HOLY SHIT! And I thought I write scrolls :P
Ok, I'm trying to read most of it, but please forgive me if I write as if I missed an entire post - I may have.
no, what i'm saying is that items in diablo is of bigger importance than items in say nethack. [...] you dont need to search for one SPECIFIC item..
NetHack has intrinsics which are needed, [almost] period, to win the game, so that's not entirely true. Maybe "items" aren't needed, but there are other aspects to consider.
now, consider how much more angry you would be, after hours and hours of dungeon crawling, and you finally find that ultimate item for your character, only to see him permanently die a while later...
You haven't played much of Linley's Dungeon Crawl, have you...? That's *exactly* what happens there, and there are randarts just like in D2, and I've found myself punching walls and restarting computers out of spite :P That game's cruler than any other I've ever seen.
So yeah, shit happens, and then you start over, and over, and over again. I've beaten the game and there was *nothing* more rewarding than that.
However: this's exactly the reason I wan't massive playability with a single char - Pandemonium (infinite, rerolled "dungeon" with an extremely high level of risk) is the part of LDC you can just keep playing, (because I don't like the "she won, she's done" approach - I like having a char I sweated through to pit against powerful enemies over and over again, or weak ones just for show - I've earned it). Problem with Pandemonium is that it can get so tough at times, that it isn't really ment to be replayed that much - any char has its weak spot which is bound to be exploited badly in there, and some Pandemonium levels are practically auto-defeat, plus there's no easier spot to play that way if you're anywhere under a certain bar (negative energy, torment, hellfire and energy blasts *will* get the best of them sooner or later). The Abyss isn't much to compare, because from my experience it's only worse.
I LIKE collecting items (and spells), and playing god on lesser beings. That's why I imported a char from BGII:ToB into BGII:SoA (I just noticed - ToB=(S+1)o(A+1). Heh). A mage of that status's just plain fun!
That's nothing to do with balance - I'm just plain sadistic :P
And neither does mid-game restart, if that IS the method of balancing.
This is about gaming style - not *if* we wan't a good game but *how* we want a good game.
Some of us like it force-stream-lined and some of us like it freestyled, but I think we all agree we want a game not too easily beaten.
So I still say we just need both modes!!!
Since we've concluded (AFAIR) that scoring's based on an honour system, if someone beats the hardcore mode, he'll boast that, and if someone rampages through Diablo's halls as an ubermensch and wants to describe the story as a role-played massacre (which I like alot), so be it. If someone farms the normal mode and boasts as hardcore, screw him. The scoring system can also include a restart-counter for each game played.
But that's just on the matter of restartability.
I'm all against savegames ^^
And that's 'cause I'm also just plain masochistic :P
Seriously, now, that's just not for a roguelike.