OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

[gavinfoxx]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

I've played the PS2 Baldur's gate, and the PC Infinity Engine games as well. The PS2 one is a Diablo clone, and the PC ones are 2nd edition D&D roleplaying games... As in, traditional Western RPG, not Action RPG. I've also played Titan Quest, and I think it works really really well with some of the talent tree revamping mods that make the skills more active, and some of the blood / splatter / realism mods. and I really like the Divine Divinity / Beyond Divinity / Divinity II: Ego Draconis series (I do have to pick up that last one though!). They did the single player thing very very well... I didn't like Dungeon Siege, but I *love* the Ultima mod for Dungeon Siege -- turning a Diablo style game into a non-action Roleplaying game that is wayyyy better than the original, which was a poor d2 imitation.

 

[Pijus1]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

The Diablo clone that stood out most for me was Throne of Darkness. It's the most clonish diablo clone of all. It's basically diablo without random maps, nightmare and hell difficulties and with slightly different item types. You might be thinking that it's got to be crap for sure, but it's not. The gameplay is like diablo, you run forward till you see monsters, then you chop them up or roast them with magical fire. What it lacks compared to diablo is character build variety, since skill points are unlimited. Also, different characters have acces to some of the same skills. Lack of ramdoization+lack of build variety means the game becomes boring after you finish it. The one thing it does better than diablo is item customization. Monster drop ingredients regularly, which you can socket into your weapons/armor. You have to pay the blacksmith money for the socketing. It gets expensive, and money isn't as plentiful as in d2. Still it's a fun game for awhile, and I recommend you give it a try.

Dungeon siege 1. An old favourite. I got used to the auto-attack pretty soon. At least I didn't have to keep clicking. When you reach higher difficulties(it has the equivalent of NM and Hell), an option to turn off auto attack would be nice, so you have more control and can employ more tactics(enemies get tough). Multiplayer was awesome also.

Someone mentioned Morrowind. IMO, it's the best game ever. You know how there are something geeks, like Star Wars geeks, who know the lore and stuff. I'd say I'm a Morrowind geek

One more thing. How many of you, who posted in this thread, have played D2 for over a year? Over 2 years? Since it was released? Diablo2 has a combination of attributes that all of you like. For another game to stick to you for as long as D2, it should have the same combination of attributes. And that means it would pretty much be D2. D2 is not a perfect game, or a pefect action RPG. It just perfectly fits our taste in games. Anyway, that's just my opinion.

D2 is not without it's flaws either. It's too complicated for most people. Place your skills wrong, and you won't be able to complete it, unless your name is Wayne and you're insane. My cousin loved Throne of Darkness, and had no problem playing it by herself, while I had to explain to her what would work and what wouldn't in d2. When I played my first necromancer summoner(didn't know there were guides and stuff yet), I couldn't solo past the start of normal act4...

 

[Shagsbeard]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

You're all missing the point here. It's not about the games. It's about psychology. D2 hits a spot in our "hunter/gatherer" instinct developed over many eons of evolution that pleases us. We get enough reward for the actions we take, but not too much reward so that we become complacent. That's what people are refering to as balance.

Designers of slot machines have a financial insentive to study this, and they've poured billions of dollars into researching it. A Slot machine that takes $1.00 and returns $1.01 every single pull wont get played as much as a well designed machine that returns an average of .95 a pull yet does so with the right frequency of payouts.

D2 got it right... perhaps by luck.

 

[Rhone]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

We get enough reward for the actions we take, but not too much reward so that we become complacent. That's what people are refering to as balance.

I think that's a good point. Gameplay is important--very important--but it's also one of the easiest things about D2 to emulate. I was thinking a few weeks back about D2's longevity, and it occurred to me that a big part of it is the items and their rarity.

If all the best items in the game were too easy to get, we'd get them all, have a little fun with them, and then go play something else.

If all the best items in the game were so rare that they seemed completely unobtainable, we'd get frustrated and then go play something else.

IMO it's pretty difficult to hit a sweet spot between those extremes, but D2 hit it.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

I don't believe D2 hit the right spot by accident. If you keep an eye on Blizzard's games, and I do. You do notice a trend. They never flop. Seriously, can you remember any game of Blizzard, that didn't do well? Personally I am not that big an RTS fan, but I can see how starcraft and warcraft3 rock. Blizzard just makes really great games. Period. I know it's all en-vogue to bash WoW, but seriously, if there weren't so many kiddies playing it, I might try it myself. Blizzard is one of the very few companies I will trust with my money for a game without reading reviews first. I will buy D3 the day it hits the shelves, they're good for that money. I can only name one other gaming company I will do that for. And a lot of others I will require demos before I ever give them my money again...

