Diablo 2: Resurrected

From what I’ve heard it didn’t go too well for Warcraft 3...

 

Completely different thing; what they did with that. I think the only thing that's going to crop up here is how the game has aged: I'm guessing some fond memories may not hold up to the reality.

 

I decided to fire up Diablo 1 with Tchernobog last night and play a little bit. Still fun.. still found myself losing track of time. I will say though that the lack of some QoL features (Tchernobog fixes that a little bit here and there like faster town walk) is apparent. Also the slow pacing is definitely noticeable, as well as how it doesn't control as cleanly. I also found myself slightly wishing the control scheme was better in general, like accidentally walking where I didn't intend to. The small grid is wildly apparent where it's not AS apparent in D2. I think I like what they have changed about the game series itself in D3 with not having to load up on potions and scrolls in the inventory, it seems archaic going backwards after just completing the entirety of D3 yet again over the last couple weeks. It really shines a light on either the D3 method of a slight cooldown on the potion "slot" or how PoE does it as well. I think I'd be much more happy with allowing potion stacking and just using 1 quick slot instead of the entire quickslot usage being potions and a lot inventory space not being able to be used for items trying to balance potion load. I don't have town portal yet, which is also a big pain having to walk back to town through cleared out dungeon. You can really see where they needed to streamline things to take some of the time wasting activity out of the series.

The sorcerer was my least played D1 class by far so I'm running one now, ran into the butcher really early on lvl 2 and got myself into a bit of an unworkable position, had to restart the seed so I can grind a little more.

As far as D2 is concerned, I played that all the way through again within the last year or two, and I recall it still being as fun as always. I have zero doubts that a few of the QoL things they are adding in D2:R will shape it up as well as having those fantastic looking art assets and engine on top of it. Since it's still the SAME engine underneath and you can switch seamlessly on the fly between the old and new renderers, I have zero concerns since it's going to be the same great game with a modern look. The part I'm really looking forward to is the fact that they reshot all the cinematics as up to date 2020-2021 quality Blizzard cinematics. That's going to be great. They have showed enough gameplay here and continually talked about making sure they are not going to make any fans that are STILL playing D2 disappointed that I have zero concerns here.

WIth three new Diablo products in the oven for release over the next few years and a sizable D3 patch about to release with new features it's truly a great time to be a Diablo fan after them having neglected the series in holding patterns for a while.

 

Agree on the main but some people are not going to like it who had before; there is no getting around that. I don't see it as a problem per se, just pointing out some might find the game dated and because of it, disappointing.

I do well with older games but it isn't always the way of it: I loved KOTOR and when I saw it available on Android I purchased it immediately for a tablet I had at the time. What I found was that the game seemed ridiculously empty compared to modern titles in the genre. I tried to get into it several times but my interest would wane before long and I didn't make it far.

I also agree that it is a great game but I'd go further and say it's heavily flawed. Some character builds cannot complete the game solo: They can't get past the Ancients in hell but cannot get any meaningful experience at that stage to help get over that hump. You also have characters that struggle on their own, I started a trapper now and it's a good example. It's lightning damage is far and away it's strongest damage type but due to immunes you have to also go into corpse/melee or fire to make it work. That cuts into your meat and potatoes damage significantly slowing progression. An avenger faces no such problem. The avenger of course isn't nearly as good as a hammerdin which can quickly make solo runs on almost everything. Tele matters when a lot of the end game is crossing areas to get to your chosen grind.

You also have the fact that the game's difficulty balance was set with cheating in mind. You will never find even one of the high runes you need for the runeword that is going to give that hammerdin tele unless you cheat yourself or trade with someone who has the word or the runes but either way they are going to be duped items brought into the world through cheats. The entire online economy is based on duping and the items brought into the world from it. You will not have any of those items in single player to help your cause but the single and multiplayer face the same balance based on having all those cheats.

I'm still going to enjoy the crap out of it, D2 is like a brother in law I have, love the man but I wouldn't loan him money.

 

I suppose this will be blizzard launcher only? I'd buy if DRM free, heck I'd pay for D2 original DRM free at this point.

