I'm interested in it. When you say you completed the game, do you mean on normal? If so, try nightmare - the challenge does get raised a bit (not a lot though). EDIT Also you could play with friends, as that increases the challenge.

However if you're only interested in the story then I guess this isn't surprising. You could always try the other classes too if you've only played with one. For myself, I find the game fun enough to keep playing despite completing the story (even with it's shitastic ending). I've only completed the game with one character, a wizard, so I feel like I haven't experienced all the content anyway - and getting to max level means unlocking all the skills and runes too. Also I want to see how full of shit inferno mode is.

Were you a fan of D1 or D2? See, I found even normal mode "meh," but it's tolerable because I've been gaming with 3 good friends. The issue with D3 is that I never really liked D1/2 all that much due to the mindless SP hack and slash, and shit/nonexistent story. The gameplay however got great at times (Fighting "The Butcher" in D1 was always a hoot and D3's butcher was a HUUUGE letdown by comparison, mostly due to the fight, but also: no fucking setup. It was more like "HEY, remember how cool the Butcher was in D1! He's back as some generic fat guy! Get your parents permission bef..... wait, you guys should be in your 30s by now, WTF is wrong with you!?"). None of the short-comings matter though because Blizzard could shit in a box labelled "Diablo 3" and fans would send death threats to any reviewer who gave it a 9.5.

I mean seriously, you get hilarity like:
Emphasis mine. The guy gave it 100/100, which literally means it's fucking perfect, but it isn't because...... fucked if I know. It's like GTA4 reviews all over again.

The "story," for lack of a better term, was just a bunch of fantasy cliches beaten to death over the past 60 years (without even a new twist on any of them) with loads and loads of plot-holes to boot, specifically leaving many points left open so they can whore out a bunch of expansions rather than come up with anything original. At some point, Starcraft 2 and Cata really showed how creatively bankrupt Blizzard is but they'll still make millions because, at the least, they understand game mechanics fairly well. But, besides the Voice-acting and cinematics, there's nothing about D3 that screams "AAA developer: $60 please!"

People still give a shit about gaming reviews? I thought everyone knew professional reviews were little more a bunch of paid advertising and circle-jerks these days.

My current favourite is the IGN Dragon's Dogma review that complained about it taking him 18 hours to cross an area he was woefully underlevelled for and then warning players that they can't change class... because he wandered off and wasted his time dying over and over rather than walking 5m to the vocation changer. INFORMATIVE!

Since the manual, the ingame tips and the team AI constantly tells you some areas are too dangerous and you should go elsewhere if you hit a brick wall, its clearly dishonesty. Because reviews are so useful and serious business. Not marketing. Honest!

About playing games after you finish, to me it depends how much fun the actual activity in the game is. Some games are fun because of what's happening or the plot or the amazing power or whatever, and they're not always replayable. Games where the stuff you're actually doing is fun (like the combat or whatever) are way more replayable. I can't even be bothered finishing the game I'm playing at the moment because chopping dudes is too much fun to care about 'finishing' the 'story'.

IGN is in general full of the most absurd rubbish bullshit artists that profess to call themselves 'game journalists'.

The real wonder is how come more people don't realise it.

No, what it means is that a score on a 100 point scale is utterly meaningless as a summary of a videogame review.

Because I bet you would have been just fine with the review coming out at something like 95 or 96, but if I asked you what the difference between a 96 and 100 were in specific terms relevant to the written review you simply would not have an answer.

Best course of action is that if a publication thinks that scores beyond maybe a 10 point scale as a quick summary are meaningful or useful then you can safely ignore that publication.

I mean videogame reviews have become useless anyway because reviewers take no time over each game, have barely any critical skills, and are generally a bit dim and easily distracted by polish and shine, but videogame review scores are the dingleberry on the arse of the uselessness.

I thought that was pretty evident from my post.

That's not exactly a difficult thing to do. If a reviewer points out how the gunplay controls in GTA4 are finicky and "sticky," the counter system is unresponsive, and cars handle like they're full of concrete, but gives it a 10 for controls, I can easily see an issue with that.

I was talking about fanboys making death threats and posted the first game review I found with "I'm feeling Lucky" WRT "Diablo 3 review." What do you think is the first thing idiots bring up (besides calling you a troll or this new "entitled gamer" shtick they've been on) when you point out flaws in their new messiah? They bring up popularity and/or game reviews numbers without even reading said reviews.

You could bash a game on every level but give it a 9.5 and people would praise your prowess as a writer, provided it's from the right developer/publisher. If it's anything you've seen in a TV commercial though, you'd better give it a 10/10 unless you want to get firebombed.

And you guys are crazy if you think reviews don't have a very important purpose: what else would publishers paste all over GOTY editions of the original game? Actual decent box art? Ha!

The itemhunt is still there, but the fact there's only 60 levels and that you can't allocate statpoints (strenght, vitality,...) yourself is really hurting the replayability. Much less room to experiment with now.

I guess "paid advertising and circle jerking" wasn't a clear enough explanation on why they still have them?

(You'd be fooling yourself if you don't think they pay journos for good reviews.)

