Lol story no one freakin plays these games for the story you think people still play Diablo 2 10+ years later because the story is so good and they enjoy it over and over? It's about killing shit and making your character more powerful. The story is painfully cliche and useless I wouldn't notice if it was completely removed and all that was left was "make your way through these acts to kill the final boss"!
I was anticipating D3 for the story only really. I am a huge fan of the Diablo story and love the books and the things they can do with this series is awesome. Although I didn't get into the story until well into the yeas of playing d2 because when I was 8 just started playing I didn't really comprehend the story just wanted to kill things.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
@AudioCG: you are either completly biased or blinded. Either way lay off the hate please (not only you though), I understand the open letter hurts, but still..
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
I'd say D3's story is in line with D2, it's there to get you to kill demons, and that's where it succeeded.
- Story is there to give you an excuse to get into killing demons and I wouldn't expect it to be anything more. However, the narrative was ridiculous. Just why on earth do the main villains pop up at random locations and tell their plans to the player? The way "master tactician" Azmodan resorts to simple denial time after time is asinine. Is this character supposed to be main boss or comedy relief? Diablo 2 had its story much better presented.
Diablo 2 was narrated from one persons perspective, and the actual boss characters had almost 0 dialog, its kinda hard to have "bad dialog" when you dont actually SAY ANYTHING.
The one, ONE exception is Baal's cutscene, and that was what? 2 Lines?
The actual dialog in D2 was just as campy, there just was not anywhere near as much of it.
@AudioCG: you are either completly biased or blinded. Either way lay off the hate please (not only you though), I understand the open letter hurts, but still..
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
d2 was brilliant. Following in the footsteps of the Marius and the darkwanderer, only to witness the evil and demonic results of their recent passing, and reveilling more and more with each acts to finally reach 'present time' of the story line by arriving at the pandemonium (citadel?) before stepping through hell. Every bit of how this story unveilled was a work of art, perfectly calculated and engineered. None of this simple brilliance and genius was in d3. Sorry for my poor eglish but i can't do anything more for you to see it, its more your problem than mine in a way.
bwhahahahaha
"Perfectly balanced and engineered"
And this quote (my second time posting it in this thread) pretty much DESTROYS what you just said;
The story was bad. I am surprised to see the defense against it from some being that "Well, every Blizzard story has been bad".
It's all about the way in which a story is delivered.
Your last sentence is very true; It's all about the delivery. And trust me if I was reading Diablo 3 instead of playing it, I would been pretty harsh on the reviews. But Diablo 3 is a video game first and foremost. They want the story to be awesome, but they *need* the gameplay to be even better, and it's very hard to mesh both and have great results. I personally think Blizzard did a great job because I absolutely love the gameplay, and the story didn't irk me as bad as it seems to have irked others.
But again to my point; Say they went with that one posters idea of having Belial trick the hero into killing the kid and escaping. Yea that sounds awesome if I were reading a book, but again I'm playing a game. It would have sucked to have played all the way through act 2 and fight a pretend act boss, only to have the boss escape. Like everything there's always a solution, but just throwing in another boss battle? The gameplay would have suffered.
TLDR; There's always room for improvement, but I completely understand why the story was presented the way it was; To give the best possible gameplay. Plus, there's expansions =P
Another point to be made here is that the whole Black Soulstone being filled with the souls
of the primary Lords of Hell. This basically constitutes pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It's
bad magic and it's bad storytelling. You should never get halfway through a story and
then say "oh, yeah, a whole bunch of stuff happened at some point that doesn't make a
whole lot of sense, but it turns out that it's now a major plot device. Just thought I'd tell
you."
So Adria supposedly gained access to the Black Soulstone in Kulle's lair at some point in
the last 20 years, after meeting Aiden/Diablo and presumably after giving birth to Leah.
She then proceeds to search the earth, casting Soul Trap on the other Lords of Hell. Since
Adria has pledged her loyalty to the Lord of Tear-roar[sic], and since it was Diablo's wish
to free his brothers why wouldn't she have freed Baal then and there as per Diablo's
wishes?
Should we instead believe that Adria pwnd her way through Travincal, entered the
Durance of Hate, snuck up on Mephisto and cast a lv99 Soul Trap on him? She then found
and entered the true Tomb of Tal Rasha with a fully assembled Horadric Staff (which she
presumably constructed with an Horodric Cube), broke down the wall and sprinkled pixie
dust on the soulstone in Tal Rasha's chest, walked away, repaired the wall and broke the
Horadric Staff back into two pieces and hid them.
One has to ask how Adria could have accomplished this incredible feat before
Aiden/Diablo, who, left to seek out his brothers (Baal and Mephisto) before Adria did.
Esp. since Adria has recently become pregnant, giving Aiden/Diablo a 9 month start.
When Aiden/Diablo finally liberates Tal Rasha/Baal (thanks to the help of Marius) Baal
flees with Diablo. Adria is not in their company, meaning she had to have found him prior.
