07-10-2006, 02:33 AM
Quote:Oh, inventory management. Having spent so damn long playing Guild Wars and its "A breastplate occupies the same amount of space as a tooth and a sword and a shield and 250 ingots of iron" it's somehow good to be back to essentially playing Tetris with weapons. Unfortunately, the automatic inventory placing seems to be closer to Diablo's "left to right across the top, then start a new row" than D2's "top to bottom heading right", if that makes sense. 2x2 items stack up next to each other rather than the second item being placed beneath the first. Anyway, that annoys me, since it requires constant inventory checking and slotting helms into a more sensible arrangement.
Nit: Diablo original items were slotted across the bottom of the inventory, I believe. At least, the 1x1 stuff was (potions for the naked mage). I suppose the Tetris style items are okay. Guild Wars certainly simplifies the system a lot, at the expense of some reality. Not sure if that's good or bad. I just don't want another Baldur's Gate. Weight was...annoying.
Anyway, I'm not sure I want another game that plays like Diablo, and especially not one that plays like Diablo II. Diablo II may be the 'best' time-waster known to man, but ultimately, it is that. Other games have been known to give me a feeling of satisfaction, or start some adrenaline (no FPS here, though), but I don't think Diablo II ever did that once I went through the first time. Though it be blasphemy, the game eventually just degenerated into a treasure hunt. Diablo original was slightly better. It degenerated to "How much can I cripple my character and still win?" The answer was obviously "As much as the game will let me as long as I have positive nonzero mana and life." Even the weird variants in Diablo II (barring live-off-the-land and such) are item based (Dream Enchantress). The bottom line is...the games are very good at what they do, but I'm not sure if I need another, prettier copy of it when I could just go play Guild Wars (I guess that's WoW for most of the forumites here.).
Maybe this game is amazing. Since I'm on dial-up, there is no shot at all of me getting the demo. But all I've seen so far is "This is Diablo, but different."
So I guess the question is: Is there a reason to buy this if one already owns Diablo/Diablo II and prefers real nostalgia to some mutated form of it that costs money?
--me