on the Ars Diablo III review, said, “This review makes me feel a lot better... I've still got a backlog of other games, but I was thinking of bumping this to the top of the list. Now I think I'll wait, let them work out the bugs, and let the whole online mess (and potentially market) settle down.”
Of course, if you have already set out to plunge into the depths of demon-blasting action in the game, you can also find other Ars readers to play with, like marshman did: “Long time lurker, delurking. Looking for some cool folks to play with so I added my name to the list. It's too bad you can't seem to add friends outside of the game.”
What about you? What are your thoughts on the gameplay of Diablo III? Now that it’s been out for a few weeks, has your enjoyment of it changed in any way? Share your thoughts with us via the comments, or advance your gameplay by joining up with other gamers in the thread. If you’re new to the OpenForum, register for an account and join in the discussion.
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