That's totally true but he wasn't possessed right after "stoning" his head... He was losing humanity partially. And yeah, soulstone definitely had some kind of influence on Leah but she's still Aidans daughter.
This is Blizzard. They looooooooove the dark woman concept. Leah is totally gonna be Diablo's daughter. A bit of corruption around the edges is boring and too subtle for this series.
She is Aidans daughter, not diablos. Aidan was then corrupted and turned into Diablo. It's not the same thing.
Aidan and Adria conceived Leah after Aidan jammed the soulstone into his head. I don't know what being possessed by a Prime Evil would do to that Punnett square, but there's a lot of passages in the Book of Cain showing that Leah is not normal. She has visions, speaks in tongues around ancient artifacts, and even dictated to Cain lots of information about Hell itself that he used in the book. She's a cite! And Cain had the weird dream of her future self standing between light and dark and having to make a decision.
Because she's half demon. I'm sure at some point in D3 she'll use some freaky powers, along with her Horadrim lessons from Cain, to save the day.
Aidan was the dark wanderer. Aidan is Leah's father, as per Adria's saucy journal. Ergo Leah is Diablo's daughter. I'm sure Blizz will do something fun with that. See Cain's stories about Leah as an 8 year old girl going into trances and talking all about hell, having funky visions, or the fact he had the dream where she's between light and dark.
And it wouldn't make too much sense for Lilith to be a boss, since she wants to protect humanity (although maybe use their powers for her own end? Maybe you could make something of that in an expansion). I wouldn't be shocked if Adria was Lilith this whole time.
D3 will definitely be longer than D2. When developers say it's "about the same length" regarding a sequel they're pretty much always wrong in my experience. Especially compared to older games where they don't throw as many barriers in your way. I mean in D2 you can basically run through an entire act and not complete any quests until you need to unlock the boss in A2 and A3. In the others you can just keep going. You can get to Diablo in A4 in about 8 mins of running, if you really want to.
I'll try to avoid plot spoilers but from datamining/previous D3 vids it seems for A1 we still have to (dunno the order):
Go through the jail areas and see the Leoric background lore as depicted in the Blizzcon 2010 stuff. See the queen get chopped, fight the Warden, etc.
Go to the Fields of Misery, Festering Woods, Drowned temple, recover several quest items.
Take the boat to Wortham.
Go through a giant spider nest and fight a boss there.
Go through the two highland overworld areas.
Go into Leoric's manor and down into the multi-floor torture chamber dungeon shown 3490726 times in Blizz clips.
Another factor is that A4 in D3 is super short. Three quests, only 5 overworld maps, a handful of superuniques. From datamining we already know that D3's A4 will be much bigger than that, if still shorter than the other D3 acts as a means to focus the story to the dramatic conclusion (as a blue commented upon once).
A lot will depend on how they structure the plot trinkets. If they're commonly found in random dungeons like the crown then it could take a lot longer than D2. Another factor is that Blizz seems to be working hard to make you want to explore side dungeons with resplendent chests and side-quests that cover the ground in loot. Whereas in D2 it could be fun to explore all the side dungeons but until they did the lvl-85 areas like 6 years after the game came out there wasn't much of a reward for doing so, other than the exploration factor or checking in on bosses like Cold Crow or Ancient Kaa the Soulless.
Speaking of which, you can look at superunique bosses as a very rough proxy.
Diablo 3 Beta SUs:
9 total
1. Sarkoth (Dark Cellar)
2. Wretched Queen
3. Captain Daltyn (I know the spelling is supposed to be old tymey but it reminds me of a yuppie soccer mom's kid)
4. Mira Eamon
5. Manglemaw
6. Lord Dunhyld -- ghost woman quest
7. Chancellor Eamon -- for the crown
8. Jondar, I mean JONDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
9. Skeleton King
And that doesn't count easter eggs like the Data Miner or Lloigor the Crazed. Add those to the total if you want.
Diablo 2 Act 1 SUs:
14
1. Corpsefire
2. Bishibosh
3. Bonebreaker
4. Coldcrow
5. Blood Raven
6. Rakanishu
7. Treehead Woodfist
8. Griswold
9. The Countess
10. Flamespike the Crawler -- removed in LOD but I'll count him anyway.
11. Pitspawn Fouldog
12. Bone Ash
13. The Smith
14. Andariel
The only criticism I can think is it gives us too much too soon. But the game will probably get even more epic in scale from here. How can anyone not love watching an army of angels pour out from a hole in the sky to meet the forces of hell? That's like Diablo porn. And the music was great. Dunno what else would be appropriate for such a crazy battle.
