Diablo II's five classes have different quirks for each iteration of the patch. The most common thing is despite the various branches of skills, you only get to see some of the skills because most are just filler. Will you see anyone using Frost Nova on a frequent basis? Firebolt? Inferno? No, sorceress just go with Static Field, Hydra, Fireball, Meteor and nothing else because nothing else is needed.
This is not about diablo, but the BD demo. Anyway, you forget energy shield,ice blast and chilling armor(=very good). Also you cannot discount firebolt and the lot, because you have to use these in the early lvls, so you did actually use them.
You missed similar points about the other classes.
But it doesn't matter, because I think diablo2 isn't a real rpg, but the similarity with the BD demo is still there.
*snips rant about diablo2*
If you take the mage class in BD now, I really find only 2 skills: missile or instant spells in any of 4 elemental types. If you hated D2 then how is that good?
Point is - Diablo II has only the illusion of depth.
I really missed this illusion in the BD demo. A demo is supposed to make the player hot for the full version!
I think many players who DL this demo will see even less than I did. I made an effort playing all three classes and finishing the demo. This is what I saw.
Already, in the second room you get a moral decision to make - to kill the imp or to let him go? Do you help the Skull to get his revenge on Fergus, or simply sneak pass the torture-master?
But that's not real RP is it? Even in diablo you can choose to run from a random encounter, I suppose.
Since you brought NWN into it, a nice RP situation is when you need to defend a barbarian accused of murder in court and you have the choice of bribing the jury and witnesses or find out what really happened. Or even mess up the defense deliberately. This is from NWN chapter2. There's more of such subquests in NWN and it's expansions. Yes, you have to follow the main quest line but you still have some freedom while doing that.
As it is now, with this demo as BD cannot even compare to NWN, sorry. Back to hack and slash comparison.
At the bottom of the skill panel there is an option for you to show all the avaliable, unlocked skill paths. See for yourself.
I did. 2 skills for a mage tree(missile or instant) + the warrior skill tree because the knight weas a warrior.
With a ranger only 4 survivor skills and the warrior skills.
With a warrior only weapon specialistaion for both myself and the DK.
That's the demo.
"A hint at RPing" - a hint? Yep, a pretty good damn hint for a half an hour demo. There's already much more role-playing moments concentrated within the demo than some complete games. Diablo II don't even have any rare dialogue sequences - and don't get me started on NWN, especially the first core campagin. Curse in anyway you like, but Fenwick will still insist you are the best choice for the job. Illusion of a choice.
The tiny hint is not enough IMO. In NWN you can atleast threaten quest givers to give you more money, if you play an evil villain. Then there's real dialogue in some subquests, especially chapter 2 and 3. Both chapters were pretty good for crpg standards. You could also rob almost any NPC in the game through threats... Etc. etc.
Nothing like that in this demo.
So if you say the full game will be much better, than I would suggest a better demo.
A game demo is like PR so you need to show a sample of the very best. This demo turned me off and that's not a good sign.
