Honestly my favorite part of the D2 story was The narration , loved the dark wanderer and Marcellus plotline. Twist at the end was neat. I think the d3 story lost me in act 2 , just lost interest at that point.
KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
Diablo 3 villains just talked too damn much and that undercut any sense of tension and made attempts at foreshadowing into huge neon signs about what was gonna happen next
I think the story itself is fine and I liked a lot of the dialogue with companions and with random town citizens, but there is no for the literal physical embodiment of evil to constantly radio in and tell me that I'm a loser and this next guy i'm about to turn into meat chunks is actually super badass and scary
I disliked the art style, the way attacks "felt", Leah, the story, pretty much everything about D3.
I'm saying this as someone who played D2 to the point where it had negative consequences. D3 was not nearly as fun nor engaging. I fall asleep about an hour into playing it. It's pretty fucking bad.
ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
My beef with Blizzard stories lately is all the same - the power fantasies all go way too far and the plot breaks down.
In Vanilla WoW, you're an 'adventurer' who gets caught up in major events in between hunting beasts in Stranglethorn Vale and investigating spooky mysteries in Duskwood. In the later expansions you're the basically the chosen one with the legendary weapon and everyone knows your name.
In Diablo 1 you're a no-name adventurer (again) who gets caught up in something bigger than themselves. In D2 you're a more bad-ass adventurer, but still a side player in the main story, aside from kicking evil's ass repeatedly. In D3 you are (again!) the chosen one, nephalim. It's all about you.
Even Starcraft wasn't immune to the bombastic story beats. SC1 was full of bad shit happening all the time to make you feel less pwoerful. Even when you win it's a phyrric victory - I'll never forget Kerrigan calling herself the 'queen bitch of the universe'. Since SC2 didn't have a player character, Raynor ends up being a Gary Sue for the player and kicks everyone's ass in a story that doesn't really make any sense.
In contrast to SC1, I'll never forget the cut-scene where Raynor boards a Dominion Battlecruiser, proceeds to gun down dozens of soldiers (after blowing up lots more in the preceding mission), and then the bad guy (Valarian) says that he wants to be friends and they can work together. Didn't we just fight a huge battle? Why didn't Valarian just call him instead of showing up with an army and start shooting? Argh.
The sweet spot for WoW power fantasy was probably WoD where you were like the commander of a small force and well respected but really just because you had years of adventures under your belt.
Legion proves, imo, that you can crank the knob on the power fantasy in a MMO without hurting anything.
You just have to commit.
I mean, most of the MMOs where I've cared about the story did it in part by making the PC strong enough to have agency in a world of superbeings--you're quite strong and important in games like FFXIV, SWTOR, and ESO.
Ysah dont get me wrong, Legion was a far better game, I just preferred "oh fuck hes the guy who killed the lich king and deathwing" to "oh fuck hes got the stat stick"
Yeah, Legion didn't just give you a stat stick and now you're important. It was 'You're a badass and we've put you in charge, let's go find you some stat sticks'.
I can only speak for the Mage campaign, but it didn't really hurt my ego at all that I was hanging out in what I presume was Medivh's old digs, and that Archmages from the council of magi were doing my bidding.
I was telling fucking dragons what to do. Hey Kalecgos, go do a menial but dangerous thing and bring me back all the goodies. Thanks. You're the best.
Diablo and WoW, I think need PCs strong enough to make an impact in whatever scenario is going and depowering feels bad, so escalation happens pretty much as a rule across sequels.
I don't know enough about Starcraft to offer an opinion about its writing, good or bad--I was like 9 or 10 when I beat Starcraft I and not much of it stuck with me. But I can't see it being as important that PCs be unstoppable god-kings when you're controlling armies to secure victory instead of one dude.
Diablo and WoW, I think need PCs strong enough to make an impact in whatever scenario is going and depowering feels bad, so escalation happens pretty much as a rule across sequels.
I don't know enough about Starcraft to offer an opinion about its writing, good or bad--I was like 9 or 10 when I beat Starcraft I and not much of it stuck with me. But I can't see it being as important that PCs be unstoppable god-kings when you're controlling armies to secure victory instead of one dude.
It'd only be necessary if they made a Starcraft RPG.
