Diablo 3 Dev Talks Multiplayer Options, Long Dev Cycle 59
AusGamers spoke with Blizzard's Jay Wilson recently about Diablo 3's multiplayer experience. Among other things, Wilson said the developers were making an effort to encourage cooperative gameplay. For example, each player within a particular game will see different loot drops from monsters, which prevents competition over who can click an item the fastest, and encourages trading. He also mentions that a team is already working on methods to prevent cheating, and he discusses why Blizzard games tend to be announced so long before they're completed. "One of the reasons why we actually prefer a really long window before we release a game is because we want a lot of feedback; we want to hear what people like and don't like about it; we want to give them several opportunities to play it before release."
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Yes, they would be more receptive to negotiations.
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Perhaps those games were successful in spite of bad timing? I wouldn't say the success of WOW was based on an early announcement.
Just for the record, I have no idea what the announcement lead time was for those games, only I, as an individual get less interested the longer I have to wait. Will I play DNF? Not likely.
Alright - I'll start (Score:1, Offtopic)
WHAT?! - NO PALADIN CLASS?!
Now I'm a little disappointed that the Barbarian is (so far) the only class that is returning to Diablo.
Maybe they will call it something else, but it will still function as a pally.
OK cue the WHAT NO XXXX class for the other classes now. The only other classes I played were the occasional necro and barb.
Re:Here's some fuckin feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
If the only thing Blizzard does is to remove incentive for assholes to play the game, it will be a resounding success for the vast majority of players, and for Blizzard. Griefers ruin the game for everyone except themselves.
Sorry you want to grief players to have fun. Go ahead and leave, because we won't miss you one fucking bit.
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That's weird, I'm pretty sure that where you typed "boring" you meant "fun."
No they aren't (Score:4, Insightful)
All games get boring eventually, griefers or no.
However, games that give plenty of room to griefers are only more interesting to griefers. Griefability does not make the games at all more interesting to the rest of us.
Griefers always insist that their selfish and rude behavior is actually of benefit to those whom they make suffer, and it simply isn't true.
Yes, anti-griefing rules makes the game more boring....to griefers. I say good. I hope they make it as boring as possible to griefers, because the fewer of them the better.
Go grief each other somewhere else. And good riddance.
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Don't care if I'll be missed, and I'll find a way to grief you in game. If we can interact, I will find a way.
Griefer (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, at first I thought you were complaining that Diablo 2 is filled with jerks who just click and cheat and make your games unfun. Then I realized that you're that jerk and don't want your own fun spoiled!
I'm not very impressed by your ability to click a mouse or to download hacks that somebody else wrote. But I've learned that different folks get their jollies in different ways. It'd be nice if Battle.net could set aside a server just for all the jerks and hackers. Call it "Thunderdome". Or "Hell". They can go click, exploit, scam, and spam to their hearts delight. The rest of us will go play something fun and friendly.
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I don't think you appreciate the Diablo's. The best part was hearing people cry when you loot their gold. It's so great because the economy in Diablo is so broken, they may as well be crying that you stole their pocket lint.
It never gets old.
Also, you carebears out there would enjoy griefing too. All you have to do is fake interest in an obvious scam. Ask dumb questions the whole time and see how long you can maintain the scammers interest. Not only is is a hoot, but you're making the world a better place t
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There is only one problem with your suggestion.
Griefers don't want to have fair competition, and don't really want to fight other griefers. It's why UO died such an ugly death. They were hemmoraging subscribers at a pretty awful rate before they made the whole "light/dark shards". That just happened to get rid of the rest of the players. (And while the UO fanbois always recall how absolutely GREAT the game was prior to that change, I noticed that after the change, the PvP side of things was a barren was
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Those bosses better be optional or multiplayer-only then, it'd suck to run into something you cannot fight in singleplayer and get stuck.
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Bowzon/summoner was kick ass aswell.
Single Player please. (Score:4, Interesting)
I loved Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. However, I'm not really interrested in multi-player games. I only hope Diablo 3 will keep an enjoyable single player mode.
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>Diablo wasn't significantly different in multiplayer. D2 was even less different.
D2X in single player is close to impossible in Hell difficulty. Only a few characters, with very high end equipment, can hope and complete the game.
Also, a lot of items were available in multiplayer only, and that's a pity. Like Smartcowboy, I very much prefer single player.
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Re:Single Player please. (Score:4, Funny)
Can a session really be "fag" if there's only one person playing?
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Well I think that's part of the problem! I quit playing World of Warcraft because I got to the point where I needed a group to make progress. But if you're part of a group of friends or a clan then you have to play whenever the group plays, whether you want to or not. Otherwise you get left behind levelwise.
Multiplayer RPG is really fun if you and your friends have a ton of time to spend. But people who are busy, have scattered friends, or just want to play occasionally need a valid
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Re:The biggest problem with D3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. If I'm wielding a sword with fire attributes I want to see the sword flaming when I'm carrying it. When you play a tabletop game, and your character has a badass magic weapon, don't you imagine the weapon glowing/sparking/flaming?
