So it’s old news by now but I’m sure you heard the WWI announcement has turned out to be Diablo 3. I’m also sure that a lot of you are excited and yet not surprised at the same time. We’ve all been following the breadcrumbs with the Blizzard splash page and subtle hints dropped here and there (purchasing of diablo3.com, hiring of 3d artists, blah blah), but still I wanted to be there when it was announced. So I woke up at 4:30 CST, rubbed my eyes for probably 10 minutes while tuning in the live stream and did my best to type coherently in BA chat with everyone else that was up. Actually I heard there was a teleprompter glitch and a Diablo 3 slide was shown on the mage stage for a split second well before the actual announcement. Even so that had only been a rumor since I didn’t see it (screenshot or it didn’t happen).
Soon enough, during the “Prepare to be amazed” speech the camera cut to a guy walking out with an acoustic guitar and I knew what was up. He strummed the strings and the notes echoed through the air with the Diablo theme. After all that funfair they played the cinematic intro and came out talking about how “Diablo paved the way for action RPG” and “Groundbreaking” this and “Standard setting” that. “Diablo 3 is going to take it to the next level. Now on to the game play!”
Gameplay Footage
…What? I thought he said something about “groundbreaking” and “next level”. Nothing I saw was jaw dropping. Nothing I saw was innovative. Sure it was pretty but…what did they really change? It looked exactly like Diablo 2 with an upgrade to the graphics engine. Here are the features they pointed out in the video.
Let’s see what’s groundbreaking:
- New use of the UI to use keys 1-6 to cast spells/abilities and Mouse1 Mouse2 for spells/attacks (doesn’t every game have that by now?)
- Weapons carry enchants that can stun/freeze enemies ect. (Amazon in D2 even had frost arrows right? Not new)
- Red globes drop off enemies that can be simply run over to restore health (didn’t Devil May Cry do that 7 years ago?)
- Mobs have special abilities you need to avoid so dodge big guys kill the ones in back summoning (that’s gaming 101 there)
- The environment can be destroyed and interacted with (ummm you could find scrolls in bookshelves in Diablo 1)
- Treasure chests can be booby trapped (….again Diablo 1)
- All gear is custom designed for each class in a unique way (no idea what that means but if it means it looks different on a Barb then a Pally…yeah not new)
- You can use the environment to kill mobs (it may be new to Diablo franchise but this is in other games as well, like HL2:Ravenholm)
- You can bring Mercenaries with you in battle (D2 had this)
- Some mobs will block your attack with their shield so you have to stun them before attacking (gaming 101 again)
- Some parts of the dungeon are scripted (again new to Diablo franchise but not groundbreaking)
- Miniboss fight (looked pretty cool but they did that in Diablo 1 with the Butcher fight)
- Brand New playable class: Which doctor! Uses diseases, summons minions, mind control (ahem….Necromancer: Poisons, summons…etc)
- He can blow his pets up like bombs (Necro: corpse explosion)
- Horrify skill will cause most creatures to run (Necro Curse: Terror)
- Mass Confuse spell (Necro Curse: Confuse)
- Zombie Wall (Necro: Bone wall. Only Zombie wall has a melee damage effect)
- Female versions of classes (New to Diablo but WoW already has that feature)
I know that list is long but I type it up as I watched the 20 min video so there was a lot covered. None of which I found trailblazing. Actually I think they may have taken away something from the series. With all the pretty graphics and scripted encounters I can’t see how these environments are randomly generated. If they are then hats off. Somehow I doubt it though.
I suppose I’ll give it to them for how early in development it is…heck they didn’t even reveal more than 2 classes. Hopefully something more is in store in the coming months. What do you think? Even though most everybody expected this, did it live up to your expectations?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Just watched that video myself, and I have to say I agree that most of it wasn’t that impressive.
I can imagine the graphics will look super sweet on a decent screen, but any game that you can play with just the mouse is always going to have limitations!
Something to do on a Tuesday night perhaps? I doubt it would hold my interest for long enough to progress very far through the game however.
Zupas last blog post..Black Temple
If this game sells well we (consumers) will be telling game developers like Blizzard that it’s OK to repackage the same old shit under a shiny new wrapper because we will still buy it.
I hope by the time this is released gamers will have set their standards higher and this product gets only mediocre (or less) success.
Poor sales of products that lack innovation will push the game development market to new levels of innovation faster than not.
We can only hope….
The game “looks” great there is no doubt about that. It also looks like a fun hack/slash with friends. The main point of this rant was to point out that it basically looks like a game that was once on the PS2 got ported to the PS3 with upgraded graphics.
To be fair I do plan on posting again with a more positive spin on the game. I just immediately took issue with Jay Wilson, lead designer on Diablo 3, bragging how Diablo “reinvented the roleplaying action genre” and nothing at all had been “reinvented” for D3.
Thanks for the comments guys!
The thing about this new game isnt the fact that it will take what is fun about a hacknslash and brings it more alive than any other title under the genre. Look at SC2. It isnt revolutionary by any means, but it will have little changes to the best working title to make it -the- RTS for years to come.
D3 cannot add more complexity. The very nature of a hacknslash is that it is simple, easy to play and devoid of any major time requirements. Think of it as solitaire. Pick it up when you have a few extra minutes, beat the tar out of some demons and move along. If you add complexity to this genre, what do you get? A MMO or a full RPG.
So really, what is revolutionary about this game? Well, it will raise the bar so high with its storyline, gameplay, ease of play and world immersiveness that all other future games of the genre will have to adapt or be overshadowed. The same way WoW revolutionized the MMO genre.
@New Reader First off thanks for the comment! You make some excellent points.
My main beef with the game play movie wasn’t about Diablo 3 at all. It wasn’t that I wanted them to make Diablo 3 complex. I wanted them to back up their comments about how bad ass Diablo 3 is going to be and how it will set the standard again the same way Diablo 1 did for the action role playing game genre. I expect the jump from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3 to be mechanically as impressive as Diablo 1 to Diablo 2. Updated graphics engine doesn’t cut it. They didn’t ruin the Diablo franchise when they came out with D2…they simply built upon it. I don’t feel the Diablo 3 gameplay video shows that they built upon Diablo 2 sufficiently.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about the game and will probably preorder it. I’m just calling shenanigans on D3 being something that is going to raise the bar. I expected to see some innovative battlenet features like a auction house to trade loot or maybe some way to respec your character if you didn’t mean to put all your talent points into “Find Potion”. If you look at the character inventory screen you can see the UI has bag slots. They didn’t even mention that in the demonstration. I’ll bet you there would have been a roaring standing ovation there if they would have mentioned their efforts to eliminate the need for bank mules.
I know the video was a very early example and pretty primitive to what the final game will be. I just feel the presentation of it was too much hot air and not enough substance. They could have done a lot better with the presentation.
For some of us, that tired of WoW long ago, yeah!