Yeah, Legion didn't just give you a stat stick and now you're important. It was 'You're a badass and we've put you in charge, let's go find you some stat sticks'.
Eh, it depends on which artifact storyline you're talking about. Some of them were very much "we need you to go look for this artifact that will help against the legion. ok cool you found it, now that you have it you might as well keep it. ok since you have it you may as well be our leader."
But I think part of that's is a result of Blizzard having to scramble to invent backstories for 2-4 artifacts per class.
I think a lot of the reason WoW after Legion was bad was because all of the good characters in power died to make way for you.
That's probably part of the reason everyone knows you now, which in hindsight, probably shouldn't have happened IMO.
Well and also if you're going to have a story based on soul-searching maybe you should let the PC's have some choices.
If the war campaign let me choose to either help the Zandalari or fuck over the Alliance, and have NPC's respond to me differently based on those choices, that'd have been cool.
But instead I'm a fuckin' unwilling/uncaring stooge for WoW's Kerrigan.
Yeah, Legion didn't just give you a stat stick and now you're important. It was 'You're a badass and we've put you in charge, let's go find you some stat sticks'.
Eeeeh it varied a lot. Frost DK and Balance Druid were high points compared to like Blood or Feral.
On the whole it was a good system, it just got a little too power fantasy wish fullfillment.
I can only speak for the Mage campaign, but it didn't really hurt my ego at all that I was hanging out in what I presume was Medivh's old digs, and that Archmages from the council of magi were doing my bidding.
I was telling fucking dragons what to do. Hey Kalecgos, go do a menial but dangerous thing and bring me back all the goodies. Thanks. You're the best.
This is part of what i think bothers a lot of people about BfA, even unconsciously. You go from telling dragons what to do to (willingly??) going to jail arrested by a bunch of townies that never left their home city because you happen to be standing next to Jaina and the townies are pissed about what she did 20 years ago. Fuck you townies, if i had agency i would have mutilated all of you (as in the rogue skill).
I can only speak for the Mage campaign, but it didn't really hurt my ego at all that I was hanging out in what I presume was Medivh's old digs, and that Archmages from the council of magi were doing my bidding.
I was telling fucking dragons what to do. Hey Kalecgos, go do a menial but dangerous thing and bring me back all the goodies. Thanks. You're the best.
This is part of what i think bothers a lot of people about BfA, even unconsciously. You go from telling dragons what to do to (willingly??) going to jail arrested by a bunch of townies that never left their home city because you happen to be standing next to Jaina and the townies are pissed about what she did 20 years ago. Fuck you townies, if i had agency i would have mutilated all of you (as in the rogue skill).
Yeah, the agitation with BFA isn't the loss of lore strength, it's that you're bombarded with weird plot notes that remind you how little agency you have in the plot. Which is all the more jarring after the heights we reached in Legion. Getting kicked around by Literally Whos, being forced to do messed up stuff in service to the faction war even though you're supposed to be the leader of a neutral group, etc.
You've never had choices in WoW, but it never hit you with such an unending stream of situations where you think "Wait, but I'd rather--" in response to what you HAVE to do. Cataclysm leveling zones are probably the worst before now, with its sketchy faction war quests and stuff like murdering centaurs for oil. And at least then you're a nobody plotwise, so it's not as jarring.
D3's story would have been way better with one change: just shut up already. Less is more. That's why people think the old games are well-written; almost all the dialog happens in pre-mission monologues which are written like a book. Remove most of the in-game cutscenes, and all of the Skype banter from the villains. SC2 had a similar problem.
Also, delete Maghda. That's some low hanging fruit right there.
D3's story would have been way better with one change: just shut up already. Less is more. That's why people think the old games are well-written; almost all the dialog happens in pre-mission monologues which are written like a book. Remove most of the in-game cutscenes, and all of the Skype banter from the villains. SC2 had a similar problem.
Also, delete Maghda. That's some low hanging fruit right there.
Yeah, I think that the third act would have been a lot stronger if you didn't have Azmodan showing up every few minutes to remind you that he has another plan in place.
Then, you've got demons rising up from under ground, the big demon snakes taking the walls, and the unending hordes of hell out on the field with siege weapons, but they're being reported by panicking dying soldiers or by demons showing up in the mission hub room rather than casually being mentioned by the boss demon pointing the hero to the next fight.
