OT - D2 Clones, why do they suck?
Hey y'all, long time no see. Well, not quite true, but long time no-make-new-thread or something.
Anyway, I was just browsing my games looking for something to play and I've come to notice that all the "D2 clones" I have pretty much suck. I looked into a few after I finished my septsept, because I really needed something else to play. Well, to be precise I guess they are D1 clones or derrivates but D2 being the king of the hill in this departement right now I use that as a reference.
Obviously, posting this here a lot of people will agree with me when I say that no game that has tried to copy D2 comes close to touching it. If you've played other games like D2, I'm curious as to why did you find them lacking?
I guess I should clarify what a D2 clone is to me. They're commonly known as Hack&Slay games, but I don't really think that does them full justice because simply hacking and slaying doesn't truly cut it in D2, at least not beyond a certain point. For me, the D2 genre is the something like RPGs minus text. I do love RPGs like Planescape Torment, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc, but I would not lump those together with D2 in the same category. I have seen people do that and it's kinda like saying Sushi and Pizza are both great examples of Japanese cooking. So yea, I guess in other terms, the kind of games I'm talking about focus on character development in the sense of what you are (as in skills, etc) items and combat over story and character developement in the sense of who you are. (personality, etc) In an RPG you can click random stuff on the char screen and usually still make it easily. In D2 you can click random stuff during story time and still make it.
Some I've played and why they sucked:
Sacred 2
I guess most of my problems with Sacred 2 apply to Sacred 1 as well, but I'll just diss the sequel for now. It's got sweet graphics, no arguing that. Why then, does it suck?
- Poor Item balance
- Few active skills / too many passive skills
- lvl cap = 200 but individual levels mostly meaningless, no real difference between 60 and 200, safe for some numbers
- poor documentation, very slow levelling compared to lvl cap but no way of reskilling. This breeds frustration like nothing else.
- Hundreds of meaningless quests
Titan Quest
I can't quite put a finger on why I didn't really end up liking this one. I guess it is the best clone I've seen, but still... It doesn't really cut it. I guess it's the fact that you don't really have classes and that so many of the skills are passive. Like, what would be frenzy in D2 is 12% chance to attack with both weapons on a regular attack. Subjective, but I am not a fan of that.
Dungeon Siege 2
It's been so long I played this one I probably forgot why I disliked it. I think I wasn't happy with the skill tree again.
Silverfall
This one has a few neat ideas, and some very bad ones. For one, controls are somewhat atrocious. It has a mix of D2 controls and MMO controls - meaning you can select something with the LMB, then press the key corresponding to your attack to cast a spell or something. But you can also press the RMB to cast what you have currently selected directly. This is somewhat awkward and half the time I am fighting controls instead of the monsters.
Another big drawback is that, in d2 terms, in order to have 20 points in nova, you need 20 points in static field. As you can imagine, this puts severe constraints on what the builds you can do.
What makes D2 better than the rest?
I've been thinking about that from time to time, but it's actually pretty hard to pin down. At least it is for me. I guess in the end it's the game's balance. Blizzard really does that extremely well. The characters are all quite different and you do have a lot of freedom with builds and then some more with picking your items. And there are a lot of items to pick from. Controls are pretty good, too.
One other thing that I truly appreciate, which is something most people would actually see as a deficit, is that the perspective is fixed. Of course that is a given for a game that old, but all the new games that allow you to rotate the camera, what does that really do for you beyond wasting time when you're trying to find an item or monster behind a rock? Or your character for that matter. I distinctly remember one game where I had to constantly fight with the camera to keep my guys in sight, not a d2 clone, though, but the same problem.
It's been ages, so someone else would have to confirm that for me, but it seems to me that blizzard doesn't expend too much effort on looks. Now, don't get me wrong, I actually like the graphics of D2 or Warcraft 3, but blizzard never seems to go over the top with it. And that's a good thing, I say. Some of the games these days sport graphics so realistic that you can't even see what's going on anymore because the contrast just isnt there between the bad guys and the terrain. Not to mention that if you spend 90% of your budget on looks you don't have a lot left to spend on other things. Looks get boring after a while.
This is also why I am not overly sceptical when it comes to D3. It doesn't seem like blizzard was going overboard on the graphics departement. Of course if something looks awesome it need not be bad, but if I think back to the games I truly liked, those were never the ones that were lauded for the appearance. Actually, in my Top 10 of all time favorites, most of the reviews might have started with "it looks kinda bad, BUT...." and so on.
So, what do y'all think? Have you played any others that sucked? Do you think some games actually rocked as hard as D2? If not, why do you think nobody could top what blizzard delivered... 10 years ago? I do know there are lots of people that like the games I just "dissed". Actually on the sacred 2 forums you get the **** flamed out of you if you as much as mention d2, let alone suggest that it might have the edge over sacred in some ways. Which it does, imho.
