I don't post often, nor have I posted since the big week lead up to the huge announcement of Diablo 3. You might remember me as LordofEvil on the chatrooms back then.
I have a serious question involving the actual validity of most of the new team members behind Diablo 3. A lot of interviews I've been reading kind of make me feel like Diablo 3 is a World of Warcraft art style, a Dawn of War gameplay with more blood type game...
Let me cut to the chase... it just seems like an overall mismatch of random, inexperienced game designers seem to be running the show now. I know thats a little harsh, and the game does looks amazingly fun and true to Diablo right now, but, how many original designers are left from Blizzard North that are still active and participating in the ongoing development of Diablo, including Diablo 3? The lead game designer isn't even a veteran, he's a noob. I would think they would've gotten one of the old Blizzard North pro's to develop this, but, even if they couldnt, my question still stands...
Who of the original Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 creation teams is still left working on Diablo 3? Whether they be from Blizzard North, or just plain Blizzzard!
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"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities"
As far as I know this game is Diablo3 not an expansion to D2. <- A reply to your WoW art style nonsense.
No matter where these guys are from they are professionals and top elite of gaming industry, they know what they do and for long time have made great games.
I don't think there was many people at blizzard that had not been working on WoW as they pretty much put all people to work with it at 2002. I suppose they have since then recruited more people to deal with WoW things and more people to design new stuff.
I really wonder what it would have looked like if it had been made by Blizzard North. I'd say it would have been pretty different.
Hellgate: London with Sanctuary as a setting. They were a bit rushed but even without any bugs the game was very much crap. Paid full price for it the week of its release (i didnt wait for the reviews) because i believed the "Blizzard North" part of its developers. Was very frustrating, really.
If Blizzard closed that studio, that was for a good reason. The new team does great job so far. Changes many things for the better and removes useless/broken feats.
And the part where the developers arent veterans isnt really valid. Blizzard North hadn't had any milestones before Diablo 1 but look at what they delivered.
I say give the new team their chance and judge them after you see the full game.
All the World of Warcraft people came from Warcraft 3, at least, which is fine for me. Infact, everyone from Warcraft 2 came to Warcraft 3 even, and from Warcraft 1 as well!
So, most everyone from Warcraft is still on board, and it is why WoW is such a fantastic game. It still has the Blizzard style.
Starcraft, and most importantly, Diablo, seem to have lost a lot of their original creators, and that worries me.
I don't fucking look at Hellgate London when I think of Blizzard North. That's Flagshipped Studios. I think of Diablo and Diablo 2 when I think of Blizzard North. I'm surprised you guys didn't realize Blizzard North was bought by Blizzard in 1996, and I'm equally surprised you didn't realize the North team had a big dispute with normal Blizzard over Diablo 3 back in 2001, I believe. This was all posted by Gamingsteve.
I don't want people who didn't work on Diablo to have the game completely in their hands. I just would feel happier if people who worked on Diablo 1/Diablo 2 were still on board.
And yes, Hellgate London sucked. Why? It was rushed and the futuristic setting was horrible. The 3-d also sucked. Not because of the Blizzard North employees.
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"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities"
No developers are qualified for Diablo 3 except the original creators of the series. It seems like a joke to me that people are saying "They're professionals, let them work" or "Give the new team a chance"
You don't say that. Diablo is about expertise, amazing individuals, and crafty Blizzard North Employees. It's not about some fat guy who worked on Dawn of War. I mean, honestly, transferring game ideas from some shitty game (it was okay, but, it wasnt a -BLIZZARD- game) to Diablo 3 is just stupid and shows how amateurish the guy really is (incase you dont know, he said a lot of his old work is rubbing off, jay wilson did). Diablo is an entirely seperate entity, and he doesnt realize the millions of people who have played Diablo 2 over the past 8 years waiting for this game to come out are dying for something more if not just as amazing as Diablo 2.
They really have outdone themselves with this Bullshit. That's why I was worried to know how many original team members we have actually in the Diablo offices. I feel like this new team is very very "silly" and nowhere near serious and or devoted enough. While they have some good ideas, they're really just copying what people liked from Diablo 1 or 2, leaving out the extra gorey/darkness factor of the games in favor of what sells - WoW graphics -. I still feel amazed people are actually this happy with a game they claim to have waited like 6-8 years for, and it looks like a colorful cartoon piece of goofyness.
