Blizzcon Begins, Diablo 3 Wizard Class Unveiled 142
The trailer illustrating the new class showed actual gameplay demonstrating the Wizard's spells and abilities, some of which hearken back to the Sorceress in Diablo 2. Attacks such as Meteor and Chain Lightning seem to be returning, and several new spells were seen, including one invoking a spherical shield that seems to alter the flow of time within it, allowing the Wizard to dodge projectiles and approaching enemies with ease. Another spell sends tornadoes storming through the room. Here's Blizzard description of the class from their press release: "The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time."
Your sound card (Score:5, Funny)
Your sound card works perfectly.
Your sound card works perfectly.
Your sound card works perfectly.
Enjoying yourself?
Your sound card works perfectly.
Your sound card works perfectly.
Your sound card works perfectly.
It doesn't get any better than this!
Re:Your sound card (Score:5, Interesting)
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To hurl chunks, please use the vomit bag in front of you.
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Totally new - the Wizard! (Score:4, Insightful)
The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time.
Sounds a little like... I don't know... a sorceress? Except for that cute "pockets of space outside the normal flow of time". That sounds like Star Trek.
I guess you can't really get away from the spell-flinger archtype in a fantasy RPG. I wonder why they're so keen on changing the classes?
Re:Totally new - the Wizard! (Score:5, Insightful)
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That said as long as the game is as fun to play and as addictive as D2 the next class could be the gold farmer for all I care.
Hm. That might just work!
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Re:Totally new - the Wizard! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Totally new - the Wizard! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, you *can* have a sorceress in Diablo 2 using a sword. In fact, there are swords that are made specifically for spellcasters to use. The act 3 mercenaries are sword/shield and magic(though they very very rarely actually HIT anything with their sword).
The problem with this is that typically wizards/etc need to learn *how* to do all the crazy physics-defying things they do. That apparently takes time effort and money, leaving your character with much less time to devote to lifting very heavy things, running quite a bit and learning the best way to stab someone with an oversized knife.
So you'd expect they'd be kinda crummy at both.
Diablo 2 still lets you do that if you want, it just doesn't expect you to be as powerful as a pure frozen orb/meteor sorc or a pure fighter.
Sorceress' can hit things with their swords like Hexfire [battle.net], having buffed themselves with enchant [battle.net] and with energy shield [battle.net].
Druids can run around shapeshifted into a werewolf form, clawing and biting things all the while calling down Armageddon [battle.net]. Of course, the number of skill point you need to expend in order to be really good at both is very high, but you *can* do it...
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Sure, you're right, a Sorceress could use a sword. But that's besides the original poster's point that an open-ended character progression system would be more engaging.
Get back to me when a Sorceress can put talent points into Barbarian War Cries.
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Call to Arms [battle.net] is a runeword'd sword she could be using on switch. In fact, characters of many classes do.
I know it's not quite what you're asking for, but you can indeed have a sorceress running around casting a low level battle orders and whatnot.
Call To Arms 5 Socket Weapons Amn + Ral + Mal + Ist + Ohm
+1 To All Skills
+40% Increased Attack Speed
+250-290% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 5-30 Fire Damage
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
+2-6 To Battle Command (varies)*
+1-6 To Battle Orders (varies)*
+1-4 To Battle Cry (varies)*
Prevent Monster Heal
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
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Yeah, the runewords were always awesome. "Leaf" was a must-have for a low-level fire sorc.
It's still besides the point though.
Re:Totally new - the Wizard! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you missed the point.
The OP was complaining that the skills are carved up by classes at all. A necromancer can't put points in a sorceress skill, for example. So instead of 7 character "classes", each with 3 skill trees, just give every character 21 skill trees and let the player do as they please.
The multitude of options might be a little overwhelming at first, but with as many players as a Blizzard game will have, I think a few stable, decent builds would emerge fairly quickly, while still giving enough variety for people to come up with viable alternative builds. One thing that disappointed me in D2 was the lack of viable character builds, especially for PvP. If you deviated very much from one of the dozen cookie cutter builds, you could almost count on having to leech in experience runs and getting owned in duels.