Chronologically speaking, Adria's plan involves the allegience to Diablo formed though her
contact with Aiden, after Diablo was destroyed. Adria would have to had fully conceived
her plot before Aiden leaves Tristram. About this time Adria became pregnant by Aiden
as part of the plan to use her child as a vessel for Diablo's eventual reincarnation. Adria,
having foreknowledge of the coming 'demonic' invasion leaves for Caldeum. Meanwhile,
Aiden becomes the Dark Wanderer and the 'demonic hordes' begin to follow in his wake.
It is at this point that Diablo 2 begins with the hero chasing Aiden as he leaves Tristram,
immediately bound for Lut Gholein, seeking to free Baal from Tal Rasha's tomb.
Now here's the tricky part: Nine months after moving to Caldeum -- BUT, before
Aiden/Wanderer finds either of his brothers, Adria casts Lv.99 Soul Trap on Baal and
Mephisto. Adria's whereabouts are accounted for while pregnant, but somehow, while
pregnant, without leaving Caldeum -- Adria manages to beat Aiden, Marius and the hero
to the punch, while leaving no evidence of her presence.
We know that this cannot occur after the events of D2 since the hero takes the soul/spirit
of Mephisto and Diablo with him after their defeat and Baal takes his own soulstone with
him to Arreat. In D2, both Diablo's and Mephisto's soulstones are destroyed at the
Hellforge. In LoD, Baal can be seen wearing his on his ascent of Mt. Arreat cinematic, and
it is visibly worn by Baal during the final battle.
Once Tyreal destroys the worldstone, it no longer matters, as the soulstones were tied to
the power of the worldstone anyway. Additionally, the black soulstone was created during
a time when the worldstone existed, it's not unreasonable to expect that it, too, should
suffer a loss of functionality.
What the author has done here is assert highly implausible changes to the story simply
on the basis that there's no way to disprove it empirically. In effect, this is considered
cheating your way out of a corner. It's a sign of poor planning -- forcing an idea into a
story for lack of organic progression.
so all this talk of Adria going around collecting souls, some of which were already smashed at the hellforge is strange. Is it too hard to believe that Adria, being a witch of immense power, found a way into the black abyss and stole the souls from there? Seems to solve a lot of those problems.
@AudioCG: you are either completly biased or blinded. Either way lay off the hate please (not only you though), I understand the open letter hurts, but still..
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
d2 was brilliant. Following in the footsteps of the Marius and the darkwanderer, only to witness the evil and demonic results of their recent passing, and reveilling more and more with each acts to finally reach 'present time' of the story line by arriving at the pandemonium (citadel?) before stepping through hell. Every bit of how this story unveilled was a work of art, perfectly calculated and engineered. None of this simple brilliance and genius was in d3. Sorry for my poor eglish but i can't do anything more for you to see it, its more your problem than mine in a way.
bwhahahahaha
"Perfectly balanced and engineered"
And this quote (my second time posting it in this thread) pretty much DESTROYS what you just said;
"I will admit that in previous incarnations of Diablo the story was completely tacked on after the game was complete, and it felt that way."
Thats DIRECTLY from the mouth of the LEAD DESIGNER of Diablo 2, please, tell me more about how Diablo 2 had a "Perfectly calculated" story.
roflol.
But this also begs the question, why can't we demand a good story from D3? They had X more years and money-power to make it a good experience, say like Half-Life 2's story (obviously a different game though).
Though some here have said they liked it which is a bit shocking to me I guess :/ I love Blizzard but I have to say it like it is.
@AudioCG: you are either completly biased or blinded. Either way lay off the hate please (not only you though), I understand the open letter hurts, but still..
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
d2 was brilliant. Following in the footsteps of the Marius and the darkwanderer, only to witness the evil and demonic results of their recent passing, and reveilling more and more with each acts to finally reach 'present time' of the story line by arriving at the pandemonium (citadel?) before stepping through hell. Every bit of how this story unveilled was a work of art, perfectly calculated and engineered. None of this simple brilliance and genius was in d3. Sorry for my poor eglish but i can't do anything more for you to see it, its more your problem than mine in a way.
bwhahahahaha
"Perfectly balanced and engineered"
And this quote (my second time posting it in this thread) pretty much DESTROYS what you just said;
"I will admit that in previous incarnations of Diablo the story was completely tacked on after the game was complete, and it felt that way."
Thats DIRECTLY from the mouth of the LEAD DESIGNER of Diablo 2, please, tell me more about how Diablo 2 had a "Perfectly calculated" story.
roflol.
But this also begs the question, why can't we demand a good story from D3? They had X more years and money-power to make it a good experience, say like Half-Life 2's story (obviously a different game though).
Though some here have said they liked it which is a bit shocking to me I guess :/ I love Blizzard but I have to say it like it is.