 

[Trim]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Seriously, can you remember any game of Blizzard, that didn't do well?

Blackthorne for the SNES? I don't really know how successful it was, but even if it sucked I guess you could blame Interplay for that.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Actually that one was pretty decent as well from what I hear. I didn't get it myself as I didn't have that much money for games back in those days, but I read a review and it was supposed to be pretty good.

 

[gavinfoxx]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Haven't there actually been a few Diablo clones that were actually WORKED on by people who, at one point, worked on Diablo / Hellfire, or Diablo II or LoD? I think Throne of Darkness was one of them, and I am sure there is at least one other...

 

[Nightfish]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Yea, but it seems that it takes more than the design staff / programmers to make a good game. Whatever else it took, that stayed with blizzard. Probably part of it is funding. To be honest, I'd be really interested in knowing what they do different there. I bet I'm not the only one.

I guess Hellgate:London doesn't really qualify as a D2 clone, but it flopped. Mythos actually never happened by the people starting it. I can't say for sure if Fate flopped or not, but I do know that I never heard of it until recently and it was released years ago. That's not a good sign. I haven't heard anything about how profitable Torchlight is, but compared to D2, it is by far an inferior game. So yea, on the whole I get the impression the people that once made D2 that were let go by blizzard didn't actually manage to do things on their own, for whatever reason.

 

[Rhone]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Probably part of it is funding.

That's my guess. That, and patience. So many games are close to greatness, and then have to be released early with bugs and missing content because of lack of funds and/or pressure from the publisher.

 

[JMJimmt]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Blizzards games follow a very simple concept:

Create UNIQUE characters, let the user determine the upgrade path, and don't tell the whole story. Great FMV.

Rock'n'Roll Racing:
Each car was unique, upgrade path was up to the user's personal play style. Each had pros and cons.

Lost Vikings:
Each Viking was a very unique character, had it's own back story, and had it's own roll within the game. No upgrade paths per-say but also one of their weakest titles.

Starcraft:
The game itself isn't that great over any other RTS. Sure some elements made it unique and it did have great balance, gameplay really came down to build the biggest army and slaughter. That said, there were options on how you could go about that. Talking heads sold the story and grunt level characters that were unique made you love the world (beer in with the bomb anyone? )

Diablo:
Again, simple 3 unique characters, all played different, and upgrade path was up to the individual - admittedly though the weak point of this game was that the upgrade path was dependant on what was picked at random for you to choose from.

Diablo 2:
While the characters you play aren't all that unique, the ones in the world are (like Starcraft), and you can upgrade/outfit your character any way you like.

Warcraft 1-3:
Again, see Starcraft comments, but also as it went along it became more and more character centric (WC3 - Heroes)

WoW:
Your character is unique as you want it to be with tones and tones of customization options. Part of an on going story.

It's very simple. It's also why random games just don't cut it most of the time. They try to tell a complete story so the world doesn't seem quite believable. They don't bother to create unique characters with quirks, etc.

Think about other popular games:
Halo - Master Chief - the non-character character but everyone loves him because they made him (somewhat) believable in a world with an on going story and surrounded him with other interesting or relatable characters.
Resident Evil: Alice
Gears of War: Feonix
Final Fantasy: [insert favourite character here] I'll go with Auron in X
etc.

Of those titles listed in the OP I can't think of any character that is at all memorable. Sure they have upgrade/customization options but they're just there because they have to be, not because they relate to the character in any way.

Take Titan Quest. I liked the game - it was solid, had good graphics, played fairly well. I could care less about it though because I can't remember anything about the story or characters that made it interesting. It was just pure hack & slash & your character really wasn't anything unique. D2 on the other hand - I'll never forget the FMV sequences as long as I live, entirely due to the fact that they told the story through the old man. Had they shown the sequences without him, some random dark figure going through the desert, fights between faceless good/bad guys, etc I wouldn't have remembered anything. To this day I don't remember the LoD FMV because it was the latter and had nothing relatable, no "unique characters". However, in D2C I still remember him kicking that camel and him laying on the floor in the jail cell.

 

[Lyndar]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

TQ was fun, but to be honest it was a lot easier than D2.

I had a dream + defense build that could kill anything in the game on the highest difficulty.

Also, all the maps being static was not helpful for replayability.