The later patches of D2 actually explored it a bit, with runeword items that provided class specific skills, but could be used by any class. The items giving barbarian warcries and paladin auras were particularly popular, but there were a few items that would give necromancer and sorceress skills.
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The Diablo series is about Hack-and-slash. Removing class distinctions makes the game more strategic and raises the barrier of entry for players.
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The idea of the hardcore community finding the more optimized build with such a large array of options is irrelevant. With so many options, new players would become overwhelmed and have no idea how to make an efficient or useful character, and the chance of an inexperienced player creating a poor build increases dramatically.
Blizzard wants their games to be appreciated by as many people as possible. Making their game more intimidating by having so many options from the get-go (instead of saying "your this c
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Doesn't change the fact they could have classes and still present the option to have one class that could pick from any tree. Gamers are much more choice oriented these days and open ended is always good.
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[...] and open ended is always good.
Hell no it isn't. With that many more options, theres that many more ways to break the game with unbalancing skill combos. You'd either release a game with hugely imbalanced combo's or spend a ridiculously longer time balancing.
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You're talking about people buying the third game in a best selling series that's been around for a decade. At this point Blizzard doesn't care about the casual, "inexperienced" game
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At this point Blizzard doesn't care about the casual, "inexperienced" gamer; they already know they can sell a boatload of games to the hardcore players.
[...] Also, I suspect they've learned from WoW [...]
You says Blizzard has learned something from WoW, but ignore the disproportionate ratio of casual to hardcore players who subscribe to it?
There are a couple of game developers that are dense enough to cater to the hardcore audience at the expense of the more lucrative and larger casual audience, but I don't count Blizzard among them.
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I think a few stable, decent builds would emerge fairly quickly, while still giving enough variety for people to come up with viable alternative builds.
Hey, you make a good point. Maybe we could call those builds "classes!"
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You've just essentially described Titan Quest. Best Diablo Clone ever, BTW.
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We have the same problem in D&D. Why can't you have someone who learns magic for the sole purpose of enhancing their own abilities? Or some kind of hybrid? That class would be hugely popular in whatever game it was in.
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Dude, multi-class, it works. Or you could go for one of the multi-purpose class like monk or paladin that already does that... or even go ranger and have all three branches covered!
That said, I do agree that the rogue/fighter light infantry build is so unbelievably broken as to make nearly all other possibilities a waste of time, and that this somewhat deadens the ability to make any character one wants.
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Psionics, man. Psionics.
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Balance is a lot easier with classes.
"If I want my character to wield a sword *and* cast magic missile,
Are you willing to be half as good at both?
That's the problem. People want to do a lot, and then bitch when someone who specializes in something becomes better.
That said, If I created a game, it would have 1000 skills, and each would top at about 1000 points. At about 750 points, I would make it so you need other skills to compliment skills over 750.
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Here's the thing: people don't want to stop advancing. As a result, the upper limit in all skills are roughly equal, and as a result of that, any work on skillset Y is work lost by skillset X. If games had a greater array of skill options, and a lower cap on i
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If you've ever played Dungeon Siege you'd see this kind of idea has already been implemented.
If you want to be a warrior you hack & slash, if you want to be a ranger, you pull your bow out, naturalist use nature spells, wizard use fire spells. Every time you cast one of the trees and get a kill you level that class. This allows you to create a few interesting hybrid classes. DS2 really nailed it giving you more flexibility.
Diablo for me has always been very linear as far as development of your class goe
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one could even design an MMO where characters increase in versatility, rather than power level, after hitting the level cap, thus making the game become more complex and interesting over time, but still balanced for relative noobs.