There is one problem. The meteor comes in at an angle but the hole goes straight down. OMG PLOT HOLE GAME SUX.
It's weird if true because Leah is supposed to carry the torch for the Horadrim. Who will we stay and listen to now?
There's also a model of Adria with yellow eyes and a game event in A3 called Adria_Betrayal or something. I think she'll be helping or become Diablo somehow.
Given the pyre quest icon and the "end of the horadrim" title we kinda already know Cain is going to die at the end of A1. But now that we know the Butcher is the A1 boss I don't think it's a leap to suggest that Cain will get sliced and diced by the Butcher himself. My guess is Cain will come along with us to use his magic or knowledge to reassemble Tyrael's sword or do something else to further the plot, then the Butcher will burst through a wall and slaughter him. Cue boss fight. That would be quite the entrance, plus a fitting way for Cain to end -- the only character to be in every game dying to a Diablo 1 original. Kinda going full circle.
I have 2 similar ending predictions that could set up the expansions:
We killed Baal but the Worldstone was already corrupted. Maybe we'll kill Diablo but the Crystal Arch will already be corrupted? It's not clear what that would mean exactly, but my guess would be that Hell would now have access to a neverending army of corrupted angels and the already existing angels will have to seek refuge in Sanctuary as Heaven becomes totally corrupted by Hell. The expansions will see Sanctuary under attack by this combined force and we'll have to fix it somehow. I think this is likely because Blizz seems to love this type of storyline (e.g. Zerg/Toss hybrids in SC2 and I'm to understand races getting corrupted in Warcraft is pretty common)
My second guess is that we'll stop Diablo but the fact that Heaven was invaded because of humans + the naive actions of Tyrael will allow Imperius to convince the other angels that Sanctuary needs to be cleansed of humans forever. Maybe then Tyrael will help us go into hell and kick some *** to show heaven that we're useful. Or maybe we'll just kill both sides and be the top dog of creation. Or figure out a way to hide Sanctuary from both sides again. Either way, there will have to be some dangling plot point for the next Diablo game in 12 years.
I don't think any of that is particularly new. Personally I have 2 ending predictions that could set up the expansions:
We killed Baal but the Worldstone was already corrupted. Maybe we'll kill Diablo but the Crystal Arch will already be corrupted? It's not clear what that would mean exactly, but my guess would be that Hell would now have access to a neverending army of corrupted angels and the already existing angels will have to seek refuge in Sanctuary as Heaven becomes totally corrupted by Hell. The expansions will see Sanctuary under attack by this combined force and we'll have to fix it somehow. I think this is likely because Blizz seems to love this type of storyline (e.g. Zerg/Toss hybrids in SC2 and I'm to understand races getting corrupted in Warcraft is pretty common)
My second guess is that we'll stop Diablo but the fact that Heaven was invaded because of humans + the naive actions of Tyrael will allow Imperius to convince the other angels that Sanctuary needs to be cleansed of humans forever. Maybe then Tyrael will help us go into hell and kick some *** to show heaven that we're useful. Or maybe we'll just kill both sides and be the top dog of creation. Or figure out a way to hide Sanctuary from both sides again. Either way, there will have to be some dangling plot point for the next Diablo game in 12 years.
Not sure if trolling or not... but no sir that is incorrect.
We've known for awhile that the A1 boss is codenamed Withers. Then later the "Withers Carver" is obviously the Butcher's Carver. I didn't really think the Butcher would be the A1 boss even with that but then in this latest patch his head icon for b.net progression is with the other obvious act bosses (Belial, Azmodan, Diablo). What else makes sense?
The latest patch mining confirms the Butcher is the Act 1 boss...which strikes me as really weird. I'd figure they'd try to use him like D1 where he just bursts out of a room or a wall like an engine of destruction. So not only will he have a bigger place in the lore than some random but strong demon who likes to chop people up but he'll have an elaborate fight with different phases/modes of attack and such? Just seems like an odd way to use him. I wonder if he'll be foreshadowed like most of the other act bosses from townspeople dialogue or if he'll just show up out of nowhere like Duriel. "Oh hai der!"
