I'm a bit leery of making any comments on this without being there myself, but a friend of mine has stopped playing the game now that he's level 60.
The reason that he's stopped is this:
1) When you have a level 60 character of any class, they're level 60. There is no way to make the character any chunkier without items.
2) The lack of meaningful, character defining choices in the game means that once you have a level 60 barbarian, you have *every* level 60 barbarian.
3) If you use the auction house, you end up using it for almost every single item you end up wearing. Your character feels like you could have just bought it off ebay.
4) If you don't use the auction house, you are crippling yourself and your progression. You farm not for gear, but for salebait.
5) There are no character-altering quests (ala the skills quests in acts 2 and 4, the resistance quest in act 5 and the health quest in act 3) like there were in diablo 2.
In short, once you have 5 level 60 characters, the only way to progress is through getting better items. The only way to get better items (generally) is to use the auction house. This leads to a rather impersonal and detached feel. You never get the same "holy crap, I remember where and when this particular item dropped for me years later feeling" that you got in diablo 1 or 2.
What amazes me is just how much fun people had playing diablo 2, even with the plethora of dupes and poor itemisation. There were choices that could not be unmade (this is not really the case in d3). You only got 3 socket quests for each character. You only got 3 imbues. There is *nothing* like this in diablo 3 and I feel that this will lead to less re-playability.
The only advantage to this is that you only get a pitifully small number of character spaces in d3 (only 10 characters - wtf blizzard? How can I be running half a dozen variants at a time, while keeping my "mains"? What about the large number of characters I only want to play with different specific sets of people?).
Having said that, other than the stupid 3007 bug, the game has been really fun so far on my runs through normal and now the beginning of nightmare.
The reason that he's stopped is this:
1) When you have a level 60 character of any class, they're level 60. There is no way to make the character any chunkier without items.
2) The lack of meaningful, character defining choices in the game means that once you have a level 60 barbarian, you have *every* level 60 barbarian.
3) If you use the auction house, you end up using it for almost every single item you end up wearing. Your character feels like you could have just bought it off ebay.
4) If you don't use the auction house, you are crippling yourself and your progression. You farm not for gear, but for salebait.
5) There are no character-altering quests (ala the skills quests in acts 2 and 4, the resistance quest in act 5 and the health quest in act 3) like there were in diablo 2.
In short, once you have 5 level 60 characters, the only way to progress is through getting better items. The only way to get better items (generally) is to use the auction house. This leads to a rather impersonal and detached feel. You never get the same "holy crap, I remember where and when this particular item dropped for me years later feeling" that you got in diablo 1 or 2.
What amazes me is just how much fun people had playing diablo 2, even with the plethora of dupes and poor itemisation. There were choices that could not be unmade (this is not really the case in d3). You only got 3 socket quests for each character. You only got 3 imbues. There is *nothing* like this in diablo 3 and I feel that this will lead to less re-playability.
The only advantage to this is that you only get a pitifully small number of character spaces in d3 (only 10 characters - wtf blizzard? How can I be running half a dozen variants at a time, while keeping my "mains"? What about the large number of characters I only want to play with different specific sets of people?).
Having said that, other than the stupid 3007 bug, the game has been really fun so far on my runs through normal and now the beginning of nightmare.
Disarm you with a smile 