The game you're looking for is called Planetside. [planetside.com] A newbie with the basic assault rifle can, with care, kill a level 20 character. Leveling past level 6 or so is just a way to add more versatility to your character, but with just doing the tutorial and hitting level 4 you can wear medium armor and have an assault rifle, or wear MAX armor and stomp around the battlefield.
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"If it requires X work to be an awesome caster, and Y work to be an awesome deliverer of stabbity death...."
Try and orchestrate your favorite song with a 50 pound hammer in your hand, when the songs done you will know why you can't cast and wield at the same time.
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Are you willing to be half as good at both?
Yes. I think that makes the choice of my skill progression *mean* something When I choose to make my swordsman/mage, I realize that I'm going to have to make an important decision about how to spend my precious skill points. That makes the choice matter and gives the game more depth.
As another poster mentioned, the problem with allowing this sort of game play is that people tend to nerf their characters. This is another game design rant of mine, but I'm on a roll so... I don't like the way game diffi
There was a racing game for the Xbox (Score:2)
that worked like that. It wasn't fun at all, because the game wasn't about being a skilled racer, it was about playing the meta-game. If you drove as hard as you could, the game would make the computer racers so fast they were unbeatable. The only way to win, was to to time it so that you crossed the finish line WHILE the computer was ramping up its difficulty, if you went full throttle too soon, then the computer would reach unbeatable difficulty, retake the lead, and that was it. If you waited too long, y
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Oblivion also had dynamic dificulty, that could easily be abused.
Yep. Oblivion's auto-scaling was on a whole different level of crapola. Let me count the ways:
* When your skills increased, you increased in power. When your level increased, the enemies increased. If you simply avoided sleeping, the game became easier and easier. I normally don't mind obscure "exploits" in single-player games (I tend not to actively seek them out), but this was ridiculous.
* Certain missions (like the Kvatch mission) had NPCs that didn't scale up with the monsters. When I first played
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I never played Oblivion, but
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You know, this is a gripe I have with the whole Action/RPG genre as a whole. Why do we even have classes? Give me some skill trees and skill points. Let *me* decide how my character should play. If I want my character to wield a sword *and* cast magic missile, let me! More choices are always a good thing.
Basically, it just boils down to game/class balance for a game that's played with multiple people. Single player games tend to offer more flexibility (like Oblivion).
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I'll probably get flamed or modded down for this, but oh well.
I agree with you, I like playing hybrid classes. The Dungeon Siege series tried to make this viable, but it just didn't work. I hated how there was only a finite number of monsters to kill, so every single hit you made with your character to level up your skills was precious. I tried to play a combat magic-fighter hybrid but he was just a gimp compared to the "pure" classes in my party.
Titan Quest, on the other hand, is one of only two games on
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READ:
http://rpgforumsonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20613 [rpgforumsonline.com]
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You are thinking of Dungeon Siege.
Best part about that is being high level in say Combat Magic and then pulling out a bow and plugging an arrow into a high level enemy. The result on your stats is like:
*whock*... "Oh thats how you use this thing".... Brrrrrr.tika.tik.tik.tik (+5 levels to Ranged Combat).
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And Legends of Aranna is exactly the kind of expansion pack I wanted to see alot more of. They could have sold me another 10 or 15 of those.
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Re:Totally new - the Wizard! (Score:5, Funny)
"Sounds a little like... I don't know... a sorceress? Except for that cute "pockets of space outside the normal flow of time". That sounds like Star Trek."
Yeah, the Wizard has awesome abilities like "enhanced tachyon field", "inverse neutrino pulse" and "transporter accident".
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Reroute all mana to the main deflector dish?
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Incidentally, the D2 Sorceress had a spell called Energy Shield which absorbed damage to Mana instead of health.
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It was called Mana Shield in D1. If memory serves me correctly the Cleric class in Champions of Norrath has a similar (but less effective) ability.
Re:Totally new - the Wizard! (Score:4, Funny)
The Wizard has awesome disabilities too, such as
"WIZARD NEEDS FOOD. BADLY!".
