I don’t know if any of you have seen the news, but Diablo III was announced today (Mac and PC). I for one am looking forward to it.
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/
Also, I’d love to see someone try for a Diablo clone using Unity. Seems like it would be a fun project. Has anyone done that?
It’s one of those projects, like an MMO, that a lot of people want to do when they first pick up Unity, and no one ever finishes…
Actually that what happens with most multiplayer projects due a) the additional complexity and b) the lack of long term interest. Often good for marketing but not for the game.
I really liked Diablo 1 but didn’t enjoy Diablo 2.
Same here. Well, I liked D2 a little. For an interesting indie Diablo clone try Depths of Peril. Not perfect, but it involves far less clicking and is more fun for a while (Mac version released not too long ago).
–Eric
Yep, a little bit would be more accurate regarding Diablo 2. Diablo 1 was just awesome for it’s time and Diablo 2 came with a pack of quirks were i at some point just hoped that the game will end.
What do you think about the art of Diablo 3? I’m not quite sure if i really like it and if another direction wouldn’t have been the better way.
I’ve heard some people disliking the art style, saying it is not dark enough and too close to WoW cartoon-style. I don’t think it really is though, despite the fact that it does share some obvious visual connections. Once you see it in action, it is plenty dark I think.
I too was less interested in Diablo 2 (enjoyed it though), but I still remember the mindless fun of playing the first Diablo on the first computer that I owned myself. That nostalgia alone is keeping me excited for this one.
There was a really nice Diablo “clone” called Darkstone that came out after Diablo but before Diablo 2 and – I think – superior to both (it was very stylishly done in 3D).
Darkstone was quite fun to play but it had really no depth, even for a hack&slay and it felt kind of polygonish. Other games from this genre which pop up my mind were Hexplore (very good, as it had a perfect mission length so that you really can’t stop) and NOX and then of course the bigger ones like like Dungeon Siege and the other usual suspects.
I was playing Exile and Avernum when those came out. 
Nothing beats those classic turn-based RPGs.
…Blizzard’s 3D artists may have outdone themselves Again, which at this point seems nearly impossible.
I’m impressed by the art, but honestly I don’t like those types of games much. However there is a good chance I’ll be playing Starcraft 2.
How the hell did they pull off those trees!!?
GrindLo III … Given I was annoyed by GrindLo II before I finished Chapter 2, I won’t give this a go, but I have preordered StarCraft 2 over half a year ago so they get at least cash for one of their games from me 
(SC2 is beside Spore the only preordered game this year for me)
Maybe Bob Ross could help…
lol ;O)
Personally, I love the art style of D3. The gameplay also seems pretty solid from the demoed level. But then, I’ve liked the Diablo’s and their clones, so I’m an easy target!
Well, at least from the screenshots and the video the colours are too much pastel shades and i also see those paralles to WOW. Normally i really like pastel shades and i used them quite a lot in my own games but it seems that recently they are just everywere. I also remember a little article about this somewere on the net. No one seems to love bright full blown and contrast rich colours these days.
What i loved in Diablo 1 was some sort of almost depressing and lost feeling down there in the dungeon. In my opinion Diablo should be the Doom of it’s genre and so be much darker and more intense, actually i could be a lot more scary but i guess it’s a concession to the mainstream market.
I agree Darkstone was shallow … but it’s not like Diablo or Diablo 2 is deep 
Don’t mistake convoluted UI for depth!
One nice thing about Darkstone was that in single-player mode you could control two characters (rather nicely, I might add) – versus the henchmen in Diablo 2 who are essentially 2nd class citizens.
Darkstone is one of the best looking games I’ve ever played, and I think it stands up quite well even now. The artists did a great job of working with limited polygon and texture budgets and vertex lighting. (Compare this to Oblivion or NWN2 which manage to have horrible looking characters with huge polygon counts.)
Anyway Diablo 3 looks like it will be gorgeous – no surprise there – but I suppose it will be another clickfest.
I agree Darkstone was shallow … but it’s not like Diablo or Diablo 2 is deep
<<<
Which makes it even worse… ;O)
Anyway an enjoyful but too easy and shallow game with an almost distracting and artificial upper world.
What i really would like to recommend is InXile’s The Bard’s Tale as it’s a well designed and very funny game. As you’re in, let’s say, kind of control of the Bard it’s one of the rare games were also the pubs can turn into interesting places and conversations with npcs are above the usual stereotypes, great game!
An old trailer…
→ GameSpy: The Bard's Tale - ps2 - Game Videos and Trailers
Heheh. Trade secret.
I’ve never seen InXile’s The Bards Tale selling in a store. Looks interesting.
As a general observation – most CRPGs encourage insane levels of character specialization (i.e. pure tanks, pure healers). Diablo II not only has character classes (which enforce specialization) but encourages you to pick as restricted a portion of your talent tree as possible to concentrate in.
But in good stories the heros tend to be competent all-rounders. Conan is probably the most extreme example (debatable as to whether Conan stories are good) but even he was half rogue, half warrior. Most of the best characters from literature aren’t “combat optimized tanks”…
(It’s all D&D’s fault. In AD&D’s Deities Demigods, the characters adapted from Literature are all illegal under the rules… If you recreated those characters in Edition 3, or 3.5, they’d probably be legal, but look like “retarded” designs.)
A Bard is, almost by definition, not a combat optimized tank … so it would be great to have a game where the main character was a “bard” (unlike the original Bards Tale games where Bards were pretty much optional and parties lived and died by their impenetrable front line tanks and back-line casters and healers).