Diablo 2 - Who thought up this con job?

The BBQ Pit
1

OK, I’m really late to the party, but I recently dug my copy of Diablo 2 out of the back reaches of my desk, where I’d put it in disappointment after I got it. At the time, I got bored very quickly by the endless succession of:

plod plod plod, “Oh there’s a monster,” whack whack whack whackwhackwhack, plod plod plod, turn over rock, plod plod plod, “another monster,” whackwhackitywhack, pick up treasure, plod plod plod, town portal to hock all this useless shit, plod plod plod, ad nauseam

I mean, I remember it from Diablo, and I forced myself to go through all 76,898 levels on that one, to be met with the cliff-hanger cutscene which set up D2. Then when D2 came out, Blizzard screamed “MASSIVELY IMPROVED GAME ENGINE AND GRAPHICS!” The gaming world was abuzz. I dutifully purchased the game when it came out, and let me just say that I was bored off my ass within a couple of hours.

But recently, I got to thinking that there are hordes of gamers that looooooove it, and they can’t be wrong, can they? Perhaps I’d better give it another go.

It was as boring as I remember. Stultifying. Miserable. Every hour I spent with my ass going numb in my chair, watching my guy level up (Oooo! Exciting! Where’s the storyline again?,) my brow furrowed and my jaw clenched. I was determined to reach the end of the quest.

The they sprang the ultimate indignity on me. Let me get this straight: I have to go through the same sequence of boring, bland shit THREE TIMES before I get to the end of the game?

What. The. Fuck. Were the fucking programmers that late on the rollout? Did the boss finally put his foot down? “No more time, you slackers! Just rig it so the player has to go through the same levels three times.” Are they lazy assholes?

My guess is that they just wanted to make the goddamn thing as much like Evercrack as they could…endless levelling is the only thing the fucking game is good for. Jesus Christ, what a fucking ripoff. I want to use the CD’s for target practice, preferably with the lead programmer on the project holding them up in front of his face.

How can anybody actually like this fucking turkey of a game? The least they could have done is make the single player quest levels unique.

Granted, it would have essentially been the same boring plod plod kill kill sequence, but at least make the effort, you assholes.

2

I think I got about eight levels deep into the first one before I stopped assuming it was going to get interesting at some point, and asked people if it ever went beyond “It’s moving! Click it!”

Nope.

Diablo was the last game I paid for sight unseen based on its popularity.

(I’m willing to forgive Blizzard a lot based on my undying gratitude for StarCraft, but the Diablo franchise requires elective surgery or an inadvisable dosage of methamphetamine to make it playable.)

3

My brother plays that. I hate it 'cause my computers are just across the room from his, and all I can hear is click click click click click click click click click with the sound card going “slash clang arg slash clink blarg hack slash klink”

Now I think about it, my HP workstation got his USB mouse donated after the left mouse button stopped working properly. Granted all sorts of games get played on it, but I’m blaming D2 from now on. :smiley:

4

My hubby and I actually started calling our roomie Clickalicious because of his addiction to this game.

We kicked him out because we couldn’t stand the sound anymore…

5

CherryBomb: That sounds like a character from a bad blaxploitation move. Clickalicious … Superfly … Huggie Bear … Foxy Brown … Hell, you could make a movie about Clickalicious the Grand Knight of Bling, with his trusty low-rider (a pinto) and his Pimp Axe (think chrome and leopard fur), fighting the Endless Hordes of Da Man.

Then turn it into a video game.

Then pad out the video game with endlessly repetitive levels involving no mental ability and an endless patience with clicking.

Then release it and kill every left mouse button on Earth, thereby ensuring your Global Domination when people can no longer buy penis-enlarging real estate from the sons of executed Nigerian presidents.

MUA-HA-HA-HA!

6

Sorry, but I enjoy it. If you don’t, don’t play it.

7

Ok so there’s this game. And you don’t like it because you played it once before and found it boring. However you decided to play it again anyway and got pissed off with it. Somehow this is the fault of the game?

8

It’s essentially a character-builder. Not yours, of course ;). The whole addictive nature of it derives from getting neat stuff to outfit your character and said neat stuff gets neater, the deeper you venture into the game. That’s about it. That, and for the even more jaded, taking novel approaches to character design ( i.e. oddball, intentionally underpowered character ).

The backstory is actually rather good, but it really hardly impacts gameplay at all and the first Diablo was vastly more atmospheric ( and tougher ).

