Path of Exile Release (Free ARPG)

[The_wand_mirror]

Path of Exile is an online Action RPG set in the dark fantasy world of Wraeclast. We're a small independent team of hardcore gamers based in New Zealand and have created Path of Exile as the game that we'd want to play ourselves. It is designed around a strong barter-based online item economy, deep character customisation, competitive PvP and ladder races. The game is completely free and will never be "pay to win". Path of Exile is currently in Open Beta! If you'd like to play, just create an account.

So after a long beta Path of Exile is almost officialy out meaning they finished act 3 by adding four or so new areas, a new prestige class (the scion) and trigger gems. If you don't know what I am talking about then http://www.pathofexile.com/ go there.

And here's a little gameplay with an obviously overpowered scion
http://au.gamespot.com/shows/now-playing/?event=path-of-exile-2-20131004

Anyway, if you are not sure wether this game is for you then you could try and download it and play it for a bit because it's totally free and you don't have to spend something if you don't want to. Do however note that the game is pretty much funded by donators (of which there are quite a lot) and even spending 15 on a small pack is at least donating something.

Don't be afraid that the game is pay to win, all the shop items until now have only been for the looks and GGG does not intend to ever change this.

Yes i made a promotion thread just because i wanted to...

 

[The_wand_mirror]

It's out now!

Either download the client from the website or just download it from the steam webstore to play.

 

[bhusta]

Thank you for posting. I totally forgot about the release.
Played it in the first weeks of the beta. So, I am curious about the changes.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I remember how people said this game would beat Diablo III. They proceeded to uninstall Diablo III and promise never come back and only play PoE. Was absolutely hilarious to see them reinstalling Diablo III and coming back after a month or two and admitting they were wrong.

For something you can play on the cheap it is apparently a great ARPG but the general conscious from ARPG players is that it lacks the polish of Diablo III (which, judging by how much Blizzard will be changing it, is not that well pollished) and still is Pay to Win even though it claims it is not (some things give a real advantage, even though not directly). That said I recall it having much more of the controversial Diablo II mechanics, that players either loved or hated, than Diablo III so some people may find they prefer it over Diablo III if they liked Diablo II.

 

[The_wand_mirror]

For something you can play on the cheap it is apparently a great ARPG but the general conscious from ARPG players is that it lacks the polish of Diablo III (which, judging by how much Blizzard will be changing it, is not that well pollished) and still is Pay to Win even though it claims it is not (some things give a real advantage, even though not directly)

Thing is that its not only cheap but made with alot of input from the players, something which blizzard didnt really do until they decided to remove the auction house. It just shows how bad they understood their own game which was probably made mostly by people that didnt work on diablo 2. If they did then i dont understand what they were thinking.

For me diablo was a fun game and it still is but it's not diablo how i remember it anymore, they really tried to make something different but that's just not what i expected. I certainly never expected them to leave out allocating your attribute points and what not. Even in Path of Exile developers nowadays just seem to focus too much on balance than just making a fun game. (Don't really know how to explain that xD)

I do agree that the stash tab stuff can be seen as pay to win, but other than that theres nothing to make someone who pays better than someone who doesnt. And even then you should just give up hoarding everything (Which is quite useless anyway) if you dont want to pay.

 

[Dr Super Good]

but made with alot of input from the players

Which every developer knows is a bad thing. Players have no idea what they want. Just look at the SC2 board where people constantly suggest insane balance changes to a game that is played professionally in Korea. Sure some players have great ideas and suggestions but most of them are totally rubbish.

something which blizzard didnt really do until they decided to remove the auction house.

Because 0.1% of the players complained? No I do not think so. In fact more players in game complain about the AH removal than support it. They are removing it purely because there is going to be no end game item trading as anything short of that will only make players a ton more frustrated.

It just shows how bad they understood their own game which was probably made mostly by people that didnt work on diablo 2.

Which is a good thing seeing how rubbish Diablo II was. Fun, yes, but it has to be one of the most broken games ever made and is by far the most popular broken game ever made.

I certainly never expected them to leave out allocating your attribute points and what not.

Ability trees were unique to Diablo II (not in Diablo I). It also proved to be a very stupid mechanic for obvious reasons. Put a point into Energy? Respec or start a new character. Put more than 1 point into 80% of skills? Respec or start a new character. What Blizzard is doing with Paragon attributes is far more sensible.

Even in Path of Exile developers nowadays just seem to focus too much on balance than just making a fun game.

