Octopus Overlords

Diablo: Immortal - MMOARPG-style mobile game announced:

During the BlizzCon 2018 opening ceremony, Blizzard revealed that it is developing a brand-new Diablo game to mobile platforms. Blizzard said it "wants to do it in a way that's true to Blizzard, putting gameplay first, in a way that feels right for Diablo." It's described as a full-fledged action RPG you can play everywhere with everyone. It's being developed in collaboration with NetEase.

Diablo: Immortal tells the story between Diablo II and Diablo III, filling in details on what unfolded with Tyrael, Malthael, and others.

Official site

Mobile? Blech.

/edit - Wow, the gameplay video has 600 likes - and 15,000 dislikes.

Apparently the community was hoping for some kind of announcement for PC version of Diablo (like any plans for Diablo 4 or at least a new expac or something). Hence all the backlash about the mobile version.

gilraen wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:17 pm Apparently the community was hoping for some kind of announcement for PC version of Diablo (like any plans for Diablo 4 or at least a new expac or something). Hence all the backlash about the mobile version.

Also, some of the backlash is because this is just the reskin of an existing mobile game (from a company that basically just reskins this game for whatever IP someone pays them to do), nothing new or innovative is being brought to the table with it.

It's exactly the same mistake they made 16 years ago with Starcraft: Ghost. They have a product line that is very, very well-loved. They have a core audience. They tease an announcement about that product line to that audience, and they hype it up tremendously. Everyone is excited. Everyone is in bated-breath mode. They can't wait!

Then they announce a spin-off targeted to a different audience that has no appeal to the audience they got so hyped up in the first place.

If they'd opened with "We've got a huge announcement about a new mobile game using one of our most popular licenses!", they wouldn't have gotten this backlash.

It's probably even worse but thematically very similar indeed. The game is not being made in house. It's just a reskinning of an existing game with a Diablo skin minus all the Blizzard touches. It's hilariously poorly thought out. Not the idea of a mobile Diablo itself but how they presented it. The media backlash to the fan backlash has been equally amusing as well.

Also, doing it at blizcon was stupid.

Let's have people who love PC games fly in from all over the country, charge them $200 for tickets, and sell them a mobile game.

Speaking of mobile, Warcraft Adventures would make for a really great mobile game. Just saying...

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 11:58 am It's exactly the same mistake they made 16 years ago with Starcraft: Ghost. They have a product line that is very, very well-loved. They have a core audience. They tease an announcement about that product line to that audience, and they hype it up tremendously. Everyone is excited. Everyone is in bated-breath mode. They can't wait!

Then they announce a spin-off targeted to a different audience that has no appeal to the audience they got so hyped up in the first place.

If they'd opened with "We've got a huge announcement about a new mobile game using one of our most popular licenses!", they wouldn't have gotten this backlash.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I am actually interested in this game - fun games to play for 15 minutes while you're in a waiting room or whatever have their place. It'd be a blast to be able to get a few rounds of Diablo in here and there.

But yeah, hyping it up and announcing it at BlizzCon was stupid.

I heard that this game was copypasted from other game, can you, please, send me the name of this game or give a link, or similar game

https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life ... le/2171798

That one says Endless of God.

https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/di ... 203019345/

That one says Crusaders of Light.

*shrug* I am not familiar with either and not interested in mobile gaming in general.

thank you, a lot

I've found Crusaders of Light http://crusaders-of-light.uptrivial.com/en/us/android/ very nice game, I wait for some online in Diablo Immortal and hope developers will work with gamers and will listen to their opinion? not like in Diablo 3

Does tinyogre still post here? He might enlighten you some.

Anyone gonna try this out? It’s FREE so you have nothing to lose but some time. Coming out in a couple days (June 2).

Crossplay on PC and mobile seems interesting. I have low expectations but I’ll give it a try for sure.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/diabl ... 0-6503959/

Kotaku

Well, here’s some bad news for people who live in Belgium or the Netherlands and are excited to play Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s upcoming free-to-play dungeon crawler out June 2 on PC and mobile devices. It turns out, due to local loot box laws, that Blizzard’s next action RPG won’t be released in either country.

And it seems unlikely that Blizzard will change the game soon to comply with these local laws, leaving affected players without many options.

I completely forgot this was even a thing, much less that it was coming out this week. There's been a surprising lack of any marketing whatsoever, considering the strength of the IP. I don't really have a mobile device I could play this on (iPhone is too small and my iPad is too old), so there's very little reason for me to give it a look. I don't see anything that would make me want to play it instead of either D2 or D3.

I may give it a look since it's free on PC, but I'm not expecting much.

Here's a 10 minute summary of what it is, for those who might be interested.

Hahah I forgot how they got booed when they said it was mobile then were asshats asking if you dont have a phone. No a lot dont have a phone or one that can play games. And who wants to play games on a tiny little phone anyways. Man.

All the first impressions on this seem to be pretty similar. It's a solid Diablo game, infested with the usual mobile F2P garbage. Initial indicators are that it will be quite P2W as well, which certainly isn't encouraging.

