The game is getting bashed on metacritic because of the server issues.
Not that metacritic should be taken very seriously, but 1400 reviews are averaging a score of 3.5 :\
peekaie wroteThe game is getting bashed on metacritic because of the server issues.
Not that metacritic should be taken very seriously, but 1400 reviews are averaging a score of 3.5 :[/quote]
Yeah, dont think ill be buying diablo 3 until they release an offline version of it, whether it was official or not.
Badieh wrote
peekaie wroteThe game is getting bashed on metacritic because of the server issues.
Not that metacritic should be taken very seriously, but 1400 reviews are averaging a score of 3.5 :[/quote]
Yeah, dont think ill be buying diablo 3 until they release an offline version of it, whether it was official or not.
There probably never will be an offline mode. What you have installed on your hard drive are the assets of the game. The actual game happens on the server (mob spawns, scripted events, item spawns...).
So an offline patch isn't possible. There probably will be some sort of cracked local servers that you can run on your machine, but it will surely be nowhere near what the game is supposed to be like.
Game will never be offline, it's based on a server running most of the game, and buying an unofficial one [cracked] is pointless, that's the biggest difference between diablo2 and diablo3, and as well as the implanted AH, i don't know how you can expect seeing an offline mode if there's such a system implanted.

About the reviews and ratings, it doesn't matter what some website review the game as, i can say for sure that all of these people didn't even read the FAQ of the game pre-launch and just followed the huge lot and the good advertisement of the game and bought it and are expecting some godly miracle to happen on 1st day, the FAQ stated very well that there will be problems at first, especially with the logins on the launch, the most re-occurring error was "error37" i think which was very well explained to stabilize the login rate and people made countless threads and complaints to blizzard asking what it was when the answer was there over a month before the release, yet alone the thousands of people trying to download the game and patch it to 1.01 which also have a huge effect, those reviews are unbased and most at fault, i haven't gotten the game yet, still waiting since morning >< and i'm almost sure i'll have problems at first, i hope not, i know the server will need constant maintenance these first few days, it's expected from any huge launch for something server based, many games have had these bad starts, it's actually impossible not to have this bad start with such a huge launch, but the game will still be good and you will see reviews going in the good direction soon, not that it matters much. Another point reviews are saying, is that the game is "short" since some people capped it, many forget that this isn't WoW, and it's an rpg, not an mmo, i seen the live streams and judging from them, they are having hard time getting past bosses no harder modes, it's mostly diablo2 veterans that have actually reached that point and it was somewhat expected to happen but that doesn't make the game an easier, i'd like to see the people adding these sorts of reviews to do half as those veterans did in such a short time and even on the long term.

To sum it up, game has just been launched on a very massive scale and it's playable via internet connection only. When such a huge launch is made, people have the urge to rush in their criticism mostly to get some sort of attention.
I snatched a copy from Virgin yesterday,

enjoyable, definately overrated.

nice packaging for the DVD btw.
How much did it cost from Virgin?
zheavy wroteGame will never be offline, it's based on a server running most of the game, and buying an unofficial one [cracked] is pointless, that's the biggest difference between diablo2 and diablo3, and as well as the implanted AH, i don't know how you can expect seeing an offline mode if there's such a system implanted.

About the reviews and ratings, it doesn't matter what some website review the game as, i can say for sure that all of these people didn't even read the FAQ of the game pre-launch and just followed the huge lot and the good advertisement of the game and bought it and are expecting some godly miracle to happen on 1st day, the FAQ stated very well that there will be problems at first, especially with the logins on the launch, the most re-occurring error was "error37" i think which was very well explained to stabilize the login rate and people made countless threads and complaints to blizzard asking what it was when the answer was there over a month before the release, yet alone the thousands of people trying to download the game and patch it to 1.01 which also have a huge effect, those reviews are unbased and most at fault, i haven't gotten the game yet, still waiting since morning >< and i'm almost sure i'll have problems at first, i hope not, i know the server will need constant maintenance these first few days, it's expected from any huge launch for something server based, many games have had these bad starts, it's actually impossible not to have this bad start with such a huge launch, but the game will still be good and you will see reviews going in the good direction soon, not that it matters much. Another point reviews are saying, is that the game is "short" since some people capped it, many forget that this isn't WoW, and it's an rpg, not an mmo, i seen the live streams and judging from them, they are having hard time getting past bosses no harder modes, it's mostly diablo2 veterans that have actually reached that point and it was somewhat expected to happen but that doesn't make the game an easier, i'd like to see the people adding these sorts of reviews to do half as those veterans did in such a short time and even on the long term.

To sum it up, game has just been launched on a very massive scale and it's playable via internet connection only. When such a huge launch is made, people have the urge to rush in their criticism mostly to get some sort of attention.
Actually I feel compelled to tell you that it is quite possible for the game to be cracked via an emulated server. Albeit the game will run on one "template" of the game. In other words you will be playing fixed maps of each level, no randomization whatsoever. But the good news is that randomization can occur if multiple versions are mapped and introduced via patched updates of the server. All this will take quite some time, but it seems the good fellows over at Skidrow seem to have stumbled upon an interesting solution for their crack.

It remains to be seen what will come of it as they haven't released it yet but word is it will be soon. I've bought the game but I'm looking forward to the crack, because obviously our internet connections can't handle the caveats of modern online entertainment.
Ruroken wrote
ballad wrotecan we buy a pirated version and then purchase a key from blizzard guys?
Your question is a little bit vague. Not sure if i understood it, but what i know is that the key is what costs $60. As for the client it's for free and you can even download it now. Hope i didn't misunderstood what you said.
that's what I meant
so I'll download the game from the tpb and buy a key from blizzard
Just download the client from Blizzard, I think you can do that before purchasing a key, not sure about it though. If you can then do it cz you get good download speed from Blizzard's installer.
i feel i am missing something in diablo 3 , don't we have fights were everybody can fight each other ??
or is it just about making the quests with another player and fighting deamons ???
Rody wrotei feel i am missing something in diablo 3 , don't we have fights were everybody can fight each other ??
or is it just about making the quests with another player and fighting deamons ???
if your talking about PvP, they said it's gonna come in future patches. For now, the game is pure PvE.
what happens after i finish all the missions?
Here's my review on the matter.

