The rapid descent of gaming into capitalism hell paired with gamers being staunchly pro-capitalism is just the right kind of irony.
I have a theory that part of why it took so long was because they didn't want to release it while players were so actively hostile at the time; better to give players the time to simmer down and meanwhile give them other treats.
Considering they released the D2 remake between then and now to keep the hardcore community happy, I think you're right.
I'm imagining a hilarious scene with board members pouting and grumbling about 'stupid entitled players, not liking and playing the game like we tell them to like and play it; not thinking it's cool and making fun of us'
We should make a game where you have to pay 10k to make the female characters' tits bigger and then use the profits to fund the revolution.
That's basically genshin impact. They use a chunk of their profits and invest in stuff like:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-03-01-mihoyo-invests-usd65m-in-nuclear-fusion-technology
Lol they should be burning the money for energy it would be more efficient
I mean there's been some legitimate breakthroughs this year in China
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/chinas-artificial-sun-reactor-broke-record-for-nuclear-fusion-180979336/
Diablo was a Gaucha game before they existed. Just keep betting the same levels over and over again, aiming for that rare widget that you can attach to another rare widget that you will eventually need to kill the guy guarding the door to the next tier of widgets.
Despite that, the core game was legitimately fun. A gritty dungeon crawl with monsters that range from grizzly to goofy. Some fun dialogue and interesting story. Dynamic mapping gave the game some replay value.
But there are so many good Diablo-esque games today, why waste time on the original if its going to be like this?
What are the good PoE builds these days? I walked after the flask rework (and nerfs to my beloved Raider--the class was fine before they started changing it, dammit!) ruined my labrunner build.
i just started playing PoE with a friend. we live on opposite sides of the continent, so generally we just game once a week for a few hours as an excuse to riff low effort jokes. what appealed to me about PoE is that it's free and that there might be some pvp bullshit to get into later if we want. i also like to meander my way through making builds as i play a character to suit me. last week my friend's older brother joined us, and like this guy is the antipode of my entire gaming vibe.
me: casual, personal, goof around, low stakes and make jokes. i love cheap games i can mess around in creatively for years and i have a rule against buying AAA rated games within their first year or two of launch, if ever.
him: games like 40 hours a week at least. "wife mad" is like a trope with this guy because he games so much. top of the line rig. many consoles. wants to rush through all content to max everything ASAP. owns every hyped as fuck game as soon as it comes out. honestly, i do not see how the way he plays is even fun for him. my friend and i will be laughing so hard our faces hurt about some stupid junk, and he's like just silent waiting for us to get back to the mission or whatever. because he's so busy?
anyway, as soon as he sees my like lowbie act 2 witch, he starts telling me i need to play it a certain way and make a certain kind of build and this and that. like just sucks all the fun out of the room. he was the same way in every game i've been in with him. like who are these people whose idea of fun is to micromanage other people? not to mention, a lot of the time he's wrong about shit, but he talks about everything like he wrote the code.
we're all in our 40s, so it really baffles me that he hasn't learned to not do this or be like this. also, i think it's people like him who write builds and create orthodoxy in games, and also in my experience, they don't know shit about fuck.
But there are so many good Diablo-esque games today, why waste time on the original if its going to be like this?
Two of my favorites (aside from already mentioned PoE) being Grim Dawn and Titan Quest, both by Crate Entertainment.
If you liked Diablo, and want to play a similar game in either a Grimdark Witching-Hour setting or Classical (Greek, Egyptian, Nordic, Chinese) Mythic setting check them out.
Also, I feel like they must've fucked up in the p2w design. Isn't the whole point of these to obfuscate the mechanics enough so the time/money investment isn't this obvious to the community? I'm sure it'll hook a bunch of people regardless, but the diablo community has a bunch of streamers and influencers already negative on it, doesn't seem like a good indicator.
Its so clumsy it reeks of either not enough time or incentive to make the transition between playing for free and paying smooth, or a corporate mandate that they couldnt work around.
Or maybe they just said fuck it and made the entire game a big sign shouting "Dear whales please come play our game!".
Probably not going to ban lootboxes. Gacha games are huge in China, including games made domestically. What they've done recently is made them un-accessible to children by limiting playtime to an hour two days a week or something as well as banning kids from buying stuff. And if you can only play a gacha two days a week you might as well not bother.
Kids could still play on their parents accounts if they're allowed to, but at least the parents have some control over that.
That's not good for the future of the industry, as China continues to develop it will grow to be an absolutely massive market for gaming, bigger than the current US/EU market combined. If it doesn't crack the whip then no one will.
I think there are some restrictions, having trouble remembering because I recently flooded my brain with information about gacha game restrictions in Japan
China banning this stuff could really affect the entire global market. If China and EU both ban it then it's gameover because there will simply be no point in making two completely different games for the different markets. It won't matter if the US and other territories don't ban it.
I’ll teach my kids Mandarin if it means I can stop scanning their Fun Time Kids ABC apps for secret slot machines and coercive membership plans.
There are so many apps that let a kid fully customize their character only to tell them when they go to save that they used “premium” items and that it will cost $20/month to keep them
Pirate classics. Purchase from indies (not corporate subsidiaries) and coops. Gaming is good
this is made even crazier by the fact that no diablo fan really wants this game to exist
I've got a few hours into the game, for a mobile game its not bad. None of the bullshit is unexpected as long as you don't think of it as a diablo game and just lump it into the category of other mobile games. It plays a lot like D3 which was a shitty game and an insult to diablo fans in an of itself. It has really made me want to get back into Grim Dawn but I have played that game to death. Maybe I'll try PoE again but last time I played that it had gotten way to Esports for me.
PoE is my go-to. I like playing off-meta stuff and taking my time with a league rather than min-maxing and farming uber bosses the whole time.
:so-true: it only costs you $11000 per year saved, such a good deal