So the gameplay itself can be rather tedious after a time, but that hunger for a new “unique” uber-weapon or armour and the replayability that comes from the sizeable variety of novel character designs ( even more so in the LoD expansion, which truly did alter the game substantially ) is what keeps you tied to the computer.

Not for everybody, by any means. If I want a “deeper” game I fire up Europa Universalis II or even Medieval Total War or an actual RPG ( which Diablo really isn’t in most respects ) like Baldur’s Gate II.

  • Tamerlane
9

there are three difficulty levels - normal, nightmare and hell. you complete the game when you finish normal. the extra levels are for those who can’t get enough of the game. there are no special ending associated with completing it on hell level.
i had rid myself of this addiction a long time ago by passing it on to an unsuspecting friend evil grin ; now i kinda miss it, (what with the latest patch being so big that it needed a beta test) there really aren’t any other mindless arcade clickfest that can compare to diablo 2…

and the black market is still alive too! just the other day i heard some kids complaining about some ‘frost armour’ or something costing them $60! :eek:

10

word. the only thing that kept me playing the game for as long as I did was the reactions I’d get when I busted out my dual-dagger barbarian in public games.

11

OGRE, you missed the best part. The best part is when you cooperatively play with other players on B-net: Yoou stand in town while their Level 99 Amazon, hacked to be able to fire ICBMs from her bow, stands outside of town, calling for duels & killing anyone who wants to leave & play the game. Now That’s fun… :frowning:

12

I’d play that game. :smiley:

13

To the OP:

Try Neverwinter Nights and it’s expansion (you can pick up both for around $35 bucks total). It’ll be a breath of fresh air.

14

Heh. NWN. It’s basically Diablo with a dialogue tree and not as much character building. :slight_smile:

On the other hand, it looks like it might be a blast if you can find a decent GM. I never did…so I’m probably not giving it a fair shake.

I’ve been rather addicted to Diablo. I look at it as basically Freecell with swords and spells. Good way to fill time. Not something you want to brag about doing in public. :slight_smile:

15

We have Debablo 2 and it is the only game we play. I picked up NWN some months ago, but my wife’s computer is too old to run it, so we’ll just dstick to Debablo for a couple more years until we can afford a new computer.

Needless to say, we are not big into vidoe games, so there is no rush.

16

Ok, Tamerlane, you’d probably be a kindred spirit in this-

Europa Universalis II gives us 1419 to 1819. Hearts of Iron gives us 1936 to 1948. The allegedly-soon-to-be-released Crusader Kings gives us 1066 to 1453 with the promise that games can be imported into EU2, allowing one to play continuously from 1066 to 1819.

So when will Paradox give us a game from 1819 to 1936, using EU2 saved games and allowing one to save in HOI format, so we can play 1066 to 1948, eh? Eh?

17

Of course, now I bother to open my eyes and see Victoria spanning 1835 - 1920.

Well, there goes my gripe.

18

D2 is fun for mindless slaughter. If you are looking for more than clicking death then it is not the game for you. I also like the equipment hunting and stuff. Oh and never ever ever play on Bnet unless you know who’s in your game and you password it! Bleck!

NWN was ok but I got really irritated with some of the quests. You do need a decent video card and plenty of memory or the game is slow as snot! I haven’t tried the expansion yet… I’m hoping it is worth it :slight_smile: I had a lot of fun playing a ‘lack wit’ :slight_smile:

Just don’t buy dungeon siege. That was a huge disappointment.

RPG’s for the PC really haven’t taken off… that’s what I keep a playstation2 around for :wink:

Galactic Battlegrounds is pretty fun too if you like building bases and armies but don’t want a long commitment. Most sessions take about an hour or so.

19

Go play Geneforge or Avernum if you want interesting tactics and character development. Diablo is basically FreeCell on crack - just turn off your mind and keep clicking.

20

Wha, what?? PC IS the platform for RPGS.

RPG’s on consoles are a joke.

A console gamer’s idea of an RPG is text menus, boring drawn out battles where you do 10,000,000,000 bizilion HP of damage, and racing on top of overgrown turkeys.

Oh, and long, pointless cutscenes.

One time a friend was showing me the latest Final Fantasy game for the playstation. I swear I saw him touch the controller ONCE during the half hour I endured the display.

Some great RPG’s for the PC:

The baldur’s gate series (a classic)
Ice wind dale series.
NWN
Morrowind
Vampire the Masquerade
Deus X
Many of the Ultima Series
The upcoming Return to the Temple of Elemental evil
Fallout.

Not ot say there aren;t some good console RPG’s (I loved chronotrigger).