"Dude, all the money spent on marketing makes the games better!" (1MB GIF). I always knew reviews were a money game (it's been that way since before GamePro was doing PS1 reviews). Gamepro would just refuse to comment on broken points of popular games, sweeping them under the rug or understating them. But over the past few years the whoring just got blatant. Numerous review sites played off game crippling issues with the netcode in Brink and said it wouldn't be fair to judge the game off that because "they'll patch it." Gameinformer went full-on stating "we won't review the game until it's patched so as to remain objective" (or something to that effect). These days it's like reviewers just gave up and figured they can get away with anything (and it works): "Game is fundamentally broken, but... Bethesda... 9/10.

Anyway, enough of my rambling: Blizzard, please stop signing me into general chat, forcing a "/leave general" every time I login. Yea, I know it's nitpicking and a small annoyance, but come on, no one listens to general in WoW, who the fuck would in D3? I figured 5 seconds with google could fix this:Are you fucking kidding me?

Your post seemed to indicate that you were having a problem with the specific score given ("lol 100/100 means perfect even though that word has no meaning in this context"), rather than that you had a problem with the concept of overly specific review scores (seriously, if Roger Ebert gives a movie 4/4 stars no-one tries to say "But dat means it must be perrrrfect coz it got maximums score", only gamers are fucking thick enough to think that a review score is a mathematical expression).

Seriously, the real problem with 100/100 is that you cannot adequately argue the difference between it and 99/100. I would say that you cannot successfully justify greater than a 10 point scale. Any publication that gives half points or especially scores out of 100 is kidding itself.

There was no room to experiment in old diablo. You either spent points on the key stat for your class or you got horribly ruined as soon as you played above Normal.

If the mechanics of the game (killing monsters) and metagame (increasing your numbers) had been more fun, then having more than one viable build per class wouldn't actually have mattered.

You could experiment with build classes in D2. Melee Sorcs and Necros, Cleric Paladins, any melee build that used two-handed weapons (max block on a shield basically meant 75% physical resistance which is why most endgame builds had a shield incorporated into it) - all of these are atypical builds that actually were viable. Gear was important, but these builds usually took advantage of skills that were often overlooked when synergies were introduced in 1.10. (like energy shield for the sorc had a synergy from tk that was useful but required a huge skill investment)

D3 unfortunately, seems to make the classes too distinct. The Demon Hunter is destined to be a ranged attack class, almost all of her skills make use of that so it would be foolish to equip a melee weapon. The Barb and Monk are the same but for melee. I haven't played the Witch Doctor so I don't know about it, I think the Wizard might have some melee abilities.

Wizard/Witch actually play like a melee/range hybrid.

I haven't tested all skills yet but so far Disintegrate (Energy beam covering the whole screen, like dragonball kamehameha) and Meteor (think big falling rock) are the best ranged skills while Explode (when surrounded by many mobs) and Spectral Blades (regenerates Arcane power) are melee skills of choice with liberal use of Frost Nova.

Right now I'm playing a lvl 51 witch on Nightmare - Act 3, frolicking with Azmodans spider chick.

btw, Staff of Herding... what a nightmare to get the bloody ingredients. But it's worth it! ("There is no cow level!", "mooo... ah moove along" )

---

"Bring your thousands, I have my axe."
"Bring your cannons, I have my armor."
"Bring your mighty... I am my own champion."
Cue Unit-01 ramming half the Lance of Longinus down Adam's head and a bemused Gendo, "Wrong end, son."

So, I had a chance to sit down and have "the talk " with my Barbarian. It seems that trying to stack mitigation and slowly wear down mobs is for pussies. He really wanted to stack shitloads of crit % and crit damage and just throw out 8-14k crits in AOE (conal actually) scenarios. And I'm ok with that. NOTE: Ignore that I'm hovering over the life regen stat.

I'll revise so we can let this shit go and get on with watching the train-wreck that will only end up as a fender-bender with D3: don't point out large flaws with a game and give it a perfect (or better than average, whatever 100/100 means) score. The whole thing stemmed from an argument (I didn't get to finish because a mod deleted it) on the SWTOR forum where a guy argued against me pointing out flaws with the engine by linking to a review that gave it a high rating (don't remember what). He didn't even read it because the reviewer pointed out the same engine issues I did (such as with the lag on the fleet and on Ilum). The score is everything to whores of a series.

As for Ebert? Back when I read his reviews (when I gave a shit about movies), people quoted his reviews, not his stars. I specifically remember his comment about the D&D movie (about it being more like a bad RP session than a series D&D movie). The people I argue with don't quote reviews, they quote "10/10, game is perfect, fuck off troll!" ::the thread you are looking for cannot be found, please contact an administrator.::

I think someone has not seen the hilarious video of a barb owning inferno Azmodan with weapon throw spam.


EDIT: You can still experiment with a variety of playstyles, even attempt a melee-type demon hunter with grenades as a hatred generator and using mainly stuff like fan of knives or traps. All that ends as you get into higher difficulties where the game essentially starts corralling you into certain most-efficient builds for each class, but until then go crazy.

