Diablo 3, or why Blizzard keeps on disappointing me

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/cp...lizzard-keeps-on-disappointing-me-92824.phtml

I'm curious to hear your opinions about this.

Also, what do you think of destructoid? I find that many of the posters are pretty bottom of the bucket in terms of maturity. Still, an audience is an audience.

Btw, what do you think of my writing? :-P

 

Sorry, but you really can't make these judgements as a Diablo Virgin.
It may be a semi-automatic mouse wearer, but it's a fun one. And when you hit StarCraft 2, start paying attention, many many many items of ingame artwork skins and models have been redone many times, it is still sadly cartoonish, but it's a lot better than the original screens and media dropped on our heads. And thank god they've fixed purple pylons.

However. I must agree, SC2 seems to be taking some highly strange ideas in weird directions. My biggest problem is the new roach, it is literally a fire and forget rapefest. How? Think of it this way.

Zerg: 8 Roaches. 600 minerals, 200 gas.
vs
Terran: 8 Bats 4 Rines 600 minerals, 200 gas.

Zerg Strategy: Select all roaches, attack move into Terran defensive force.
Terran Strategy: Select all units, click on every individual roach and kill it, do not spare a second watch the entire fight and make adjustments at all times.

Do we see how the poor Terran has just been completely occupied mentally and troop wise on just 8 roaches, which may I add, are ranged so firebats have to get close. The Zerg player literally hit a button and clicked, he then went elsewhere.

This means a zerg player could mass roaches and then while the terran player is distracted (not through choice either, it's micro or DIE) just drop a nydus worm, or mass some units. How is this balance? Micro is a resource as well!

But that's completely getting unrelated. [/rant]

 

I haven't played the Diablo series either, but I do like a good dungeon crawl from time to time, Dungeon Siege 1 was pants and although 2 was not bad in terms of gameplay, I think the way it unfolds is a little less interesting than I would have liked. Probably the dungeon-crawl game i've spent most time on was Divine Divinity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Divinity), which was pretty impressive when it came out in 2002.

I watched a little of the barbarian gameplay trailer, and it does seem a little rehashed, however, I think one of your posters hit the nail on the head when they said Blizzard are more about the execution rather than the innovation. Looking at the progress of the warcraft games (the only blizzard franchise i've heavily sampled), they have been innovative, but the general mark of the Blizzard studio is to have a smooth game, that has a maximal playability score, while maybe only a medial innovativeness.

Going from that article alone (although I think i've read one other of yours), I think your writing style is still more on the blog side of the spectrum rather than the journalist/games review side. You've written that from a very personal angle and have not balanced your argument quite as much as I'd like to see - the article moves me to research the game myself and draw my own conclusions, rather than taking your word for it. The grammar is sometimes a little clunky, but overall it is not too bad.

 

Everyone keeps on questioning my credibility since i've never played diablo (well i played the demo), but to be honest, in my argument this is such a trivial detail. My post is about innovation in games, not about the delicate intricacies of deep Diablo gameplay. Besides, I've played many action-rpgs that were inspired by Diablo, so I understand how the core gameplay works.

edit: nice criticisms ikalx

 

Yet the delicate intricacies of Diablo Gameplay IS the innovation, stare past the graphics man!

Look at the whole picture!

 

If diablo 3 was diablo 2 with the hacking fixed I would still be excited

 

Why do people whine so much when something isn't OMGUBERRAELISTIC?

 

Diablo 3 won't be so much an innovation as it will fun time.

 

That's because all games need to be realistic... & brown, with headache inducing HDR.... & a "gritty & dark" storyline. :p

 

Diablo isn't about great graphics, or huge innovation, it's taking a usually boring game genre [RPG, EXCEPT WHEN IT HAS A GREAT STORY] and makes it awesome through massive polish and a decent story.

It's innovation is that it's stays the same, but just gets better.

 

Extra emphasis on the brown.

 

Don't forget the dirt, and the massive realistic gore and the screams as people use limbs and fall to the ground weeping.

 

Extra emphasis on the brown. Because if the game has more than 1 primary color on the screen at once, it might be GAY. [/sarcasm]

 

Shit, that means starcraft is gay.
HOLD ME

 

i liked all the old blizzard games but i've only become more recalcitrant in my old age when it comes to buying games... as opposed to "acquiring" them. So if the game isn't balls-out awesome, then I'm probably not going to waste my time. And the way you describe these games, I'm not going to waste my time. I'd be more inclined to purchase Spore, or an old copy of DoW (no, that's a lie. I'd just download it.) instead.

I mean, I like dungeon crawls, I played D1, DII, and ASCII roguelikes on occasion. But I'm not going to invest money in a new one like this.



HOWEVER, when I played the old ones, I only played singleplayer. So maybe DIII will be interesting if Ark will volunteer to be the party bitch aka cleric healer

 

You'd be kicked outa facepunch so fast

 

idk even know what that is

 

A much more serious and pornless 4Chan.

 

Facepunch studios. The 1 man "company" that makes garry's mod. When people refer to facepunch, they mean the forums.

 

In response to the sarcastic responses about the style, I think that the tone of a game is very important. I still refuse to accept Zelda: Wind Waker as a true Zelda game because the aesthetic tone of the game changed so much. Its a cute little side-track from the games, but I don't consider it being a serious Zelda game like Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess.

I think what most of the responses have shown me is that I need to work on communicating my thoughts more clearly. Also, i should never have said that i was a Diablo virgin.

"Like OMG guys, this dude has never played the game hes criticizing!!!! And, like, dude, hes just saying bad stuff to get attention!! He, like, must have been lonely as a child!!!"

In the scheme of things, sure it would help my argument if i was a major diablo fanboy who had played through both the other games, but theres a reason I didn't play through them. I feel that it will also keep me from playing this game. The game is a fanservice for diablo fans. nuff said

But honestly, the gameplay trailer they released was very poor, anyone else think so? It just showed off the pretty graphics, but as far as gameplay goes theres nothing to write home about. If the Diablo name wasn't attached to it, no one would probably even care.