A reminder of what 2023 games look like

[tukkek]

I was flabbergasted when Diablo 4 came out and hordes of people were saying it looked great. Even with a zoom-level that draws less than 1% of objects on the screen, it still looks two generations older than what we see in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayeQ3CTLlMU

[p0k314NET]

This is 15 years old antique engine in a production released in 2023 that barely uses the capabilities of modern hardware. Let me remind you that this is exactly the same engine that was used for Starcraft II with minor changes (and you can see it all over the place, starting with ubiquitous stutter and ending on continuous loading screens - because engine probably doesn’t support, in 2023 (!), any modern streaming levels or world partitioning). I don't know who could get excited about this engine today. It is old, and you feel it. But you know, this is small indie company.

[tukkek]

That's great, sounds like the perfect engine for us to build a huge open-world MMO with lots of players running around and group-based world boss fights! if you could also add global difficulty scaling to make every and all roleplaying systems pointless, itemization and theory-crafting... that'd be great too!

[p0k314NET]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von tukkek:

That's great, sounds like the perfect engine for us to build a huge open-world MMO with lots of players running around and group-based world boss fights! :monstertrainhaha: if you could also add global difficulty scaling to make every and all roleplaying systems pointless, itemization and theory-crafting... that'd be great too!

I appreciate the sarcasm. Blizzard's claim before Diablo IV's release that there would be no loading screens. That was one of their main "points of interests". That is, when you go into, say, a mine - you go down there, not teleport, a room under the floor - enter, not teleport, and so on. Immersion and fluidity +10. They lied. This is the same engine they built Diablo 3 on over 10 years ago. But if it wasn't a problem then, it is UNACCEPTABLE today. Today, for example, in Elden Ring, you can traverse the entire, gigantic, detailed world, visiting ALL locations along the way, AND YOU WILL NOT EVEN SEE ONE LOADING SCREEN. In Diablo IV engine was supposed to be new, and in fact it's as much archaic s* as the Creation Engine used by Bethesda or Cobra by FDev. This is outdated disaster. And for the same reason it not only looks so bad but also works so disastrously, because it simply does not support the current hardware (so you have stutter, lags, frame drops, CPU bound, not GPU etc). But I repeat myself: you know, this is small indie company.

BTW: And that's one of the reasons why Elden Ring has 92% and Diablo IV has 58%. It's as if the decision-makers at Blizzard are completely disconnected from reality, thinking that if they mentally live in 2010, then everyone functions that way too.

[tukkek]

It's painfully obvious that Diablo 4 is Diablo 3 repurposed, for anyone who's paying attention - and I don't mean just the engine, either. At least it was done semi-competently enough that it fooled most dummies but it becomes apparent when you try to figure out the source of all the weird, terrible issues the game has (technical and design-wise).

I didn't even play D3 myself and I can tell i's a hastily done reskin just by recognizing the equivalences in both games that aren't just natural to them being the same genre or series.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von p0k314NET:

It's as if the decision-makers at Blizzard are completely disconnected from reality, thinking that if they mentally live in 2010

It boils down to two things:

1. Executives being completely oblivious to hard-realities of technology. See Todd Howtard's 3-billion-dollar Bethesda releasing an incredibly dated title in Starfield because they thought a 25-year old engine could handle a space-exploration game. Meanwhile indie studios with half a dozen employees were running laps around Starfield 5+ years ago (and today)...

2. Saving face after the embarrassing and damnng California state investigation and lawsuit. They were announcing D4 months after it happened, a full four years before the game's release (very odd), at the time Blizzard was at its lowest and needed a win the most (remember ATVI is a publicly traded company so public perception is their bottom-line).

[tukkek]

Watch about a minute of both videos at 24:55 and 41:35:

https://youtu.be/j57Xldwc9VA?t=1495

https://youtu.be/37gTTnYhTs0?t=2495

[p0k314NET]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von tukkek:

Watch about a minute of both videos at 24:55 and 41:35:
https://youtu.be/j57Xldwc9VA?t=1495
https://youtu.be/37gTTnYhTs0?t=2495

But on the plus side: the best quests, characters and dialogues in the entire Diablo series. IMHO. Excellent atmosphere. Serious treatment of the player. Lots of small details, making the world vivid rather than static. But for that, there is a terrible UI/UX. Compared to Diablo 3, two steps forward, one step back.