Acquiring the game

I bought the game digitally from blizzard which is overpriced compared to the boxed ones. This is mainly because Blizzard doesn't want to piss off the resellers and hence the extreme digital price. I downloaded the client over an HDSL 2.3 Mbps connection which took little over 9 hours.

Installation

I had similar problems to the Open Beta. My guess is Blizzard failed on fixing problems with the 64 bit OSes for some odd reason. It took me around 2 hours to get the game past the initial "Updating setup files", while trying a mess load of things.

The actual installation was a breeze, although I have a rather powerful system. at around 70%, the game downloads a ~60mb patch and installs it.

Logging in on launch time

It was as expected, lots of error 37s (busy servers) and lots of unexpected errors. You would think someone like blizzard with experience of up to 12 million subscribers (WoW) and God knows how much on SC2, would have the numbers to predict whether their servers will hold.

Anyways, after about an hour of trials, my friend and I got in the game.

Concerning Lag

Stop talking about Lag, there's no such thing in Diablo III, inspite of it being online. The lag you will witness (that's if you witness it) will mostly affect teamplay and even then, it's hardly noticeable.

I was logged at the peak of traffic and server problems and i had no problems whatsoever on 1mbps.

Onto the game itself

- Scenery is great
- Story line is great
- Quest line is great
- Action is great
- Difficulty, well, I've only completed normal difficulty and it was quite simple. (~10 hours of play time)
- Bosses are straight forward
- Loot is too randomized
- You secure way more loot by playing cooperative.
- Trade skills are weak as there's only two.
- Pretty good implementation of stats that allow you to min/max accordingly (for those of you who know what this is)
- Gold is abundant if you don't level blacksmithing.
- Gold is abundant even if you do level blacksmithing, you just have to know what to sell.
- Followers are rather weak, but hey, they help you out if solo.
- Followers are also funny, especially the Scoundrel.
- I expected way more events, I think i ran into 3 or 4 in 32 levels.
- For a game in the making for so long, the acts are incredibly short.
- Talents/Skills are absolutely awesome, You have to make the right decisions per situation/fight/solo/group to be effective.
- You benefit ALOT by having some friends as you can do alot of trades. You don't have to play with them, just make sure you know what classes they play so you can keep items of use for them and trade them later on. (for example, After i completed normal mode, I had saved alot of 'Yellow' items for many levels and traded them to my lower level friends who boosted their stats with them. Similarly I got passed a nice weapon when I was level 22.
- The game does NOT end when you complete normal mode, there's still 3 more difficulty levels to go through. If you believe you are done with D3 when you complete normal mode, then this game is not for you.
- No comment on PVP/Arena as I have not tried it and don't even know how to get to it.

Overall

9.5/10
Is it much shorter than D2 ?
peekaie wroteIs it much shorter than D2 ?
You can be the judge of that.
xterm wrote- Difficulty, well, I've only completed normal difficulty and it was quite simple. (~10 hours of play time)
That's with trade skills, checking stats, reading abilities, cinematics, cutscenes, doing last bosses 3-4 times.

Remove the above and I'd say it could be done in about 5 hours (less?)

But you have to remember, normal mode is nothing, hell is where the game 'begins'.
xterm wrote
peekaie wroteIs it much shorter than D2 ?
You can be the judge of that.
xterm wrote- Difficulty, well, I've only completed normal difficulty and it was quite simple. (~10 hours of play time)
That's with trade skills, checking stats, reading abilities, cinematics, cutscenes, doing last bosses 3-4 times.

Remove the above and I'd say it could be done in about 5 hours (less?)

But you have to remember, normal mode is nothing, hell is where the game 'begins'.
what do u mean " where the game begins " ?
He meant that on Hell mode, the game becomes super hard and takes more time to finish. The harder difficulty will require more tactics and will result in more wipes. So the normal mode is kinda easy when it comes to Diablo 3.
Rody wrotewhat do u mean " where the game begins " ?
The game has 4 difficulty levels:

- Normal
- Nightmare
- Hell
- Inferno

Each one is progressively harder than the previous, I'll give you an example. When I first zoned into normal mode with my level 1 barbarian, I was one shotting the first 3 mobs. When I completed the normal mode and zoned into Nightmare difficulty with my 600dps level 32 barbarian, It took me 3 hits to kill the first 3 mobs.

Although i don't think its is additive, so lets take this small example:
- Normal Difficulty : Level 1 : 1 Shot
- Nightmare Difficulty : Level 32 : 3 Shot
- Hell Difficulty : Level XX : 6 Shot
- Inferno Difficulty : Level 60 : 9 Shot

As you can see, on inferno difficulty it'll take me 9 shots to kill the first pack! Not to mention that the loots gets better based on the difficulty you're in.
Rody wrotei feel i am missing something in diablo 3 , don't we have fights were everybody can fight each other ??
or is it just about making the quests with another player and fighting deamons ???
Diablo 3 has an arena system in place:

2v2
3v3
4v4

It's not released right, but will be coming soon. (There's no sense in releasing it now since hardly anyone is at max level)
Rody wrotewhat do u mean " where the game begins " ?
If you want a simpler explanation, I completed the normal difficulty (killed Diablo) and I don't feel like I've even started the game yet.