Blizzard are dead to me, from a purely technical point-of-view they can create "better" games, ie more advanced gameplay with better graphics, but their ability to tell stories, their writing, has gone in completely the opposite direction. The "plot" in WoW, as it developed in the expansions and content updates, is about of the caliber of a 14-year old school girl writing Twilight fanfiction with bad grammar on some internet forum. And the plot in SC2 was no better.

Like a lot of companies, they were awesome when they were just a bunch of nerds in the 90's/early 00's with a computer or two in an office. Now they're a multimillion dollar company, and it shows.

Just pretend they stopped making games after Frozen Throne, it's what I do. Also, on the topic, it would be awesome if GOG got the rights to do ports of old Blizzard games like Diablo 1, Orcs and Humans, Tides of Darkness/Through the Dark Portal, but it's unlikely.

I am in the Diablo 3 beta, just checked it and got in a week ago so I'm not aware of the changes that several posters have said. But as a die-hard Titan Quest fan, I can say that the graphics in Diablo 3 were very, very underwhelming. Yes, atmosphere, art design and sound is all very excellent, but Titan Quest, a game that came out 5 years ago looks way better and far more detailed than what I've experienced so far on Diablo 3. I know Blizzard isn't known for pushing hardware to its extreme limits as other game developers, but for a game that's been in development since the beginning of time, I find it inexcusable that it's graphics aren't as good as Titan Quest--don't even get me started on how weak they look compared to Dungeon Siege 3's graphics.

In fact, the first thing I thought when I got to the intro screen to Diablo 3 and once I started playing was how obnoxiously similar the game looked artistically to Torchlight. Now yes, Torchlight was another game not meant to break the graphical barrier of gaming, and when turned up all the way, the graphics were more than acceptable (as are Diablo 3's), however, the game only cost $20 (and I paid $5 in a Steam deal), compared to $60 for Diablo 3 and however much the expansions will each cost.

No way in hell am I paying $60 for Diablo 3 when Torchlight's graphics from a few years ago are comparable and when Titan Quest's graphics are actually better.

That's not to say the game isn't a fun clickfest and that gameplay isn't rock-solid tight, but come on, no excuse for graphics to be so underwhelming for a game so long in development.

Well from an MMO standpoint, you want outdated graphics, because it allows more people to play your game. High-test graphics cards can shut out a lot of players, so if you're going for ultra-broad appeal, that's bad. WoW went like 6 years before it got a graphics update, and SC2 wasn't really anything to write home about (though RTS's usually aren't). However, having seen screens from the beta and tales from folks like yourself, I think they set the bar too low, especially for something that "isn't an MMO."

Agree completely. Diablo 3 isn't an MMO. Diablo 2 is considered a game for the hardcore PC enthusiast, not casual. Obviously with Activision cracking the whip, Blizzard is striving to open the new entry into the Diablo franchise to as many players as possible by mirroring the success of WOW and its business structure as much as they can with this game. But that's an MMO, Diablo isn't, and it hasn't been announced as one either. And just as you've stated, people are seriously being turned away from the game because of how watered down it seems to be heading.

As for the graphics side, I think PC gamers are pretty forgiving since they "know" which genres tend to push the graphical leaps in gaming, and the ones that simply make great games. Until the hi-res texture pack on Crysis 2 for instance, PC'ers were dumping all over the game since it was supposed to bring gfx cards down to their knees while pushing the boundary of graphical fidelity (like the first Crysis). But for other games, there's much more forgiveness. I don't expect the graphics on Diablo 3 to be stupendous on any level, but they're barely a stone's throw away from Torchlight graphics and Titan Quest, Sacred 2 and Dungeon Siege 3 crap all over Diablo 3. Again, not a problem if the game is $20 like Torchlight was, but full price? No way.

Again, like you stated, it seems many, many people share the same let-down frustration I've got especially since the game has been in development for so long and since there's no mod support which might've helped the graphics look better.

I think you're misrepresenting the situation here. It's not Blizzard that has changed - it's the gamers that have changed. I love Diablo II to bits, I played it for 8 years and had the time of my life while doing it. Would I want to do that again? Hell no. I don't want another Diablo II. I don't want to be doing endless Andariel / Mephisto / Pindleskin / Eldritch runs to grind for stuff that I'd spend hours trading for runes to finally get my Enigmas and the stuff that I actually wanted.
This is not a dumbing down, this is simply a direction in gaming. I don't have the time, nor would I want to invest so much time in a game. I appreciate the hardcore gaming of the past for what it was but games should be skill based, not frustration or time-sink based.

Before you ask, I don't like the real-money auction and I plan not to use it.

I haven't got into the beta (bastards) but judging from your post and from what I know about the game thus far (which isn't all that much) I'm happy with most of the proposed changes and I'm happy that it will not be another Diablo II.

I have completely quit playing Diablo and Diablo-like games after 10 years of playing Diablo-2.

Just wanted to say I agree with you and we see the same thing in WoW where some hardcore gamers talk about the dumbing down of WoW and all it means is that it's now less time-consuming and that's a good thing. Grinding for hours for something with a drop-rate of 0,1% is not harder than grinding for something with a drop-rate of 10% - it only has to do with time. And that's how it is with most games today. The streamlining in most games is a good thing that enhances the fun-factor and allows people with less time to also play and have fun and that's great as gamers get older.

By the way i never happened to find any Stone of Jordan in this 10 years that i play Diablo. Countless of hours of runs, countless chars but no...Not even a single one.

And Diablo II was very very flawed game. It forces you to only play or grind certain areas from certain levels. That was plain boring.

I am really glad Blizzard never made a game in a genre I care about because I feel like I would be really raging right now.

That is a very disturbing simile.

get torchlight your faith will be restored

I think he will cry how boring it is. I finished the game using only ONE skill.

I think that's where Diablo II really excels though - you do have to use a number of skills.
I played some Titan's Quest (not too long) but I felt that most of the ancillary skills were really just passives and semi-passives, basically shit that you have to recast at various intervals. Diablo II to me had a far wider range of active skills. Obviously this depended on the character you were playing.

Yeah, I agree to an extent. There is streamlining and then there's dumbing down though. I felt that doing things like removing weapon oils in WoW were unnecessary. Also felt that the "1 potion per fight" thing was unnecessary and also detrimental.

In general, I agree with the direction that WoW is going in (though it's been quite some time since I played) but I disagree a lot about how things are implemented.

Just like with Diablo II, I look back (fairly) fondly to the days of Sunwell (our guild got world #110 Kil'Jaeden) but would I want to spend another 2 months of my life on a boss like we did on M'uru? Hell no.

That doesn't say much - you can finish the game without using any skills at all. I think the skills in Torchlight were very well-designed. You have a couple of core skills which you can optionally use as an alternate weapon when you're not too pressed for mana, in which case you can also get lots of interesting supporting abilities; or you can focus on weapons and put lots of points into a couple of core skills to use as a trump card. The dynamic changes as you focus on something and then equalises as you get more skill points so you can specialise or break out and go a different direction. Much better than Diablo 2 where you had to plan your character in advance without knowing what skills will be interesting or become useless leaving you gimped with no means of recovery.

But yes, Torchlight is overall like a very very beautiful, well-designed scaffolding; it is a great framework for a game and improved upon Diablo in many ways but wasn't fleshed out at all, so it's understandable for someone to get bored.

I agree. I woke up and wished I hadn't written it.