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So we know the Archer class will be next. And it will have the 'Shoot Food' special attack.
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I cast transporter accident on my girlfriend and she turned into William Shattner with a beard. It made sex akward at first but I've adjusted.
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It sounds more like an expanded version of the D2 Amazon's Slow Missile skill.
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cause noone ever heard of a sorceror or a wizardress.
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See Median XL, a Diablo II mod. It's a sorceress ability.
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Yeah, apart from the penis, a lot like a sorceress.
I mean "MOLTAR'S GREAT HARDWOOD STAFF OF THE BEAR" (+3 Bludgeoning).
Simple things (Score:5, Interesting)
Your very own zerg unit, complete with matching creep. I thought it was an excellent example of how Blizzard is very good at taking simple ideas and making them work very well.
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I got to get me one of those!
I like the first word non-link.... thats classy (Score:3, Funny)
Blizzcon, no link provided.
Because if you don't have the bookmark, you must be a noob. Right?
Re:I like the first word non-link.... thats classy (Score:4, Informative)
Speaking of which... it's all , including game trailors. [blizzard.com]
AskSlashdot (Score:1)
People attending Blizzcon got a StarCraft II Beta Key. Lucky bastards. Anyway, a lot of Blizzcon news will reported on MMO-Champion [mmo-champion.com] so check there.
Casting spells? The hell? (Score:5, Funny)
The trailer illustrating the new class showed actual gameplay demonstrating some of the Wizard's abilities -- including the casting of spells
The hell? Can't Blizzard keep any of their lore consistent? Next thing you know, they'll have a "Fighter" class that uses melee weapons or some crazy shit like that.
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He's called a barbarian and they already showed him off. :P
I'm waiting for the long ranged weapon class (maybe a ranger? How about an elf ranger?) and some sort of defensive style class (a knight, perhaps?).
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Honestly, it is this sort of blundering about that is going to kill a company which is already in its death throws. I think it started back at The Lost Vikings [wikipedia.org]. I was both shocked and appalled to find Vikings sporting beards. Won't these people ever get their act together?!
Wizardry Classes? (Score:2)
That makes me wonder: Is there any place that actually teaches wizardry. In todays world, I'm sure there some one out there teaching it, but is there an actual reputable university teaching wizardry or something near wizardry (besides teaching EE, Physics or CS - if you call that wizardry).
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Here you go: (Score:5, Funny)
Places that teach magic:
http://www.chiropracticschools.com/ [chiropracticschools.com]
http://www.ncnm.edu/ [ncnm.edu]
http://www.homeopathyschool.com/ [homeopathyschool.com]
woowoo! all aboard the woo woo train.
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With the exception of homeopathy, your assertion is ridiculous. The NIH has concluded the pain benefits of chiropractic care (when applied to lower back pain), and licensed naturopaths (depending on the state) receive similar training to MD students, although unfortunately some fall under the homeopathic bandwagon.
If you really want to look at magic look at the research behind antidepressants, particularly effexor. Some studies not done by the manufacturer show a ~22% improvement compared to 20% placebo, an
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If you really want to look at magic look at the research behind antidepressants, particularly effexor. Some studies not done by the manufacturer show a ~22% improvement compared to 20% placebo, and while statistically significant, isn't really applicable to the general population. To me, that isn't much better than homeopathy. /no I'm not looking up the studies, if you care enough search pubmed
Saying "some studies" isn't that much better than saying "well it didn't help my cousin bob." Welcome to statistics and randomness, if you do enough studies then they will cover every single possible result. Show me a proper meta-analysis and I may consider what you said but otherwise it's just hot air. That's not even counting the tons of lovely ways you can fuck up a study.
That said, unlike various other drugs specific antidepressants aren't used alone, aren't expected to cure every single case of depress
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16172440?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum [nih.gov]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15110490?ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum [nih.gov]
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But prominent figures in the field claim it can help fight cancer, help the function of various bodily organs, and so forth. That's the magic hoodoo-voodoo part. If they admitted that they were really just glorified Massage Therapists, there wouldn't be a problem... but they make false claims.
