May 14: wallet threat level Diablo

Posted by on May 14, 2012 in Games

This week sees the release of some shooter called John Hurt 3 or something. I think we also get a Throne of Games RPG or some such. Whatever. I can’t really see anything past midnight tonight, when Diablo III goes live.

  • Peter Michelsen

    You know what else you should check out? Krater.

    http://www.kratergame.com

    I haven’t been this sold on a game in a long time. It actually kinda stole my D3 thunder. Just look at it.

  • http://twitter.com/kentdoggydog Brian Kent

    I would definitely play a John Hurt game. You get to be the Elephant Man, an alien bursts out of your chest, you build a giant machine for Jodie Foster, then you get to choose a wand for Harry Potter!

  • http://twitter.com/jdhas jdhas

    Krater looks wonderful — don’t know how it slipped under my radar.  Will have to carve some time for this when I grow weary of Path of Exile and Diablo III.

  • http://www.oneguytoomanygames.com/ Rob C

    I don’t think even your  magic use of words to describe games can get me interested in Diablo 3. I would get it as a $10 game (which will never happen), but not as a full priced game. Incessant clicking no longer makes for an interesting game to me. I am curious to read what you write about the game though. 

  • Christien Murawski

    Let’s not forget getting to kidnap Terence Stamp!

  • Peter Michelsen

    I had the exact same thing happen to me. I didn’t know about it until I saw it on Steams upcoming list. And that’s why I’m writing it upon walls wherever walls are to be found.

  • Anon

    The 360 gets another rare exclusive I desire: Akai Katana.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLXMZ4mkSJc

    I find it kind of funny that the European release of game of Game of Thrones is delayed until June 1st. Must be hard pushing that data across the atlantic. I’m sure whatever foul barrier is present will deflect torrenters as well!

    I shamefully haven’t played the first or second Max Paynes, and at this point I don’t know if I ever will.

    Skinner box 3, now with added DRM? Meh.

  • wisdomchild

    Diablo schmiablo.

  • Mini-Cyn

    Why do people enjoy perma-death enough that it can be an advertising point? And I’m asking this because I truly want some insight to this. Is it just a “Hey look my e-peen is this big because I did this much without dying.”? Is it just about the achievement (in which case I truly wouldn’t understand. I’m not an achievement chaser).

    The reason I ask is because the trailer for Krater the first thing that was put up in front of me when it started was “Perma-death” which instantly killed any interest I had unless it was optional.

  • Barac Wiley

    With the caveat that I have no interest at all in permadeath in a multiplayer context and very little in a real time context, the appeal as far as I can see is that if your character can die for real, every threat must be taken seriously and dispatched efficiently. A single stupid mistake can end even the most successful of roguelike runs. So you can’t afford to make that mistake.

    The flip side of that is that in a multiplayer environment you can play perfectly and if someone stronger comes along you’re dead anyway. Or in real time, you can know intellectually how to survive, but lag or misclick and it’s all over. That just seems frustrating to me.

  • Mini-Cyn

    I agree. That is a very frustrating aspect. It’s the reason I never do perma-death modes. The only time I will accept perma death is in a turn based rogue like where I can actually learn how monsters work, and can make a come back on the next round. In an online game, or even real time I hate it because ANYTHING could happen. Lag, a system hiccup, or any variable.

  • Mini-Cyn

    By the time you could get it for ten you’d likely be close to the shut down of their servers that diablo 3 relies on.

  • tomchick

    I’d say Barac has it, but I can distill it down to two words: high stakes.

    It’s something often missing in videogames.  The conventional wisdom in videogame design is that you don’t want to frustrate the player.  But a corollary of that is that the stakes are always low.  The risk/reward balance is thrown off-kilter.  Some games let you control this.  For instance, Kid Icarus on the 3DS.  But some of us crave games built around the idea of high stakes.  Dead Rising and Demon’s Souls, for instance.  And permadeath certainly accomplishes this.

    Or, put another way, one man’s frustration is another man’s fun.

  • tomchick

    Oh lordy, Akai Katana looks beautiful, Anon.  But I’m scared.  I still haven’t recovered from Sine Mora.

  • tomchick

    Oh, I’m hip to Krater.  For a minute you scared me by making me think it was coming out this week!  But as near as I can tell, it’s at least a month away.

  • Barac Wiley

    I dig both Dead Rising and Demon’s Souls, but as stiff a challenge as they can be, they still feature a level of persistent progress. You can fuck up when playing them and still (especially in Demon’s Souls) retain some degree of accomplishment from the failed session. With perma-death, you retain nothing. I can dig that when my fate is entirely within my control, as it is in a turn-based context, but outside of it…no thank you.

  • Mini-Cyn

    I agree that a level of challenge is good. I do in fact love the souls games. As frustrating as they are though there is that level of progression. You can still proceed no matter how badly you mess up. But if I’m playing a max level barbarian in diablo 2, and I die to something (let’s say lag) and find I just lost all that progress I’d be snapping my keyboard over my knee.

    A difficult challenge is nice. That kind of punishment is not.

    I suppose I understand a little better, but it’ll never be my cup of tea. Thanks for weighing in Tom.

  • tomchick

    Oh, and just to clarify, I’m not saying I’ll be playing Diablo III on hardcore! Just that I understand why some people do that. But I’m with you, Mr. Cyn. I’m all for high stakes, but not when they involve things beyond my control like lag in a pointlessly online single-player game. :)

  • tomchick

    Fair enough, but I want to clarify that I don’t know any of the guys involved in Doom that Came to Atlantic City. What I was referencing in my post is that a good friend of mine, Bill Abner over at Gameshark and NoHighScores, knows the developer of Road to Enlightenment, the other game that sucked me into Kickstartering. But I don’t directly know anyone involved with either of these games.

  • Joakim Wahlström

    In Krater perma death is always there, but you have to be pretty darn daring to perma die. Characters gets wounds first, which most of them can be healed in hospitals. And you need to get a bunch of wounds in order to die.

    It is however planned for to have some dungeons that will be even harder, in those you can actually perma die if you make mistakes in those. But you will still have the choice to enter them or not… a little bit like you have the choice to play hardcore when you feel like it.

    /JOW

  • Peter Michelsen

    Important point here. Permadeath doesn’t mean that the game will constantly try to kill you, or otherwise treat you unfairly, and that very much seems to be the philosophy with Krater.

    Permadeath and persistent injuries do not mean that you constantly get crippled and die, and should find that amusing. It means there are consequences to what you do.

    Which goes back to Tom and Barac – It makes things more involved in my opinion. There are always going to be people who hate that, and people who love it, but Krater is very fair in how it treats the player.