I had a ton of doubts about D3 over the last year or so, it seemed like all changes were going in the wrong direction and the game wouldn't be fun anymore.
But when I finally got my hands on beta and played with it for like a week or so, testing various systems and nearly maxing all characters I concluded that the fun is still there and in fact its way more fun than D2 ever was at that point in the game.
Atmosphere and art style is brilliant imo, much darker and closer to 1st game. I've never bought into this whole "art controversy" thing because it was ridiculous considering how colorful and plasticky D2 looked. There are nice touches like simple ripple effect on grass texture when you're walking, that gives you the feel of movement without the need of gazillion polygons and textures just for grass. Game art is well polished, will not get old quickly and actually returns to "dark fantasy" roots of D1 (it could be even darker but it isn't so deal with it).
Skill system is actually really smart and again imo better than what we had so far. You'll get new toys almost every level up to your cap (wasn't the case with D2) and there are more of them (skills) thanks to runes.
Sure there are no points to be "spent" each level but that doesn't mean you don't make choices as you level up, I often had huge problems deciding which skills to use since so many of them are really fun and useful. I'd also want to point out that skill points weren't really that important in D2 as many would like to think, everyone would just put 1 or 20 in their chosen skills and that's all "strategy" there was to it. Might as well replace that with 1 and 0 for uses skill/doesn't use it.
That gets me to my last point, permanence. In D2 we had skills and items for that but in reality considering how mechanical skill points were and how easy it was to get your character into 80s it always was about the items. Diablo series always was about items first and later about skills (but using them not putting points). Now in D3 items are even more important than ever since its literally thanks to them that character customization and permanence is done!! See those green numbers in skill descriptions? They will change when you equip items that suit your particular build/skills of choice, this is how you commit to your build. This is actually how you've always done it, thanks to items (remember 30+ in Frozen Orb?).
But when I finally got my hands on beta and played with it for like a week or so, testing various systems and nearly maxing all characters I concluded that the fun is still there and in fact its way more fun than D2 ever was at that point in the game.
Atmosphere and art style is brilliant imo, much darker and closer to 1st game. I've never bought into this whole "art controversy" thing because it was ridiculous considering how colorful and plasticky D2 looked. There are nice touches like simple ripple effect on grass texture when you're walking, that gives you the feel of movement without the need of gazillion polygons and textures just for grass. Game art is well polished, will not get old quickly and actually returns to "dark fantasy" roots of D1 (it could be even darker but it isn't so deal with it).
Skill system is actually really smart and again imo better than what we had so far. You'll get new toys almost every level up to your cap (wasn't the case with D2) and there are more of them (skills) thanks to runes.
Sure there are no points to be "spent" each level but that doesn't mean you don't make choices as you level up, I often had huge problems deciding which skills to use since so many of them are really fun and useful. I'd also want to point out that skill points weren't really that important in D2 as many would like to think, everyone would just put 1 or 20 in their chosen skills and that's all "strategy" there was to it. Might as well replace that with 1 and 0 for uses skill/doesn't use it.
That gets me to my last point, permanence. In D2 we had skills and items for that but in reality considering how mechanical skill points were and how easy it was to get your character into 80s it always was about the items. Diablo series always was about items first and later about skills (but using them not putting points). Now in D3 items are even more important than ever since its literally thanks to them that character customization and permanence is done!! See those green numbers in skill descriptions? They will change when you equip items that suit your particular build/skills of choice, this is how you commit to your build. This is actually how you've always done it, thanks to items (remember 30+ in Frozen Orb?).
She cries because the EVIL guys are going to destroy all that she loves, they're going to burn her little dolls and eat her mother and children, and polute everything by dumping tons of rotten bodies into the oceans, etc. :o