But yes, in general I think less demon's vomiting exposition at you would have been an improvement.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Diablo 3 was the Star Wars Prequel of the series thus far.
I miss Diablo 1 in so many ways. It's not just fatigue with Blizzard specifically, but the video game business as a whole. In Diablo 1, shit that was dangerous was the size of a dog, or the size a human. There were a few enemies that were obviously bigger than humans, like those lightning demon fuckers, but the Butcher wasn't some multi-story (in height) monster. It was a demon with a hatchet in a fucked up room and he hurt a LOT if you tried to take him in a straight fight. Bringing him back in D3 was a bad move, but changing his design to be... anything other than a butcher made it worse. Even Diablo 2 took away from the gothic horror of the first game. The goat people in the first game were very clearly hell abominations and they had this fucked up throaty bleat sound as they attacked (and died), not to mention the bounce-around movement that was kind of unsettling. Then in Diablo 2, audio production changed to make them sound non-threatening, and I think they even changed the lore so that goat people were NORMAL beings in the world rather than hell slipping through?
Blizzard's style is to make things bigger and grander than the previous entry, which can work if you're being subtle about it over a long period of time. But there's nothing subtle going on in any of these series. Starcraft went from being a story about an alien horde (with just the slightest hint that maybe there's more to it than that) to The Fate Of All Things in part 2. So where the fuck does part 3 go from there? It certainly ran wild on being a Japanese anime by the end of it so I guess that's the medium we have to explore. Get ready for some Madoka Magica type existential shit because magical girl anime was the format they ran with to end the game on.
D3's story would have been way better with one change: just shut up already. Less is more. That's why people think the old games are well-written; almost all the dialog happens in pre-mission monologues which are written like a book. Remove most of the in-game cutscenes, and all of the Skype banter from the villains. SC2 had a similar problem.
Also, delete Maghda. That's some low hanging fruit right there.
Yeah, I think that the third act would have been a lot stronger if you didn't have Azmodan showing up every few minutes to remind you that he has another plan in place.
Then, you've got demons rising up from under ground, the big demon snakes taking the walls, and the unending hordes of hell out on the field with siege weapons, but they're being reported by panicking dying soldiers or by demons showing up in the mission hub room rather than casually being mentioned by the boss demon pointing the hero to the next fight.
But yes, in general I think less demon's vomiting exposition at you would have been an improvement.
The ego in D3 on both ends is pretty game breaking. A lot of the game was homage to the original, but as a whole did not fit to well as a sequel to #2.
I hat to beat a dead horse, but... Then at Blizzcon they show up and tell us the real story after D2 should have told was in Immortal.
I blame Metzen for getting his hands on D3 and SC2. In terms of style there's zero continuity with the past because its just Metzen and the same comic book grade juvenile dialogue and power fantasies he filled WoW with. Sure D3 needed to raise the stakes but it didn't need to make us demigods putting down enemies primarily because they called us bad names.
The big problem with D3 is, after vanquishing the two last Evils in the universe, everybody eats an idiot ball.
-Player goes to a party instead of keeping their eyes glued to the singlemost important artifact in all of creation, which heaven, hell and mortal alike will likely try to steal
-Everyone trusting a Witch after finding a bunch of notes on the ground about a conspiracy of Witches to aid Diablo, and more specifically Adria being Diablo's literal consort.
And because of this, one of the only bright spots in the game, Leah, gets utterly obliterated. Not even killed, just outright wiped from existence. For a bunch of shit that was easily preventable.
It just dumps out any goodwill that game had earned up unto that point.
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ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
Blizzard's style is to make things bigger and grander than the previous entry, which can work if you're being subtle about it over a long period of time. But there's nothing subtle going on in any of these series. Starcraft went from being a story about an alien horde (with just the slightest hint that maybe there's more to it than that) to The Fate Of All Things in part 2. So where the fuck does part 3 go from there? It certainly ran wild on being a Japanese anime by the end of it so I guess that's the medium we have to explore. Get ready for some Madoka Magica type existential shit because magical girl anime was the format they ran with to end the game on.
