Thanks for the replies. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

DIABLO CLONE?

No, I'd certainly hope not. D2 is a good game, but I certainly don't want to repeat it in every game I play. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> The point I was making though is that developers know that many players aren't interested in all the additional modifiers so they tend to make their effects fairly minor (I may be wrong, but this is the way it seems to me. Not just with BD but with nearly all recent RPGs, there's a trend towards less real depth). Like it or not, the larger market is for games that don't require the player to spend a lot of time studying rules and manuals. Personally, I like a good manual and a bit of complexity, but clearly many don't.

Out of interest, what do posters here think the major differences are between D2 and BD? The addition of battlefields seems to take it much closer to D2 than DD was. The BD story is not that strong, and many of the quests are still "kill someone or find this item". Where is BD better, or different in a major way? I'm not saying that it isn't, but I wasn't the one that made a comparison to Diablo so I'd be interested to hear what people see as the difference.

WATER EFFECTS etc.

I do take the point that these things do make a difference. However, when I tested out how great that difference actually is it seems to be minimal. In other words, you may get a Role Play benefit from playing a certain type of character, but there won't really be a lot of difference in the way the fights play out, and certainly no change in the way the story unfolds.

My preference is for games with stronger stories and a genuine chance to take a variety of paths. This is obviously more expensive to do and may involve such things as multiple choice dialogue lines (whereby your choices effect the sort of character you develop), different story paths opening up depending on your choices, and an all round bigger difference in the game experience depending on what style of character you play.

I haven't finished BD yet, but so far the "Depth" seems to be more of an illusion than a reality. I'm not saying this makes it a bad game, just that it isn't the game I hoped for after DD. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />