04-15-2004, 04:47 PM
I'm delighted to see the "town portal." The *killer* in this game, meaning the killer of people-who-would-play, is going to be travel tedium. ANYTHING you can do to eliminate this heinous burden is going to be very helpful. People's "real life" time is at stake here - for busy people with only a few hours to play, having to spend 10 mins to walk somewhere is unimagineably painful. I doubt they would do this, but I wonder if they're considering having those 'sentry guards' that give directions have the option to just teleport them right there on the spot. Sure, the first time playing you'll want to take in the view and go by foot, but after that. How many of us liked the walk to Akara. What if it were a 180 second walk -- would Diablo have had the same longevity it did, or would we have given up far earlier because the benefit and fun no longer outweighed the tedium of 0-XP non-interesting filler time? In town, in particularly, if I could buy an item that could take me anywhere I wanted on the viewed mini-map instantly, it would be a huge boon.
My initial response to the rest system was similar to Bolty's, and the fact that I would use multiple
characters would avoid the problem for me. After reading his thoughts on it, I'm
a little more in favor of it. Just a few other points to make:
- 'Power teams' should still be able to do well but they'll take 300 hours to get 3 characters to the
same level that they would have taken 100 hrs to get one that high, another 100 hrs for the next,
and 100 more for the last. So I don't think they're out of business or that Blizz can stop powergaming.
- People who play less hours won't necessisarily care what others are doing, but if you play a decent
amount of time but can't "put in the time" to excel, they're gonna advance kind of slow and be
frustrating. Giving them a moderate boost should be big from a sales point of few - numerically you
will have many more casual players than ebaypowergamers, and if you can make the game more
pleasureable for them and throw them a bone, the better.
- We'll all have a better chance of keeping up with Bolty who spends too much time playing! :hammer:
Charis
My initial response to the rest system was similar to Bolty's, and the fact that I would use multiple
characters would avoid the problem for me. After reading his thoughts on it, I'm
a little more in favor of it. Just a few other points to make:
- 'Power teams' should still be able to do well but they'll take 300 hours to get 3 characters to the
same level that they would have taken 100 hrs to get one that high, another 100 hrs for the next,
and 100 more for the last. So I don't think they're out of business or that Blizz can stop powergaming.
- People who play less hours won't necessisarily care what others are doing, but if you play a decent
amount of time but can't "put in the time" to excel, they're gonna advance kind of slow and be
frustrating. Giving them a moderate boost should be big from a sales point of few - numerically you
will have many more casual players than ebaypowergamers, and if you can make the game more
pleasureable for them and throw them a bone, the better.
- We'll all have a better chance of keeping up with Bolty who spends too much time playing! :hammer:
Charis