Diablo III is Running on Consoles at Blizzard

[theultimateend]

Storywise, Starcraft 2 is basically about as long as any one campaign from Starcraft or Warcraft 3. It's 80% filler, which is why Blizzard's excuse of "we want to tell an epic story", never mind the actual quality of what is being told, is absolute bullshit.

Ah so subjectively its smaller.

Ok, as long as its just people talking out their butts.

I was just worried there might be actual numbers behind the stuff.

For the record I liked SC1 better, I just find the subjectivity being passed off as an objective truth to be obnoxious.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

If I in any way cared about Blizzard, Diablo, or Diablo 3 specifically I still wouldn't get it for a console. I would know that I'd get my patches late or not at all.

From the sources I heed, I've heard NOTHING positive about D3 WHATSOEVER, so I hope that they eventually decide to finish it, people have their fun, and then we can all move on as a species.

 

[Sandjube]

Considering it's built for the console from the ground up, this isn't particularly surprising.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

The PC game developer blizzard designed the sequel to a pc exclusive game for console, then released it exclusively for pc, then later said theyre considering porting it to console; which means the game was originally designed for console?

Not exactly. What it can mean is that Blizzard thought ahead and made certain design choices to make it better fit for a console release. Things like arbitrarily limiting the number of non-mouse skills to 4 (the magic number), not having a whole lot of control inputs overall with (over)simplified healing systems or making inventory management a thing of the past by turning all items into size 1x1 or 1x2.

It's a similar thing with The Witcher 2. We got a game that had a whole slew of curious design choices, ones that are generally massively indicative of console design, and it was the least surprising turn of events in the world that they came out a month or two later to reveal their plans for a console release.

The number wasn't arbitrary it was the result of months of testing and was chosen for balancing purposes (look up old d3 uis, anywhere from 2 to 8 buttons), the new healing system is more complicated than diablo 2s, and fixing a bad inventory system has nothing to do with console or pc, if anything the drastically expanded inventory would much worse on console.

Also how is 7/26 missions being being optional make the game 80% filler?

 

[darkszero]

The new healing system consists of 1 button. It may be more "complicated" than D2's, I don't know in what way and I don't know why the selling point would be "more complicated than a 13 year old game", but it's extremely simplistic in nature. See Path of Exile [http://wyattcheng.blogspot.com/2012/04/path-of-exile.html] for an actual improvement of mechanics as opposed to what is essentially chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
Fixing a bad inventory? Do explain. It has, potentially, something to do with PC or console if the new version is much simpler, easier to use and so on. Which it is. The fact that it's bigger means next to nothing negative when there's no inventory management to speak of. As is, it would probably work better than list-based alternatives.

Did you play the game? Seems you either didn't or you're venting your deaths due to potion cooldown on the system.
The healing system consists of four things: a potion with 30 seconds cooldown, health globes that drops from enemies, gaining life from attacks with life on hit and life steal and finally actually avoiding damage.
The second is your main healing source when leveling up to 60, while the third is the main when playing on Inferno.

I've just read the Path of Exile link you sent and, and it's pretty cool. Diablo 3 could be a better game with it, but not with the "potions with afixes" part. That would only make normal potions useless, since the game would be balanced around the rare potions, and in the end would be yet another item you'd have to buy for your equipment.

I agree that the only thing that was broken in Diablo 2's inventory, was it's ridiculous small size. D3 fixed that giving a big inventory, but also decreased the item size to either 1x1 or 1x2.
Being a fan of inventory tetris, can't say I'm happy. But since the game is focused in grinding lots of items, bigger items would just be a hassle, adding nothing. (Exactly the same it is in D2, since when your inventory is full you can just use your TP).

Also, on an earlier point you made: D3 limits you to 6 skills, not 4. Supposedly that number maximizes the unique skills sets you can have, if you choose one skill from each slot.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

The number wasn't arbitrary it was the result of months of testing and was chosen for balancing purposes (look up old d3 uis, anywhere from 2 to 8 buttons), the new healing system is more complicated than diablo 2s, and fixing a bad inventory system has nothing to do with console or pc, if anything the drastically expanded inventory would much worse on console.

Also how is 7/26 missions being being optional make the game 80% filler?

And the Witcher 2 alpha had the same control scheme as the first Witcher. Unless you're going to talk specifics about what balancing purposes it serves, I'm not buying it.

The new healing system consists of 1 button. It may be more "complicated" than D2's, I don't know in what way and I don't know why the selling point would be "more complicated than a 13 year old game", but it's extremely simplistic in nature. See Path of Exile [http://wyattcheng.blogspot.com/2012/04/path-of-exile.html] for an actual improvement of mechanics as opposed to what is essentially chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

Fixing a bad inventory? Do explain. It has, potentially, something to do with PC or console if the new version is much simpler, easier to use and so on. Which it is. The fact that it's bigger means next to nothing negative when there's no inventory management to speak of. As is, it would probably work better than list-based alternatives.

