He writes:
From the surprisingly large amount of unwanted creatures, I’ve managed to wheedle things down to a Top Ten list. Competition was tight; after all, it’s hard to pick the bad ones from the plain irrelevant… no one’s going to be interested in a three paragraph explanation about why the mosquito’s of Kruast were crap. Most of you will probably struggle to remember anything about Act 3 (it’s a big square place with a tower, right?).
So grab your shotguns and prepare to give Diablo’s Top Ten equivalents of Macaulay Culkin a proper farewell. I’m sure they can find work elsewhere… maybe in something for Runic Games?
And remember, if you don’t agree with me, you probably are Macaulay Culkin. Dude, wtf was “Party Monster”? You deserve to be unemployed.
On the other hand, Diablo enemies do tend to work the opposite way. They look really cool, but when it comes down to it, most aren't threatening at all. As he mentioned, the tentacle beasts...they look and sound pretty dangerous, until you one-shot, and think "wait, that was it?."
Personally, i did't like much of Act 2's enemies. Saber Cats just seemed silly, and the vultures only flew for effect...really you could just run past them if you wanted. The beetles were just annoying, and the lightning they shot out made no sense at all. Come to think of it, most of the elemental damage from monsters didn't make much sense...
Vampires with fire, bats with lightning, and cold enemies in act 5 with no cold damage...what's going on here! I hope they rethink the elements in general. I'd like to see the Pagan elements personally, Earth Fire Water Wind and Spirit, since Blizzard doesn't seem to mind using stuff from actual religions anyway (the pentagram for example being from Paganism, and the Zakarum seem to be loosely based on Christianity)
his top one was my favorite to kill with sin just kill a few and death sentry the rest and they domino down.. so fun
also about souls i liked that they could one shot someone that wasn't properly geared and prepared.. but eh
the main mob i'd do away with is oblivion knights and specifically iron maiden
i am a hardcore player and so that one spell from that one mob pretty much eliminates all the melee-only chars from the game
rarely if ever will you find barbs that aren't bo slaves or duelers on hardcore
rarely if ever will you find melee druids that aren't duelers
rarely if ever will you find melee palys that aren't just for ubers
rarely if ever will you find kick/ww sins that aren't just duelers
etc
in hardcore you can not play those characters in chaos sanc or doing baal unless you are excruciatingly careful
for pve one mob that can eliminate a whole playstyle or class tree shouldn't be possible in my opinion
i'd love to see melee be a viable option for d3 (as well as caster)
I Hate those little shits
As long as they do the remakes right then I don't mind, I thought the wraiths were OK in D2, but they looked pretty cool in the D3 Barbarian game play video. The scene where he gets attacked in that room before he gets his loot and armor were the D3 wraiths.
Looked pretty wicked.
Sygian dolls of exploding death are the most annoying monsters in D2 next to iron maiden chaos knights. Seriously, they pretty much made the chaos sanctuary completely horrid for a barb.
I really don't agree with him ragging on the Tainted, those guys were actually fun to wail on. As were the gargantuan beasts and yettis and all the massive sized guys.
The vampires were cool, so what if they weren't the vampires of our world, I liked them. They were a pain, but beatable.
Please don't diss the council members, I loved fighting them.
Oh and the coolest thing to me the first time I played D2 was going from having some leach and thinking I owned the place in act 1 to running aorund the sewers and discovering the hard way you can't leach from undead. It was a cool way to smack you upside the head.
Oh and yeah, glooms can be left out as well.
And I would absolutely be pissed if they DIDN'T include the Fallen.
But some of them, aboslutely not. He hates on some units that really weren't all that bad.
I hope D3 limits treasure to bipedal humanoid type characters. You can argue some of the larger creature’s swallowed treasure when they ate some poor villager but some in D2 made no sense at all.
And it's this part here that I'm gonna pick apart. And I acknowledge these are obviously Sol's opinions so I don't mean to rip into this as if he's stating any of it as fact. So excuse me if I seem to be doing that at any point.
Vampires are awesome. They're the premise for some of my favourite comics and anime.
This is likely your number one problem. Your expectations have come even somewhat from anime. God forbid that any monsters in Diablo should even slightly resemble some of the most ridiculously flamboyant and overpowered incarnations of vampires found in anime. Simply google image search "anime vampire" to see an example of what I'm talking about. And yes, you're not just talking about anime, but comics as well. But I don't even think I want the kinds of vampires I've seen in comics to be like the ones I fight in Diablo 3.
Their lore is long and solid.
How so? There are countless versions of vampire lore. As an entirely overrated fictional creature, I really can't believe how many stories there are about vampires ranging from normal looking people who merely suck people's blood to super fantastical monsters that can fly, morph into other creatures, or turn into smoke. If anything, I find vampire lore to be rather inconsistent.
Firstly, they don't even look like Vampires. More like floating zombie shepherds with a bad case of pinkeye. Second, since when do they LIKE fire? I mean wtf, people! Everyone knows Vampires can't stand the stuff; how is it that they can suddenly shoot fireballs, raise flame walls and call comets down from the sky?
Again with the inconsistent lore. I've heard of accounts of vampires being totally immune to fire. And don't comment on how silly it is that one in D2 can summon one from the sky when it's just as silly for a player to be able to do it, especially when underground or in a building. And as far as what they look like, I think they look wicked cool. I like their tattered robes and giant staff. Their eyes make look a bit silly, I'll admit. Sort of like a glowing skull in a haunted house, but considering the graphics anyway....
Aside from the fact that every blow they land steals your life to revive their own, no one would even think of these guys as the wicked Nosferatu. They're an insult to all of us who admire this ancient and brilliant terror, and definitely shouldn't appear in Diablo 3.
Ah, but that's the key right there, isn't it? They steal life. And no matter how inconsistent vampire lore actually is, the most consistent fact about them probably is that in one form or another, they steal the life of others in order to sustain themselves, which is precisely what the vampires are doing in D2. So sure, they're not biting my neck (thank god), but they are casting a life leech spell which is just what you see more in the Diablo universe.
At least, not as they were in Diablo 2. I'd love to see real Vampires make an appearance. Doing tricks like melting into the shadows, massive knock-back attacks, and speedy evasions. I'm sure they couldn't be that hard to make.
I guess that would be cool. And maybe they'd merely be a much more powerful variety of vampire, but encountering a ton of monsters with these kinds of powers would make me feel like they're less special. Those sound more like boss abilities.
A good start would be to leave those poor shepherd's alone! The last thing we need is herds of blood thirsty sheep on how hands (now there's an interesting monster idea).
I know you're trying to be silly, but I really do like the way they look. This especially though is a matter of opinion. My own tastes in aesthetics prefer Blizzard's own unique take on the vampire instead of the typical snazzy dressed fancy hairdo vampire.
The rexhamster. It freaks the hell out of me.