Diablo III for the First Time – Blaugust 12
847 words.
The quest for non-WASD games to play using only the right hand on the mouse inevitably leads to either strategy games or isometric action RPGs. I’ve been through a number of strategy games already and I just can’t get into them right now. In the past, I’ve turned to Path of Exile in this kind of situation (because it’s free), but this time I decided to try out the trial version of Diablo III for the very first time.
I was late to the Diablo party. Most of my Quake friends loved it, but I stubbornly rejected it until later in the game’s life cycle. I think I played Diablo II at launch, but I don’t remember much about that game except being disappointed in the obvious lack of 3D rendering. Both of those games stunted most of my enthusiasm for isometric games going forward, and I tend to avoid them now.
I just can’t stand not being able to see what’s past the edges of the screen. My character should obviously be able to see what’s there, so why can’t I? It just feels like a completely artificial, arbitrary game limitation. It makes sense in older games because of technical limitations in graphical rendering power. But it’s 2018 now. Computers are perfectly capable of rendering a 3D world all the way to the horizon.
Anyway I hoped to set all that aside and try Diablo III, and maybe-just maybe!-find a game that would hold my attention all the way until my thumb is healed enough to finish Dark Souls Remastered (which is the game that I want to play).
I loaded up the Blizzard launcher on Saturday morning, and downloaded the free trial for Diablo III. The “Starter Edition” as they call it. What I expected was a continuation of more of the same from Diablo I and II, just with upgraded graphics. That’s why I never bothered to buy D3, because I’d already played that game… twice.
I was pleasantly surprised to find there is actually a bit more depth in Diablo III. NPCs talk to you and there are quests and storylines to follow. I don’t remember anything like that from the first two games. (Wikipedia tells me there was a storyline in Diablo II, but I have no memory of it.) There are even some cut scenes. The “Fallen Star” campaign is not particularly deep or meaningful (it’s a zombie apocalypse story for God’s sake), but it at least gives a tiny bit of interesting content to focus on between all the hacking and slashing.
I thought I might actually go ahead and buy the game. It’s only $20 in the Blizzard store. But then something funny happened. I got to the first randomly-generated map, or at least the first obvious one. I think it was Catacombs Level 1.
Then all the Diablo-ness that I remember came flooding back, and the game reverted back to its roots: A mindless clicker. This is the core gameplay loop of the action RPG that I’ve come to dislike over the years. There’s no rhyme or reason to anything. You just click and click and click and there are lights and sounds on the screen and eventually you run out of things to click and none of what you just did mattered. There’s no strategy or decision-making involved, you just click on monsters and watch them die. Even the map is random so there’s no real exploration, there’s just moving in a geometric pattern to expose all of the areas. I don’t feel any sense of immersion, or like “I’m there,” it’s more like solving a math problem. It feels very passive to me, not much different from watching television. In fact it’s exactly the kind of game I would play while watching television, because the gameplay doesn’t require thinking.
There’s a place for that kind of game, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for right now. I’m looking for those games that are so fresh and inventive that you get so absorbed in the action or the story that you forget there’s a world outside the computer monitor and you lose track of how long you’ve been playing. (Admittedly pretty high expectations-it’s very rare for me to find a game like that anymore, especially when you have to avoid controllers and WASD movement.)
I can report that I finished the content available in the Starter Edition, which went as far as killing the “Skeleton Lord.” It took me about three and a half hours, and I reached level 13 (as a Barbarian). I think I used two healing potions the entire time, and I probably didn’t even need to use those.
I’m thinking I’ll just save my $20. There are a few things that make Diablo III slightly better than its ancestors (companions and their banter, quests, etc.), but if I have a burning desire to play this kind of game in the future, I can always re-install Path of Exile, which is close enough for me, and free.
Archived Comments
bhagpuss 2018-08-12T20:10:36Z
If you want an MMORPg to play with I would suggest Allods. It has click to move and I can play it enjoyably on a tablet with no special mobile adaptations. It’s also very good in a WoW-clone sort of way.
Some of the Eastern MMOs have auto-run for questing which means you don’t have to do an awful lot but sit back and watch until you need to fight something. If the combat is action style then all you have to do is click lmb/rmb. The combination of click-to-move, auto-run for quests and action combat makes a game almost entirely playable using just the mouse, I think. From memory I think maybe Twin Saga has all three although it might be tab-target/hotbar - not sure. I really like dTwin Saga.
Alli 2018-08-12T23:45:39Z I like Diablo III when all I want to do is kill a whole bunch of stuff. Which isn’t my main gaming motivation very often, so I haven’t gotten very far along in the game.
Jeromai 2018-08-13T00:03:30Z
Not quite Diablo related, but what are your feelings on adventure games, specifically from Wadjet Eye? The Blackwell series has five games. They also just released Unavowed a few days ago, which is fully voiced and pretty rock solid in terms of storytelling and choices with ethical dilemmas.
If you’re looking for something truly fresh and inventive, then maybe you’re looking for the smaller indie games along the lines of Papers Please, Beholder, Prison Architect, Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Frostpunk and the like. They’re kind of strategy/resource balancing games, but not in the same vein as the big 4X, Xcom or Total War types.
Izlain 2018-08-13T00:26:02Z
Diablo III doesn’t have the “strategy” or skill really injected into the game until you hit the level cap (70) and start looking for class armor sets and really start getting upgraded. I also found that the game feels pointless unless you roll a hardcore character and death is permanent. It actually makes it feel horrible when your high level character dies, but also makes you think twice about jumping headfirst into groups of mobs.
The seasons add a nice level of depth as well, or at least more goals to work towards. I actually don’t play the story mode anymore (well, haven’t played the game in over a year) but rather play the adventure mode so that you just do sets of quests to get chests and then later do rifts and other more difficult content. This is particularly fun to open up exclusive to the season items that you can’t get otherwise, and of course I do it all on Hardcore. Just my two cents.
UltrViolet 2018-08-13T13:02:45Z If those adventure games are anything like Telltale games then I would probably enjoy them, but I’m trying to stick to games I already have and not buy too many new games just for this. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Rimworld though.
UltrViolet 2018-08-13T13:07:31Z Oh I’d forgotten about Allods, I might have to try that one again.
UltrViolet 2018-08-13T13:12:15Z It sounds interesting but I don’t know if I’d have the patience to get that far into the game. Traditionally I tend to wash out of games that have a really fun endgame when the parts leading up to that endgame aren’t also fun.
Calthaer 2018-08-15T02:09:01Z Shadowrun Returns comes to mind…isometric RPG, tactical combat, no thumbs. If you have it. If not…this series is so good I would say get it.
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