I went to pre-load the PC version this morning, just to give it a look. Clicking on the "PRE-LOAD NOW" button in Battle.net does absolutely nothing, no download is triggered. I thought was funny, and it kinda jives with my theory that this entire experiment is a half-baked bad idea.

If I do manage to get it up and running, I'll report back later. It's supposed to launch on PC today at 10 PT.

EDIT: Apparently I had to restart Battle.net to get the download to work. It didn't give me any sort of notice about that, mind you, but when I rebooted the download worked.

I played a bit yesterday on iPad and it felt like a decent Diablo 3 clone. I had fun with what little I played, but didn't get far enough in to really know where you start bumping into the pay to win stuff. When I found out there is a PC version, I decided to just do that instead since I hate playing mobile games.

Rebooting Battle.net didn't work for me to get the PC pre-load going, but using https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/download did. You download the 5MB launcher, and it opens in Battle.net. I presume/hope this will be fixed by the time of launch in a couple hours. Currently in Battle.net I could only download the beta client. Following the links, the pre-load button just sent me around in circles to the announcement page and the product page. I think I've had this issue with another Blizzard product in the past.

I'm kind of not sure why I'm bothering. I have little to no interest in playing this on my phone and I'm burned out on Diablo 3. Free or not, I know the shop and the ads are going to annoy the hell out of me. But who knows, maybe this will add something fun to the formula.

Sudy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 10:51 am I'm kind of not sure why I'm bothering. I have little to no interest in playing this on my phone and I'm burned out on Diablo 3. Free or not, I know the shop and the ads are going to annoy the hell out of me. But who knows, maybe this will add something fun to the formula.

I'm mostly giving a look on PC because I'm burned out on D3. I figure a change of scenery with new levels and mobs might pique my interest again. Probably not (given the F2P nonsense), but I'll at least give it a try.

Played through the first bit on both iPhone and PC. A couple initial thoughts:

1. I was surprised to find it very playable on iPhone. I figured it would be too small and cramped (like every other iOS game to my old eyes), but it was just fine. I actually think I prefer it to PC, which I did not expect.
2. The PC version is meh. You can tell this was designed entirely for mobile, with PC as a complete afterthought. You can't set specific resolution, the only graphic options are Low, Medium, High, etc., there's no keybind options, etc. It looks decent, but not great...and there's no way to adjust it. I doubt I'll be playing much on PC.
3. Combat feels great, and it has maybe the best touch controls I've seen. My only gripe is that the top skill button is too close to the potion button, and I keep hitting that by mistake.
4. The download is pretty huge for a mobile game. Over 10 GB for the whole thing on iOS.
5. While it's hidden so far (I'm only in the first 90 minutes), I can absolutely see how this is going to turn into a messy F2P treadmill later on.

I'd agree with the general review consensus so far. Good mobile implementation of Diablo, but lots of microtransaction blech.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 4:56 pm 4. The download is pretty huge for a mobile game. Over 10 GB for the whole thing on iOS.

So each time they have an update, it’s a 10Gb download? I don’t think apps are patched on iOS, it’s a full download each time.

telcta wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 5:05 pm

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 4:56 pm 4. The download is pretty huge for a mobile game. Over 10 GB for the whole thing on iOS.

So each time they have an update, it’s a 10Gb download? I don’t think apps are patched on iOS, it’s a full download each time.

THere's an initial download of around 4 GB. Once you're in the game, it then prompts you to download a bunch more files. I'm still in the process of downloading them (it's really slow right now), but the whole this is 10 GB (according to this article)

I have 12 gig free so time to look for what to delete

Ah, I see. I’ve seen other games that do an additional content download. 4GB sounds more reasonable.

I may have to give this game a try on my iPhone as I’ve graduated to a 128GB phone. I don’t think it would’ve fit on my old phone.

telcta wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 5:22 pm Ah, I see. I’ve seen other games that do an additional content download. 4GB sounds more reasonable.

I may have to give this game a try on my iPhone as I’ve graduated to a 128GB phone. I don’t think it would’ve fit on my old phone.

I realized today I have way too much on my phone. I have a 128GB, and had to delete a bunch of old videos and apps to make room for this.

I made room and installed it but it wont let me play. When I try to click a slightly dim PLAY button in battlenet it says this game cannot be played yet. Nothing is installing now though..it did that.

About to try these steps...

https://www.gosunoob.com/diablo-immorta ... layed-yet/

EDIT: Restarting Bnet worked.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 6:38 pm I made room and installed it but it wont let me play. When I try to click a slightly dim PLAY button in battlenet it says this game cannot be played yet. Nothing is installing now though..it did that.

About to try these steps...

https://www.gosunoob.com/diablo-immorta ... layed-yet/

EDIT: Restarting Bnet worked.

if only you read his post

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 8:04 am

EDIT: Apparently I had to restart Battle.net to get the download to work. It didn't give me any sort of notice about that, mind you, but when I rebooted the download worked.

