General News - Diablo Immortal Review

Pay to win is an excellent way to make sure I never play a game. I might check one out at a free level, yet pay to win schemes only serve to usually make me mock the product.
 
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Any game that has gameplay mechanics related to real money should be 18+ by principle. Sends clear information to players and parents. Let developer decide if implementing such mechanics is worth 18+ label. That should be bare minimum as per my opinion. That said Im also fan of NL and BE regulation of lootboxes.
 
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..

Screenrant:


Nextshark, quoting The Strait Times which is behind a paywall:


20,000 or 100,000. Sure, there is a difference. But if you see red numbers on your bank account because of a F2P game you are not happy, whatever the numbers.

Personally I think games like these should not be promoted anywhere.

I think every person should spend their money on things they like. One of my cousins is only happy by owning 400 shoes, another one buys a new sport car every 3 years, another one buys expensive rare whiskeys, another one goes to every soccer game of Borussia Dortmund world wide. I own around 2000 computer games.
Should we ban unnecessary shoes, expensive sport cars, rare whiskey, soccer fanatics and computer games now?
Gacha games are mostly financed by so called whales, people who don't have to care about money. The others can enjoy a free/cheap game (at least in the case of Genshin).

The Screenrant example was mentioned everywhere (who on earth give kids access to to their credit card?), but I have yet to see many of these examples in the press, if it were really a problem reports should be everywhere when the game is played by such a huge playerbase. If one in 100,000 persons had such a problem it would still be 60,000,000 x 0,00001 = 600 cases.

So I will report about these games and mention the problems they may have and the fun sides they may have, too.
 
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I’ve always been a fan of the Diablo series and would put D2 in my top 5 games of all time. D3 was just ok, although it vastly improved over time with the dlc and updates. Immortal clearly uses a ton of D3 assets, and seems to offer a somewhat streamlined gameplay experience. While I’m tempted to try it as a lifelong Diablo fan, I just can’t get on board with this level of monetization and blatant pay to win practices. So I’ll be skipping this one and praying that they don’t try to put any of this nonsense into D4. I’d encourage anyone interested in this to instead spend their time and money on D3, or the excellent D2 Resurrected.
 
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I think every person should spend their money on things they like. One of my cousins is only happy by owning 400 shoes, another one buys a new sport car every 3 years, another one buys expensive rare whiskeys, I own around 2000 computer games.
Should we ban unnecessary shoes, expensive sport cars, rare whiskey and computer games now?
Gacha games are mostly financed by so called whales, people who don't have to care about money. The others can enjoy a free/cheap game (at least in the case of Genshin).

The Screenrant example was mentioned everywhere (who on earth give kids access to to their credit card?), but I have yet to see many of these examples in the press, if it were really a problem reports should be everywhere when the game is played by such a huge playerbase. If one in 100,000 persons had such a problem it would still be 60,000,000 x 0,00001 = 600 cases.
People owning 400 shoes, sport cars of max 3 years old, and rare whiskeys know the price in advance. So I would not compare them with people downloading a 'F2P' game.

I'd like to see that study, of Gacha games mostly being financed by people who don't have to care about money. (If that was true, why not just ask a fixed price of 1000 euros per game, screw the free riders. Get exclusive). I have read on a Dutch site about a UK study that said 10% of kids got in debt, 11% used the cc of their parents, and 9% borrowed money.

English source: "Over 1 in 10 young gamers get into debt by buying loot boxes"
. Almost one in six (15%) young gamers had taken money from their parents without their permission to buy loots boxes;
. One in ten (11%) had used their parents' credit or debit card to fund their loot box purchases;
. One in ten (9%) had borrowed money they couldn't repay to spend on loot boxes;
. Three young gamers' loot box buying habits resulted in their families having to re-mortgage their homes to cover the costs.

So I will report about these games and mention the problems they may have and the fun sides they may have, too.

I think it would be very good to give a warning each time, yes, especially as a Steam curator. I think a considerable part of the audience over there might be younger than 25.
 
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Here's a recent video about Genshin:

Is Genshin Impact TOO Expensive?


Vars II claims that the main point is that people are happy when they can collect things (like stamps, LPs, cards,…). He supports the whale thesis.

PS:
So far I have no Lootbox/Gacha game in the Steam Curator.

Diablo Immortal
is not in our database at all..
 
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Alrik you are constantly complaying that every game is dark and gritty nowadays.
Genshin Impact is light hearted and often even funny and promotes righteous positive characters. Play it F2P, ignore the shop and you'll will have a fun time.

I thought it was a Dark Souls clone ?
 
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I thought it was a Dark Souls clone ?

360_no_country0518.jpg
 
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I have to agree with Nereida. Even though it seems like a nice model for players that cannot afford the game, the possible impact on those with conditions and the possibility of people developing conditions should not be ignored. Plus the gameplay suffers - instead of having, say, an interesting quest that would award a special cosmetic item, one has to buy it with real money. You can say - why not to have both? I say - why not have two interesting quests instead of just one?

Good old days of just buying a box and getting all the content...
 
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I have to agree with Nereida. Even though it seems like a nice model for players that cannot afford the game, the possible impact on those with conditions and the possibility of people developing conditions should not be ignored. Plus the gameplay suffers - instead of having, say, an interesting quest that would award a special cosmetic item, one has to buy it with real money. You can say - why not to have both? I say - why not have two interesting quests instead of just one?