You cant "demand" anything, you either like it, or you dont.
You dont have creative control in ANY GAME/BOOK OR FILM. Period, you have exactly 0 say in this, ever, you either buy it, or you dont.
Im just saying its retarded to expect a brilliant story from a company who has ALWAYS DONE THE SAME THING regarding story. Again, they have always had campy stories, why exactly would you expect anything else from them?
@AudioCG: you are either completly biased or blinded. Either way lay off the hate please (not only you though), I understand the open letter hurts, but still..
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
d2 was brilliant. Following in the footsteps of the Marius and the darkwanderer, only to witness the evil and demonic results of their recent passing, and reveilling more and more with each acts to finally reach 'present time' of the story line by arriving at the pandemonium (citadel?) before stepping through hell. Every bit of how this story unveilled was a work of art, perfectly calculated and engineered. None of this simple brilliance and genius was in d3. Sorry for my poor eglish but i can't do anything more for you to see it, its more your problem than mine in a way.
bwhahahahaha
"Perfectly balanced and engineered"
And this quote (my second time posting it in this thread) pretty much DESTROYS what you just said;
"I will admit that in previous incarnations of Diablo the story was completely tacked on after the game was complete, and it felt that way."
Thats DIRECTLY from the mouth of the LEAD DESIGNER of Diablo 2, please, tell me more about how Diablo 2 had a "Perfectly calculated" story.
roflol.
But this also begs the question, why can't we demand a good story from D3? They had X more years and money-power to make it a good experience, say like Half-Life 2's story (obviously a different game though).
Though some here have said they liked it which is a bit shocking to me I guess :/ I love Blizzard but I have to say it like it is.
You cant "demand" anything, you either like it, or you dont.
You dont have creative control in ANY GAME/BOOK OR FILM. Period, you have exactly 0 say in this, ever, you either buy it, or you dont.
Im just saying its retarded to expect a brilliant story from a company who has ALWAYS DONE THE SAME THING regarding story. Again, they have always had campy stories, why exactly would you expect anything else from them?
I didn't expect it to be as bad as it ended up. I guess I should have seen it coming during the beta, but that first portion really wasn't terrible at all.
And we actually do have more say than you think, at least in affecting future titles. An example is the constant feedback we gave over at SC2Mapster on SC2's custom game system, is now resulting in some of the features of the upcoming arcade (like an active lobby system).
@AudioCG: you are either completly biased or blinded. Either way lay off the hate please (not only you though), I understand the open letter hurts, but still..
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
d2 was brilliant. Following in the footsteps of the Marius and the darkwanderer, only to witness the evil and demonic results of their recent passing, and reveilling more and more with each acts to finally reach 'present time' of the story line by arriving at the pandemonium (citadel?) before stepping through hell. Every bit of how this story unveilled was a work of art, perfectly calculated and engineered. None of this simple brilliance and genius was in d3. Sorry for my poor eglish but i can't do anything more for you to see it, its more your problem than mine in a way.
bwhahahahaha
"Perfectly balanced and engineered"
And this quote (my second time posting it in this thread) pretty much DESTROYS what you just said;
"I will admit that in previous incarnations of Diablo the story was completely tacked on after the game was complete, and it felt that way."
Thats DIRECTLY from the mouth of the LEAD DESIGNER of Diablo 2, please, tell me more about how Diablo 2 had a "Perfectly calculated" story.
roflol.
But this also begs the question, why can't we demand a good story from D3? They had X more years and money-power to make it a good experience, say like Half-Life 2's story (obviously a different game though).
Though some here have said they liked it which is a bit shocking to me I guess :/ I love Blizzard but I have to say it like it is.
I hated the story in Half-Life 2. I hated the way it was delivered. If I wasn't careful I could trigger dialogue while still having enemies raining fire down on me. Machine gun fire is not conductive to understanding a plot. And yes I finished the game, and even though I know what happened I still don't care one bit about any of the characters or that world. With Diablo 3, I actually had an emotional response to the death of Leah (supposed death).
That is just one example, and as been stated by a previous poster, the way a story is delivered in a video game MUST be different than the way it would be in a book. It has to fit with the game play. A hack and slash game like Diablo can't require you to search every room for a single item hanging on the wall that will then give you foreshadowing to a perfectly timed plot twist three acts later.
My issue with video game story telling (in general) is not about plot holes. My issue is with deus ex machina and characters not acting the way they should, or not having good motivations. Diablo 3 does a good job of avoiding those issues. Act 3 is a perfect example of game storytelling done right. You arrive at a besieged keep, and you are already the mighty Hero that is going to save the world. But just because you are there doesn't mean that all the other humans can go back and sit around the fire and maybe sell you stuff. Quite the opposite, the defenders have already been fighting and dying for days trying to keep the demonic hordes from not only killing themselves and their families, but the rest of the world. You have to use your super-human might to beat back the enemy long enough for the human defenders to reinforce the walls so they can hold them off while you go fight the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). If you listen to the npcs talking to each other, they go from total despair to hope as you progress through the act. It just makes so much more sense than a game like Half-Life 2 where there is a single guy doing EVERYTHING and the only point for there to be any npcs at all is so they can open a few doors for you.
