4 Things I Hate
ABOUT DIABLO 3:

1 - New Potion System: I don't know what genius decided to edit the way the potions worked, but unlike in Diablo 1 and 2, you can't spam the potion button when you're in trouble for an emergency heal. Now, every time you use a potion, it has a cool down effect, which means you need to actually plan when to use a potion at the right time, or you're fucked. You can also only add one potion type to the Hot Bar, unlike in the previous 2 games where you could use belts to add multiple slots for various kinds of potions. The game seems to be limited to only healing potions now, but that's beside the point. I have to in mid fucking battle, try to open my huge...

4 Things I Hate
ABOUT DIABLO 3:

1 - New Potion System: I don't know what genius decided to edit the way the potions worked, but unlike in Diablo 1 and 2, you can't spam the potion button when you're in trouble for an emergency heal. Now, every time you use a potion, it has a cool down effect, which means you need to actually plan when to use a potion at the right time, or you're fucked. You can also only add one potion type to the Hot Bar, unlike in the previous 2 games where you could use belts to add multiple slots for various kinds of potions. The game seems to be limited to only healing potions now, but that's beside the point. I have to in mid fucking battle, try to open my huge ass inventory screen and manually choose between a light healing potion, or something more potent while I'm getting my ass kicked.

Shared Character Gold: Sharing the storage loot between characters is fine by me as I often find gear my class can't use and want to pass it on to an alt. But sharing the fucking GOLD!? Who the hell thought this up!? That's right, your gold is shared among all your characters, its not divided up individually. What one character spends, they all spend. This is bull shit if you've got multiple characters who each need to stock up on better gear, only to find you need to sacrifice one of your alt's performances to increase another one. Or if you're like me and my dad who share the same account and have different characters. In fact, my dad likes to make shit loads of alts because he can't ever decide on one character, so this greatly cuts into my own profits. Once again, this dumb ass design was NOT present in Diablo 1 or 2, so why the fuck change it now?

Battlenet Required: Diablo 1 and 2 had the option to play both multi player and single player. While you can still technically play single through the game, you MUST log into battlenet to play the game at all, which means you are still technically connected to the internet and can converse with or invite people to join your game. This often results in LAG, since you're connected to the internet, even when nobody else is playing with you. Yet one more time, this issue was not present in either Diablo 1 or Diablo 2. This is also extremely aggravating because the game has constantly undergone patches and maintenance updates within the first two weeks of the game's release. Suggesting that the game was rushed to the stores before it was properly tested. During these updates, the servers are taken off line, so I can't play the game at all, single player or multi player. This is bull crap, if we paid for a product, we should have the liberty to play it when we damn well please!

New Skill Tree: Oh holy shit, I hate this. In Diablo 2, you could upgrade your skills through spending points on a Skill Tree to customize your character how you wanted. In Diablo 3, you are forced to unlock your skills in a very specific order as you level up. Instead of increasing the powers of your skills through points, you get Runes, which add additional effects to your abilities, but you can only select 1 rune per power. My wizard, who is supposed to be the NUKE of the party has surprisingly had great difficulty blasting enemies into tiny pieces of viscera because his spells seem greatly weaker compared to the more combat oriented classes like Barbarian, Demon Hunter, and Monk who carve their way through demons like a school bus through children. You can also only have a certain amount of skills on your hotbar at a time, and to make it even worse, you can only have ONE SKILL FROM EACH POWER SCHOOL EQUIPPED!! You can go to your skills and swap out how your hotbar is set up, but every time you do this, the newly equipped skill has a cool down before you can start using it. Not a long cool down, usually about 3 to 5 seconds, but long enough to PISS ME OFF IN BATTLE.

Why, why add such frustrating changes to such a beloved franchise of mine? I practically grew up playing Diablo with my brother and father, I still have both Diablo 1, and Diablo 2 with the expansion pack. Diablo 3's game play system is a slap in the face compared to these classics!

All these flaws leads me to believe that they had an entirely new crew working on this game, because these changes royally fucked up game play. Don't get me wrong, I do love the Diablo series, and despite these flaws, I find it a nice addition. But that's just it, its a "nice" addition to the series, not a "great" one. Diablo 1 and 2 were renowned for their demonic and creepy scenes. Like fighting the first boss, the Butcher when his lair had naked bodies impaled on spears. Diablo 3 has little focus on the horrific atmosphere and focuses more on wave after wave of monsters you need to plow your way through. Much of the game had my trailing through open planes or deep caves, not lairs of giant insects, the torture chambers in Leoric's manor were sadly devoid of rotting corpses, there is little sign that humanity is being corrupted and it seems its just a bunch of demons wandering the planet. It seems like just another hack and slash game, far separated from its more in depth and sometimes even amusing roots. Whimsyshire, the new parody of the Secret Cow Level did bring back the Black Mushroom from Diablo 1, which I fondly remember Grisswald's quote "Oi, that's one 'uge Mushroom!" whenever I look at it. But the horror and dark comedy are widely missing.

I am also sorry to say that this let down is apparently going to be the ending point in the Diablo series. All the 7 demon lords, including Diablo have apparently been destroyed forever. Unless they can think of some way to pull an idea out of their ass for Diablo making a 4th return, I don't see any way the series will be able to continue. Very disappointing for the Diablo franchise to go out on such an irritating design, and unimaginative setting of environment.