For example, they showed some behind the scenes footage crap during the Blizzcon 08' footage from DirectTV of the Diablo offices. Jay Wilson was walking around kind of saying some stupid stuff, like, he had no idea what these offices were really, like, hey, these should belong to Blizzard North, not him. Then they end the behind the scenes footage with him saying "Well, I gotta' get back to work" and it shows the whole office pull out nerf guns and start shooting while the "Not even death can save you from me" clip plays and the screen shakes with a bunch of employees firing nerf guns and epic music is in the background.
Now to me, that tells me one of two things. One is, they're goofy as hell for a dark, gothic fantasy game team. Two is, no wonder it's taken 8 years for Diablo 3. They're too damn busy having fucking nerf battles in the office every day laughing it up.
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"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities"
I didn’t play the other games but I see a number of posts laying responsibility on the developers. I think maybe it’s worth explaining how team development works a bit so people understand it’s not necessarily the developers. Any software package (games included) is first conceptualized and developers frequently are not included in those discussions except to answer ‘is it possible to this or that’ questions.
I have seen zealous executives make many of the conceptual decisions in such meetings because ‘it’s what they want’ when they should have not been involved at all. I’ve seen coding specs change midstream in because a big wig decided they didn’t like something and throws an entire development team into disarray and the uncaring exec clueless as to what they did. Many times a project goes bad not because the coders were not good or qualified but because leadership was missing in the project.
Money! Of course it’s all about the money, investors don’t care how good the software is, they just want their money back plus return on investment. When you start a project you try to attract investors and the size of your team is limited bye the total amount you can raise and the monthly expense burn rate that has been planned for, if you fall short then corners are cut.
Politics; I’ve seen good teams get ripped apart because of one egotistical boob who couldn’t deal with the word ‘no’ or being told they were wrong or just had to control everything, into the ground.
I don't agree. For the coding part, who cares. Writing "hello world" in java can be done by anyone. I agree that D3 is not that simplistic, but since they are using a new engine they need experts in that engine. The only part that really make the big difference is the artistic part and gameplay part. I don't think the team will matter much in term of work done. I just hope they have a great chemistry between the developers to insure good communication and a good product. Because you have new people, we all get a new version of Diablo. If you just wanted to update the D1 or D2 with the old team, they should have made a expansion instead.
That been said, it is taking them forever to finish this... and therefore you could be right: Maybe that team is not as focused as the previous ones. Or maybe D3 is way better than I expected.
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Thread: Diablo III Release "still a long way to go" #205 08-30-2009, 02:38 AM
yes4me: it is probably going to take until 2012 or 2013 Thread: Will D3 Make History? #44 11-12-2009, 07:26 PM
yes4me: "will make history and will join the rank of famous games like "Daikatana" or "Duke Nuken Forever"
Or maybe this team sucks because they aren't the original creators.
"Okay guys, the new Harry Potter book is coming out. While we know JK didn't want to write it, we got a new company. It's going to be written by Bungie Studios, you know, from Xbox and Halo. They worked on Sci-Fi but so what, they can do fantasy. Harry Potter might get a gun though, because, Bungie likes the fact their games have guns so it translates over into the new book. It's cool though, because, they wrote it completely on their own. Sure, they read the previous books some, but, they know what they're doing. They aren't listening to the fans in any way."
Or, imagine this scenario...
"Mario Super Stars! Created by Bill Gates! He makes games, he's a proffesional. Let him work."
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"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities"
"Mario Super Stars! Created by Bill Gates! He makes games, he's a proffesional. Let him work."
What you fail to grasp is that Blizzard has been producing all of the games and making creative decisions instead of giving the development teams full creative control. Even if any of the 'original' developers were on board, they would have to work within the guidelines set by the higher management. No matter what team is on board, they will be making the Blizzard game, and not imagine to be a company inside a company. Eventually leave and make a company outside of Blizzard to prove how much they fail on their own.
Aside from that, less than a half of D1 team were there to work on D2, and more than half of D2 people are there to work on D3 now. When D4 is in development, I have no doubt that Blizzard will assign a new team. That's how it works.