Plot holes are going to happen in a video game. Maybe Adria managed to pull the souls back into this world from the Abyss. Maybe she enlisted the help of another Nephalem, which we haven't heard from. The lore already supports mortals being more powerful than either Angels or Demons, and this feat would totally make sense to me. If we never get an explanation for how she did it, I'm not going to sweat. Doesn't bother me. My hero has more important things to do than worry about a few demonic souls.
@AudioCG: you are either completly biased or blinded. Either way lay off the hate please (not only you though), I understand the open letter hurts, but still..
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
d2 was brilliant. Following in the footsteps of the Marius and the darkwanderer, only to witness the evil and demonic results of their recent passing, and reveilling more and more with each acts to finally reach 'present time' of the story line by arriving at the pandemonium (citadel?) before stepping through hell. Every bit of how this story unveilled was a work of art, perfectly calculated and engineered. None of this simple brilliance and genius was in d3. Sorry for my poor eglish but i can't do anything more for you to see it, its more your problem than mine in a way.
bwhahahahaha
"Perfectly balanced and engineered"
And this quote (my second time posting it in this thread) pretty much DESTROYS what you just said;
"I will admit that in previous incarnations of Diablo the story was completely tacked on after the game was complete, and it felt that way."
Thats DIRECTLY from the mouth of the LEAD DESIGNER of Diablo 2, please, tell me more about how Diablo 2 had a "Perfectly calculated" story.
roflol.
But this also begs the question, why can't we demand a good story from D3? They had X more years and money-power to make it a good experience, say like Half-Life 2's story (obviously a different game though).
Though some here have said they liked it which is a bit shocking to me I guess :/ I love Blizzard but I have to say it like it is.
I hated the story in Half-Life 2. I hated the way it was delivered. If I wasn't careful I could trigger dialogue while still having enemies raining fire down on me. Machine gun fire is not conductive to understanding a plot. And yes I finished the game, and even though I know what happened I still don't care one bit about any of the characters or that world. With Diablo 3, I actually had an emotional response to the death of Leah (supposed death).
That is just one example, and as been stated by a previous poster, the way a story is delivered in a video game MUST be different than the way it would be in a book. It has to fit with the game play. A hack and slash game like Diablo can't require you to search every room for a single item hanging on the wall that will then give you foreshadowing to a perfectly timed plot twist three acts later.
My issue with video game story telling (in general) is not about plot holes. My issue is with deus ex machina and characters not acting the way they should, or not having good motivations. Diablo 3 does a good job of avoiding those issues. Act 3 is a perfect example of game storytelling done right. You arrive at a besieged keep, and you are already the mighty Hero that is going to save the world. But just because you are there doesn't mean that all the other humans can go back and sit around the fire and maybe sell you stuff. Quite the opposite, the defenders have already been fighting and dying for days trying to keep the demonic hordes from not only killing themselves and their families, but the rest of the world. You have to use your super-human might to beat back the enemy long enough for the human defenders to reinforce the walls so they can hold them off while you go fight the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). If you listen to the npcs talking to each other, they go from total despair to hope as you progress through the act. It just makes so much more sense than a game like Half-Life 2 where there is a single guy doing EVERYTHING and the only point for there to be any npcs at all is so they can open a few doors for you.
Plot holes are going to happen in a video game. Maybe Adria managed to pull the souls back into this world from the Abyss. Maybe she enlisted the help of another Nephalem, which we haven't heard from. The lore already supports mortals being more powerful than either Angels or Demons, and this feat would totally make sense to me. If we never get an explanation for how she did it, I'm not going to sweat. Doesn't bother me. My hero has more important things to do than worry about a few demonic souls.
We'll have to disagree about HL2 then, but claiming act 3 is a perfect example of storytelling kind of made me cringe lol :/ Sure those little bits of npc's feeling despair etc isn't bad, but the main plot line with the boss and his persona/delivery are just way off (from being a strategic guy).
And yeah, the game is about gameplay more so, but the problem is this game forces you into the story very often. D1/D2 were much easier to skip and less frequent on hammering it into you.
Diablo 2 was narrated from one persons perspective, and the actual boss characters had almost 0 dialog, its kinda hard to have "bad dialog" when you dont actually SAY ANYTHING.
The one, ONE exception is Baal's cutscene, and that was what? 2 Lines?
- I remember the moment when Diablo said "Not even death can save you from me". The final fight had begun and there was never a need to interrupt the battle with verbose gloating and explanations of battle mechanics.
The pinnacle of video game story telling; the one liner.............
