Testing one two three

Diablo II (2000) General Discussion
1

Over the years I have enjoyed Diablo, D2, and D3, all to varying degrees but something that always struck me as odd was the amount of hatred in the D3 forums for the game and those who seemed to enjoy it.

Out of curiosity I decided to see if the players in the D2 forums would act as entrenched in their beliefs as the D2 players that seem to frequent the D3 forums.

So I posted the following here:

The result were the following two posts which can be seen below my own opening statement:

To be honest ^this reply is far less confrontational than I expected. in fact it is quite neutral and balanced even if it is short and gives one a feeling of “meh whatever” and"opinions are opinions I suppose".

The ^next response is closer to what I would expect from a player defending a game they enjoy in the forums. While this response does get a bit personal it really isn’t nearly as confrontational compared to some of the things I have seen in the D3 forums.

Both responses seem to indicate what I previously suspected (which may or may not be true) that most players who enjoy a game spend their time enjoying it rather than posting about it. Also that the D2 players who are fervently arguing the superiority of D2 over D3 in the D3 forums my not be fully representative of the D2 community or those that still enjoy it.

At any rate I find those of you here in the D2 forums to be quite chill compared to those in the D3 forums (D2 and D3 players alike.) Something I think all of us in the D3 forums could learn from.

The idea that individuals enjoy different games for different reasons no harm no foul it is just the way of games.

Basically if you enjoy it then play it if you don’t then find something you do.

Thank you for your participation and my appreciative respect to you all.

2

Your take has been registered I guess

1 Like
3

The take of a peasant peon. Dually noted.

1 Like
4

Well your post was your opinion, it didn’t really raise any points that I considered worth arguing with. It was your take, which I wouldn’t consider a good one but everyone can say whatever they want.

If your post had any particular attacks to Diablo 2 or D2R other than “D3 is better” (an opinion I actually shared at some point although now my views are different), I may have offered counter arguments, where them objective things to debate of course. Since there was none such thing… “Your take has been registered, I guess” was all I had to say.

1 Like
5

Shoggie never trolls and usually gives a genuine answer, even if I think he is dropping some guano sometimes. Sometimes = 5%. I do however think that the 5% guano is to help enhance his points or opinions that are the 95%.

6

Well my post:

It isn’t a representation of my true opinion it was really just a mild twist of what I keep seeing in the D3 forums for the purpose of analyzing the possible responses.

My true opinion is that each game has qualities I really enjoyed just as they all have or had minor qualities I didn’t. D3 just happens to be what I am enjoying at the moment.

Obviously I enjoyed the original Diablo. I would suspect that most of us, who were around at that time and still are, enjoyed the original which led us with anticipation to purchase D2.

I don’t often debate the finer points of what I enjoy in a game because honestly I don’t expect others to enjoy the exact same things I do. I find the idea of debating that others “should” enjoy what I did is childish. Some people may enjoy some of the same aspects I do but some may not, there is nothing inherently wrong in that. What I enjoy about a game affects no one just like what they enjoy doesn’t affect me. (In existing games).

I suspect that those who enjoyed D2 but constantly argue against D3 in the D3 forums were those that purchased D3 with the expectation it would be an expansion upon D2 containing improvements to a system they already enjoyed rather than a vastly different game in regards to mechanics and other aspects.

The idea that when you purchase a game if you like it you play it. If you don’t then you head to the forums to suggest changes to it that would bring it into line with what you do enjoy. Or in the worst case you simply stop playing it.

I have a quirk of sorts, that may be unique or not I don’t really know, that leads me to take certain things as they are when they are not what was expected. For example the recent Marvel Movies, I grew up reading the comics the movies were based upon. Obviously there are a ton of conflicts between the version the movies present and the original material they came from. Sure I have the initial feeling of WTH or disappointment, but then my brain switches over automatically and makes the attempt to enjoy the content for what it is rather than what it is not.

For new and upcoming games I understand the fight to influence developers through forum usage and the ensuing (opinionated) debates over what content is enjoyable and what isn’t. But those types of debates have been happening for years in the D3 forums a game which was long ago set in stone in regards to core changes. Why?

Then on top of that Blizz only adds fuel to the fire by making the D3 forums (a place they don’t use for feedback anymore to any real degree) the place for players to duke it out for three upcoming releases instead of making a new forum category.

This is where I suppose I was conditioned, to become a bit spiteful, by years of seeing arguments based on opinions, of which game is better and why, as if they were fact in a forum that all I want to do is find factual information relevant to the game I am playing. I apologize for falling prey to that.

