Max Schaefer talks about TL2 and D3

[kandrathe]

Well. In the pantheon of games out there, this one will be in my top 20, as are Diablo, and Diablo II. The game is new yet -- we've yet to see where it's going. I'll play TL2 as well -- because it looks like it'll be fun. I'm also looking forward to 2013 release of TES online. DIII is not a perfect game, but it's been a fun game so far. I've got about 57 hours on my Barbarian, who is just starting Hell difficulty. That's about the same amount of time as going to, or renting 20 movies. I've already gotten a decent return on my entertainment dollar, and I've got 4 other classes to work up to 60 inferno as well before I'm "done" with it. Maybe I'll hit a wall and set them aside. But... If it hurts, I'll stop beating my head against the wall and go do something more fun.

I believe the days of installing the entire game onto a PC are pretty much over due to piracy. I'd say the net is ubiquitous. I own a whole library (probably 50 or so) of games on Steam that aren't even installed on my computer unless I want to play them. And, yes, some ISP's or internet services are bad. However, when enough customer's complain they either fix it, or go out of business. In fact, some prognosticators are predicting the end of the home desktop computer altogether... I dunno. Maybe we will all have net appliances and/or iPads someday.

As an aside; Way back in the 70's, Control Data had the Plato system with graphical terminals driven by a timeshare mainframe. I worked hard to get my programs written for class, and online tests taken so I could get online and play Moria. It made sense to separate client side graphics and server side content(esp. multi-player content) then, and it still does if... and this is the big if... the net is really ubiquitous.

[FoxBat]

TL2 doesn't have a real minion class. Every class has a handful of minions, but there's nothing like a necromancer. Everyone also gets a pet, but they kinda suck in combat in the higher difficulties unless you feed them fish (as it should be IMO, there's plenty of fish). You can also feed them potions like D2 hirelings but I never figured out how.

[Nystul]

I believe the days of installing the entire game onto a PC are pretty much over due to piracy. I'd say the net is ubiquitous. I own a whole library (probably 50 or so) of games on Steam that aren't even installed on my computer unless I want to play them.

Steam as DRM is not a problem in and of itself. You just need to make sure you get into offline mode before Steam goes bankrupt and then maintain that computer forever. Hmmm, on second thought maybe that is a problem. But not as big a problem as having lag during a single player game or not being able to play due to server issues.

[BellaStrega]

TL2 doesn't have a real minion class. Every class has a handful of minions, but there's nothing like a necromancer. Everyone also gets a pet, but they kinda suck in combat in the higher difficulties unless you feed them fish (as it should be IMO, there's plenty of fish). You can also feed them potions like D2 hirelings but I never figured out how.

Oh, that pet. I was thinking of something else, as I don't really categorize that pet in the same way as I think of pet stuff. Weird.

I taught my pet spells so he could raise skeletons.

I don't remember what you do to feed potions to your pet in TL2, but it's something simple like holding down shift or ctrl while using a potion.