 

[PandadudeSP]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Haven't read the entire thread so don't know if this has been said, but imo Torchlight is an awesome d2 clone, and MP is currently the only thing I think is better in d2 than in TL. I know a lot of fanboys will disagree, but to me it feels like TL took a diablo base (actually the dungeon crawling is closer to d1 than d2 imo) and improved upon it.

 

[DeathMaster]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

I haven't play many PC games. only 2 or 3 (depending on how you define it) D2 clone I can think of. As why they suck:

1. replaybility - it doesn't matter how good the first time you play, if the game is only good to play once or twice, there is no replaybility.

2. control - part of reason why D2 was so good (the same can be said about Starcraft) is its game control. You can manage complex key/skill change. at least one D2 clone (a D2 wanna be title) I played, has this crap control system, so bad that anyone played D2 wouldn't last long before give it the finger.

 

[Pijus1]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Yeah, I didn't like Torchlight's controls, and the fact that you can't change them through options.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Well, in Torchlight's defense, the game is so simplistic that one skill plus the RMB solves. Maybe you also need "1" and "2" for health and mana pots, but that's pretty much it. It's really torchlight... If they had called it Diablolight I could even say how it relates to regular Diablo the way Coke Light relates to regular Coke. :badteeth: (actually I went and said it anyway. So there.)

 

[Serdash]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

Stop whining noobs.

kthx.

bai.

(I simply hadn't responded to this thread when you first posted it, so I felt the need to do so now, fishy.)

 

[Nightfish]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

(I simply hadn't responded to this thread when you first posted it, so I felt the need to do so now, fishy.)

Well, as always, your insightful comments were well worth the wait.

 

[Shagsbeard]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

I gave a short simple reply yesterday because I was at work, and students need attention... kind of like newborns.

You all are still focusing on game mechanics. It's not about the game. Bingo is a huge success world wide... and it doesn't have characters or developement.

It's about the brain's ability to release endorphines when the right actions trigger it. Play torchlight for a month or two, and your brain will stop releasing endorphines. You wont feel the reward associated with an item dropping because there's really no need for you to go find items. You can enchant anything thing you need... you can heirloom an item better than one you can find. So there's no accomplishment, and the brain encourages you "just chill... this is fine". The other end of the spectrum is when a game is so difficult that you don't get anything but frustration. No endorphines there.

We are all conditioned animals at the core of it. And Diablo has conditioned us near perfection. We can keep playing because each stage of the game produces something exciting or interesting. There's enough variety in the game to not dilute the excitement you get when you get an interesting drop. S2 had no interesting drops. Drops were either better than what you had, or they were trash. Same goes for Hellgate.

It's not about the mechanics that make these games "suck"... and they really don't "suck"... it's that the designers haven't understood undergraduate level psychology. I'm "in" with the croud that made D2, Hellgate, etc. Bill Roper and I sat around the camp at Faire for weekends on end when they were developing their games. They understand that they're not making a game to make a game. They're making a game for people to play. People are what's important here... not the game design. Understand how the minds of people work, and you can make a game that will last. Try to make a game without understanding how people work, and you'll make something that tries it's best to work... but fails.

 

[PandadudeSP]

Re: OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?

@Nightfish It's not like diablo is a lot more complicated ... This is just guesstimation, but 90% of all the played d2 builds can be played at 80% efficiency using only 4 skills, and the last 10% are melee assassin builds and "bad" builds that have too many active damage skills (which is pointless). TL has a left click attack slot (different abilties can be bound with the f keys), a right click slot (can also be bound to f keys) and a secondary right click slot that can be sweapped with the tab key. Large amounts of potions (if you have that ) only fill up 1 slot for each type, so you can generally also bind 3 and 4 to abilities. Auras, summons, buffs I personally bind to 5-10 keys and pressing em doesnt really disrupt me at all . If you're used to using letter keys, Q_Q but else the TL key system is very very adequate, and using it to its fullest does make your char more efficient (even if its only 20%).

And then I would just like to note that what Shag is mentioning is there for me in TL. I've only played for 30-40 odd hours so far on very hard hardcore and I've lost several characters and am far from beating the game yet, but this is similar to when playing HC diablo 2. The items I didnt lose in my shared stash (atma) made the early leveling experience enjoyable even though it shared the same story. I haven't tried SC TL, and it is possible that the endgame item hunting is ****, but I never enjoyed that part of d2 anyways.

Yeah long rant, just wanna defend TL since I'm loving it