[tukkek]

Hard disagree, there is nothing in D4 as memorable as Cain, the Butcher or Andariel - as far as quests and characters go. Atmosphere? I honestly still think Diablo 1 is unmatched for it.

Lilith, who has the spotlight, will be forgotten by D5 while those others will remain legends.

Diablo 4 pays homage to the idea of being dark and moody but it's all very surface level - everything else in the game is screaming "casual MMO-lite experience" and that deflates any depth and immersion the game tries (mildly) to have elsewhere. "Return to darkness" indeed.

The campaign itself is diluted by at the same time trying to be a dark Diablo story-line but also a dumb Marvel movie. Some people like to eat ice cream with fries but it's not for me.

[p0k314NET]

You see, for me Cain from D3 was a parody of a character - an old man who moaned all the time. When he died, I started laughing, that's how dorky it was. Similarly, Diablo from this part, who killed with endless stream of words. Virtually all D3 characters have the mentality of a 15-year-old. And events, their logic cause brain death. If Diablo IV is a "casual MMO-lite experience", then in such a comparison Diablo 3 is a travesty of itself.

[tukkek]

You're comparing a 42%- to a 21%-rated game (Metacritic score) and trying to figure out which one sucks less. I'm not sure what you believe the point of that is.

When I talk about paintings, I picture Monet, Van Gogh, Dali... not my 5 year old nephews' watercolor of a smiling sun and a couple stick figures he tells me are his parents.

[p0k314NET]

I'm interested in my opinion, not Metacritic, especially it's been over 10 years since the release of D3, and 6 months since D4 - what kind of authoritative comparison can we talk about here? I made my opinion clear, I can't make it any clearer. Diablo 3 at the level of script and narrative insults the intelligence. Of course, you may look at it differently.

[UnrealDelusion]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Astran:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von CyberDown:

People have their preferences. Clearly graphics make the game for you, this is your game then for sure. Its true they ruin it all zooming in too far.

Eventually you clear the campaign and get to experience one of the dullest ARPG games out there. Then games like POE start to look good.

You haven't tried S2 apparently. It's the most fun I've ever had in aRPGs (except for city patrols gameplay in Marvel Heroes), literally cannot stop playing it even though I have about 20 games installed. Last time I've had so much fun was Assassin's Creed Odyssey release 6 years ago.

Clearly you haven't played many arpgs if you consider D4 and Marvel Heroes good arpg's.
Also I had no trouble to stop playing season 2 since it's still boring and shallow.

[tukkek]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von p0k314NET:

I'm interested in my opinion

I'm happy to hear at least someone is... but considering you're a literal nobody online I'll decide to ignore yours for the aggregated opinions of tens of thousands instead. All the best!

[tukkek]

Lame cash grab for kids has 90% on Metacritic, 80% on IGN and top-tier contender for GOTY.

DIablo 4 has 20% Metacritic, 50% on Steam, is the laughing stock of the Internet for an entire year, with literally zero information on updates during this weekend's Blizzcon (because they're about ready to drop it for good, probably)? Meanwhile they announced 3 WOW expansions.

Explain any of that to me? Maybe it's just a case of you struggling with the hard facts of the game and, in particular with the concept of what is a souless brand-recognition cash-grab?

https://old.reddit.com/r/Asmongold/comments/rjkt6c/original_warcraft_3_dev_on_current_blizzard/

[tukkek]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Serap Obtma.-:

Plebstation fanboy detected

I guess the people at the Game Awards are Playstation fanboys too for nominating Spiderman for GOTY but not Diablo... No wait! They also nominated a remake of a 20-year game that is on Xbox too?! Oh well, I guess they're not fanboys then, D4 is just really bad!

[Crow]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mister Magician:

If that video didn't show a dozen "progress pride" flags a minute, either that's not real spiderman 2 gameplay or it's the middle-east version.

lol nice