It's basically a very pretty slot machine. I played quite a bit of D2 and D3. The thrill comes from grinding for hours (and hours and hours) and finding that one item that earns you hundreds of dollars. (Yes real dollars) You can thank the the Real-Money Auction House for both destroying the game and being the one thing that keeps so many people coming back for more.

I loved Diablo 2 and probably spent a good portion of my high school hours playing it. I was very excited for Diablo 3 and tried to get into it but just couldn't.

I felt that they just took a ton of ideas from WoW and implanted them into Diablo. Sure it may have made them more money but it made it a lot less fun.

If you liked Diablo 2, Torchlight 2 was made by the same people, and is the spiritual successor to Diablo 2.

Marvel Heroes is made by David Brevik - He had the original idea for diablo 1 and played a bigger role in diablo 2 than the guys that made torch light 2. Lets no mention his failed project with bill roper on hellgate london though.

Thanks for mentioning. I'll take a look.

I've heard Path of Exile is a worthy successor to D2.

For this very reason I must on no account ever install it.

its a great game with its own economy issues. since the open beta started its gone downhill.

> It's basically a very pretty slot machine.

I didn't see the connection so clearly until now. How is D3 even legal?

Why would it be illegal?

Because it could seen as online gambling. You spend money to buy items to then grind to find more items to hopefully cash out.

I'm honestly surprised that they haven't been so classified yet. The theory-wonks had made this connection as far back as 2005, and the IRS wasn't entirely blind to it. (Though when Dibbell published Play Money in 2007, they had no clue how to deal with it.)

I guess with all the hysteria about video game violence, no one has had time to actually look at what's going on.

ETA: I'm guessing that the fact that there's some skill involved makes it more okay. Like a fly-fishing tournament.

How is clicking on monsters to get drops different from a slot machine or pachinko? - Those are illegal in many jurisdictions.

Because you aren't likely to lose money clicking on monsters.

Also, by that logic, buying a pack of baseball cards is gambling.

Probably something to do with not having to pay to play. That's a pretty big difference.

Eve was a black whole for me. Played casually for a week, then learned how to make money via trading, then I found out there is a Python API for grabbing data out of the game client, as well as some other JavaScript-APIs using the in-game Browser.

Next thing you know I was crawling all popular market hubs in Eve, storing price history of each item in mysql, and programmatic analyzing the data to find the best trade routes for profit.

Then I realized I need much more data, and prepared a small data-grabber client for other people to run, as well some cloud storage to upload it to.

I looked at the calendar and noticed 2 weeks have past and I didn't do much else, so I came to the conclusion this might not be the most productive thing to do and quit Eve :) Problem is, I can't play these games the "normal" way, when I see it got APIs etc. I just have to go all out on it - or just not play at all.

Incidentally, Eve is the source of my favorite overflow bug! By putting a ship into a region of space that reduces the range of its weapons and using various range-debuffs, players were able to decrease the range of certain weapons by enough to get the range variable to roll over. This gave them near-infinite range on weapons that were intended to be short range. Since the short range was a tradeoff for very high damage, suddenly having infinite range was game breaking. However, the people who discovered the bug were clever, and did not abuse the power enough to be detected for nearly a year.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/09/17/new-eve-exploit-give...

You're very wrong in that assumption. Don't get me wrong, I wasted 9 months of my life becoming completely absorbed by the game but it's so immersive that no other game can compare.

It's about hoarding, alliances, corporations, mining ops, PVP ops, big alliance battles, 0-sec space mining/pvp ops (this is the best part of the game).

I've heard Eve online called an animated space themed spreadsheet before. I tried it myself a long time ago, and I felt it was too complicated and boring.

I played enough to get a lv. 60 Monk and lv. 60 Demon Hunter. The problem with Diablo III, compared to Diablo II from 10 years ago, is that nowadays there are so many options for online games without monthly fees that there's little incentive to stick to just one.

Then I started Guild Wars 2 a few months later, and played that to death. :)

Don't let the initial Eve gameplay get to you. Join an active faction and go on some roams. Pvp is where the game shines.

Every time that I've been blown up in Eve, it's happened so quickly that the fight didn't even render on my screen. Just one second I'm in a spaceship, and the next I'm back at my home station. That feeling doesn't make me want to learn combat!

And you were probably travelling in a simple shuttle or cheap frigate, against multiple players or smartbombing idiots. Likely not consensual, and you were probably not expecting combat. Yeah, it sucks, but that too different from other MMOs (WOW, I am looking at you).

Many of my small-scale engagements took several minutes to resolve, one way or the other.

Not to mention fleets. In fact, one of my fondest memories was taking part in Agony Unleashed's PVP classes. That took several hours of intense playtime - we had to have multiple 'bio breaks' for people to be able to go to the bathroom and eat something - while being guarded and with scouts to give early warnings to the fleet. And it was amazing. Instructors teaching game concepts and military-like tactics and command and control (and actually enforcing discipline).

I've never seen a game getting even close to that sort of organization and discipline. CCP should hire those guys as teachers to introduce players to more advanced game concepts.

Mirrors what I experienced when I played. EVE teaches strategy and tactics to a level that is unmatched in pretty much any other game i've seen.