Stardock sold Impulse

[zespri]

Just being stuck zoomed so far in and being able to see basically nothing on the screen at once kills it for me. 

I don't believe that SC 2 allows zooming... Does it?

But you are right when you talk about PC games, I agree with most points. I haven't ever played a console, so can't comment on that.

[Nalgas]

Just being stuck zoomed so far in and being able to see basically nothing on the screen at once kills it for me.

I don't believe that SC 2 allows zooming... Does it?

No, which is why I can't really stand playing it or WC3, either.  Blizzard is sadly pretty much dead to me at this point after eating so many dozens/hundreds of hours of my time in the 90s.  I still appreciate the ridiculous level of polish they put into their stuff, but with the much wider variety of games I've been exposed to in the time since then, the lack of innovation/risk taking and insistence on playing it safe just makes it really hard for me to enjoy their games.  I haven't really been able to get into anything of theirs since StarCraft/Brood War.

[zespri]

This actually strikes a chord with a question I was intended to put in a separate thread:

do you think that Diablo 3 to Diablo 2 will be the same as SC2 turned out to be to SC1?

SC2 is a polished classic "korean" RTS. But when you play it you always think "I played this before". With Diablo 3 I'm hoping for at least some innovations. Do you think my hopes are futile?

I remember when I first started playing WoW. It was absolutely magical feeling. I started with a gnome and when I hit the 6th level and got through this tunnel and down the road - it felt like in a mystery kingdom from childhood fairy trail, and when I first saw Ironeforge, it was a big WOW!

I never felt about a game like this ever since. I quit WoW some years ago, but it does not take out from the experience I had had when it started.

[Nalgas]

do you think that Diablo 3 to Diablo 2 will be the same as SC2 turned out to be to SC1?

I hope it's not, but I kind of suspect/worry that it will be, based on what's gone on with all their other games.  It does sound like they're at least trying to change some of it around a bit, however, like with the orbs instead of heavy potion use, so maybe there's hope.  I never really liked the Diablo games all that much in the first place, though.  It took until Titan Quest for me to really get into that genre, so my current hopes are on Grim Dawn, which is the from part of the same team that made TQ.  Something about their multi-classing system just makes me happy.

I remember when I first started playing WoW. It was absolutely magical feeling. I started with a gnome and when I hit the 6th level and got through this tunnel and down the road - it felt like in a mystery kingdom from childhood fairy trail, and when I first saw Ironeforge, it was a big WOW!

I never felt about a game like this ever since. I quit WoW some years ago, but it does not take out from the experience I had had when it started.

I had pretty much the exact opposite experience with WoW.  I got bored before the Open Beta ended.  Sure, it was kind of pretty and supported more simultaneous players, but other than that, it was otherwise identical or even a step or five backward from the MUDs I was used to in terms of gameplay.  Unfortunately nearly all MMOs are just as bad, and there's no way I'm paying money for something doesn't feel like a major advance over what I was already doing 15 years ago, graphics aside.  The only ones that have at all caught my interest have been fully instanced, like Vindictus, because otherwise the latency just isn't low/consistent enough with more than a handful of players in an area to do much more than the usual "stand there flailing at each other" MMO combat.

[zespri]

I never really liked the Diablo games all that much in the first place, though.  It took until Titan Quest for me to really get into that genre

Interesting.  I liked D2 a lot. And TQ just did not work for me. After D2 it was, for some reason down-right boring.

What do you think of Torchlite?

[Nalgas]

I liked D2 a lot. And TQ just did not work for me.

Funny.  A friend of mine just said the same thing a couple days ago.  TQ sounds on paper like the perfect game for him, like it has everything that would appeal to him, but he couldn't get into it for some reason and had a lot more fun with the Diablo games.

What do you think of Torchlite?

It's nice and polished, which is not surprising considering their connections to Blizzard.  It's also ridiculously, absurdly, painfully easy, even on Very Hard.  My Vanquisher was literally:

1) Get Exploding Shot
2) Hold right mouse button for a dozen hours
3) Win the game

...and the only inaccuracy there might be slightly underestimating the number of hours involved.  It was fun to play through once, but it didn't really have much depth to it, and I didn't manage to make it through a second time as a different class before getting bored.  What I've seen so far of the sequel looks entertaining enough that I'll probably play it, though.

[Morslok]

A good indie diablo-style action RPG is Din's Curse. It takes the randomization to a whole new level, the towns are random, the people in the towns are random, the quests are random, and the dungeons are so random that I have rarely seen two that looked the same, let alone had the same number of levels. It also has mix-and-match classes. Got it a while back, and I definitely enjoy it more than Torchlight.