LOL that post is just hilarious. What a narcissistic psychopath.
Mr. Wilson, I have to seriously disagree with your conveniently self-aggrandizing public position. If, perhaps, you were actually disappointed with the poor quality of your work, would you have the presence of mind to defy your marketing dept. for the sake of honesty? Personally, I doubt that.
Most writers of any measurable caliber have significant personal insecurities about their work -- as such they are their own most vicious critic. Diametrically, I've found that the worst/most poorly written/unimaginative/cliché works are often submitted by individuals with a flawlessly hyper-inflated self opinion of their efforts. This is best described by the Dunning-Kruger effect.
[Excerpt from Wikipedia]
Kruger and Dunning proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:
1. tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
2. fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
3. fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
4. recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to
substantially improve.
[/copypaste]
The irony here is that, should such a cognitive bias actually be affecting your judgement, by its very nature you would be nearly incapable of being galvanized into self-realization.
Wow.
I think this guy's cognitive bias is making him incapable of being galvanized into self-realization.
You know Diablo has never really been plot driven. Here is the plot of the previous games:
Diablo 1:
There's demons! Kill them!!!
(plus some atmospheric side story if you talk to the NPCs that doesn't really do much to the plot but does establish a nice tone)
Diablo 2:
Act I: Go to the X and kill demons! (Where X = Rogue cemetary, Countess' tower, Rogue monastery) Uh oh there's Andariel, kill her!
Act II: We have to catch the Wanderer before he frees Belial! Oops we didn't! Quick kill Duriel!
Act III: We have to catch the Wanderer before he frees Mephisto! Oops we didn't! Quick kill Mephisto! Cool, we did.
Act IV: Looks like Diablo achieved all his goals and is free and has the legions of Hell at his command! So kill him! Cool, we did.
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction:
Act V: Somebody betrayed us all, hey look Nihlathak is the only one who survived. You talk to Nihlathak: he acts suspicious, hostile and devious. You talk to everyone else: they are all suspicious of Nihlathak, because he's hostile and devious. HUGE TWIST: Nihlathak betrays you! Kill him! Okay now kill some random Barbarian heroes to prove you're worthy (gee would've been nice if they'd let you through so you could beat Belial before he corrupted the Worldstone they were protecting for millennia, oh well)! Now kill Belial! Cool we did!
For future contemplation: the Prime Evils were so powerful that the entire Horadric order couldn't defeat them and only with huge effort managed to contain them, and yet in Diablo 1 we just whack Diablo to death with a sword (insert "he wasn't at full power" and other standard retcon excuses here) and in Diablo 2 we kill all three of them with (javelins/swords/axes/maces/polearms/fireballs/spinny hammers/flying bones/shurikens/pet wolves). After singlehandedly annihilating their massive demon armies. I mean, at least Diablo 3 has the concept of Nephalem becoming fully powered after the destruction of the Worldstone to explain how we're defeating them all.
Here's a counter-point to that. I never played D1 when it was released (didn't care back then I guess). I only went back to it after D2, so I can't be blamed for nostalgia... and I thought the mood and tone was very well done. Granted there was much less story-telling back then, since they just couldn't do it I guess... maybe it was a good thing lol?
I thought D2 wasn't really as good as D1 when it came to mood. D1 was just a bit smaller and more consistent, D2 was a fun game but the feel just wasn't as good. That feeling when you ran into the Butcher the first time was just like WOW.
The pinnacle of video game story telling; the one liner.............
The seven Evils are one within me! I am legion!
Enough! Let us see how you fare in my Realm of Terror!
Only by defeating us can you return to your own realm! But none have ever crawled from the depths of their own terror!
You cannot defeat your own terror!
How does it feel knowing you have failed those who depended on you?
Your nephalem power will not help you in this realm, mortal!
How tastes you fear, nephalem?
No! This wretched light must be eradicated!
All that you've know--all that you've ever loved--shall die along with you nephalem.
Its exactly like I have been saying this entire thread;
D3 is the same as D1 and D2, just with MORE of it.
I can't tell if the storytelling of D3 is on par with the previous Blizzard games, but I can tell you there isn't a single thing epic in D3. Is the storytelling to blame ? No idea, probably. That's my reason why I feel D3 is inferior storywise to the previous games, and the fact that they want to put you in the center of the story. Feeling passive and spectating is in my opinion a very good approach to storytelling, we have none of that in D3.
Personally I will remember the fight between Tyrael and Imperius, especially when Tyrael tore off his own wings. I also enjoyed the when Diablo came to the Diamond Gates, where Imperius was thrown into the gates and they came crashing down on top of him. That was pretty epic.
I will agree with some people, the decision Blizzard made to have the enemy giving your character a sit rep after major events is rather odd. Then again the choice was made to accommodate new and casual players as indicators to push them into the right direction. Was is needed? Who knows, but I've grown use to hitting spacebar, so its not such an egregious inconvenience as most make it out to be.