Oh geez, I forgot about the epilogue missions entirely. I think Blizzard literally lost the plot. Like, it was written down a couple decades ago, and some intern misfiled it so they're just wingin' it with a couple of two-fours during development.
In Diablo 1, shit that was dangerous was the size of a dog, or the size a human.
I got my level 3 warrior killed last night because I sauntered into the poisoned water supply quest and immediately got my ass beat by a goat man. It wasn't even close, he just straight up murdered me.
In Diablo 1, shit that was dangerous was the size of a dog, or the size a human.
I got my level 3 warrior killed last night because I sauntered into the poisoned water supply quest and immediately got my ass beat by a goat man. It wasn't even close, he just straight up murdered me.
This is my favorite part of Diablo 1... and to a lesser extent 2. I understand that with 3 they wanted to capture a larger audience which means they have to streamline literally everything and make everyone strong and whatnot. But I miss not knowing if every fight was going to be the one that finally breaks me.
I blame Metzen for getting his hands on D3 and SC2. In terms of style there's zero continuity with the past because its just Metzen and the same comic book grade juvenile dialogue and power fantasies he filled WoW with. Sure D3 needed to raise the stakes but it didn't need to make us demigods putting down enemies primarily because they called us bad names.
Didn't Metzen served as the "head writer" on the first Diablo game, or the closest equivalent?
WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness - Sole "Story" credit
Diablo - One of four people credited for with "Story"
Starcraft - Shared "Script and Story" credit with James Phinney
Diablo 2 - Story concept and script editor
I blame Metzen for getting his hands on D3 and SC2. In terms of style there's zero continuity with the past because its just Metzen and the same comic book grade juvenile dialogue and power fantasies he filled WoW with. Sure D3 needed to raise the stakes but it didn't need to make us demigods putting down enemies primarily because they called us bad names.
Didn't Metzen served as the "head writer" on the first Diablo game, or the closest equivalent?
Yes, or something to that effect. It's unclear how collaborative the whole thing was in the end. I think it's a lot that his later work just being too much writing and too much attempts to shoehorn his favourite narrative and twist on to everything. And I somewhat suspect part of that is because he got more control over the main storyline.
I blame Metzen for getting his hands on D3 and SC2. In terms of style there's zero continuity with the past because its just Metzen and the same comic book grade juvenile dialogue and power fantasies he filled WoW with. Sure D3 needed to raise the stakes but it didn't need to make us demigods putting down enemies primarily because they called us bad names.
Didn't Metzen served as the "head writer" on the first Diablo game, or the closest equivalent?
Yes, or something to that effect. It's unclear how collaborative the whole thing was in the end. I think it's a lot that his later work just being too much writing and too much attempts to shoehorn his favourite narrative and twist on to everything. And I somewhat suspect part of that is because he got more control over the main storyline.
Diablo certainly has a comic book grade juvenile plot--it's just there sparingly, because the plot is there...sparingly. The included narrative in the manual is proof of that.
yeah i don't think their writing has gotten significantly better or worse they've just felt empowered to include more of it in the game, where you have to encounter how mediocre it is
I replayed SC1 recently and it's noticeably different from SC2. It's not a matter of age in most of these things, it's a matter of style and their adherence to specific narratives. (also their love of enormous retcons to make the new narrative style work)
Like, SC1 ain't no fucking epic masterpiece but it works. Because the dialogue is solid enough and the story is less interested in a grand heroic power fantasy narrative where the bad guys turn out to be the good guys fighting a greater evil and instead just delivers a mildly interesting plot of a different kind. The heroic narrative kinda sneaks in at the end but it feels like it works because the whole thing isn't focused solely on that. Tassadar is the closest thing the story has to the "big damn hero" protagonist but he's not really taking centre stage ever.
There's a real difference in feel with the older titles. If I had to really pick out what the big changes that don't work are, it would be:
- too much focus on heroic power fantasy
- too much focus on the same save-the-world narrative where the old bad guy turns into an ally
- too much fucking monologuing
You can, imo, see this play out across all the franchises. (Except Overwatch for now) It's what people notice about the writing.
My favorite thing to do in Diablo 1 simply isn't even possible in D2 or D3, and that was what we called the iron man runs.