Good old days of just buying a box and getting all the content…

Like the Elder Scrolls Online Genshin Impact gets new content every month, sometimes even every week. There are only two other options to finance such a game:
  1. a monthly fee /subscription
  2. split everything into DLCs that can be bought individually

I think with both of these options Hoyoverse would have much less success.
 
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Like the Elder Scrolls Online Genshin Impact gets new content every month, sometimes even every week. There are only two other options to finance such a game:
  1. a monthly fee /subscription
  2. split everything into DLCs that can be bought individually

I think with both of these options Hoyoverse would have much less success.

Yes, of course, for they would get less money in their pockets.
But players, while still having fun, would have more in theirs. I consider THAT a success.
 
With option 1) and 2) I would not have downloaded and started the game at all.

Now I have paid 60 Euro for 1500 hours = 4 cent/hour, only for Left4Dead and Farcry 2 I have paid less (per hour), because I spent even more time on them. For ESO I spent much more money for DLCs, but it has a good cent/hour ratio as well.
 
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I like it very much. Solid 8/10 for me.
To explain im at lvl 41 out of 60. At 37 the main story stopped and told me to get 40 to continue. So i did some rifts (random dungeons) with random people and had so much fun that i am 41 now . So i dont see a wall here.
I bought the enhanced battle pass for 5€ and a skin i liked for 1€. Totally worth it and to support the developers. The battle pass i bought just gives extra materials when i rank up the free one.
The thing i can see being very bad are the 5* star legendary gems because of the power they provide and the way to get them is by paying. I understand that as a casual spender I won't dominate pvp and leaderboards. And i am ok with it.
As i have over 1200 hours in diablo 3 by doing mostly the same things over and over and enjoying them i can totally see myself running dungeons with random people in D immortal and enjoying myself.
 
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@Eye;
No, I don't agree - Hoyoverse doesn't earn much from low-spenders with high playing time like me, because they host every session on their servers like an MP online game.

Hoyoverse earns much money, but contrary to older gacha games the put a lot of this money back into the monthly development of the game. They even hired an opera singer and composed a high quality song and animated it into the story for just one quest! I have rarely seen any of this in a computer game.

Opera Singer Reacts: The Divine Damsel of Devastation (Genshin Impact OST)
 
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It's not really any different that most MMORPG.

The best were games like DaoC, Warhammer Online: AoR etc.

Most MMORPG have varying levels of pay to win. Consider DDO for example. They sell boxes to level your character to 20 with the click of a button all for the super low price of 30 dollars. No different than Genshin Impact.

I do miss the old school MMORPG though - were it didn't matter how much you spent.
 
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It's not really any different that most MMORPG.

The best were games like DaoC, Warhammer Online: AoR etc.

Most MMORPG have varying levels of pay to win. Consider DDO for example. They sell boxes to level your character to 20 with the click of a button all for the super low price of 30 dollars. No different than Genshin Impact.

I do mist the old school MMORPG though - were it didn't matter how much you spent.

I've denounced DDO in the past too in these boards. Another extremely predatory game, that luckily is not that popular, but you even get an intrusive "pay now to resurrect" pop up that blocks your screen when you die. It's absurd that such things are allowed in a video game.
 
I've denounced DDO in the past too in these boards. Another extremely predatory game, that luckily is not that popular, but you even get an intrusive "pay now to resurrect" pop up that blocks your screen when you die. It's absurd that such things are allowed in a video game.

Long term/high effort players don't see the problem because they can spend the time or have built up their characters power over many years.

The problem is Little Johhny. Little Johnny starts and sees all the old timers blazing through dungeons at lightning speed or soloing raid bosses and decides he wants to be like that! It will take little Johnny approximately 10 years to reach that power level. Little Johnny reaches for his credit card……two months later Little Johnny quits because he decides he doesn't like the game or he is getting bored because he never built a real attachment to his character like the old timers have. On to the next game!

It takes approx 2-3k to achieve that in DDO. F2P for content old timers. Not so much for the whales. The old timers don't even realise they are literally free advertising for the publisher. They tell the new/young players how much effort it will take but it is so much fun when you get there!

Diablo Immortal different mechanics, same story. Genshin Impact different mechanics, same story. F2P is the problem - such a great marketing design.
 
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I tried this game for a few hours. I'd sum it up as ok, but not worth my time.

Graphics are good for a mobile game, and it is well done action-wise.

The rest i dislike or find neutral.

Story? The start is not much, but maybe it picks up later?

Controls are good, but my fingers are in the way and keyboard controls can be done more automatic.

Skills are well done, but there are no choices to make apart from which ones to keep active.

No RPG mechanics. Basically an action game with equipment customization.

The most annoying part to me are the unlockable achievements. They are apart from the game in the menu system and feel like a way to train me to get used to and associate the shop with rewards.

There are also annoying commercials for the shop (limited time to buy the starter kit for really cheap!!!). Didn't get far enough for me to get to a grindy place, so no idea how required the pay mechanism is to get a good experience.
 
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I'm a Diablo fan from the first hour, but I was very sceptical about Immortal and sad to be proven right. Since I'm a resident of one of those 2 countries, I will not even be tempted to try it ;)
 
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