Still, I don't see how these gameplay contrivances hinders the main storyline. I enjoyed a lot of what the story had to offer. Tyrael turning on the crazed Imperius, and being cast down as a mortal. Adria's history being explored, of how she was once a leader of the Coven. Us using Zoltan Kulle to get the Black Soulstone, while he tries to turn you to join him rather than continue on your quest. Finally seeing the High Heavens, which didn't disappoint. Standing alongside the angels as they battled the Hells.
In line of Diablo games, the story itself is far from horrible. I think some people were just expecting something else, and since they didn't get it, they now feel disappointed.
Another point to be made here is that the whole Black Soulstone being filled with the souls
of the primary Lords of Hell. This basically constitutes pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It's
bad magic and it's bad storytelling. You should never get halfway through a story and
then say "oh, yeah, a whole bunch of stuff happened at some point that doesn't make a
whole lot of sense, but it turns out that it's now a major plot device. Just thought I'd tell
you."
Uh-oh, someone hasn't been paying attention while playing...
I couldn't finish his 'review', it was just so cringe worthy.
Firstly, Adria never said she accessed the Black Soulstone in those 20 years. She merely used the time to tag the Prime's Soul. Plus, the Hellforge casts their souls into the Black Abyss, as per Book of Cain, but even he admitted that he doesn't know much about that realm. So how could Adria achieve all of this then? Well, Adria isn't this mastermind as he makes her out to be, she was merely a pawn, she followed Diablo's instructions. Is it so farfetched that Diablo would have figured out how to access the Abyss from the mortal realm? Adria spent 20 years, traveling, which means there must be means and places where the Abyss can be tapped into.
Also, the writer finds it odd that Adria, a reputed user of magic, could enter Travincal, yet he has no problem with Marius running around with Baal's Soulstone and gallivanting through Travincal? Huh... You know, that's always bothered me. Marius entered Travincal, watched the Primes with Baal's Soulstone in hand, and no one ever noticed. Moreover, Tyrael commanded Marius, a drunken bum, to enter Hell and destroy the Soulstone at the Hellforge... Yeah, as if the D2 characters could just stroll to the forge and accomplish all of that without any problems.
Why is the Black Soulstone a rabbit pulled out of a hat? Can't the game come up with new lore, or should everything be explained at the start of D1 and never devise new plot points? He's going on as if its a crime and never in books or television does the story supply new plotlines or go into new directions. The Black Soulstone fits into the storyline, just because the reviewer didn't like it doesn't mean its senseless.
I didn't even read the entirety of his rant, he makes baseless assumptions. He assumes that Adria had to run around, pregnant belly and all, to tag the Soulstones before they were destroyed. Never it stated nor hinted at. He assumes Adria devised this plot, but obviously Diablo is behind it, and he also assumes she's too weak to pursue the souls, but we don't actually see the extent of her capabilities. Plus, he assumes the Soulstones have lost their power when the Worldstone was destroyed, which doesn't make sense because I bet the shards still holds some measure of power, and clearly the plot states that they do.
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I was anticipating D3 for the story only really. I am a huge fan of the Diablo story and love the books and the things they can do with this series is awesome. Although I didn't get into the story until well into the yeas of playing d2 because when I was 8 just started playing I didn't really comprehend the story just wanted to kill things.
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
OK then;
Open challenge.
Go ahead and show me some brilliant storytelling from ANY Blizzard game.
I'll wait. No seriously, show me a SINGLE Blizzard game that does not have campy dialog, you should be able to produce this right? Just one.
I own every Blizzard game ever made, if I was "Biased" you would think I would be on the side of the "old" right?
All Blizzard games have campy dialog, there is just MORE of it in D3/SC2, because they have more voice in game, thats it.
Just plain flat really. But then AudioCG has it right. When has any of Blizzards games been big on story?
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
If that were the case, then why does it constantly shove cinematics in your face which stops you from killing demons?
There seems to be a very big disconnect between what's it's trying to achieve.
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
Diablo 2 was narrated from one persons perspective, and the actual boss characters had almost 0 dialog, its kinda hard to have "bad dialog" when you dont actually SAY ANYTHING.
The one, ONE exception is Baal's cutscene, and that was what? 2 Lines?
The actual dialog in D2 was just as campy, there just was not anywhere near as much of it.
It's all about the way in which a story is delivered.
bwhahahahaha
"Perfectly balanced and engineered"
And this quote (my second time posting it in this thread) pretty much DESTROYS what you just said;
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/max-schaefer-on-d3-tl2-and-more
"I will admit that in previous incarnations of Diablo the story was completely tacked on after the game was complete, and it felt that way."
Thats DIRECTLY from the mouth of the LEAD DESIGNER of Diablo 2, please, tell me more about how Diablo 2 had a "Perfectly calculated" story.
roflol.