I realize that this might be a difficult/impossible question to answer at the moment, but I'm curious. I was reading about the beliefs of the Umbaru and was wondering how their concept of "The Unformed Land" fits into the Diablo universe as we know it. Is it plausible? How might it affect Sanctuary, Heaven/Hell, the Balance, etc.
Sanctuary is a rather busy place, what with every religion being 100% true. The world is an illusion resting on a giant space dragon while amazonian goddesses reach down to guide arrows and the nature spirits come to help the druids and the barbarians commune with their ancestors, etc.
If anyone has Steam you know, thanks to being able to view global achievement statistics, that the amount of players who just beat a game, or beat it on a hard difficulty, or do anything that is designed to be actually difficult, is pretty low. This is especially true the more popular it is since more players = more baddies. Or casuals. Or whatever you want to call low skill/attention span players. Or people may check the game out to see what all the fuss is about and then decide they don't like it.
For example, Torchlight (simple D2 clone):
Defeat Brink (1st boss of the game): 70%
Defeat the last boss on Easy or Normal: 20%
Defeat the last boss on Hard: 6%
Defeat the last boss on Very Hard: 1.3%
Defeat the game in Hardcore mode: 0.4%
Portal 2 (popular, short, easy puzzle FPS):
Beat the game: 62%
Left 4 Dead 2 (popular zombie killing FPS)
Beat All Campaigns on Expert: 2.5%
Beat ANY campaign on Expert Realism (hardest setting): 3%
That's just downright pathetic. Expert is not that hard.
Super Meat Boy (difficult but popular platformer aimed at skilled players):
Beat the Light World: 9%
Beat the Dark World: 2%
Plants vs. Zombies (fun but relatively easy tower defense game)
Defeat adventure mode: 55%
Beat all Mini-Games: 20%
Get to 20 flags in Survival Endless: 12.5%
Killing Floor:
The "beat a level on normal" starts at 25%, which is just crazy to me.
Hard: 9%
Suicidal: 2.2%
Hell on Earth: 0.7%
So if Inferno mode is really going to be as hard as Blizz claims then I wouldn't be surprised if less than 5% of people even get there, let alone complete it. Hardcore completion would be tenths of a percent. It'd be great if Blizzard showed the global stats on bnet like Valve does with Steam.
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This is Blizzard. They looooooooove the dark woman concept. Leah is totally gonna be Diablo's daughter. A bit of corruption around the edges is boring and too subtle for this series.
Aidan and Adria conceived Leah after Aidan jammed the soulstone into his head. I don't know what being possessed by a Prime Evil would do to that Punnett square, but there's a lot of passages in the Book of Cain showing that Leah is not normal. She has visions, speaks in tongues around ancient artifacts, and even dictated to Cain lots of information about Hell itself that he used in the book. She's a cite! And Cain had the weird dream of her future self standing between light and dark and having to make a decision.
Because she's half demon. I'm sure at some point in D3 she'll use some freaky powers, along with her Horadrim lessons from Cain, to save the day.
No. Why do people want Leah to actually be Diablo? She's his daughter.
And it wouldn't make too much sense for Lilith to be a boss, since she wants to protect humanity (although maybe use their powers for her own end? Maybe you could make something of that in an expansion). I wouldn't be shocked if Adria was Lilith this whole time.
I'll try to avoid plot spoilers but from datamining/previous D3 vids it seems for A1 we still have to (dunno the order):
Go through the jail areas and see the Leoric background lore as depicted in the Blizzcon 2010 stuff. See the queen get chopped, fight the Warden, etc.
Go to the Fields of Misery, Festering Woods, Drowned temple, recover several quest items.
Take the boat to Wortham.
Go through a giant spider nest and fight a boss there.
Go through the two highland overworld areas.
Go into Leoric's manor and down into the multi-floor torture chamber dungeon shown 3490726 times in Blizz clips.
Another factor is that A4 in D3 is super short. Three quests, only 5 overworld maps, a handful of superuniques. From datamining we already know that D3's A4 will be much bigger than that, if still shorter than the other D3 acts as a means to focus the story to the dramatic conclusion (as a blue commented upon once).
A lot will depend on how they structure the plot trinkets. If they're commonly found in random dungeons like the crown then it could take a lot longer than D2. Another factor is that Blizz seems to be working hard to make you want to explore side dungeons with resplendent chests and side-quests that cover the ground in loot. Whereas in D2 it could be fun to explore all the side dungeons but until they did the lvl-85 areas like 6 years after the game came out there wasn't much of a reward for doing so, other than the exploration factor or checking in on bosses like Cold Crow or Ancient Kaa the Soulless.