I just hope they have a great chemistry between the developers to insure good communication and a good product.
That is exactly it, 'chemistry' everyone is making basically the same point in so many words but in the end a good product boils down to that, 'good chemistry'. If they can keep the control freaks, bloated ego's, and politics out then they will have a great team and we will get a great game, all we can do is wait and hope so far the work looks good to me.
Well, you guys all make amazingly good points, I just see a few of you coming out and saying "Hey, Blizzard has full control."
It doesn't make a good game if Blizzard has full control. What matters is the fact I don't want noob's working on my Diablo. It's already -very- obvious new people are working on the game. The graphics match Diablo, but, it still comes off as a World of Warcraft mixed with normal fantasy art. I don't think the people making this game are 100% qualified. I know they're professionals, but, most of what they say is stupid. "We didn't want to bring the Necromancer back because it was perfect. We couldn't add on or change anything"
Yes, you could have, easily. If they read the f'ing diablo series of books, they'll realize theres a lot more to the Necromancer than in Diablo 2. It's also very stupid to say "We didn't want something perfect in our game". Oh, okay, so you want things that are flawed because it's easier for you guys to look good by saying "See, we've expanded" which you're too noobish to do with the Necromancer or any other Diablo 2 class. I don't really know. They've done a very poor job at interviews and public speaking about the game, and then the art and conceptual stuff they're producing kind of looks like some generic Warcraft pictures/fantasy pictures with a touch of Warhammer.
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"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities"
It doesn't make if Blizzard has full control. What matters is the fact I don't want noob's working on my Diablo.
It's not Your Diablo; it's none of ours, Blizzard owns the rights to the game and are the ones developing it. It's just a game. If you don't like it don't play it.
"We didn't want to bring the Necromancer back because it was perfect. We couldn't add on or change anything"
They've already said they will probably bring back the Necromancer class in an expansion and just didn't want to bring the class back for this particular game.
If they read the f'ing diablo series of books, they'll realize theres a lot more to the Necromancer than in Diablo 2.
Could you give some examples here? And I'm sure they probably did read the books since they made them official lore for the game.
All of Blizzard North left. For jeebus fuck, its pathetic how people around here try to dodge the bullet. PATHETIC.
Teams come and go. Teams don't own or direct games. They are the manpower that does the dirty work. The only reason why you are aware of the fact that the original D1 team is gone, is because the team was going by the name 'Blizzard North'. The new Diablo team doesn't go by some pompous name, that's all. They are developing games in-house as a big family. And they are better at it than ever.
Quote from "Doppelganger" »
Furthermore, trying to judge BN's talent and success based on the fail that was Hellgate London, seriously? Someone give me some chloride to wash out my eyes please.
Seriously? Than what to judge it upon? Something that wasn't such a fail as their own first big project? If you believe that the original team that worked on D1 is the whole essence of Diablo, then HG:L is the core essence of Diablo. After all, that's how they advertised it. When you wash your eyes with chloride, maybe you will see that HG:L suffers from about the same child diseases that D2 had years back. And you may understand that the only flaws and imperfections of the game were actual design decisions by those people and not a coincidence. 'The team surely did not intend that.' Uh-huh. They made rushing possible in HG:L again by pure accident.
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I don't post often, nor have I posted since the big week lead up to the huge announcement of Diablo 3. You might remember me as LordofEvil on the chatrooms back then.
I have a serious question involving the actual validity of most of the new team members behind Diablo 3. A lot of interviews I've been reading kind of make me feel like Diablo 3 is a World of Warcraft art style, a Dawn of War gameplay with more blood type game...
Let me cut to the chase... it just seems like an overall mismatch of random, inexperienced game designers seem to be running the show now. I know thats a little harsh, and the game does looks amazingly fun and true to Diablo right now, but, how many original designers are left from Blizzard North that are still active and participating in the ongoing development of Diablo, including Diablo 3? The lead game designer isn't even a veteran, he's a noob. I would think they would've gotten one of the old Blizzard North pro's to develop this, but, even if they couldnt, my question still stands...