In the end I am thankful for your honest civil and balanced response and I wish more players in the D3 forums were as thoughtful as you are in regards to posting responses.

I will try to do better in my own.

7

Still my favorite game in the series despite it’s flaws. Might be the one with the best, most cohesive and most intriguing story in all of the trilogy (soon to be tetralogy).

That’s my opinion, although my moments of enjoying D3 passed as I began to feel extremely frustrated by it’s itemization and how much RNG there is between a horrible version and a great version of the same legendary item. I think that there were things D3 did better than D2 and vice versa, I think there are things D1 did better them all of the others (like atmosphere, world and lore, spookyness, etc). The reason why I look forward to D4 is because I want it to do more things right than all the other 3 games combined did. Whether or not that happens, time will tell. My faith in Blizzard both as a company and as a creative force has diminished quite a lot with recent ocurrings, both about the scandals involving it and the decline in quality in games I used to care about (like WoW). But I never judge a game before I play it.

1 Like
8

^ I share very close similarities with that perspective although I can’t say that I don’t judge games before playing them. Perhaps assessment would be a better word than judge for me. Obviously if there are things I no longer enjoy like the playstyle of MMOs it doesn’t mean I hate everything about them it just means I no longer enjoy the majority of aspects that they bring to the table. Thus while I don’t judge D4 on the basis of if it is a good game in general I do make the assessment that the mode of game play it brings is something I no longer enjoy and thus is not something I want to purchase.

I do fear however that I am very judgemental when it comes to the path the gaming industry has been pushing towards which seams drastically opposed to the game modes or style of games I do enjoy. Those types of games seem to be entirely thrown aside as sacrificial lambs in the journey to generate more income or even in some cases obvious greed.

At best the games I enjoyed came from a generation of developers who’s end focus appeared to be the joy of creating games of substance over profit.

There are developers that still attempt this but the market seems to be more competitive and difficult than it used to be. Or perhaps it is simply nostalgia playing tricks on me in a world that now holds higher technological demands.

9

I just play a lot of games. I have literally thousands of games combined in my steam, my shelves of physical games, and other digital places like battle net, gog, psn and so on. One of the bright sides of me playing a lot of stuff is that if I’m not having fun with something, I can just move on to something else, although sometimes I do want to get my money back for the time I wasted with the bad games.

The game industry is very diverse in what it brings, and I think we’re currently in a much better state then we were 10 years ago. For example, I used to have serious problems with how the singleplayer FPS genre was dominated by modern military shooters like cod and battlefield, whose singleplayer campaigns I largely dislike, but we’ve seen a return of the “boomer shooter” which are the games inspired by doom, quake and other games of that era (Doom 2016 and Eternal, Dusk, Ion Fury, Ultrakill and so on) which is something I thought I’d never see again and I’m pleased. The indie game scene is full of stuff for all tastes. So I don’t really think the game industry as a whole is going in a bad direction, but certain companies, especially AAA ones, might be. Actiblizz, unfortunately, seems to be one such company.

10

Just out of curiosity what is your typical method of playing all those games?

For instance do you find a game you enjoy and play it specifically for many hours and then hit the swap pile when you get bored of it? Or do you constantly swap between them all?

^ I think I am going through a similar drought of games I enjoy now. How did you handle this?

11

Back when the whole market was dominated by modern military shooters, I went to replay the classics and their mods. Thankfully, the doom mod community, quake, all the build engine games, etc kept me occupied until the resurge in games that follow that style came. If there’s no new stuff that you like, maybe replay the classics?

I can’t honestly said I’ve played every single game I own to completion, many are in my backlog of games that I still wanna play. The ones I did play, that usually are a lot, I usually immerse myself into. For example, last year I had a big vibe for the .Hack series (classic PS2 JRPG), I sat down and maratoned all the games in like a week. Some games I just play a little everyday, for example, I don’t think there’s any day in the last year or so I haven’t played a few games of Tekken 7 and Guilty Gear (fighting games), and I also really enjoy playing at least like 20 minutes to an hour a day of rhythm games like osu! and etterna. As of late, most of my playtime is just Final Fantasy XIV, although I’m also revisiting Quake 1 now that the remaster is out and having a blast with that (again). On my future plans of games I wanna play to completion are Tales of Arise when that comes out, Gran Turismo 7 which I’m very much looking forward to (big fan of the series), and a big ol’ pile of indie games I have in my backlog.