Speaking of which, you can look at superunique bosses as a very rough proxy.
Diablo 3 Beta SUs:
9 total
1. Sarkoth (Dark Cellar)
2. Wretched Queen
3. Captain Daltyn (I know the spelling is supposed to be old tymey but it reminds me of a yuppie soccer mom's kid)
4. Mira Eamon
5. Manglemaw
6. Lord Dunhyld -- ghost woman quest
7. Chancellor Eamon -- for the crown
8. Jondar, I mean JONDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
9. Skeleton King
And that doesn't count easter eggs like the Data Miner or Lloigor the Crazed. Add those to the total if you want.
Diablo 2 Act 1 SUs:
14
1. Corpsefire
2. Bishibosh
3. Bonebreaker
4. Coldcrow
5. Blood Raven
6. Rakanishu
7. Treehead Woodfist
8. Griswold
9. The Countess
10. Flamespike the Crawler -- removed in LOD but I'll count him anyway.
11. Pitspawn Fouldog
12. Bone Ash
13. The Smith
14. Andariel
There is one problem. The meteor comes in at an angle but the hole goes straight down. OMG PLOT HOLE GAME SUX.
Wut.
There's also a model of Adria with yellow eyes and a game event in A3 called Adria_Betrayal or something. I think she'll be helping or become Diablo somehow.
I have 2 similar ending predictions that could set up the expansions:
My second guess is that we'll stop Diablo but the fact that Heaven was invaded because of humans + the naive actions of Tyrael will allow Imperius to convince the other angels that Sanctuary needs to be cleansed of humans forever. Maybe then Tyrael will help us go into hell and kick some *** to show heaven that we're useful. Or maybe we'll just kill both sides and be the top dog of creation. Or figure out a way to hide Sanctuary from both sides again. Either way, there will have to be some dangling plot point for the next Diablo game in 12 years.
My second guess is that we'll stop Diablo but the fact that Heaven was invaded because of humans + the naive actions of Tyrael will allow Imperius to convince the other angels that Sanctuary needs to be cleansed of humans forever. Maybe then Tyrael will help us go into hell and kick some *** to show heaven that we're useful. Or maybe we'll just kill both sides and be the top dog of creation. Or figure out a way to hide Sanctuary from both sides again. Either way, there will have to be some dangling plot point for the next Diablo game in 12 years.
We've known for awhile that the A1 boss is codenamed Withers. Then later the "Withers Carver" is obviously the Butcher's Carver. I didn't really think the Butcher would be the A1 boss even with that but then in this latest patch his head icon for b.net progression is with the other obvious act bosses (Belial, Azmodan, Diablo). What else makes sense?
Sanctuary is a rather busy place, what with every religion being 100% true. The world is an illusion resting on a giant space dragon while amazonian goddesses reach down to guide arrows and the nature spirits come to help the druids and the barbarians commune with their ancestors, etc.
For example, Torchlight (simple D2 clone):
Defeat Brink (1st boss of the game): 70%
Defeat the last boss on Easy or Normal: 20%
Defeat the last boss on Hard: 6%
Defeat the last boss on Very Hard: 1.3%
Defeat the game in Hardcore mode: 0.4%
Portal 2 (popular, short, easy puzzle FPS):
Beat the game: 62%
Left 4 Dead 2 (popular zombie killing FPS)
Beat All Campaigns on Expert: 2.5%
Beat ANY campaign on Expert Realism (hardest setting): 3%
That's just downright pathetic. Expert is not that hard.
Super Meat Boy (difficult but popular platformer aimed at skilled players):
Beat the Light World: 9%
Beat the Dark World: 2%
Plants vs. Zombies (fun but relatively easy tower defense game)
Defeat adventure mode: 55%
Beat all Mini-Games: 20%
Get to 20 flags in Survival Endless: 12.5%
Killing Floor:
The "beat a level on normal" starts at 25%, which is just crazy to me.
Hard: 9%
Suicidal: 2.2%
Hell on Earth: 0.7%
So if Inferno mode is really going to be as hard as Blizz claims then I wouldn't be surprised if less than 5% of people even get there, let alone complete it. Hardcore completion would be tenths of a percent. It'd be great if Blizzard showed the global stats on bnet like Valve does with Steam.