I'm sure tribal shaman sometimes helped their patient with weird concoctions brewed from roots; b
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Hey, Hoodoo and Voodoo are totally different.
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Wha? (Score:3, Funny)
"Starcraft 2 was not yet ready for beta"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tim5nU3DwIE [youtube.com]
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If you are serious, you are pathetic.
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Why bash someone for paying a nominal amount of money for entertainment?
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You posted that comment as AC despite having an account(and posting from it now). That to me indicates that you knew it was likely to draw the ire of people, and/or would be noticed for being completely off topic. Maybe you were posting from some public place and just didn't feel like logging in. Maybe. Seems unlikely though.
So yeah, I'm thinking you did know you were trolling.
Of course, by responding to you I'm posting even further off topic, but at least I contributed some other more pertinent stuff u
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Kadenshi has already given you a well reasoned reply, completely free of ad-homienems and other totally awesome methods of debate that the wikipedia generation tends to frown on.
For myself, I am going to call you a cunt.
You are a cunt.
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While the economic crisis is big news, it's not like we haven't had economic blowouts in the past. This isn't the Great Depression. You're buying into the hype of the media--the hype that says everything happening at this moment is a critical disaster from which you will never recover. A year later, that same media has forgotten it all and is reporting on the latest exploits of Britney Spears. So calm down a little.
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Yes, we're fully aware of what's going on. And we're fully aware that we're not going to magically pull the solution to the woes of the world out of thin air.
Now, that leaves us two options. Sit in a corner and worry ourselves into gibbering wrecks, or, we can concentrate on something small that's just plain fun. You know, the kind of thing that'll give you a bit of rest and respite from the doom and gloom, so that when we get back out and have to deal with it again, we're that little bit more refreshed
Re:Oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Quick math:
10,000,000 world of warcraft subscriptions equals:
10,000,000 copies of wow @ $40 a pop = $400,000,000
10,000,000 active subscriptions @ $15 a pop = $1,800,000,000 per year.
We're over 2 billion dollars for 1 game for 1 year (it's been out for 4 years now AND has 1 expansion out with another releasing).
This isn't some rinkidink little company, they ARE the mmo scene AND the RTS scene (arguably).
It makes news, sorry.
P.S. Did you not get to go to Blizzcon? If that was just a rant, there is still time to fly down for tomorrows show.
other countries don't pay the same way (Score:2)
they pay by the logged in minute for example.. and much less money
how is your korean?
http://www.worldofwarcraft.co.kr/billing/ [worldofwarcraft.co.kr]
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Except how many of those are actual individuals and not just people running multis, and have they been verified or are they just blizzard's marketting at work?
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http://seekingalpha.com/article/94051-ride-out-the-recession-with-activision-blizzard [seekingalpha.com]
"For the full year ended March 2008, Activision had revenue of $2.8 billion, operating margins of 16.55% and operating income of $479.61 million. For the calendar year 2007, Blizzard's revenue was $1.2 billion, up 58% year-over-year.
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I'd say Relic is quickly eclipsing Blizzard in the RTS space with Company of Heroes and 40k DoW 2, both of which were much more fun for me than SC or WC3.
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This just in! A game that came out in 2006 plays better than a game that came out in 1998. News at 11.
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Lost Vikings, duh.
I guess you haven't heard the latest on Lost Vikings 3. People in Korea are already killing themselves over it to get a leg up on the competition.
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It was so worthless that you clicked Read More, clicked Reply, and typed an entire message to LET US KNOW how worthless it is! You go!
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I imagine they have in-house beta people specifically trying to break the game. The public beta tests have traditionally been more for balance purposes. The 'room full of monkeys' effect of public betas do find some glitches but, imho, balance is the important thing for them.
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A: Any shut-in, fat virgin would be lucky to grind some pants.
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