Your last sentence is very true; It's all about the delivery. And trust me if I was reading Diablo 3 instead of playing it, I would been pretty harsh on the reviews. But Diablo 3 is a video game first and foremost. They want the story to be awesome, but they *need* the gameplay to be even better, and it's very hard to mesh both and have great results. I personally think Blizzard did a great job because I absolutely love the gameplay, and the story didn't irk me as bad as it seems to have irked others.
But again to my point; Say they went with that one posters idea of having Belial trick the hero into killing the kid and escaping. Yea that sounds awesome if I were reading a book, but again I'm playing a game. It would have sucked to have played all the way through act 2 and fight a pretend act boss, only to have the boss escape. Like everything there's always a solution, but just throwing in another boss battle? The gameplay would have suffered.
TLDR; There's always room for improvement, but I completely understand why the story was presented the way it was; To give the best possible gameplay. Plus, there's expansions =P
so all this talk of Adria going around collecting souls, some of which were already smashed at the hellforge is strange. Is it too hard to believe that Adria, being a witch of immense power, found a way into the black abyss and stole the souls from there? Seems to solve a lot of those problems.
But this also begs the question, why can't we demand a good story from D3? They had X more years and money-power to make it a good experience, say like Half-Life 2's story (obviously a different game though).
Though some here have said they liked it which is a bit shocking to me I guess :/ I love Blizzard but I have to say it like it is.
D3 Channel: OnetwoD3
You cant "demand" anything, you either like it, or you dont.
You dont have creative control in ANY GAME/BOOK OR FILM. Period, you have exactly 0 say in this, ever, you either buy it, or you dont.
Im just saying its retarded to expect a brilliant story from a company who has ALWAYS DONE THE SAME THING regarding story. Again, they have always had campy stories, why exactly would you expect anything else from them?
I didn't expect it to be as bad as it ended up. I guess I should have seen it coming during the beta, but that first portion really wasn't terrible at all.
And we actually do have more say than you think, at least in affecting future titles. An example is the constant feedback we gave over at SC2Mapster on SC2's custom game system, is now resulting in some of the features of the upcoming arcade (like an active lobby system).
D3 Channel: OnetwoD3
I hated the story in Half-Life 2. I hated the way it was delivered. If I wasn't careful I could trigger dialogue while still having enemies raining fire down on me. Machine gun fire is not conductive to understanding a plot. And yes I finished the game, and even though I know what happened I still don't care one bit about any of the characters or that world. With Diablo 3, I actually had an emotional response to the death of Leah (supposed death).
That is just one example, and as been stated by a previous poster, the way a story is delivered in a video game MUST be different than the way it would be in a book. It has to fit with the game play. A hack and slash game like Diablo can't require you to search every room for a single item hanging on the wall that will then give you foreshadowing to a perfectly timed plot twist three acts later.
My issue with video game story telling (in general) is not about plot holes. My issue is with deus ex machina and characters not acting the way they should, or not having good motivations. Diablo 3 does a good job of avoiding those issues. Act 3 is a perfect example of game storytelling done right. You arrive at a besieged keep, and you are already the mighty Hero that is going to save the world. But just because you are there doesn't mean that all the other humans can go back and sit around the fire and maybe sell you stuff. Quite the opposite, the defenders have already been fighting and dying for days trying to keep the demonic hordes from not only killing themselves and their families, but the rest of the world. You have to use your super-human might to beat back the enemy long enough for the human defenders to reinforce the walls so they can hold them off while you go fight the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). If you listen to the npcs talking to each other, they go from total despair to hope as you progress through the act. It just makes so much more sense than a game like Half-Life 2 where there is a single guy doing EVERYTHING and the only point for there to be any npcs at all is so they can open a few doors for you.
Plot holes are going to happen in a video game. Maybe Adria managed to pull the souls back into this world from the Abyss. Maybe she enlisted the help of another Nephalem, which we haven't heard from. The lore already supports mortals being more powerful than either Angels or Demons, and this feat would totally make sense to me. If we never get an explanation for how she did it, I'm not going to sweat. Doesn't bother me. My hero has more important things to do than worry about a few demonic souls.
We'll have to disagree about HL2 then, but claiming act 3 is a perfect example of storytelling kind of made me cringe lol :/ Sure those little bits of npc's feeling despair etc isn't bad, but the main plot line with the boss and his persona/delivery are just way off (from being a strategic guy).
And yeah, the game is about gameplay more so, but the problem is this game forces you into the story very often. D1/D2 were much easier to skip and less frequent on hammering it into you.
D3 Channel: OnetwoD3
The pinnacle of video game story telling; the one liner.............
Wow.
I think this guy's cognitive bias is making him incapable of being galvanized into self-realization.
Diablo 1:
There's demons! Kill them!!!