Basically, the rules were simple. No town trips allowed. You used what you found laying around and you went as deep as you could till you died or you won, whichever came first. Almost always death.
I replayed SC1 recently and it's noticeably different from SC2. It's not a matter of age in most of these things, it's a matter of style and their adherence to specific narratives. (also their love of enormous retcons to make the new narrative style work)
Like, SC1 ain't no fucking epic masterpiece but it works. Because the dialogue is solid enough and the story is less interested in a grand heroic power fantasy narrative where the bad guys turn out to be the good guys fighting a greater evil and instead just delivers a mildly interesting plot of a different kind. The heroic narrative kinda sneaks in at the end but it feels like it works because the whole thing isn't focused solely on that. Tassadar is the closest thing the story has to the "big damn hero" protagonist but he's not really taking centre stage ever.
There's a real difference in feel with the older titles. If I had to really pick out what the big changes that don't work are, it would be:
- too much focus on heroic power fantasy
- too much focus on the same save-the-world narrative where the old bad guy turns into an ally
- too much fucking monologuing
You can, imo, see this play out across all the franchises. (Except Overwatch for now) It's what people notice about the writing.
You forgot
-just plain too much
Like SC1's story is serviceable, which is not a word that means "good." But that's fine, because even if you don't like it, and there's stuff there not to like, for sure, it's not all up in your business all the time. I've recently rediscovered SC2 and I'm having a great time with it, but I'm still having a hard time getting myself to return to the campaign because the writing isn't merely bad, it's also everywhere.
When I first got back to the storyline right after wrapping up a replay of Brood War, I thought that this was an improvement, because they're giving the story some space, instead of in the original game where things are set up and pay off, like, immediately. Now that I'm near the end of the Terran campaign I just want it to be over.
Some of it, admittedly, must be my fault, as I feel like it's my obligation to click on the things and at least witness the work that went into the game. An unclicked-on dialogue prompt makes me twitch.
This isn't just a Blizzard problem. It's a 2019 consumer problem. People these days don't like subtlety and nuance and subtext. People like everything to be overexplained and as clearly cut as possible. Blizzard is doing the same thing with their story writing that the vast majority of Hollywood is doing with its movies and TV Shows.
Take the Big Bang Theory as an example of this. The first 3 seasons the show was basically nerd humor for nerds. Somewhere around the 4th season or maybe a little past that, they started shooting for a wider audience and a more mainstream appeal. And they started over-explaining every joke. It used to be that they would make nerd references and pop culture references and either you got it or you didn't. Now they have to make sure every joke is explained, so that even non-nerds can enjoy the show, and the result is that the show has been completely dumbed down and overexplained to death.
In 1996 when Diablo 1 came out, things could be left in the shadows and left to nuance. That's not the case anymore. And that's why Diablo 3 is so in-your-face with its monologues and overtold plot.
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I think the story itself is fine and I liked a lot of the dialogue with companions and with random town citizens, but there is no for the literal physical embodiment of evil to constantly radio in and tell me that I'm a loser and this next guy i'm about to turn into meat chunks is actually super badass and scary
I'm saying this as someone who played D2 to the point where it had negative consequences. D3 was not nearly as fun nor engaging. I fall asleep about an hour into playing it. It's pretty fucking bad.
Torchlight 1+2, on the other hand....
In Vanilla WoW, you're an 'adventurer' who gets caught up in major events in between hunting beasts in Stranglethorn Vale and investigating spooky mysteries in Duskwood. In the later expansions you're the basically the chosen one with the legendary weapon and everyone knows your name.
In Diablo 1 you're a no-name adventurer (again) who gets caught up in something bigger than themselves. In D2 you're a more bad-ass adventurer, but still a side player in the main story, aside from kicking evil's ass repeatedly. In D3 you are (again!) the chosen one, nephalim. It's all about you.
Even Starcraft wasn't immune to the bombastic story beats. SC1 was full of bad shit happening all the time to make you feel less pwoerful. Even when you win it's a phyrric victory - I'll never forget Kerrigan calling herself the 'queen bitch of the universe'. Since SC2 didn't have a player character, Raynor ends up being a Gary Sue for the player and kicks everyone's ass in a story that doesn't really make any sense.
