Do people ever just get excited about things? I guess I am a casual gamer because I totally do not look at features in an analytical way. I look at something and think about how it will add to the immersion, story or my gameplay experience. How frustrating life must be when things that are inherently fun and for leisure become points of contention and unrest in the eyes of those that play the games. What is the point? A lot of it also seems to be contrary for the sake of trying to play devil's advocate every single time something is shown.
From my standpoint I am very much excited to have the followers be added depth to my solo play experience and story of the game.
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- Uldyssian
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Member for 13 years and 22 days
Last active Thu, Dec, 19 2013 13:03:50
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Beta buzz episodes make me happy.
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Yeah sadly they can't. It's just one of those things that makes my heart sink when I think about how my own imagination outdid what they ended up doing. No plot depth or willingness not to hold our hands through all of it. I just don't understand how people who spend their lives writing stories and creating games create such lackluster results. It sound cynical but what else can be said about what we got
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1) The story and the way they deliver the story. They created lore books to allow people to keep playing rather than stop. However any quest dialogue interrupts that lore book. So you either have to stop and listen (because moving ahead in the game invariably cuts it off to allow for new dialogue) or you go back to town and stand their listening to them (again...standing still). Pairing that with a dismal plot and character development I was heart sick knowing I waited 11 years for this product.
2) Caldeum. There was no area I was more excited to explore than that massive city. I loved Lut'Gholen in Diablo 2. This was the biggest waste of concept art the game saw.
3) Just the overall feel that they honestly missed the whole point of what Blizzard North had created and why it was successful. It's hard to fathom how they so easily dismissed the root areas that made the game stylistically awesome. Yes, Diablo 1 and 2 had really bright areas, but it also had a LOT of dark sections too. And never did the Gothic/dark vibes change because of pallet shifts. It stayed moody and foreboding.
edit for spelling
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Right. It isn't something they would patch cause it's simply what it is. It's still disappointing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O1hM-k3aUY
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First I will frame my opinions around the idea that I was a very passionate Diablo fan. Not from a standpoint of min/maxing or being into the ladder race or even HC. I was a very casual from that standpoint. It just didn't interest me. I was always into the atmosphere, gameplay, loot and very much into the lore of these games (read all the books and manuals kinda guy). I was also a major apologist for Blizzard coming into the release of this game. Trying to assure myself that they would do things right or even better.
There are just some things, that I am sure have irked others, that seem so poorly conceived and executed. Not from a gameplay standpoint or balance and progression. Just storytelling and immersion seem so flat. And it kinda leaves a knot in my stomach because it's sort of depressing to think that a decade of planning and tweaking lead them to the game we got.
1) The story itself seemed very ham-fisted. They had Knaak pen 3 novels to help establish the pre-history and they barely ever touch upon it. They refer to us as nephalem and there are creatures called morlu. Yet we get very little of what happened before. Most of it feels like fan service whenever they did bring something back. We are spoon fed plot twist every single time before they happen. I honestly have not seen such banal story delivery in a game from Blizzard. I'm not saying everything else they do is 100% spot on, but never before had I felt so disconnected from their attempts to pull us in. And sadly it was from my absolute favorite game world.
2) They had a good idea about keeping combat going while hearing lore, except the problem is that you end up back at the same point compared to if they just had us standing there taking it in. Half the time I would play a lore book or hear info on a monster, some other dialogue would trigger if I kept on moving forward playing and fighting, thus interrupting the original audio I was trying to hear. This basically forces us to stand still, listen to it and move on. Or head into town later and go through all the files if we wish. It just ends up being the same thing except makes you feel rushed or fragmented. Having to find those rare lore books sounds fun, but when there is some nice nuanced story point it tends to get lost in the shuffle.
3) Caldeum... I was so excited for that area. A massive city. A nod to Lut'Gholein which I loved. Yet we show up, and the bazaar is this tiny section of gamespace. Of course we have the issue of time/money and what has to be included or excluded for the sake of development. But why bother creating the idea of a massive trade hub when everything we experience is relegated to a few sparse areas? They did a nice job of vistas for sure in that city. But it's just sad (sad sad, not pathetic sad) that we couldn't see more.
4) Audio. To me the game lacked a lot of ambience. The environments don't sound alive as they did in Diablo 2. I remember when they revealed Diablo 3 and the first webpage design for it had the character screen. It had some really nice ambient sounds to go with it. Crickets, sounds of night and some call from a creature off in the distance. We lost all that in the final game. In my opinion.
5) Being told what we actually felt. Everything during the build up to the game I would hear them say things about how our memories weren't in line with how things actually were. Until the game was out I sided with that stance because I assumed they were going to take a balance approach, not the 180 that seemed to happen. For instance, the dark/colorful debate. Yes of course Diablo 1 and 2 had some bright vibrant areas. But it also had pitch black, moody sections as well. With Diablo 3 we never get near that type of dank, dark atmoshpere. I just don't get why we couldn't have seen both. The art style was different but had they embraced shadows and juxtaposition rather than everything feeling like it was grayed out or washed in dusty atmosphere it could have been brilliant.
TL;DR?
As a long time fan of the story I am finding myself very jaded. To me they manhandled so many aspects of a game despite it not being that hard to define the key elements that worked from the previous games. It leaves me confused.
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