But the stand out feature is the dynamic nature of the gameplay. Basically, this game doesn't just give you quests and waits for you to do them, it gives you quests and if you don't do them quick enough there are consequences. The town could be attacked by monsters, everyone could be killed, even your quest givers. If you don't kill a bad guy soon enough he could start an uprising in the dungeon, increasing the number of monsters to fight and changing which monster types appear on a certain level of the dungeon. You can actually lose by having the town overrun with monsters. A boss monster could spawn in town.

Sorry to go off topic like that, I do use Impulse for some of my games, and I'm hopeful that they won't be turned completely into soulless corporate lackeys. However it is a possibility.

[Nalgas]

A good indie diablo-style action RPG is Din's Curse.

That really does sound rather interesting, both from your description and what I've heard elsewhere, but it's so aesthetically offputting.  I might force myself to try the demo some day and hopefully even like it, but every screenshot I've seen screams terrible, amateurish Diablo knockoff from 2003 at the top of its lungs.  Every time I see it I get worried that it'll end up like trying to play Avernum/Geneforge, which people say good things about but I'm apparently incapable of playing, because they might as well be still using the same engine as Blades of Exile back in the 90s, which felt like stepping into a time machine even when it was brand new.  Heh.

[zespri]

Din's Curse I liked a lot. When you play it you won't forget for a second it's an indie, but somehow gameplay was quite compelling for me so I played more and more.

It's actually interesting, they had three titles, Depth of Peril (which I didn't like) Kivi's Underworld, which the author said he should never have done. And then Din's Curse. Visually I liked Kivi's better, and... I don't know I liked but it couldn't keep my attention for long, so I never finished it. Maybe it's the thing with crafted levels - you know that when you play again the levels will be exactly the same. My guess, why the author said, that he should never never done it, is because I think his attempt was to make a less niche game with simplified health / levelling / fighting system and he did not succeed at that - it remained niche. Still a very nice game.

And Din's is another matter. The dungeons are all generated and some how they did not start to bore me for quite a while. Also, I haven't got past level 30, but people on the forum say that it becomes quite challenging after that, because with certain classes some bosses can just one-shot you, and you need to find creative ways to get through.

[zespri]

but it's so aesthetically offputting

Oh yes. Big time! I was not expecting myself to have much fun with this game, and still I did.

[zespri]

Every time I see it I get worried that it'll end up like trying to play Avernum/Geneforge, which people say good things about but I'm apparently incapable of playing, because they might as well be still using the same engine as Blades of Exile back in the 90s, which felt like stepping into a time machine even when it was brand new.  Heh.

I think I read in Avernum's author blog, that he is not quite sure why people buy his games, but they do =)

[Nalgas]

but it's so aesthetically offputting

Oh yes. Big time! I was not expecting myself to have much fun with this game, and still I did.

That's actually pretty encouraging that someone else who didn't think it looked all that appealing ended up liking it a lot.  Maybe I'll stop putting it off and finally try the demo.

[Ixolite]

Heh, I never even heard about Din's Curse before, but it does sound pretty interesting. I wonder if I'll be able to get past the graphics department there tho - one of the reasons I like H'n'S games is pretty pictures I get to look at in the process.

TQ was a lot of fun but I never made it to the end, always got bored at some point, even with the new classes introduced in the addon. I guess the lack of variety killed it for me - just too much repetition along the way.

[Nalgas]

TQ was a lot of fun but I never made it to the end, always got bored at some point, even with the new classes introduced in the addon. I guess the lack of variety killed it for me - just too much repetition along the way.

I do think that's one of its biggest weaknesses.  The pacing is absolutely terrible at times, and it's too long overall for something that's meant to be replayed.  What I've always said would be the single thing that would help it the most would be editing the map down to half the size it currently is, only keeping the most interesting parts.

I play exclusively with a mod that forces the game to spawn the max number of enemies that the engine can handle, so there are generally as many in single player as you'd see in a full six-player multiplayer game, which keeps things a lot more interesting.  It's still too long and not paced properly, but at least it makes it a bit more fun/exciting in the slow parts.

Fortunately their next game probably won't have that problem, because they don't have the budget to make as big a game as TQ was and have to focus on making it interesting in different ways rather than padding the length out.  Heh.

[Ixolite]

There goes my rent money 

I tried Din's Curse demo and got hooked. I really like the ideas behind it and that dynamic, living world. Looks pretty bad, interface is a bit clunky but even the demo is tons of fun actually.