Go play on the hidden level that'll keep you entertained for a short while.

---

"There are very few problems that cannot be solved by the suitable application of photon torpedoes

Finished Hell and made level 60 earlier today. So far Inferno has been "fun" if dying and running back several times is your idea of fun. My favorite thus far was a elite group of teleporting, illusionist, damage-reflecting, extra-health zombies.

I found a Demon Hunter build that cranks out some pretty good damage, but I still get obliterated by elite mobs. The few end bosses I've reached thus far have pretty much been jokes though.

Anyone interested in exchanging battletags and teaming up?

Am I doing something horribly wrong (right?) or is everyone online just terrible at this game? Level 55 on Hell mode, doing some public games (for some dumbass reason), and it's hard when the wrong combination of enemy perks comes up. That said, I throw out 20k crits constantly with my crit rate, and can usually count on multiple 50K+ crits in a longer fight (most I've hit was just over 70k). With all that, I still walk around with 40k HP, 1k per sec life-regen, and ~500 life on hit (which I'm trying to get higher, but those items are expensive). My Overpower standard damage is like 10k, but if it crits (and it does a fair share of the time), it can easily put out 50k to everything around me (great for clearing all that trash around elites). I've only bought 2 items above 30k (a ring and boots for ~75k), so it's not like I'm paying gold to win.

Only one person who's joined my games has had over 20k HP (a mage who had terrible DPS), many have around 12k. They get one shot constantly the second an arcane totem or void zone hits them. Those abilities tear me up as well, but I'm melee and can usually leap away before I get gibbed. Games are nothing but "/p X ability is bullshit" and I want to scream at them to go get some fucking gear, but the gold drops with 4 people are too good to pass up.

I understand there's a lot of people playing this game, but fuck, with 100k gold you can pretty much get a complete set of level 55 stat appropriate gear, sans rings and amulets (unless you get really lucky). Even those people who do that tend to forgo vitality completely in favor of their primary stat and health regen. The problem is, regen doesn't do shit when you have 16k HP and get hit for 17k.

I've run into instances where I come into a public game with occasionally a person who is seriously underlevelled for the area we're in. Say nightmare mod, fields of misery, and the guy is at the very minimum level for it. I think one thing that might've happened is they have a friend who is further ahead in the game than they are, invite the person and they hope for massive levelling by tagging along with the stronger friend. Except exp gains are hardcapped so perhaps they're not aware of that mechanic.

Either way these players are seriously fish out of water and seem to get vaporized when a blue so much as looks their way.

Also some people just can't play well. I've seen a DH stand still and shoot away in a desecrator aoe with his hp dropping rapidly. He died and I had to rez him, but point being some people seem unable to just play well.

And the thing is you don't even have to go to the AH to get good gear. The gear you find in-game with moderately purposeful MFing combined with some skill should let you solo any mob in the game even at two player games in nightmare mode. Hell mode and higher you're probably more likely to find players who know what they're doing.

So we beat Diablo on Hell mode last night. Tough fight. By tough, I mean, I couldn't 4-shot him. I could however pop berserker, overpower, use Warcry for rage, then hit him 4 times for 150k+ (and once for 173k). I died when he was at 10% and it took the other 3 guys longer to take his last 10% then it did for me to get him from 50% to said 10%. Even without berserker, I can still throw 120k crits all day.

So, we started Inferno not long afterward. I'll start off by saying: I never expected to walk through the hardest difficulty. What I did expect was Blizzard to not skull-fuck my class because of a difficulty change. The first uncommon we ran into was "Molten, Waller, Fire Chains, and Arcane. (at least I think, I know for certain they didn't have Vampiric). This is a pretty bad setup, but it isn't undoable for me as the mobs only had 700k HP. I can burn them before they burn me. Except, whoops, my Hammer can't break 85k since going up to Inferno. Oh and, the mobs have health regen.

I would have been angry if I hadn't pulled a muscle rolling my eyes so hard. I knew there was going to be a lot of bullshit going in, but I have literally the best gear I can get for my build without going broke on the AH (I whored money specifically for this purpose). The problem is, any gear improvements worthwhile for me are in the millions of gold range which means I have to farm gold or get lucky on drops worth selling for the same amount of money. As luck has never been my strong suite, I see soon returning to Skyrim and having actual fun rather than grinding money in a "gear=win" game.

Real money auction house is finally online. And people are actually buying items for up to 250 dollars.

On a larf, I searched for amulets with Attack Speed, Crit Chance, and Crit Damage. I laughed for quite a while. Are people actually paying hundreds of dollars, or are people just putting the items up for that price? You know what, don't answer that. I think I'd rather not know.

Anyway, after reworking my build a bit, we're making good headway through Inferno. Switching builds resetting your magic find buff is bullshit though and, of course, is hardest on melee classes.

This gif says someone paid $250 for a bow. Yes, it's a gif. Despite the link saying .jpg

Though what remains to be seen is how many more items will fetch that price once prices settle and how much power creep Blizzard will produce to keep the RMAH flowing.

If you want to be generous I'd give it a week until oversaturation kicks in.