They have to in order to keep any value in the marketplace. Be it stuff they sell (not items) or stuff players trade (items). If you make the rigged items not rigged then players will be forced to play to get new rigged items. If you make not rigged items rigged then players will be forced to get them. The beauty of PoE is that the developers do not need to concern themselves with an auction house as the third parties will fulfil that need for end game gear while giving no liability to the developers should people spend real money on items that are nerfed.

I do agree that the stash tab stuff can be seen as pay to win, but other than that theres nothing to make someone who pays better than someone who doesnt. And even then you should just give up hoarding everything (Which is quite useless anyway) if you dont want to pay.

Which is very different from D3 where once you paid for, it was an even playing field. Sure you could use the RMAH to get the best gear but the reality is that only reduced the amount of time before you got the best gear. In the end there was no difference between someone who had the best gear by playing a lot and some one who had the best gear by buying it and most of the money spent to buy the gear ended up on players and not on Blizzard. I witnessed a lot of players go from zero to hero and although they never reached the very top end of gear, they had no problem doing the hardest difficulties without ever having spent anything in the RMAH.

As for players supporting the RMAH removal... Did you know some are going to try and sue Blizzard if it is removed?

 

[The_wand_mirror]

Which every developer knows is a bad thing. Players have no idea what they want. Just look at the SC2 board where people constantly suggest insane balance changes to a game that is played professionally in Korea. Sure some players have great ideas and suggestions but most of them are totally rubbish.

I know but i only meant small things mostly, players will always whine about stuff. In PoE they are whining right now because of changes in the skill tree. I meant that i can see some changes that i really wanted to happend just happend in the release update. People can nag as much as they want but GGG will never include some features if it is not in their vision.

Because 0.1% of the players complained? No I do not think so. In fact more players in game complain about the AH removal than support it. They are removing it purely because there is going to be no end game item trading as anything short of that will only make players a ton more frustrated.

Seems weird to remove it then, anyway i remember playing until the second difficulty and my gear was not good enough so i went to the AH and bought new stuff for gold and did the same again for the next difficulty. I can see why blizzard would remove it to make people get their own stuff instead of buying it everytime you need something better.

Which is a good thing seeing how rubbish Diablo II was. Fun, yes, but it has to be one of the most broken games ever made and is by far the most popular broken game ever made.

Maybe with todays standards, but then most old games are. Ages of Empires is very fun but it has massively unbalanced stuff going on here and there.

Ability trees were unique to Diablo II (not in Diablo I). It also proved to be a very stupid mechanic for obvious reasons. Put a point into Energy? Respec or start a new character. Put more than 1 point into 80% of skills? Respec or start a new character. What Blizzard is doing with Paragon attributes is far more sensible.

I just think they should not have sacrificed a certain amount of freedom for the sake of having it balanced, there could have been another solution instead of having pre-defined skills that you unlock every few levels with the required attribute points. I have only made it to level 56 so i don't know about paragon but it sounds kinda like "here have another extra 100 levels so our game will last longer". If you dont want to add quality then just add quantity.

They have to in order to keep any value in the marketplace. Be it stuff they sell (not items) or stuff players trade (items). If you make the rigged items not rigged then players will be forced to play to get new rigged items. If you make not rigged items rigged then players will be forced to get them. The beauty of PoE is that the developers do not need to concern themselves with an auction house as the third parties will fulfil that need for end game gear while giving no liability to the developers should people spend real money on items that are nerfed.

See i don't really get this mentality of picking whatever is the strongest and just sticking with that becuase hey everything else is useless anyway. I just play how I want to play without searching the absolute 100% most effective path of progression.

As for players supporting the RMAH removal... Did you know some are going to try and sue Blizzard if it is removed?

They do know that they clicked "I accept all these things about me buying a product and not being able to sue blizzard if it doesnt meet my exact expectations" kind of EULA? =p

This whole paying real money for an item and then getting your item nerfed really is your own fault. Especially with them balancing everything you could bet on it that your overpowered item is going to be noticed sometime. So could as well stop spending money on items then, problem solved.

 

[MrStormyZ]

Add me in this guys! : Omega_Z

 

[HammerFist132]

Just a stupid question to stop conversation. What is arpg, or better said what is A in role playing game?

 

[TriggerHappy]

Just a stupid question to stop conversation. What is arpg, or better said what is A in role playing game?

Action.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Ages of Empires is very fun but it has massively unbalanced stuff going on here and there.

Ironically that is not true. Considering the budget and time constraints a final review of the game from ex developers and devoted fans came to the conclusion that Age of Empires 2 was surprisingly well balanced for the amount of content thrown in to it. Sure SC2 is more balanced but that has far simpler game play with far less content to use.

