Would you like to see factions make an appearance in Diablo 3?
Brief summary of factions (rephrasing the obvious): Factions are a group of persons with a common goal or disposition who get together to form a cohesive unit working together to further their cause. In the context of diablo the mortals in the world of sanctuary would be split into either the good or evil faction/stratosphere. Heaven and Hell would then joust over the faith of both worlds by recruiting as many mortal heroes to their respective side.
Before you vote, note that the addition of factions does not necessitate a complete overhaul of the diablo gaming structure. Quite the contrary very little needs to be changed. I used to think it could only be done in an MMO framework, but now I am more confident that factions can be included without making any major altercations to the game. I also think that if we put our minds together we can develop something that could enable us to easily integrate factions into the game.
Let me know what your thoughts are or if you have suggestions of your own.
How it would fit into the storyline:
To my knowledge all mortals in the World of Sanctuary are Nephalem, as pointed out in this excerpt taken from the Diablo wiki website:
“The Nephalem, being born of Angels and Demon, were found to be quite powerful. Lilith planned to use their power to build an army, but Inarius fought against her and used the Worldstone to nerf the human's powers, so that each successive generation became less and less powerful. He wanted control over them, not anyone else. “
Having been born from parents that occupy polar moral mindsets, mortals are trapped in a state of moral uncertainty. Mortals are born neutral, so during the course of their lives they struggle with the dilemma of having to choose the type of moral fiber they wish to be defined by. Should they act recklessly, incontinent, be inconsiderate, villainous and relish in atrocities? Or should they act with prudence, self restraint, justice, and good will?
The Council made a pact with the oldest of the Prime Evils, Mephisto, that he would leave Sanctuary untouched in exchange for the traitor Inarius (who created Sanctuary, an act forbidden by the Council). Sanctuary was then left in the hands of the humans, with their memories wiped, allowing them to grow from the beginning. Each individual is left to decide either to live by the light or the dark.
Gaining the allegiance of mortals "is seen as the ultimate means to gain the upper hand over the forces of Heaven (or Hell) and win the Great Conflict". This is the grand goal for both factions... the entire story will revolve around this theme.
And now that the WorldStone is destroyed and the two worlds seek to capitalize off humans, now is a pivotal and crucial time for humans to decide which side to join.
This is why I think the diablo series lays out the perfect setting for the inclusion of factions in diablo 3.
If the games were much larger (maybe consisting of over 20 players per game) then I could say its a possibility, but with only 10 per game it seems rather unlikely.
I don't think we should give up hope too quickly.
The game shouldn't have factions until the last act. The last act (which will be let's say act5) is where factions will play themselves out. The last act will be divided into two main bases, heaven's outpost and hell's outpost. These two starting locations will serve as the encampment for the heaven and hell factions. The two locations are seperated by a vast territory. Most of the territory dividing the two bases will be designated for only one faction. This will help prevent the opposing factions from crossing one another's path too often, which is undesirable if all your after is loot and leveling. So each faction will have their own quests in places that won't be accessible by the opponent faction. However there will be areas and quests in which factions will be able to meet and duke it out. This will only represent a small fraction of the quests. But these quest may be repeated indefinitely allowing players to capitalize off of the faction duality as much as possible if they may so choose to.
In between both the heaven and hell domain will be a bunch of waypoints to get through from one end to the other as you near either end the terrain will look more and more bright or dark depending in which direction you're going. Until on one end the hell factions will face the angelic council, while on the other the heaven faction will meet Diablo and his most fierce minions.
How to deal with the shortage of players per game:
I think that instead of having to go back to the battle.net lobby, you could access it in the middle of your game and either join or post games in it without having to return to the lobby. So you could press a key lets say G for "game" and a window will pop up with plenty of features, for game types.
In this window you could look at all the games people have made which ask for a specific quest or challenge, one which might involve a faction vs faction duel.
There would be plenty of features for you to make very specific games. For example if you want to make a room only to trade, there would be a series of game type tabs, and your game would be listed under the trade tab. This would help sparse a lot of the clutter trading games from the actual questing games.
While faction oriented game would have their own tab.
Diablo never had a solid pvp framework. The blizzard community had to find it's own dueling ground so we dueled just outside of the rogue encampment... There was no designated area to duel. It was sorta “makeshift”, left to the players to improvise and figure out on their own.
Will this be another game you can breeze through in a few days, or will it be drawn out longer? Yes, the random loot and dungeons extends the replay value and life of the game well beyond that, but will we be left feeling empty after defeating Diablo with no true goal other than to level up your character? Once we finish the game what can will look forward to? I think factions will help fill this hole.
Why wouldn't you want it to be the standard gameplay mode? I would not want to have diablo 3 be an identical replica of diablo 2 with just a different story and a normal nightmare and hell mode in which you revist the same content three times over.
I'd prefer a story filled with a captivating and long enough story line to keep you interested throughout all the levels up to level 90. To do this you need twist and turns in the story. Debating between good and evil, becoming inducted into a faction (knighted), and playing a significant role in either faction. And a final battle that will truly test player's skills and teamwork.