In contrast to SC1, I'll never forget the cut-scene where Raynor boards a Dominion Battlecruiser, proceeds to gun down dozens of soldiers (after blowing up lots more in the preceding mission), and then the bad guy (Valarian) says that he wants to be friends and they can work together. Didn't we just fight a huge battle? Why didn't Valarian just call him instead of showing up with an army and start shooting? Argh.
You just have to commit.
I mean, most of the MMOs where I've cared about the story did it in part by making the PC strong enough to have agency in a world of superbeings--you're quite strong and important in games like FFXIV, SWTOR, and ESO.
I was telling fucking dragons what to do. Hey Kalecgos, go do a menial but dangerous thing and bring me back all the goodies. Thanks. You're the best.
I don't know enough about Starcraft to offer an opinion about its writing, good or bad--I was like 9 or 10 when I beat Starcraft I and not much of it stuck with me. But I can't see it being as important that PCs be unstoppable god-kings when you're controlling armies to secure victory instead of one dude.
It'd only be necessary if they made a Starcraft RPG.
That's probably part of the reason everyone knows you now, which in hindsight, probably shouldn't have happened IMO.
Eh, it depends on which artifact storyline you're talking about. Some of them were very much "we need you to go look for this artifact that will help against the legion. ok cool you found it, now that you have it you might as well keep it. ok since you have it you may as well be our leader."
But I think part of that's is a result of Blizzard having to scramble to invent backstories for 2-4 artifacts per class.
Well and also if you're going to have a story based on soul-searching maybe you should let the PC's have some choices.
If the war campaign let me choose to either help the Zandalari or fuck over the Alliance, and have NPC's respond to me differently based on those choices, that'd have been cool.
But instead I'm a fuckin' unwilling/uncaring stooge for WoW's Kerrigan.
Eeeeh it varied a lot. Frost DK and Balance Druid were high points compared to like Blood or Feral.
On the whole it was a good system, it just got a little too power fantasy wish fullfillment.
This is part of what i think bothers a lot of people about BfA, even unconsciously. You go from telling dragons what to do to (willingly??) going to jail arrested by a bunch of townies that never left their home city because you happen to be standing next to Jaina and the townies are pissed about what she did 20 years ago. Fuck you townies, if i had agency i would have mutilated all of you (as in the rogue skill).
Yeah, the agitation with BFA isn't the loss of lore strength, it's that you're bombarded with weird plot notes that remind you how little agency you have in the plot. Which is all the more jarring after the heights we reached in Legion. Getting kicked around by Literally Whos, being forced to do messed up stuff in service to the faction war even though you're supposed to be the leader of a neutral group, etc.
You've never had choices in WoW, but it never hit you with such an unending stream of situations where you think "Wait, but I'd rather--" in response to what you HAVE to do. Cataclysm leveling zones are probably the worst before now, with its sketchy faction war quests and stuff like murdering centaurs for oil. And at least then you're a nobody plotwise, so it's not as jarring.
Also, delete Maghda. That's some low hanging fruit right there.
Yeah, I think that the third act would have been a lot stronger if you didn't have Azmodan showing up every few minutes to remind you that he has another plan in place.
Then, you've got demons rising up from under ground, the big demon snakes taking the walls, and the unending hordes of hell out on the field with siege weapons, but they're being reported by panicking dying soldiers or by demons showing up in the mission hub room rather than casually being mentioned by the boss demon pointing the hero to the next fight.
But yes, in general I think less demon's vomiting exposition at you would have been an improvement.
I miss Diablo 1 in so many ways. It's not just fatigue with Blizzard specifically, but the video game business as a whole. In Diablo 1, shit that was dangerous was the size of a dog, or the size a human. There were a few enemies that were obviously bigger than humans, like those lightning demon fuckers, but the Butcher wasn't some multi-story (in height) monster. It was a demon with a hatchet in a fucked up room and he hurt a LOT if you tried to take him in a straight fight. Bringing him back in D3 was a bad move, but changing his design to be... anything other than a butcher made it worse. Even Diablo 2 took away from the gothic horror of the first game. The goat people in the first game were very clearly hell abominations and they had this fucked up throaty bleat sound as they attacked (and died), not to mention the bounce-around movement that was kind of unsettling. Then in Diablo 2, audio production changed to make them sound non-threatening, and I think they even changed the lore so that goat people were NORMAL beings in the world rather than hell slipping through?