Anyway, just something I was wondering about...
Hey y'all, long time no see. Well, not quite true, but long time no-make-new-thread or something.
Anyway, I was just browsing my games looking for something to play and I've come to notice that all the "D2 clones" I have pretty much suck. I looked into a few after I finished my septsept, because I really needed something else to play. Well, to be precise I guess they are D1 clones or derrivates but D2 being the king of the hill in this departement right now I use that as a reference.
Obviously, posting this here a lot of people will agree with me when I say that no game that has tried to copy D2 comes close to touching it. If you've played other games like D2, I'm curious as to why did you find them lacking?
I guess I should clarify what a D2 clone is to me. They're commonly known as Hack&Slay games, but I don't really think that does them full justice because simply hacking and slaying doesn't truly cut it in D2, at least not beyond a certain point. For me, the D2 genre is the something like RPGs minus text. I do love RPGs like Planescape Torment, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc, but I would not lump those together with D2 in the same category. I have seen people do that and it's kinda like saying Sushi and Pizza are both great examples of Japanese cooking. So yea, I guess in other terms, the kind of games I'm talking about focus on character development in the sense of what you are (as in skills, etc) items and combat over story and character developement in the sense of who you are. (personality, etc) In an RPG you can click random stuff on the char screen and usually still make it easily. In D2 you can click random stuff during story time and still make it.
Some I've played and why they sucked:
Sacred 2
I guess most of my problems with Sacred 2 apply to Sacred 1 as well, but I'll just diss the sequel for now. It's got sweet graphics, no arguing that. Why then, does it suck?
- Poor Item balance
- Few active skills / too many passive skills
- lvl cap = 200 but individual levels mostly meaningless, no real difference between 60 and 200, safe for some numbers
- poor documentation, very slow levelling compared to lvl cap but no way of reskilling. This breeds frustration like nothing else.
- Hundreds of meaningless quests
Titan Quest
I can't quite put a finger on why I didn't really end up liking this one. I guess it is the best clone I've seen, but still... It doesn't really cut it. I guess it's the fact that you don't really have classes and that so many of the skills are passive. Like, what would be frenzy in D2 is 12% chance to attack with both weapons on a regular attack. Subjective, but I am not a fan of that.
Dungeon Siege 2
It's been so long I played this one I probably forgot why I disliked it. I think I wasn't happy with the skill tree again.
Silverfall
This one has a few neat ideas, and some very bad ones. For one, controls are somewhat atrocious. It has a mix of D2 controls and MMO controls - meaning you can select something with the LMB, then press the key corresponding to your attack to cast a spell or something. But you can also press the RMB to cast what you have currently selected directly. This is somewhat awkward and half the time I am fighting controls instead of the monsters.
Another big drawback is that, in d2 terms, in order to have 20 points in nova, you need 20 points in static field. As you can imagine, this puts severe constraints on what the builds you can do.
What makes D2 better than the rest?
I've been thinking about that from time to time, but it's actually pretty hard to pin down. At least it is for me. I guess in the end it's the game's balance. Blizzard really does that extremely well. The characters are all quite different and you do have a lot of freedom with builds and then some more with picking your items. And there are a lot of items to pick from. Controls are pretty good, too.
One other thing that I truly appreciate, which is something most people would actually see as a deficit, is that the perspective is fixed. Of course that is a given for a game that old, but all the new games that allow you to rotate the camera, what does that really do for you beyond wasting time when you're trying to find an item or monster behind a rock? Or your character for that matter. I distinctly remember one game where I had to constantly fight with the camera to keep my guys in sight, not a d2 clone, though, but the same problem.
It's been ages, so someone else would have to confirm that for me, but it seems to me that blizzard doesn't expend too much effort on looks. Now, don't get me wrong, I actually like the graphics of D2 or Warcraft 3, but blizzard never seems to go over the top with it. And that's a good thing, I say. Some of the games these days sport graphics so realistic that you can't even see what's going on anymore because the contrast just isnt there between the bad guys and the terrain. Not to mention that if you spend 90% of your budget on looks you don't have a lot left to spend on other things. Looks get boring after a while.
This is also why I am not overly sceptical when it comes to D3. It doesn't seem like blizzard was going overboard on the graphics departement. Of course if something looks awesome it need not be bad, but if I think back to the games I truly liked, those were never the ones that were lauded for the appearance. Actually, in my Top 10 of all time favorites, most of the reviews might have started with "it looks kinda bad, BUT...." and so on.
So, what do y'all think? Have you played any others that sucked? Do you think some games actually rocked as hard as D2? If not, why do you think nobody could top what blizzard delivered... 10 years ago? I do know there are lots of people that like the games I just "dissed". Actually on the sacred 2 forums you get the **** flamed out of you if you as much as mention d2, let alone suggest that it might have the edge over sacred in some ways. Which it does, imho.
Anyway, just something I was wondering about...
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