 

Back in the day you did have to validate your CD key during installation but that was it. There was offline and TCP/IP without ever having to confer with the mother ship and offline can be done without any connection. Battle.net was aware of your keys and did not let you on with more than one installation (same keys) at a time; that's about it for DRM as I remember it.

 

Yeah It's only going to be available on Battle.net I am guessing, same as D3. Unless you play it on console.

 

I'm pretty stoked. I was hooked on my Hammerdin and played daily from launch till WoW dropped. I dropped considerable time into D3 too, but nothing with the intensity and passion of D2.

 

Anyone see anything about the cow level? I'm assuming it's in with the single run at each difficulty and then nerfed as it has been since the, well, nerf. I was reading an article where they were opining it should be returned to it's original glory. I agree; it would be nice to have more farming options in the end game.

 

I had forgotten about the dynamics of pot management. You know: better belt with 8 slots or an inferior belt with 12? Mana to health ratio? Give up inventory for pot storage? Etc. It's a core part of your character build, much more so than I remembered.

Also forgot about how tight the storage is in this game. Too tight in my opinion; I can tell right now I'm going to have an many mules as the game will give me unless of course it's unlimited. I could see myself having dozens if it were unlimited.

 

Better have them portal scrolls ready.

 

Got the book man, well worth giving up two slots instead of one!

 

Oh yeah, completely forgot about the book...

 

Ok, got the trapper halfway there and I'm going to set it aside and make a hammerdin. That one I'll take all the way and use it to rush my other toons. I kinda prefer playing an Avenger but they are too slow for farming. I already have one of those I can import so no need to make one. I thought about getting a kicker part way leveled up but that one couldn't possibly be completed unless I play online to get all the CB it needs to run ubers.

 

Gonna have to look up the recipe for insight, or is it infinity? Can hardly get my hammers up and on target before I run out of mana. Gotta get that meditation aura going on.

Now that I've been farting around with it I'm starting to look forward to this more than I had been. Simple on the surface but there are so many little things you need to get right and always just one more (X) before you quit. On the downside I'm clearly going to have to read up; I didn't remember about getting the staff on the merc until just now. Can't remember any of the break-points, etc.

 

Reports from those playing the alpha are very positive. They are also noting a great deal of polish. Maybe it's out there before the holidays?

 

They definitely are targeting 2021 sometime, but we all know how software projects (or any project for that matter) goes with unexpected issues. I watched a decent amount of one of Rhykker's playthroughs yesterday, definitely looks great so far. Going to take a guess all the work is going to be making sure MP works solidly.

 

They've got a lot of expertise in the field so I don't expect it to stretch out too long but you're right; it's no small task. To be honest I'm figuring early holidays bud it's never too soon to rouse the rabble.

 

Remember when I said if we could transfer toons from D2 classic we might be able to use Hero Editor? Turns out you can. Not only that but as before you can change classes in the editor to one that want available in the Alpha otherwise. So what do the other classes look like? Well... The internet is here to help!

https://www.pcgamesn.com/diablo-2-resurrected/classes-best?amp

 

Very nice, it looks like it's coming along swimmingly and those other classes look pretty far along. Can't be too far off release.

 

So, the question I have is, " Why is this thread getting ready to fall off the front page?" I suppose a better question would be what can we do about it? I mean what action could we take to bring it back to the top?

 

lol so many threads were revived....ive never played diablo is there a demo?

 

Never played Diablo? Not sure about a demo, now, or back in the day. You could always ask to join the multi alpha and play for free if you get picked. Gotta say it's a good question...

 

I heard the alpha tech test was a REALLY small group + obviously influencers for the marketing. Wondering if the "beta" is going to widen the net at all.

 

Read the same, I know for certain only that I was not among them.

 

Still haven't figured out if you can use imported characters in multi off battlenet. One of my kids still has some old builds too and we could use those to rush our other characters. I'm planning on avoiding battlenet play, hate resetting ladders.

 

I don't know about the game but its look like God Of War Types game.

 

Plays differently and not by a little. Diablo is the Patriarch of all the games that followed in its footsteps. Think of what Tolkien is to fantasy; that is Diablo in its genre: Everything came from it and few dare to tread far from the formula. Rather than try and describe it I'd say catch the reviews of D2 if you're interested; the play style is not for everyone but if you dig it this is a must-buy.