Damn, you got me. Thank god every story mission actually progressed the story. I really don't know why you're assuming only optional missions can be filler.

Dont think ill be digging through 2 year old forum posts to relive waiting for diablo 3, but i still remember the jay wilson quote "7 buttons was too many" xD(thats very funny btw) But lets assume i lied, the 6 buttons was arbitrary and they didnt do any testing to see if other numbers would work. Are you saying they made a fundamental game mechanic choice in a game thats almost entirely dependent upon good game mechanics for the purpose of maybe one day porting to console?

It has 1 button because they moved away from the pot system, because its a boring mechanic that didnt actually add anything. Pots are a way to compensate for a poorly implemented resource/health system, Blizzards solution was to make their system good enough to not need it. Poe moving to make pots a fundamental mechanic isnt an improvement if the potion system is a bad system for the arpg genre.

You said the inventory system was fixed to make life easier on consoles, then i said it was fixed because it was a bad system (if you think the old item scaling system was a good one then we'll just smile and nod at eachother) And the reason itd be worse on console is a giant blocky gui system like this one are incredibly tedious to navigate with a gamepad. Its not impossible by any means, its just worse.

D3s system does lend itself to consoles, but saying blizzard sacrificed game mechanics because they secretly always planned on making a console version is bullshit. And saying it was obvious from the start is even smellier bullshit.

and im just not going defend the critically acclaimed starcraft 2 campaign, if you didnt like it, thats your burden

 

[Aeshi]

Going for the consoles. A very cheap grab by Blizzard They're getting desperate.

Kind of like how they were "desperate" back when they made a PS1 version of Diablo I?

See they know if left offline people would simple find ways to hack items into their inventory and ba, no need for RMAH.

You actually could hack items into your inventory in Diablo II (for both single-player and multiplayer) and that still had a thriving RMAH, heck it had multiple thriving RMAHs. If they hadn't added it, somebody else would have.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Going for the consoles. A very cheap grab by Blizzard They're getting desperate.

Kind of like how they were "desperate" back when they made a PS1 version of Diablo I?

See they know if left offline people would simple find ways to hack items into their inventory and ba, no need for RMAH.

You actually could hack items into your inventory in Diablo II (for both single-player and multiplayer) and that still had a thriving RMAH, heck it had multiple thriving RMAHs. If they hadn't added it, somebody else would have.

The concept of a RMAH is sort of sound, unfortunately Blizzard tried to make it work at the expense of everything else including gameplay.

 

[RJ 17]

Why do I feel like Spoony in the Betrayal Song now ? Well now I guess only starcraft series is the last product that blizzard makes me feel intrested in. Hopefully they dont kill it off with any retarded ideas.

Like splitting the sequel into three games rather than releasing a multi-disc game?

I still don't quite get this.

The first Starcraft 2 is as big as Starcraft 1.

They just specialized the single player campaign into a big Terran mission.

then they'll expand into Zerg for the second one which will likely be larger than brood wars.

A decade since their last game and they'll only have been adding a single extra expansion pack.

What other company with a popular product has that kind of restraint?

From what I've been told of SC II, a lot of Wings of Liberty could have been cut out, that the game drags itself along as though it's TRYING to make itself as big as the original game by padding it with a bunch of fluff.. No one asked for a mega single-race campaign game, and as such I refuse to see them splitting it into three games as anything other than "People have been waiting a decade for this sequel...let's make them pay for it three times." I could be wrong, since I've never played SC II I can't determine whether or not a lot of it's story is padding and fluff, but we all have our biases.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

Dont think ill be digging through 2 year old forum posts to relive waiting for diablo 3, but i still remember the jay wilson quote "7 buttons was too many" xD(thats very funny btw) But lets assume i lied, the 6 buttons was arbitrary and they didnt do any testing to see if other numbers would work. Are you saying they made a fundamental game mechanic choice in a game thats almost entirely dependent upon good game mechanics for the purpose of maybe one day porting to console?

Wait, so do you think his "7 buttons was too many" quote is funny or do you think he had a point?

There's no need to assume you lied, all I want is for you to make the case for limiting the number to 6. Quotes aren't necessary for that.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's possible, and I'm saying it does indeed lend itself better to a console port, whatever the intention.

It has 1 button because they moved away from the pot system, because its a boring mechanic that didnt actually add anything. Pots are a way to compensate for a poorly implemented resource/health system, Blizzards solution was to make their system good enough to not need it. Poe moving to make pots a fundamental mechanic isnt an improvement if the potion system is a bad system for the arpg genre.

I want to know where you get off saying that pots are a bad system for ARPGs before we get anywhere else on that.

You said the inventory system was fixed to make life easier on consoles, then i said it was fixed because it was a bad system (if you think the old item scaling system was a good one then we'll just smile and nod at eachother) And the reason itd be worse on console is a giant blocky gui system like this one are incredibly tedious to navigate with a gamepad. Its not impossible by any means, its just worse.