"here have another extra 100 levels so our game will last longer". If you dont want to add quality then just add quantity.

They are fixing it by making it an account wide system with no level cap. You unlock more points for all your characters the higher your level until around 800 when you max out most of the tree and then only can dump into prime attributes (your main one obviously). Yeh choices are not permanent but for most players I am sure there will be huge variance in how they allocate their points.

They do know that they clicked "I accept all these things about me buying a product and not being able to sue blizzard if it doesnt meet my exact expectations" kind of EULA? =p

Actually they are trying to get Blizzard for false advertising and selling a product that does not do as claimed. All retail boxes of Diablo III advertise the existence of the auction house apparently so the minute they shut it down the boxes will promise a feature that does not exist. Sure I doubt Blizzard will have to pay anything but I do see lawyer to lawyer action over it.

What is arpg

It is a type of RPG that relies on real time movement and controls but has RPG elements to it. An example that is not Diablo II/III would be some of the Castlevania games over the last decade which are side scrolling action games with heavy RPG elements.

An action game could be anything from Megaman to Sonic in some respects however they are often referred to as plat formers due to other game mechanics (although they do share action based gameplay).

 

[The_wand_mirror]

They are fixing it by making it an account wide system with no level cap. You unlock more points for all your characters the higher your level until around 800 when you max out most of the tree and then only can dump into prime attributes (your main one obviously). Yeh choices are not permanent but for most players I am sure there will be huge variance in how they allocate their points.

I can't comment on that as I don't know anything about paragon but I will try and make a new charachter sometime with the new patch and all.

You do know that alot of people were kind of tricked into playing it right? A lot of WoW players got it free, people were hyping their friends that had never even heard of diablo 2 so everyone was buying it and overall blizzards marketing attracted alot more people than even they themselves had anticipated. I'm curious how many people who played diablo 2 are still playing diablo 3 right now, I feel like it's mostly WoW players that didn't mind the huge changes.

Actually they are trying to get Blizzard for false advertising and selling a product that does not do as claimed. All retail boxes of Diablo III advertise the existence of the auction house apparently so the minute they shut it down the boxes will promise a feature that does not exist. Sure I doubt Blizzard will have to pay anything but I do see lawyer to lawyer action over it.

Reminds me of Aliens Colonial marines, didn't that get dropped too? Xbox 360 game screenshots on the back of the gamecases are also always way prettier than the actual game looks. I'm sure blizzard is going to say that the biggest motivation to implement a auction house was becuase of the profit they would get out of it and else people would've gone using third parties to sell and buy stuff anyway, but now they decided to remove it because it destroys the core of the game.

I don't think the players have a good case here. Especially seeing as they can just go with third parties again.

In that sense I also don't get what you are saying because the AH actually made diablo 3 genuinly pay to win by enabling players to buy stuff. And don't act like just its just skipping grinding time because who really wants to be doing that if they have the money and are willing to pay to skip that. What if someone just wanted to get to the end of Inferno but didnt have the time to grind that much (some people have jobs and kids and such).

 

[Dr Super Good]

I'm curious how many people who played diablo 2 are still playing diablo 3 right now, I feel like it's mostly WoW players that didn't mind the huge changes.

I took a break from it for a while but I have ranked up well over 3000 hours playing it in total. Probably played it more than Diablo II. I would even play it a bit right now if not for some rather physical limitations (graphic card decided it had enough of SC2 and committed suicide).

In that sense I also don't get what you are saying because the AH actually made diablo 3 genuinly pay to win by enabling players to buy stuff. And don't act like just its just skipping grinding time because who really wants to be doing that if they have the money and are willing to pay to skip that. What if someone just wanted to get to the end of Inferno but didnt have the time to grind that much (some people have jobs and kids and such).

It made my life easier. I never get good stuff dropping (never got a single HR in D2) and so I could just trade the low value stuff I did find very easily and safely to save up for the rare stuff I never find.

In Diablo III it used to take days of in game time trying to trade a single item an 90% of people tried to scam you for whatever you were selling. As such I am afraid Diablo III will be ruined if they remove the auction houses but still allow trading of end game items as it will resort to the nasty mechanics of trade from Diablo II where casual players just could not get anywhere and were farmed for loot by scammers while the high end players payed third party sites anyway. As such all high end item trade should not be allowed so as there is no in game trading economy.

I am completely happy getting junk I do not need all by myself as long as I know I cannot trade for better.

 

[The_wand_mirror]

It made my life easier. I never get good stuff dropping (never got a single HR in D2) and so I could just trade the low value stuff I did find very easily and safely to save up for the rare stuff I never find.