Who of the original Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 creation teams is still left working on Diablo 3? Whether they be from Blizzard North, or just plain Blizzzard!
thats because they were rushed.
and they needed blizzard's support but they also needed the team of blizzard north to make it more awesome.
No matter where these guys are from they are professionals and top elite of gaming industry, they know what they do and for long time have made great games.
I don't think there was many people at blizzard that had not been working on WoW as they pretty much put all people to work with it at 2002. I suppose they have since then recruited more people to deal with WoW things and more people to design new stuff.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
Hellgate: London with Sanctuary as a setting. They were a bit rushed but even without any bugs the game was very much crap. Paid full price for it the week of its release (i didnt wait for the reviews) because i believed the "Blizzard North" part of its developers. Was very frustrating, really.
If Blizzard closed that studio, that was for a good reason. The new team does great job so far. Changes many things for the better and removes useless/broken feats.
And the part where the developers arent veterans isnt really valid. Blizzard North hadn't had any milestones before Diablo 1 but look at what they delivered.
I say give the new team their chance and judge them after you see the full game.
All the World of Warcraft people came from Warcraft 3, at least, which is fine for me. Infact, everyone from Warcraft 2 came to Warcraft 3 even, and from Warcraft 1 as well!
So, most everyone from Warcraft is still on board, and it is why WoW is such a fantastic game. It still has the Blizzard style.
Starcraft, and most importantly, Diablo, seem to have lost a lot of their original creators, and that worries me.
I don't fucking look at Hellgate London when I think of Blizzard North. That's Flagshipped Studios. I think of Diablo and Diablo 2 when I think of Blizzard North. I'm surprised you guys didn't realize Blizzard North was bought by Blizzard in 1996, and I'm equally surprised you didn't realize the North team had a big dispute with normal Blizzard over Diablo 3 back in 2001, I believe. This was all posted by Gamingsteve.
I don't want people who didn't work on Diablo to have the game completely in their hands. I just would feel happier if people who worked on Diablo 1/Diablo 2 were still on board.
And yes, Hellgate London sucked. Why? It was rushed and the futuristic setting was horrible. The 3-d also sucked. Not because of the Blizzard North employees.
No developers are qualified for Diablo 3 except the original creators of the series. It seems like a joke to me that people are saying "They're professionals, let them work" or "Give the new team a chance"
You don't say that. Diablo is about expertise, amazing individuals, and crafty Blizzard North Employees. It's not about some fat guy who worked on Dawn of War. I mean, honestly, transferring game ideas from some shitty game (it was okay, but, it wasnt a -BLIZZARD- game) to Diablo 3 is just stupid and shows how amateurish the guy really is (incase you dont know, he said a lot of his old work is rubbing off, jay wilson did). Diablo is an entirely seperate entity, and he doesnt realize the millions of people who have played Diablo 2 over the past 8 years waiting for this game to come out are dying for something more if not just as amazing as Diablo 2.
They really have outdone themselves with this Bullshit. That's why I was worried to know how many original team members we have actually in the Diablo offices. I feel like this new team is very very "silly" and nowhere near serious and or devoted enough. While they have some good ideas, they're really just copying what people liked from Diablo 1 or 2, leaving out the extra gorey/darkness factor of the games in favor of what sells - WoW graphics -. I still feel amazed people are actually this happy with a game they claim to have waited like 6-8 years for, and it looks like a colorful cartoon piece of goofyness.
For example, they showed some behind the scenes footage crap during the Blizzcon 08' footage from DirectTV of the Diablo offices. Jay Wilson was walking around kind of saying some stupid stuff, like, he had no idea what these offices were really, like, hey, these should belong to Blizzard North, not him. Then they end the behind the scenes footage with him saying "Well, I gotta' get back to work" and it shows the whole office pull out nerf guns and start shooting while the "Not even death can save you from me" clip plays and the screen shakes with a bunch of employees firing nerf guns and epic music is in the background.
Now to me, that tells me one of two things. One is, they're goofy as hell for a dark, gothic fantasy game team. Two is, no wonder it's taken 8 years for Diablo 3. They're too damn busy having fucking nerf battles in the office every day laughing it up.
http://diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9723
the answer is "zero out of nineteen"
I have seen zealous executives make many of the conceptual decisions in such meetings because ‘it’s what they want’ when they should have not been involved at all. I’ve seen coding specs change midstream in because a big wig decided they didn’t like something and throws an entire development team into disarray and the uncaring exec clueless as to what they did. Many times a project goes bad not because the coders were not good or qualified but because leadership was missing in the project.