I said the fact that it was changed in this way makes it more approachable by a gamepad. I said it can mean that Blizzard made those changes for that reason. I didn't say that that's necessarily the reason, I can certainly think of at least one other big one.

See, you said it fixed a broken system. I want to hear an explanation instead of "just mah opinion".

What's worse than what on consoles? Because if you mean the old inventory UI compared to the new one, I concur.

D3s system does lend itself to consoles, but saying blizzard sacrificed game mechanics because they secretly always planned on making a console version is bullshit. And saying it was obvious from the start is even smellier bullshit.

The game is much console friendlier than a certain predecessor it should, ideally, build on. The devs were blowing [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112489-Blizzard-Were-Very-Serious-About-Diablo-III-On-Consoles] their [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115152-Blizzard-Double-Secret-Confirms-Diablo-III-on-Consoles] wads [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.314333-Diablo-3-Feels-Even-Better-With-a-Controller] about the console port since before the game even released. What I said was, seeing all these sly "well, maybe we're going to make a console port" every few months coupled with the fact that the game did indeed turn out to be really console friendly made it obvious that the game's going to see a console version. You have to seriously have some sort of issues connecting dots not to see that.

Now as for how much of the simplification there is with the goal of a console in mind, I don't know. But that's only because I think with this game they were aiming at the lowest possible common denominator.

and im just not going defend the critically acclaimed starcraft 2 campaign, if you didnt like it, thats your burden

Defend it from what, the fact that barely enough relevant plot points happen to cover a single campaign in either War3 or the original Starcraft?

Its a joke youd have to have wasted years on diablo forums to appreciate, but its funny, i assure you.
And the case for 6 was goddamn balancing issues. Everyone knows what balancing issues are and it doesnt need elaboration.

Pots demean and/or reduce action. Diablo 3 would be a pretty fantastic of example of this: healing actually takes a degree of skill and alot more action than hitting the heal button (they still give you an o shit button, but severely limit its use). Torchlight 2 copied the diablo 2 potion chugging system and what happened? People just chug pots and ignore the action because fuck it i have pots. Pots are boring, add nothing to the game, and an incredibly lazy way for a developer to balance its combat system.

You played diablo 2 and know what im talking about regarding inventory, it doesnt need an explanation.

Im assuming the predecessor was diablo2. Cause ive played diablo2 with a gamepad, it was ridiculously console friendly (i might even go so far as to say i prefer diablo 2 with a gamepad).. nobody said diablo 2 was made for consoles despite the fact that it -like every arpg ever made- would have run beautifully on them.

And the dots i connected are: there was enormous demand from the diablo community for a console port since d3 was announced in 2008 and blizzard said maybe. The persistence of people asking for a console version led blizzard to slowly start working on a console version. People outside the community got little snippets in news articles about a possible console version around blizzcon 2010 when the issue was brought up there. These people then assumed that blizz had been planning a console port from the start. Then when a console port seems like a sure thing people noticed that diablo 3 -like every arpg ever made- has simple controls and take this as proof that diablo was made for consoles the whole time.

 

[gibboss28]

Why do I feel like Spoony in the Betrayal Song now ? Well now I guess only starcraft series is the last product that blizzard makes me feel intrested in. Hopefully they dont kill it off with any retarded ideas.

Like splitting the sequel into three games rather than releasing a multi-disc game?

I still don't quite get this.

The first Starcraft 2 is as big as Starcraft 1.

They just specialized the single player campaign into a big Terran mission.

then they'll expand into Zerg for the second one which will likely be larger than brood wars.

A decade since their last game and they'll only have been adding a single extra expansion pack.

What other company with a popular product has that kind of restraint?

From what I've been told of SC II, a lot of Wings of Liberty could have been cut out, that the game drags itself along as though it's TRYING to make itself as big as the original game by padding it with a bunch of fluff.. No one asked for a mega single-race campaign game, and as such I refuse to see them splitting it into three games as anything other than "People have been waiting a decade for this sequel...let's make them pay for it three times." I could be wrong, since I've never played SC II I can't determine whether or not a lot of it's story is padding and fluff, but we all have our biases.

You're not wrong at all. Added to that the story was utter utter shit. God damn it was bad.

Anywho, Diablo 3 for consoles? whatever, enjoy the crap game, because that's what it is.

I think I'm now done talking about Blizzard for a while. They really make me sad.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

...to shamelessly quote Yahtzee:

"...I wouldn't hold your breath for a console port. It would lose a lot of the atmosphere of the original, since you wouldn't be able to hear your mouse button clicking about fifty times a second."
"You click around town, click your way into some quests, click down to the dungeons, click all the enemies to death, and then click back home again. There's more clicks than a school for dolphin telegraph operators."