Made 3 characters...wiz, necro, hunter. My usual gang. Played each to clearing the west gate in the first town.

Necro was easy and pets never lost health
wiz was easiest and most powerful...blew through everthing
hunter was harder and I almost died.

Things ive noticed

I KEEP hitting right click to equip stuff even though that dont work
I cant rebind the left shift key to stand still to my right shift key where i need it
Even though I use magic and pick up mana globes I dont see a mana bar or know how much I have
I see no where to sell items...just the blacksmith to salvage it
Didn't see I could switch slots. Then i didn't know which was which without trial and error
Nothing in the world seems destructible..i keep trying though
I see no way to choose which hand a better xbow goes in. Im guessing the game will handle it

if only you read his post

I probably did earlier but my memory is just awful. Not kidding. Part of my disabilities.

So, it's fun (on PC). I just can't find a reason to play it other than being burned out on D3 or being curious about the lore additions. I don't think anyone looks at a quite well received (after the updates/expansion) PC game and says, "It would be great to have another version of this, but with less complexity and freedom." But if you want to play Diablo on mobile, I guess it's great. At least until you run up against monetization frustrations (which I haven't nearly reached yet, but everyone is talking about).

- I really like the MOBA-style targeting/skill shots. Diablo's always been a game with very responsive controls/feedback, and this just adds another layer on to that.
- It looks good enough. The gameplay feels great. But the UI was presumably not redesigned for PC (and that's fine). It's chunky and clunky and unappealing (but probably feels pretty good with the mobile touch interface).
- I really hate the footprints guiding you to the next waypoint. I guess this might be appreciated when playing on the go and with your hands partially obscuring the screen, but it feels so dumbed down. As well, there just doesn't seem to be that much to explore, so what does it matter? Perhaps it's only the tutorial portion that's so linear though.
- It's nice to see all final D3 classes represented here (edit: except my beloved witch doctor ) , including a fairly detailed character creator. However, even with the differences in the skill system etc., I'm just so burned out on the D3 classes. It would be more fun to mix in some of the other ones from earlier in the series etc. (Though I know that would have been more work, and they're likely saving major class innovation for D4.)
- I was relieved you can rebind controls (at least the ones I care about--skills), but you have to re-do it for each character, and the UI still labels them as 1, 2, 3, and 4 regardless of what you assign them to. (In mouse-driven ARPGs I usually use the ASDF row.)

It's hard to believe D3 is ten years old. I can't help but feel Immortal would be better received if it had come out closer to the PC version. To me it mostly feels like a dumbed down retread. But I'm also someone who's played D3 heavily over multiple seasons as recently as last year. For someone who hasn't touched D3 since the expansion this might be a treat. After all, the barrier to entry is low. But whether this is one worth sinking your time into can only be answered by those who have made it to the endgame.

My impressions are not favorable. I think it is passable as a mobile game, but I have no idea why you would play it on PC.

Controls: Using mouse feels awkward to me. WASD is better but I suspect controller might be the best way to play.

Skills: Skills level up on their own, aside from choosing which skill(s) you don’t want access to there is no management there.

Inventory: The best item in your inventory has a little up arrow on it. Periodically open inventory and click to equip all the up arrows. I do like that there doesn’t seem to be any limit on inventory space though.

Positioning: I have killed every boss by randomly pressing my ability buttons without moving unless they move out of range of me. Occasionally I hit the drink potion button.

Gameplay Loop: I stopped fighting most enemies. In most situations you can just run to the objective and kill the area boss. It clears all lower enemies in the immediate area and spawns the little XP potions. I have not run into an instance where I felt under leveled. Maybe this changes later but so far, it’s a cake walk.

The one exception is when I did the gem rift thingy. It was still super easy, but I equipped two of the modifications at once and there were enough enemies and a time limit, so I felt like what I was doing mattered at least a little bit. I still finished it with half the timer remaining though. The reward was a gem that will just randomly kill every enemy on the screen, so that is amusing at least.

Graphics: They are fine? I feel like the camera is zoomed in too close and there is a slight almost blurriness quality so everything but nothing offensive.

Voice Acting: Ranges from “clearly reading off a script for the first time” to “actually very good”. I did like hearing series regulars return.

No it doesn't feel like 10 years.

I played a little bit more. Things do get more interesting once you reach the desert but this is still a very simplistic Diablo game.

I’ve played for all of two days and am already bored with it. Mostly because I know it’s just going to be the typical mobile endless grind/pay system. I just can’t get into those at all anymore, even if I love the IP.

I watched a couple gameplay videos and am reminded of why I finished D3 once and never went back. I think that D1 is the best game of the series where you start out weak AF and can restart the game with an ever stronger character. Good items are scarce and money is actually worth something. Unless they do a remaster of D1 my Diablo days are over.

D2>D3>D1

I deleted after I got injured and couldn't see good thanks to the screen nearly dead view. I hobbled to town thinking Cain would help but no , no he wouldn't. So deleted.