Sure I know it makes it easier, but it feels like a cheap way to fix something that should not have been a problem if drop rates were higher. PoE also has this problem that sometimes bosses just don't drop anything good, sometimes they don't even drop one rare/yellow item. I do remember diablo 2 bosses always dropping at least one yellow item. Also in both games you need exactly the right stats sometimes, especially in PoE you cant just replace a four-link item with a 2-link if you dont have something else to compensate for it or you will be forced to sacrifice passives or skill gems.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I do remember diablo 2 bosses always dropping at least one yellow item

.
Too bad most types of yellow item were useless and the chance of you getting a useful yellow item was similar to finding a high rune.

Most people used uniques and rune words for that reason, since they are a lot less chance based. Sure some rare amulets were made of pure win but so was an Enigma chest armor and unfortunately the Enigma was considerably easier to obtain, especially before duping was fixed.

It is never the quantity of items, it is the item rolls.

 

[The_wand_mirror]

Yeah i know but it's just the thing that PoE bosses sometimes don't even drop one of them. Just blues/whites and nothing else.

Anyway you should still try it out if you havent already, you could at least play through the whole first difficulty once seeing as i did the same with diablo. Both of them are just fun to play through at least once. It really doesn't feel like a free game when you are playing it and just enjoy the atmosphere, they really did a good job on that. Diablo had all that too but PoE had the innovative ideas that i had wanted and expected from D3.

And eh 3000 hours, I don't think I am nearing the 200 yet on PoE lol.

 

[Kino]

I have a strange love-hate relationship with this game.

It has a very original setting, the character progression system both skills and passives is great if not the best I have ever seen.
Also theres no gold for currency, instead crafting mats form the currency, which I totally love.

That being said, the game is so RNG based to the point its plain ridiculous. (Personally I have gotten more unique drops from smashing crates than doing bosses.)

It seems that people didn't like D3 because itemising was too linear, PoE does the exact opposite and throws everything down to luck. Which is worse? I have no idea.

The community is absolutely the worse I have encountered in any game. I have played plenty of DoTA and LoL, so you can get a vague idea how bad it is. Its probably because the game brands itself has hardcore, and hence the community it attracts is toxic beyond fuck.

Which is sad, because once you establish your game around such a player base, good luck trying to do any changes without absurd backlash.

All that being said, it is worth playing at least to experience all the main story content.

 

[Deleted member 219079]

Does this game have its own engine? How long it took to develop this game?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Does this game have its own engine? How long it took to develop this game?

I believe it does. The developers have been at it for several years if I recall, with the first hints of it starting long before D3 was released/

 

[Deleted member 219079]

Wow, then it's more pure than D3, as Diablo 3 isn't purely using Blizzard's dedicated engine, but Havok for physics.

But I'm still not wasting my 2mbps connection for this one, the artwork and music in D3 is so immerse, especially when using "Dark D3" graphics mod, that I'm too afraid this would just take space on my computer (It's 2TB+SSD but still).

 

[Dr Super Good]

Wow, then it's more pure than D3, as Diablo 3 isn't purely using Blizzard's dedicated engine, but Havok for physics.

Why re-invent the wheel? Havok was used due to its highly polished and tested nature to do something that in itself is a colossal task. They use the same physics for SC2 as well and with their new AoS. Most games out source physics to a read-to-use solution because creating efficient and useful physics is very difficult.

But I'm still not wasting my 2mbps connection for this one, the artwork and music in D3 is so immerse, especially when using "Dark D3" graphics mod, that I'm too afraid this would just take space on my computer (It's 2TB+SSD but still).

It is more a question of time. Its the sort of thing you try over a weekend or play for a week as something different.

 

[The_wand_mirror]

Wow, then it's more pure than D3, as Diablo 3 isn't purely using Blizzard's dedicated engine, but Havok for physics.

But I'm still not wasting my 2mbps connection for this one, the artwork and music in D3 is so immerse, especially when using "Dark D3" graphics mod, that I'm too afraid this would just take space on my computer (It's 2TB+SSD but still).

Havok is pretty standard as DSG said

Or Unity/Unreal 3 engine for beginning developers etc.

Path of Exile has been in development for 7 years or something?

 

[Deleted member 219079]

I never said Havok was bad.

That's pretty long, sounds promising

 

[The_wand_mirror]

I never said Havok was bad.

That's pretty long, sounds promising

Well it's mostly because they are a small team, if you look at the screenshots on their website you can see how it used to look if you scroll back far enough.

 

[Adiktuz]

It looks nice, my friends play it but sadly I don't have time for Online games nowadays...