DiabloFans

I hope that I get a better PC by the time D3 comes out otherwise I think the game will not be quite as seamless as it was originally intended :).

Quote from name="-Mephisto"s Lament-" »

Have you ever even taken a Philosophy or Psychology class? A child that age, exposed to that kind of bullshit will more than likely have his self esteem burnt to ashes, and aspire to become a bully when he's older, to cover up what he thinks he lacks, and to follow in the footsteps of whom he considers as role models.

It depends on the child I think. Also lets be clear what we're talking about here. I'm talking about passing remarks that one might encounter on an online game such as D2 or WoW. Someone telling a child that they are rubbish at being a healer on WoW is not going to seriously screw them up. I think that focused abuse or really nasty comments are detrimental but I also think that that kind of thing is reletively rare, at least in my experiance.

Quote from "VegasRage" »

I'm with you on that, I don't want my son being subjected to those 5 or so years older than he dropping the disparaging comments on him until he is much older.

Disparaging comments are character building. Your son is probably going to get that at school anyway if he's over 10. My family hit me with those kind of comments all the time and I turned out ok :thumbsup:

Assuming (like me) you live in merrye olde England you can pre-order the game from a well known site for 24.99 GBP

Thats about 30 Euros or 41 USD

I think if there is anything big waiting to be announced it will come out at blizzcon and not before.

Meh I was just voicing my opinion on the subject, not telling anyone that they are wrong. I agree that they should put lan in the game.

I believe that if the kids are old enough to play the game then they must also be old enough to listen if their parents warn them of a danger. For example my sister is 15 she has been spending a growing time on facebook and WoW. My mum and dad explained to her to NEVER give out her details to ANYONE she speaks to on the internet and she never does. On the rare occasion that she does meet a nutter she blocks and reports them if they start to behave inappropriately. I think that going on the internet can ever be 100% safe in terms of the content that you might encounter but if a child is too young to play on a MMO then they are probably too young to go on the internet unsupervised at all.

I think its the same as "stranger danger" that we got taught in shcool. You got taught to never talk to strangers and never to accept sweets or go with anyone outside of school other than your parents. I think the same rule can be applied to MMO's and chatrooms, Tell the child that they must not under any circumstances agree to meet anyone or give any details out to people and then tell them where the block button is Ive been playing WoW for years and in all that time I think that Ive had to block 3 people for being abusive to me specifically. All the other times they are just spamming the general channel and the prof filter picks out most of the bad language anyway.

Anyway my parents have always been more concerned with preventing us from seeing violent or cruel images rather than protecting us from the general public. I think they beleive that there is no way to stop us from interacting with other people but things like SAW or GTA are a big no no (until we get to about 16-18, then we can watch what we like nothing is off limits).

In regards to the LAN issue I agree that it can be more fun to play just amongst friends in the same room/house but I will buy diablo for the single player not the multiplayer. Ive got WoW for multiplaying.

Quote from "Genesis" »

Cant say it with a straight face? Sex is the biggest anti-climax ever

My fiance would disagree with that statement and so would I. I'm not saying its for everyone but many people enjoy it healthily.

I for one enjoy the single player D2 far more than the multiplayer. I like to imerse myself in the game and really get a feel for the surroundings. I find that kind of imersion difficult to achive when someone is running around going "trd plz" "WTB ur weapons" etc etc....

I think we're just going to have to accept that Blizzard is like what insurance companies call "acts of god"... You can't predict them, you can't control them and your usualy not insured against them

But one thing is for sure when one does happen it will be when we least expect it.

I think also its easier for them to make WoW expansions because the framework is already there they just have to build on it. With D3 its like starting from scratch. But for the most part I agree with Airandius.

I think thats quite a harsh way of looking at it. Yes Blizzard wants to make a profit but at the same time I think the developers must have a little bit of care for the fans or they wouldn't spend so much efort in talking to us on the forums etc.

I find it hard to belive that the people who work on the game don't care about what the fan base thinks or how they're making us feel. The company as a whole may not care personaly but I think the individuals who make it must do in order to do such a great job.

Seriously if you want to know how much the Blizzard/Activision group makes in a year just go onto their website. The PDF's are in the public domain so you don't need to worry about downloading them. I just type Blizzard/Activision into google and see what comes up.

The Blizzard/Activision group is a publicly traded company and as such needs to make a profit in order to survive. If they Just relied on WoW as its sole money spinner then its financial planners wouldn't be doing their job properly, they need periodic sources of income form game sales as well as from WoW subscriptions. If you look at the annual reports which are freely available on their website then you can see that while their revenues are indeed large, their overheads are also large. So they won't make as much money as some people think.

What I'm trying to say is that we should be thankful that Blizzard is not the same as some other games companies (who shall not be named) who consider the "profit" the only objective in the whole gamemaking process and do not care about whether or not the finished product is an excellent game, Just so long as people buy it.

Its also not in Blizzards interest to spend too long in game development because they will need more initial sales to recoup the development cost.

The only reason Blizzard exists and is successful is because it makes money for its shareholders. That is the way capitalism works. But its not a bad thing, because Blizzard at the same time as making money gives us great games that we can enjoy nearly a decade later! Some games companies aren't as concerned with game quality as Blizzard is.

I think the customizable faces would be cool but not essensial. Maybe a wide range of pre-generated faces would work. I think that sometimes too much customization of faces is a bad thing. I for one spent hours on Oblivion trying to get a face that looked passable for human! (or Elven... the Orcs looked ok) On mass effect I made my guy's nose way too big and it bugged me for the rest of the game (it wasn't just a little bit it was huge, I think I had a senior moment or somthing...) If I HAD to choose a preset face to use I would find that easier to accept and play, rather than look at the face and think that it could have been better.