And I don't know any better to do this then to really make the players play a significant role in the story line, Being Captains and Generals in the game, and being Diablo's bodyguard. Or maybe even be given the status of arch angel on the heaven faction.
What better way to bring closure to the diablo series then to play such a pivotal role in the game on either side.
Brief summary of factions (rephrasing the obvious): Factions are a group of persons with a common goal or disposition who get together to form a cohesive unit working together to further their cause. In the context of diablo the mortals in the world of sanctuary would be split into either the good or evil faction/stratosphere. Heaven and Hell would then joust over the faith of both worlds by recruiting as many mortal heroes to their respective side.
Before you vote, note that the addition of factions does not necessitate a complete overhaul of the diablo gaming structure. Quite the contrary very little needs to be changed. I used to think it could only be done in an MMO framework, but now I am more confident that factions can be included without making any major altercations to the game. I also think that if we put our minds together we can develop something that could enable us to easily integrate factions into the game.
In the following link you will find a list of suggestions for factions:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5579
Let me know what your thoughts are or if you have suggestions of your own.
How it would fit into the storyline:
To my knowledge all mortals in the World of Sanctuary are Nephalem, as pointed out in this excerpt taken from the Diablo wiki website: Having been born from parents that occupy polar moral mindsets, mortals are trapped in a state of moral uncertainty. Mortals are born neutral, so during the course of their lives they struggle with the dilemma of having to choose the type of moral fiber they wish to be defined by. Should they act recklessly, incontinent, be inconsiderate, villainous and relish in atrocities? Or should they act with prudence, self restraint, justice, and good will?
Gaining the allegiance of mortals "is seen as the ultimate means to gain the upper hand over the forces of Heaven (or Hell) and win the Great Conflict". This is the grand goal for both factions... the entire story will revolve around this theme.
And now that the WorldStone is destroyed and the two worlds seek to capitalize off humans, now is a pivotal and crucial time for humans to decide which side to join.
This is why I think the diablo series lays out the perfect setting for the inclusion of factions in diablo 3.
Too bad it won't happen
The game shouldn't have factions until the last act. The last act (which will be let's say act5) is where factions will play themselves out. The last act will be divided into two main bases, heaven's outpost and hell's outpost. These two starting locations will serve as the encampment for the heaven and hell factions. The two locations are seperated by a vast territory. Most of the territory dividing the two bases will be designated for only one faction. This will help prevent the opposing factions from crossing one another's path too often, which is undesirable if all your after is loot and leveling. So each faction will have their own quests in places that won't be accessible by the opponent faction. However there will be areas and quests in which factions will be able to meet and duke it out. This will only represent a small fraction of the quests. But these quest may be repeated indefinitely allowing players to capitalize off of the faction duality as much as possible if they may so choose to.
In between both the heaven and hell domain will be a bunch of waypoints to get through from one end to the other as you near either end the terrain will look more and more bright or dark depending in which direction you're going. Until on one end the hell factions will face the angelic council, while on the other the heaven faction will meet Diablo and his most fierce minions.
How to deal with the shortage of players per game:
I think that instead of having to go back to the battle.net lobby, you could access it in the middle of your game and either join or post games in it without having to return to the lobby. So you could press a key lets say G for "game" and a window will pop up with plenty of features, for game types.
In this window you could look at all the games people have made which ask for a specific quest or challenge, one which might involve a faction vs faction duel.
There would be plenty of features for you to make very specific games. For example if you want to make a room only to trade, there would be a series of game type tabs, and your game would be listed under the trade tab. This would help sparse a lot of the clutter trading games from the actual questing games.
While faction oriented game would have their own tab.
Diablo never had a solid pvp framework. The blizzard community had to find it's own dueling ground so we dueled just outside of the rogue encampment... There was no designated area to duel. It was sorta “makeshift”, left to the players to improvise and figure out on their own.
Will this be another game you can breeze through in a few days, or will it be drawn out longer? Yes, the random loot and dungeons extends the replay value and life of the game well beyond that, but will we be left feeling empty after defeating Diablo with no true goal other than to level up your character? Once we finish the game what can will look forward to? I think factions will help fill this hole.
Why wouldn't you want it to be the standard gameplay mode? I would not want to have diablo 3 be an identical replica of diablo 2 with just a different story and a normal nightmare and hell mode in which you revist the same content three times over.
I'd prefer a story filled with a captivating and long enough story line to keep you interested throughout all the levels up to level 90. To do this you need twist and turns in the story. Debating between good and evil, becoming inducted into a faction (knighted), and playing a significant role in either faction. And a final battle that will truly test player's skills and teamwork.
And I don't know any better to do this then to really make the players play a significant role in the story line, Being Captains and Generals in the game, and being Diablo's bodyguard. Or maybe even be given the status of arch angel on the heaven faction.
What better way to bring closure to the diablo series then to play such a pivotal role in the game on either side.
But despite my biased opinion, which of course I won't get into, I doubt Blizzard will do it anyways.