Maybe I've just got my rose-tinted glasses on, but I swear the bad guy speeches have gotten even more atrocious than before.
Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy a bit of cheese dialogue as much as the next fantasy gamer, but it really felt like 90% of the bosses in this game just threw out the same "You will never defeat me. I am unstoppable" hoo hah.
I miss the plain old gonna-fuck-some-shit-up lines like "Not even death can save you from me!" or something genuinely taunting like Duriel's trololol of "Looking for Baal?"
I thought they did a good job renewing The Butcher. He felt every bit as psychotic as he should. Leoric, Maghda, Azmodan and Diablo really left me cold though.
There's only so many times you can be told "Oh, you destroyed this thing...but you STILL won't stop me!" before it just becomes one great bland mass of unmemorable threats. Kind of like a parent saying they're going to turn the car around if you don't stop hitting your sibling, but never actually doing it.
The other thing I noticed is that you could make a fine drinking game out of how much the word "Nephalem" seems to get spammed by every NPC. I know they're trying to establish a point and all, but c'mon.
Still loved the game, still enjoyed the story. I just thought the one-liners and evil threats could've used a bit more personality.
What did you think? Did you like the dialogue? What would you have changed, if anything?
I would have removed it completely. The atmosphere as you approach bosses like Azmodan and Diablo is being built up beautifully...the music is getting more dramatic, there's darkness and flashing lightning, and suddenly here's Diablo talking to me out of the ether (not to mention out of his demonic nether regions). Shatters that scary, dramatic atmosphere like a fart in church.
Despite that and Zolton Kulle MUHAHAHAHAAAAA'ing his way across Act Two, I'm not gonna get all harsh on Metzen and his team. They just shouldn't use the "Austin Powers" movies as a reference point when doing any future game writing.
I have to agree with you guys here. A lot of the voice lines feel cheesy and don't feel threatening or demonic.
D3 needs more voice lines like this:
"My brothers, at long last we stand reunited
The infernal gate has been prepared and the time of our final victory is at hand
Let the way to hell be opened
And the evil that was once vanquished shall rise anew
Wrapped in the guise of man, shall he walk among the innocent and terror shall consume they that dwell upon the earth
The skies shall rain fire and the seas will become as blood
The righteous shall fall before the wicked and all creation shall tremble before the burning standards of hell
The gate stands ready"
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Destiny is no matter of chance, it is a matter of choice
Dialogue, admittedly, has never been Blizzard's strong point. Except for Covetous Shen. That guy is amazing.
There's an exchange between the Templar and the hero at one point (I was playing Demon Hunter, but he probably does this with other classes too) where they're basically going:
'THE DEMONS ARE EVIL, LOOK AT THE INNOCENTS THEY HAVE SLAUGHTERED. I AM RIGHTEOUSLY ANGRY.'
'I AGREE. I SHALL MAKE THEM PAY WITH BLOOD.'
'YOU ARE A TRUE HERO.'
It's like, wtf. How boring and one-dimensional.
Can't wait for the patch where I can turn off conversations with my followers, so can focus on the gameplay!
The writing felt really lackluster all around. Maybe I've just been reading too much good fantasy lately, but the story felt really obvious and heavy-handed. For example, I knew Adria would turn out to be evil the moment Maghda mentioned her. It was also pretty obvious as soon as Leah started talking about the uncontrollable power within herself that she was going to turn into a demon.
The characters were mostly one-dimensional and boring too. As the OP says, most of the enemies sound like they are both doing impressions of each other and competing for the world's most boring bad guy award.
Only two characters save it at all for me. The Scoundrel has enough witty and amusing banter that I like him despite how unswervingly archetypal he is. Shen, however, feels like he's ripped straight out of some other game which had much better writing in that he's both a unique (as far as I know) character and he has interesting and snappy dialogue, both of which are almost completely lacking in the rest of the game.
Oh well. At least D3 has solid gameplay going for it. If I want a good story, I guess I'm still hitting the bookstore rather than the game store.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
The dialogues are getting increasingly worse in every single game, not just Diablo, remember the Halls of the blind wuest in D1? a quest given by a poem!! now that's art, but little kids that play games don't like hard to understand things, so they make things easier
Yeah, the writing (especially the IM's from the bosses) wasn't great. I did like Shen an awful lot, and I thought the Scoundrel was pretty good, if stereotypical.
They tried to make the game more about story, but they forgot they don't do story or characters all that well. I think they do lore, and concepts, well, and I wish they had of stuck to that. Again, except for Shen. Give me more Shen.
I hope he's a companion in the expansion, or at least the focus. Screw Adria, she'll die of old age soon enough. I want to have more adventures with the trickster god.