Money! Of course it’s all about the money, investors don’t care how good the software is, they just want their money back plus return on investment. When you start a project you try to attract investors and the size of your team is limited bye the total amount you can raise and the monthly expense burn rate that has been planned for, if you fall short then corners are cut.
Politics; I’ve seen good teams get ripped apart because of one egotistical boob who couldn’t deal with the word ‘no’ or being told they were wrong or just had to control everything, into the ground.
That been said, it is taking them forever to finish this... and therefore you could be right: Maybe that team is not as focused as the previous ones. Or maybe D3 is way better than I expected.
yes4me: it is probably going to take until 2012 or 2013
Thread: Will D3 Make History? #44 11-12-2009, 07:26 PM
yes4me: "will make history and will join the rank of famous games like "Daikatana" or "Duke Nuken Forever"
"Okay guys, the new Harry Potter book is coming out. While we know JK didn't want to write it, we got a new company. It's going to be written by Bungie Studios, you know, from Xbox and Halo. They worked on Sci-Fi but so what, they can do fantasy. Harry Potter might get a gun though, because, Bungie likes the fact their games have guns so it translates over into the new book. It's cool though, because, they wrote it completely on their own. Sure, they read the previous books some, but, they know what they're doing. They aren't listening to the fans in any way."
Or, imagine this scenario...
"Mario Super Stars! Created by Bill Gates! He makes games, he's a proffesional. Let him work."
Aside from that, less than a half of D1 team were there to work on D2, and more than half of D2 people are there to work on D3 now. When D4 is in development, I have no doubt that Blizzard will assign a new team. That's how it works.
That is exactly it, 'chemistry' everyone is making basically the same point in so many words but in the end a good product boils down to that, 'good chemistry'. If they can keep the control freaks, bloated ego's, and politics out then they will have a great team and we will get a great game, all we can do is wait and hope so far the work looks good to me.
It doesn't make a good game if Blizzard has full control. What matters is the fact I don't want noob's working on my Diablo. It's already -very- obvious new people are working on the game. The graphics match Diablo, but, it still comes off as a World of Warcraft mixed with normal fantasy art. I don't think the people making this game are 100% qualified. I know they're professionals, but, most of what they say is stupid. "We didn't want to bring the Necromancer back because it was perfect. We couldn't add on or change anything"
Yes, you could have, easily. If they read the f'ing diablo series of books, they'll realize theres a lot more to the Necromancer than in Diablo 2. It's also very stupid to say "We didn't want something perfect in our game". Oh, okay, so you want things that are flawed because it's easier for you guys to look good by saying "See, we've expanded" which you're too noobish to do with the Necromancer or any other Diablo 2 class. I don't really know. They've done a very poor job at interviews and public speaking about the game, and then the art and conceptual stuff they're producing kind of looks like some generic Warcraft pictures/fantasy pictures with a touch of Warhammer.
It's not Your Diablo; it's none of ours, Blizzard owns the rights to the game and are the ones developing it. It's just a game. If you don't like it don't play it.
"We didn't want to bring the Necromancer back because it was perfect. We couldn't add on or change anything"
They've already said they will probably bring back the Necromancer class in an expansion and just didn't want to bring the class back for this particular game.
If they read the f'ing diablo series of books, they'll realize theres a lot more to the Necromancer than in Diablo 2.
Could you give some examples here? And I'm sure they probably did read the books since they made them official lore for the game.
Seriously? Than what to judge it upon? Something that wasn't such a fail as their own first big project? If you believe that the original team that worked on D1 is the whole essence of Diablo, then HG:L is the core essence of Diablo. After all, that's how they advertised it. When you wash your eyes with chloride, maybe you will see that HG:L suffers from about the same child diseases that D2 had years back. And you may understand that the only flaws and imperfections of the game were actual design decisions by those people and not a coincidence. 'The team surely did not intend that.' Uh-huh. They made rushing possible in HG:L again by pure accident.