It was? I thought it was the fun of nonstop hacking and the ability to fire tons of arrows without having to carry any and the ability to cast walls of fire on all who oppose you. That doesn't sound realistic to me.
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If I'm wielding a sword with fire attributes I want to see the sword flaming when I'm carrying it.
Yeah, me too. But look at the first part of the gameplay video--the weapons are two regular hatchets, and nearly every swing is a bright red streak, and every stomp creates a blue and yellow effect. There's nothing magical about a barbarian's stomp on enemies, so adding colorful effects kills contrast from actual magic and hurts realism.
nonstop hacking and the ability to fire tons of arrows without having to carry any and the ability to cast walls of fire on all who oppose you. That doesn't sound realistic to me.
There are degrees of realism. Not counting the number of arrows you shoot, or casting a magical fire wall, are obviously part of the fantasy game. That doesn't nullify t
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They probably gave special effects to the stomp because it is probably a "spell like feat type" ability, even if it's not truly magical. Charge attacks in the PS2 Diablo clones have similar effects.
As for the red streaks, I didn't notice those. Ahhh, if you pay close attention the red streaks don't happen for every axe strike. Bet those are specials too, notice how the mana doesn't go down? Bet he's using feats all the time with an umlimited mana cheat to show off the eye candy.
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When you play a tabletop game, and your character has a badass magic weapon, don't you imagine the weapon glowing/sparking/flaming?
No, actually. My DM personally prefers to have the particularly powerful items/artifacts rather mundane. Sometimes you'll get something flashy, usually it only extends as far as Sting glowing in close proximity to orcs in the LoTR.
There are times where we've almost thrown an item away [ie an old rusty dagger] but decided to cast an identify spell on just in case, and it turns out to be [in this weapons' case] a +2 dagger of levitation or similar.
More importantly, if we run a campaign in a particularly
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When my leather-bound he-elf dances through the trees he calls his friends, something will be flaming.
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There shouldn't be colors involved with every sword and axe swing.
There should be swords and axes that don't have colors involved with every swing. And not just ones that suck.
There. Fixed that for you.
What kind of cooperative gameplay? (Score:1)
Wilson said the developers were making an effort to encourage cooperative gameplay.
How can you encourage cooperative gameplay if the players who want to cooperate live together? Does this mean there will be support for dual USB gamepads and TV-as-monitor like on that other popular action RPG series [wikipedia.org]?
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How can you encourage cooperative gameplay if the players who want to cooperate live together?
Any time I've ever lived with people who game, all of us had their own PCs. Network them together and off you go.
PS: Some friends bought Kane & Lynch for the PC and were shocked to discover that cooperative multiplayer was not available by using 2 PCs; you had to both huddle over 1 PC with a split screen, one player using an XBox gamepad. For this reason I won't trust any title with the "Games for Windows" MicroSoft tag...
A sufficiently large monitor (Score:1)
Any time I've ever lived with people who game, all of us had their own PCs.
You have a point about M rated games like Diablo III is expected to be [gameriot.com], as each player is expected to either be in college or have a job. But E, E10+, or T rated games have players under 18, who due to school and child labor laws usually can't work to buy their own PCs and have to play on the family PC. Besides, two copies of a $40 game without single-screen multiplayer are more expensive than one copy of a $60 game that includes it.
you had to both huddle over 1 PC
A sufficiently large monitor [sewelldirect.com] should not require "huddling".
with a split screen
Diablo shouldn't
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I clicked your link from your previous post, had a quick read of the Mana series wiki; that, together with the ideas you espouse of single-box multiplay on a large screen suggest that you want Diablo 3 to be a console release. After all, a console is a computer purpose-built for gaming, connected to the TV (usually), and with controllers for multiple simultaneous players.
So are you wanting it to be a console release?
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that, together with the ideas you espouse of single-box multiplay on a large screen suggest that you want Diablo 3 to be a console release.
No, I want PC games to support both PC-style and console-style gameplay, so that indie developers have an inroad to release console-style games without having to first become a large enough company to get a console maker's attention.
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Besides, two copies of a $40 game without single-screen multiplayer are more expensive than one copy of a $60 game that includes it.
This has only ever been a problem with Steam games. Unfortunately, family-oriented LAN play is almost impossible byway of Valve's idiotic DRM.
Diablo shouldn't have to split anything if both players' characters stick within a few meters of each other. Secret of Mana didn't.
No. Just no. The Playstation version of the first Dialbo forced you to stick together and it was horrid. Not being able to go off on your on severely gimps everyone.
It sounds to me as if you just need to buy a console, dude.
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The Playstation version of the first Dialbo forced you to stick together and it was horrid. Not being able to go off on your on severely gimps everyone.
Then split the screen into two 640x720 pixel windows when the players split up, and join them back together when practicable.
It sounds to me as if you just need to buy a console, dude.
I own a console. But I want to play major label games and indie games without turning off one machine and turning on another, and I want a market that would let me develop indie games designed for intra-household multiplayer.