Tyrael is not wisdom now, he's still justice, he just occupies the place of wisdom, this is, being the president (or whatever it's called) of the angiris council (he replaced Imperius)
I have to agree with you guys here. A lot of the voice lines feel cheesy and don't feel threatening or demonic.
D3 needs more voice lines like this:
"My brothers, at long last we stand reunited
The infernal gate has been prepared and the time of our final victory is at hand
Let the way to hell be opened
And the evil that was once vanquished shall rise anew
Wrapped in the guise of man, shall he walk among the innocent and terror shall consume they that dwell upon the earth
The skies shall rain fire and the seas will become as blood
The righteous shall fall before the wicked and all creation shall tremble before the burning standards of hell
The gate stands ready"
This thread now has Mephisto's seal of approval.
And why the fuck is the Master Tactician Azmodan keeping me informed 24/7 about his battle-plans?
1. Light Beacons - "Mwahaha, my minions will breach your keep and I have big ballistas"
2. Man Catapults - "BWaahaha, catapults are shit. While you were busy manning the catapults, my demons were breaching your castle. I have a surprise for you"
3. Inside Castle - "AHAHAHA, my servant who is hidden inside the castle will devour your pet dog. MWAAHAHAHAA!!11"
4. Kill Ghom - "Bwahahaha, he was a useless tool. My army is at your gates, it will crush you...."
........
I've lost any affection I had to Tyrael, Skeleton King and even Diablo
Leoric's story, from the old days with Lachdanan was nicely carved. It got shit in D3 with Leoric's Hollywood punchlines. "BWAHAHAHAH! You cannot defeat me!". Tyrael was in D2 a mysterious hooded angel, now he-s a washed out unemployed swordsman and now. ..he's Wisdom for some random reason. Diablo ? Here it goes ...
"BWAHAHAHA. You destroyed my Hell Portal? But wait! There is another Hell Portal nearby, just so you know". And the voice acting is terrible. I think the actor smokes 2 packs of Dunhill/day. Imperius was zero in this game. A whiny bitch-of-an-angel QQ-ing at your every step in Act IV. We'll see a better version of him in the coming expansions I hope.
And.. Deckard Cain...one of the most important NPCs in game killed by the hands of a rejected Power-Rangers character?! Why Metzen?
Maghda
I thought they did a good job renewing The Butcher.
Bawwwggrg! Zombie flesh good! Human flesh bettah!
remember the Halls of the blind wuest in D1?
Miss the good old days..
Really agree that they should have dropped the constant updates from the villians. While I can understand the need to try and intimidate (and honestly, if you're trying to intimidate someone after they damaged a part of your plan, the best you can say is "too bad, I have MORE you have to destroy), they shouldn't have been so talkative.
After that, the worst thing about the story is we experience like 5 times in a row, so it seems like they are more chatty then they seem. Like, if you only play through normal, Leoric has...4 lines? All of them are mostly acceptable, imo, for a miniboss. Besides, his lore books are far more nuanced (I personally loved the one where he admits that someone is trying to control him, and the one right after).
I think Tyreal is better. Up until now, he's basically been opposed to the Prime Evils, but this showed he's willing to go so much farther then any other Angel is to achieve order (I'm still not convinced he's actually good, as opposed to just being for order). Granted, I didn't listen to much of what he had to say during combat.
Maghda get's a lot of crap for her looks. I suppose people want some super evil looking monster. I think it fits, because the Prime Evils, at least Diablo and Mephisto, have been about subversion. I mean, remember the Triune? If you're thinking about joining the cult (assuming they don't take new members directly to their torture chambers), then I think Maghda's look would work better then Andariels. that said, I'm not sure why they thought those head pointy things were a good idea.
Finally, with Deckards death - technically I think it was Leigh who killed him. Also, as long as a death has a point in the story, or sets up the world, I really dislike the idea that a death needs to be heroic or a character "deserves better." He needed to die so A) Leigh would lose his support and so he couldn't point out what Adria was going to do. It also allows for a mid-story failure, and gives us a good reason to chase Maghda before going after Belial.
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Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy a bit of cheese dialogue as much as the next fantasy gamer, but it really felt like 90% of the bosses in this game just threw out the same "You will never defeat me. I am unstoppable" hoo hah.
I miss the plain old gonna-fuck-some-shit-up lines like "Not even death can save you from me!" or something genuinely taunting like Duriel's trololol of "Looking for Baal?"
I thought they did a good job renewing The Butcher. He felt every bit as psychotic as he should. Leoric, Maghda, Azmodan and Diablo really left me cold though.