 

Hate to necro a post, but I was just thinking about what a Fallout 1/2 remaster would look like. I'm kind of torn between some re-imagining of both of them in a single bethesda engine first person game, or, just kind of what D2:R is where all the graphics are up to date but the gameplay is largely the same with maybe some QoL added. I mean they should just wrap both games into one package where it just continues on or you can play either one.

Actually, now that I think about it, I want both.

 

Please no...

Fallout 1/2 running on something like Divinity Original Sin 2 engine would be amazing.

 

What about Mass Effect, you gents in on that one?

 

They reduced Miranda's ass shots - huge pass for me.

But if serious, I'm intrigued what they have done to ME1. It's my favorite of the three.
I should probably pick up the remasters, but I'm not sure I would. There's so many other games in my backlog at the moment, so ME is way down in my list.
I've played ME1/ME2 to death back in the day (always making same decisions though ), and very little ME3 (wasn't to my liking). I already know the story and there's not much new to me (except for few DLCs).
Plus it's again one of those exclusives I will have to install a particular launcher, which is otherwise useless, just to play a single game and then delete it once I'm done.
Actually similarly to battle.net and D2R. I had a battle.net account with Destiny 2 I got from free giveaway. Since D2 moved to Steam I closed it days before D2R was announced. Doubt I will make a new one again (although I'm very doubtful they removed my account information) just for as single game.

 

If the missing butt footage gets restored with a mod I'd install it.

 

As much as I adored those games when they were released, I quickly downloaded Fallout 2 and threw the Restoration Project on top of it. Ouch. It didn't age super well. A reboot would be well received as if I am remembering things properly the story and characters would still hold up nicely.

 

I recall there would be a single player alpha and then a multiplayer alpha. Now they're talking about the multiplayer beta. Beta, not alpha. Gotta wonder if the wording is meaningful...

 

Does it matter what it's called?

 

Maybe. By the usual definition a beta would be open to more testers. If they've gone from having two announced alphas and possibly more depending on the results from those to instead going to a more open beta that could imply they had better than expected results with the first single player alpha. Rhyker was thinking along those lines in one of his videos. What I hope can be inferred from it; if true, is that it's closer. If it's just someone using the terms interchangeably then it would be meaningless. The results were, by every account I have seen, excellent. I'm trying to remain positive.

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing that moving to calling it Beta would mean it's progressed out of alpha in their determination. Which is nothing but a good thing.

 

Ok, I'm in; pre-order made. I keep swearing I'm not going to do that anymore but I feel like I know exactly what I'm going to get here with D2E. Not sure what excuse I'll use next time, just have to rationalize a way across that bridge when I get to it.

 

I might buy this

any idea how I can get it too run on a 1650

 

To be honest I'm not the right person to ask; I tend to upgrade before I have to make many sacrifices. That said: Full screen, turn off shadows, Nvidia options in the performance settings, kill post processing, lower resolutions, the usual hit list. You're above minimum and that was a reasonably popular card, a search didn't turn up any in game performance reports? You would think they included some similar spec PC configurations in the beta.

 

A leak is pointing to Sept 23 for the release date. I was hoping it would be sooner but glad we're not going to have to wait all the way until the holidays.

 

We got the release date in the Microsoft E3 event. Confirmed on XBox Sep 23. They also had a few little quick shots of the redone cinematics, they look great.

 

Cool, haven't had time to check out the E3 stuff yet. I figured the leak was legit due to the timing and source but I've been fooled before.

 

Here's the Street Date trailer on its own:

 

They've removed TCP/IP; I don't do Battlenet so I may pass on this one. Not sure if the single player alone is worth buying in...

 

Neither do I. To be honest, and this is going to be very unpopular, I don't really understand why is everyone so excited about this. Sure, it looks great, but it's D2. They couldn't be bothered to make a completely new Diablo sequel so they went the lazy way, took D2 and just slapped on nicer graphics... then charge full AAA price one more time.

 

They are making Diablo 4.

 

LOL GOOD OLE KENNEY POINTING OUT OUR FLAWS.....lol....yeah diablo 4.....keep on your tippy toes when kenny is lurking

 

Just now finally installing the beta, can't wait to dabble with it a bit.