Token Female Gamer

This must have been an incredibly difficult game to make. What a challenge to create a sequel to Diablo and Diablo 2, two of the most influential Action RPGs of our time. I do not envy them this task; especially considering the original development team was let go. It seems a rather unfair burden to place on an entirely new team.

No wonder the game was so long in development. Between the team changes and the restarts this caused, they probably could have released three games. But then this is Blizzard, which is notoriously slow; two is probably a better estimate. All things considered, I think the team did an incredible job. They released a fairly polished product after all; I just don’t think they made a Diablo Game.

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I’m a big fan of pets, from D2’s Necromancer with his hoard of minions to Pokemon’s wide selection of tamed battle pets. Maybe it’s just that I like minions, but I often find games where I have the option of having pets/minions as helpers, preferable. This is opposed to the games like Nintendogs, where the entire game revolves around the pets. Not that I don’t like these games, they are after all very cute and lovable, but I definitely prefer to go on adventures with my pets.

Though I really enjoy the hoard of mindless minions like the Necromancer’s skeletons, or the imps in Overlord, or Pikman, they aren’t very permanent. In Overlord the entire point is to sacrifice your minions, which makes it rather difficult to get overly attached to them.

Pokemon made this leap from random mass of pets, by encouraging each one be named. Not that I ever did this, because I was devoted to Pikachu. SOOOOOOOOooooo adorable. It was a hard day for me when I finally realized that Pikachu was not a very strong combatant. Never the less, Pikachu was certainly my first favorite pet. (Don’t even get me started on how much Pikachu paraphernalia I had.)

My geekiest pet award goes to my hunter dino pet that I named Grimlock. Though I originally thought that hunters in World of Warcraft would be pet collectors, akin to Pokemon Trainers, they ended up having a very limited selection of pets. This means that I chose my pets very carefully, thus Grimlock came about. Turns out that the Beast Master spec at the time was a total waste of space, so I had to give him up.

But they did put Battle Pets in WoW (probably to make it up to all those disappointed hunters) and my favorite for that is the very awesome Star Craft 2 Collectors Edition bonus pet, Mini Thor. What can I say; I have a soft spot for robots.

As for mounts, the game I play with the largest mount selection (!!!) is, by far, World of Warcraft (shocker!) And though I started my Warlock mostly because the class mount was a Nightmare and I really wanted to ride a flaming black horse, my current favorite is the very awesome Ice Skeleton Dragon mount (its actually called a Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher, but my name is really more descriptive.) =P

In general Achievements are something I avoid actively pursuing. This also goes for trophies or any other sort of meta marker that game companies come up with. The only exception I have found thus far is World of Warcraft.

To me, achievements are essentially random non story line activities (aka errands) that help extend the amusement of the game. Which makes perfect sense in a MMORPG setting, as the entire purpose of the game is get the player to come back forever more, wasting years of their lives away. It doesn’t matter if the achievements are as asinine as ‘carry four specific potatoes around the world, then cook up a batch of fries, and hand one to each playable race in the game’ because someone out there will have a good time doing it. People always need more to do.

But when it comes to non-persistent games, like Mass Effect+, Diablo+, Portal+, Halo+, etc, I just don’t have any interest in pursuing mostly idiotic goals for a few measly achievement points. Maybe if I felt a strong urge to replay games, this would be different, but as it stands I’m mostly a single play through sort of gal. I really appreciate that some games end.

The other fault with the system is that since developers design achievements and trophies, there is no standard for determining difficulty. In one game three achievements might take forty hours of game time, yet in another game three achievements might be unlocked in the first five minutes. This lack of uniformity makes achievement points an incredibly inaccurate form of measurement. And just like all systems that try to narrow the human experience down to a number, this score fails to accurately represent any gaming experience. So I mostly just ignore it.

Strangely enough, this lack of achievement consistency has resulted in a meta game where people play games solely for the purpose of achievement mining. They literally pick the game not for fun or interest, but only for the ease of gaining achievements so they can boost up their total achievement score as fast as possible.

Not that this is bad in any way; we all find amusement in different things. But my fun is had by simply playing games to enjoy them. The time I spend playing a game is a much better indicator of how much I like it.

There you go! That was a rather long winded way of saying that I sometimes go after achievements in World of Warcraft, but otherwise all the achievements I have are unintentional.

It’s incredibly difficult to make a sequel better then its predecessor. On the one hand you have the fans that loved the original and any derivation is anathema; while the opposing side demands improvements and beyond, the game must evolve. It’s an almost impossible task that sequels must face.

The most successful sequels in my opinion are ones that make the player forget all about the predecessor, by either being such a huge improvement or by reinventing the entire concept. A small example: Diablo 2 increased movement speed so much that returning to Diablo was painfully slow.

Tomb Raider 2 is a great example of a game that made vast improvements, while still remaining faithful to its antecedent. While it was very obviously a sequel, in that most of the games mechanics stayed the same, most of them were fine tuned to create an even better and more flexible experience. The story was better, the graphics were better, the levels were better, and the guns were better, creating an overall just better game.

Guild Wars 2 is my choice for game sequel that reinvented itself. While it still maintained the look and PvP focus, the game mechanics are vastly different and I think much improved. Guild Wars 2 is simply a far superior game, though still plays as an MMOrpg. They clearly learned from their first effort and decided to try something rather different, which really makes the whole game stand out from the crowd.

