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Zero Punctuation: Diablo 3

RedSky

says...

My bad on D1 dungeons.

There will always be cookie-cutter builds. And besides, when you're talking about 'the' build, you're talking about the ideal items to have, the vast majority of people will never get there. Meanwhile, the options for 'best with what you have' varied heaps. I played D3 through with a Monk, and the entire time, the only stats that felt worthwhile chasing were damage, dexterity and vitality.

I'm not saying it didn't have dark elements, but vast portions of the story, dialogue and tone, particularly after Act 1 (which I thought was best part of the game), where juvenile and completely off for a Diablo game. I mean for christ sake, the game delved into damsel in distress territory multiple times. Anyway posted this elsewhere, going to just copy paste:

1. Story tone is horribly off for a Diablo game. Act 1, the tone is almost that right mix of dark, macabre & grim horror albeit with overly colourful graphics. Then, in Act 2 and especially 3/4 the game becomes flat out goofy. It's almost like different studios designed the two parts. Regardless, it's obvious the whole gothic, cheesy but serious tone of previously Diablo games has been thoroughly ditched.

It becomes obvious there is a reason that most of the prime evils were mostly mute & why your characters was kept to making sarcastic remarks and one liners in D2. Diablo beretting you with grating "if it wasn't for your meddling kids" dialogue completely ruins the game's tone. Overall the mix of occasional ultra-violence and the overt colourfulness and childish NPC banter gives it an almost surreal and contradictory theme. As if a design house was of two minds, fighting over dominance over the franchise's feel.

There was just no need to muck with what was not broken to the point that it's hard for me to NOT imagine Activision sitting behind the developers dictating them how well the WoW tone sits with target demographics. There is nothing wrong with WoW existing in its own space with it's own unique identity. There's a problem with creative variety between Blizzard games becoming non-existent because they've caught on to what sells best and decided to stick to that.

As for launch issues, I didn't play D2 at launch, but that's not what really bugs me. It is abundantly obvious though that foisting online-only is part of the reason they're having so many launch issues.

Here's my full bitch session - http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149543659

>> ^mentality:

>> ^RedSky:
@mentality
D2 felt like a huge leap on D1. Randomized dungeons, huge increase in class and especially item variety, introduction of a vast swathe of new environments. In comparison critically looking at D3, while it does have an expanded skills system, at the end of a prodigious 11 year development cycle, D3 has far less item variety at launch, and arguably simplified gameplay mechanics on a number of levels.
Personally, I happen to also think the story is a let down, the tone of the game has been inappropriately been made cartoonish (art design non-withstanding).

D1 had randomized dungeons. Item variety in D2 was very limited because there often was one set of unique item that was 'THE' item for a specific build. The expanded environments in D2 were also very cartoony compared to the dungeons of D1, and calling D3 cartoonish with levels like the Halls of Agony is outright ridiculous.
The fact of the matter is that the grass is always greener, and we all look at the past with rose colored glasses. History repeats itself, but it seems like few people remember all the problems, controversy and bitching surrounding Diablo 2's launch.

Zero Punctuation: Diablo 3

mentality

says...

>> ^RedSky:
@mentality
D2 felt like a huge leap on D1. Randomized dungeons, huge increase in class and especially item variety, introduction of a vast swathe of new environments. In comparison critically looking at D3, while it does have an expanded skills system, at the end of a prodigious 11 year development cycle, D3 has far less item variety at launch, and arguably simplified gameplay mechanics on a number of levels.
Personally, I happen to also think the story is a let down, the tone of the game has been inappropriately been made cartoonish (art design non-withstanding).

D1 had randomized dungeons. Item variety in D2 was very limited because there often was one set of unique item that was 'THE' item for a specific build. The expanded environments in D2 were also very cartoony compared to the dungeons of D1, and calling D3 cartoonish with levels like the Halls of Agony is outright ridiculous.

The fact of the matter is that the grass is always greener, and we all look at the past with rose colored glasses. History repeats itself, but it seems like few people remember all the problems, controversy and bitching surrounding Diablo 2's launch.

Zero Punctuation: Diablo 3

RedSky

says...

@lv_hunter

Normal difficulty compared to D2 simply feels far too easy. I recall D2 Act 1 was also quite easy, but from Duriel, really through to the end of normal, the game picked up substantially. I found almost the opposite here, while it is fair for them to ease players in early on, for me the difficulty spiked towards the end of Act 1, maybe early Act 2. From there the game was just a complete steamroll through to Nightmare.

Sure you get to replay it 3 more times, but plunging through the game at this pace for first impressions really ruins the gravitas of the stakes the story is trying to paint.

@mentality

I've heard this notion bandied around, but combining ideas from multiple games and perfecting them is still a form of innovation. And even on that measure they played it far too safe on D3.

D2 felt like a huge leap on D1. Randomized dungeons, huge increase in class and especially item variety, introduction of a vast swathe of new environments. In comparison critically looking at D3, while it does have an expanded skills system, at the end of a prodigious 11 year development cycle, D3 has far less item variety at launch, and arguably simplified gameplay mechanics on a number of levels.

Personally, I happen to also think the story is a let down, the tone of the game has been inappropriately been made cartoonish (art design non-withstanding).