There's only so many times you can be told "Oh, you destroyed this thing...but you STILL won't stop me!" before it just becomes one great bland mass of unmemorable threats. Kind of like a parent saying they're going to turn the car around if you don't stop hitting your sibling, but never actually doing it.
The other thing I noticed is that you could make a fine drinking game out of how much the word "Nephalem" seems to get spammed by every NPC. I know they're trying to establish a point and all, but c'mon.
Still loved the game, still enjoyed the story. I just thought the one-liners and evil threats could've used a bit more personality.
What did you think? Did you like the dialogue? What would you have changed, if anything?
Despite that and Zolton Kulle MUHAHAHAHAAAAA'ing his way across Act Two, I'm not gonna get all harsh on Metzen and his team. They just shouldn't use the "Austin Powers" movies as a reference point when doing any future game writing.
I got the impression that's the sound his portal makes. Like maybe his portal has a ringtone.
D3 needs more voice lines like this:
"My brothers, at long last we stand reunited
The infernal gate has been prepared and the time of our final victory is at hand
Let the way to hell be opened
And the evil that was once vanquished shall rise anew
Wrapped in the guise of man, shall he walk among the innocent and terror shall consume they that dwell upon the earth
The skies shall rain fire and the seas will become as blood
The righteous shall fall before the wicked and all creation shall tremble before the burning standards of hell
The gate stands ready"
There's an exchange between the Templar and the hero at one point (I was playing Demon Hunter, but he probably does this with other classes too) where they're basically going:
'THE DEMONS ARE EVIL, LOOK AT THE INNOCENTS THEY HAVE SLAUGHTERED. I AM RIGHTEOUSLY ANGRY.'
'I AGREE. I SHALL MAKE THEM PAY WITH BLOOD.'
'YOU ARE A TRUE HERO.'
It's like, wtf. How boring and one-dimensional.
Can't wait for the patch where I can turn off conversations with my followers, so can focus on the gameplay!
The characters were mostly one-dimensional and boring too. As the OP says, most of the enemies sound like they are both doing impressions of each other and competing for the world's most boring bad guy award.
Only two characters save it at all for me. The Scoundrel has enough witty and amusing banter that I like him despite how unswervingly archetypal he is. Shen, however, feels like he's ripped straight out of some other game which had much better writing in that he's both a unique (as far as I know) character and he has interesting and snappy dialogue, both of which are almost completely lacking in the rest of the game.
Oh well. At least D3 has solid gameplay going for it. If I want a good story, I guess I'm still hitting the bookstore rather than the game store.
Perfect example - SPOILERS -
Diablo : blah blah blah - Tyreal meet your former lieutenant,
Izual : Tyreal, remember your old lieutenant ?
----
Like, really? It was so subtle that they wanted to remind us 3 seconds later that Izual was his lieutenant?
That happened like 10 times over the course of the game, and made me roll my eyes every time.
They tried to make the game more about story, but they forgot they don't do story or characters all that well. I think they do lore, and concepts, well, and I wish they had of stuck to that. Again, except for Shen. Give me more Shen.
I hope he's a companion in the expansion, or at least the focus. Screw Adria, she'll die of old age soon enough. I want to have more adventures with the trickster god.
Really agree that they should have dropped the constant updates from the villians. While I can understand the need to try and intimidate (and honestly, if you're trying to intimidate someone after they damaged a part of your plan, the best you can say is "too bad, I have MORE you have to destroy), they shouldn't have been so talkative.
After that, the worst thing about the story is we experience like 5 times in a row, so it seems like they are more chatty then they seem. Like, if you only play through normal, Leoric has...4 lines? All of them are mostly acceptable, imo, for a miniboss. Besides, his lore books are far more nuanced (I personally loved the one where he admits that someone is trying to control him, and the one right after).
I think Tyreal is better. Up until now, he's basically been opposed to the Prime Evils, but this showed he's willing to go so much farther then any other Angel is to achieve order (I'm still not convinced he's actually good, as opposed to just being for order). Granted, I didn't listen to much of what he had to say during combat.
Maghda get's a lot of crap for her looks. I suppose people want some super evil looking monster. I think it fits, because the Prime Evils, at least Diablo and Mephisto, have been about subversion. I mean, remember the Triune? If you're thinking about joining the cult (assuming they don't take new members directly to their torture chambers), then I think Maghda's look would work better then Andariels. that said, I'm not sure why they thought those head pointy things were a good idea.
Finally, with Deckards death - technically I think it was Leigh who killed him. Also, as long as a death has a point in the story, or sets up the world, I really dislike the idea that a death needs to be heroic or a character "deserves better." He needed to die so A) Leigh would lose his support and