(plus some atmospheric side story if you talk to the NPCs that doesn't really do much to the plot but does establish a nice tone)
Diablo 2:
Act I: Go to the X and kill demons! (Where X = Rogue cemetary, Countess' tower, Rogue monastery) Uh oh there's Andariel, kill her!
Act II: We have to catch the Wanderer before he frees Belial! Oops we didn't! Quick kill Duriel!
Act III: We have to catch the Wanderer before he frees Mephisto! Oops we didn't! Quick kill Mephisto! Cool, we did.
Act IV: Looks like Diablo achieved all his goals and is free and has the legions of Hell at his command! So kill him! Cool, we did.
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction:
Act V: Somebody betrayed us all, hey look Nihlathak is the only one who survived. You talk to Nihlathak: he acts suspicious, hostile and devious. You talk to everyone else: they are all suspicious of Nihlathak, because he's hostile and devious. HUGE TWIST: Nihlathak betrays you! Kill him! Okay now kill some random Barbarian heroes to prove you're worthy (gee would've been nice if they'd let you through so you could beat Belial before he corrupted the Worldstone they were protecting for millennia, oh well)! Now kill Belial! Cool we did!
For future contemplation: the Prime Evils were so powerful that the entire Horadric order couldn't defeat them and only with huge effort managed to contain them, and yet in Diablo 1 we just whack Diablo to death with a sword (insert "he wasn't at full power" and other standard retcon excuses here) and in Diablo 2 we kill all three of them with (javelins/swords/axes/maces/polearms/fireballs/spinny hammers/flying bones/shurikens/pet wolves). After singlehandedly annihilating their massive demon armies. I mean, at least Diablo 3 has the concept of Nephalem becoming fully powered after the destruction of the Worldstone to explain how we're defeating them all.
I thought D2 wasn't really as good as D1 when it came to mood. D1 was just a bit smaller and more consistent, D2 was a fun game but the feel just wasn't as good. That feeling when you ran into the Butcher the first time was just like WOW.
Its exactly like I have been saying this entire thread;
D3 is the same as D1 and D2, just with MORE of it.
I will agree with some people, the decision Blizzard made to have the enemy giving your character a sit rep after major events is rather odd. Then again the choice was made to accommodate new and casual players as indicators to push them into the right direction. Was is needed? Who knows, but I've grown use to hitting spacebar, so its not such an egregious inconvenience as most make it out to be.
Still, I don't see how these gameplay contrivances hinders the main storyline. I enjoyed a lot of what the story had to offer. Tyrael turning on the crazed Imperius, and being cast down as a mortal. Adria's history being explored, of how she was once a leader of the Coven. Us using Zoltan Kulle to get the Black Soulstone, while he tries to turn you to join him rather than continue on your quest. Finally seeing the High Heavens, which didn't disappoint. Standing alongside the angels as they battled the Hells.
In line of Diablo games, the story itself is far from horrible. I think some people were just expecting something else, and since they didn't get it, they now feel disappointed.
I couldn't finish his 'review', it was just so cringe worthy.
Firstly, Adria never said she accessed the Black Soulstone in those 20 years. She merely used the time to tag the Prime's Soul. Plus, the Hellforge casts their souls into the Black Abyss, as per Book of Cain, but even he admitted that he doesn't know much about that realm. So how could Adria achieve all of this then? Well, Adria isn't this mastermind as he makes her out to be, she was merely a pawn, she followed Diablo's instructions. Is it so farfetched that Diablo would have figured out how to access the Abyss from the mortal realm? Adria spent 20 years, traveling, which means there must be means and places where the Abyss can be tapped into.
Also, the writer finds it odd that Adria, a reputed user of magic, could enter Travincal, yet he has no problem with Marius running around with Baal's Soulstone and gallivanting through Travincal? Huh... You know, that's always bothered me. Marius entered Travincal, watched the Primes with Baal's Soulstone in hand, and no one ever noticed. Moreover, Tyrael commanded Marius, a drunken bum, to enter Hell and destroy the Soulstone at the Hellforge... Yeah, as if the D2 characters could just stroll to the forge and accomplish all of that without any problems.
Why is the Black Soulstone a rabbit pulled out of a hat? Can't the game come up with new lore, or should everything be explained at the start of D1 and never devise new plot points? He's going on as if its a crime and never in books or television does the story supply new plotlines or go into new directions. The Black Soulstone fits into the storyline, just because the reviewer didn't like it doesn't mean its senseless.
I didn't even read the entirety of his rant, he makes baseless assumptions. He assumes that Adria had to run around, pregnant belly and all, to tag the Soulstones before they were destroyed. Never it stated nor hinted at. He assumes Adria devised this plot, but obviously Diablo is behind it, and he also assumes she's too weak to pursue the souls, but we don't actually see the extent of her capabilities. Plus, he assumes the Soulstones have lost their power when the Worldstone was destroyed, which doesn't make sense because I bet the shards still holds some measure of power, and clearly the plot states that they do.