Diablo Butcher Room

While I don’t really play scary games anymore, there are a few scary moments that have lived with me forever more.

One of them is the Butcher from Diablo. His terrifying “Fresh Meat” taunt was made even scarier by the random level design. Though he would only call out once a character entered his general vicinity, it was impossible to know where what the hell he was located. The rest of the level would see me inching along, trying desperately not to run away, but dreading the moment that the Butcher would ambush my character. This inevitable occurrence ALWAYS caught me by surprise, even though he announced himself from multiple screens away.

The other was the first Aliens Doom mod. The mod itself was fun, but the brilliant thing about it was that the entire first level was empty. I had no idea of course and was totally stressed out the entire level. Proof that my imagination is a thousand times scarier then anything anyone else can come up with.

Before the release of Diablo 3, I decided to dust off my old copy of Diablo 2. Seemed like a good way to get ready, plus it is one of my favorite games. After installing and patching, I played a few different characters, that quite promptly got deleted. (On Bnet any character that hasn’t been played for more then two hours gets deleted after ten days.)

Finally got wise and leveled a Necromancer past the cut off. This way I can boot it up to run through a level every now and then (my necromancer is level 11).

Last night while I was waiting for the husband to log in and play D2 with me, I looked in on the chat room. While there wasn’t anything interesting being said, it does give this very handy Bnet update.

I was shocked at how many people were playing Diablo 2. This game is OLD and it still has over 16,000 concurrent users. That just blows my mind.

Makes me wonder if there are other “old” games that a ton of people still play.

I am going to go with the obvious choice and pick Shigeru Miyamoto. His contributions, as a director/designer/producer at Nintendo, have had a huge impact on my gaming life.

Looking at it from a broader perspective I could just pick Nintendo EAD. But I have found the gaming industry is rather volatile. Though Miyamoto-san didn’t create games in a vacuum, it is unlikely that the entire Super Mario team is still working at Nintendo. Though, honestly, it is far more likely in Japan than it is here.

Whatever the case, since Nintendo has chosen to give Miyamoto-san his due, I can only assume that the projects he worked on were heavily influenced by his vision for the games.

Shigeru Miyamoto is also one of the few developers to enjoy almost constant success through out a very long career.

I will add that my other pick was the creator of Diablo…<3

Ugh, what the hell was I thinking when I put this category in. ~sigh~ Oh well, too late now, so onward!

I think the answer will have to be both, with a slight preference for turn based; it really depends on the game.

In party based role-playing games I find turn based preferable. Final Fantasy is a perfect example as the early versions were true turn based combat; while the later versions changed into a time based skill combat system.

Maybe its simply nostalgia, but I enjoy having the option to control each character during combat. This amount of micromanagement is really only possible in a turn based system. The newer Final Fantasy games, not turn based, have become far more automated in combat as it’s simply not possible to control all the characters effectively due to time constraints.

But in single character RPGs like Diablo 2 or Zelda, I much prefer the visceral feel of real time combat.

Strategy games on the other hand are much less stressful when they are turn based, rather then real time. Games like StarCraft, which I love, come down to the intense speed of the first ten minutes rather then enjoying the entire game. (I often continue playing long after having won. Best part of the game sometimes.)

Considering that what I enjoy most about those games is the actual building of infrastructure and armies as opposed to the tearing down of everyone else, it is apparent that a turn based model supports my play style much better.

The one point that real time has always won out on is multiplayer. Turn based multiplayer can be rather frustrating. I’ve mentioned that I’m not very patient right?

In general turn based is the less stressful option of the two, which for me is a more fun experience.

Diablo 3 is by far my biggest heartbreak in recent memory. Twelve years of waiting for it to be released built up a lot of expectations and doubts. And though I was apprehensive, I harbored a bit of hope that the game was at least going to maintain the Diablo legacy.

It took me thirty hours of playing before I finally gave in and admitted to myself how disappointing and un-diablo like the game really was. I kept hoping that it would be different at higher levels or playing a different character; needless to say it didn’t improve.

While I have lots more to say on this topic, I shall save the rest for the full review. Suffice it to say the game is so fundamentally changed that it’s hard for me to think of it as Diablo game.

One thing has become apparent, no matter how I clamor for evolution in games, ultimately I prefer a more continuous experience. There are after all reasons I liked the game to begin with, which makes drastic changes in a sequel a rather jarring experience and not at all guaranteed to be of my liking.

I have a few criteria that I prioritize when picking a new class for a game. Usually my first pick will be whatever the female option is. Thankfully more and more games provide gender options for all classes.

My second pick is usually any class with pets or skeletons, really bonus bodies of any kind. There is nothing more satisfying then running through the Diablo 2 world with an army of skeletons. My first official World of Warcraft character was a hunter and then later I moved onto a Warlock, both pet classes.

The third pick is usually ranged dps, most often magic based. I almost always pick ranged over melee. This includes healing classes putting melee firmly in last place. Pet classes > ranged dps > healing > melee.

I will say though that in games that allow me to pick multiple characters and form my own party, I rarely pick pet classes. Basically I like having buddies and when I have an entire group, pets aren’t necessary. Which is why I will usually go for the mage or wizard.