Blizzard's style is to make things bigger and grander than the previous entry, which can work if you're being subtle about it over a long period of time. But there's nothing subtle going on in any of these series. Starcraft went from being a story about an alien horde (with just the slightest hint that maybe there's more to it than that) to The Fate Of All Things in part 2. So where the fuck does part 3 go from there? It certainly ran wild on being a Japanese anime by the end of it so I guess that's the medium we have to explore. Get ready for some Madoka Magica type existential shit because magical girl anime was the format they ran with to end the game on.
The ego in D3 on both ends is pretty game breaking. A lot of the game was homage to the original, but as a whole did not fit to well as a sequel to #2.
I hat to beat a dead horse, but... Then at Blizzcon they show up and tell us the real story after D2 should have told was in Immortal.
-Player goes to a party instead of keeping their eyes glued to the singlemost important artifact in all of creation, which heaven, hell and mortal alike will likely try to steal
-Everyone trusting a Witch after finding a bunch of notes on the ground about a conspiracy of Witches to aid Diablo, and more specifically Adria being Diablo's literal consort.
And because of this, one of the only bright spots in the game, Leah, gets utterly obliterated. Not even killed, just outright wiped from existence. For a bunch of shit that was easily preventable.
It just dumps out any goodwill that game had earned up unto that point.
Oh geez, I forgot about the epilogue missions entirely. I think Blizzard literally lost the plot. Like, it was written down a couple decades ago, and some intern misfiled it so they're just wingin' it with a couple of two-fours during development.
I got my level 3 warrior killed last night because I sauntered into the poisoned water supply quest and immediately got my ass beat by a goat man. It wasn't even close, he just straight up murdered me.
This is my favorite part of Diablo 1... and to a lesser extent 2. I understand that with 3 they wanted to capture a larger audience which means they have to streamline literally everything and make everyone strong and whatnot. But I miss not knowing if every fight was going to be the one that finally breaks me.
Didn't Metzen served as the "head writer" on the first Diablo game, or the closest equivalent?
Diablo - One of four people credited for with "Story"
Starcraft - Shared "Script and Story" credit with James Phinney
Diablo 2 - Story concept and script editor
That's cause it wasn't generic Metzen crap imo. They really tried to jam the story into a particular mold that does not suit the tone of Diablo.
Yes, or something to that effect. It's unclear how collaborative the whole thing was in the end. I think it's a lot that his later work just being too much writing and too much attempts to shoehorn his favourite narrative and twist on to everything. And I somewhat suspect part of that is because he got more control over the main storyline.
Diablo certainly has a comic book grade juvenile plot--it's just there sparingly, because the plot is there...sparingly. The included narrative in the manual is proof of that.
People's tastes from 20 years ago are likely a lot different now. I know teenage me was a lot more tolerable of goofy writing than in his 30's me.
Like, SC1 ain't no fucking epic masterpiece but it works. Because the dialogue is solid enough and the story is less interested in a grand heroic power fantasy narrative where the bad guys turn out to be the good guys fighting a greater evil and instead just delivers a mildly interesting plot of a different kind. The heroic narrative kinda sneaks in at the end but it feels like it works because the whole thing isn't focused solely on that. Tassadar is the closest thing the story has to the "big damn hero" protagonist but he's not really taking centre stage ever.
There's a real difference in feel with the older titles. If I had to really pick out what the big changes that don't work are, it would be:
- too much focus on heroic power fantasy
- too much focus on the same save-the-world narrative where the old bad guy turns into an ally
- too much fucking monologuing
You can, imo, see this play out across all the franchises. (Except Overwatch for now) It's what people notice about the writing.
Basically, the rules were simple. No town trips allowed. You used what you found laying around and you went as deep as you could till you died or you won, whichever came first. Almost always death.
You forgot
-just plain too much
Like SC1's story is serviceable, which is not a word that means "good." But that's fine, because even if you don't like it, and there's stuff there not to like, for sure, it's not all up in your business all the time. I've recently rediscovered SC2 and I'm having a great time with it, but I'm still having a hard time getting myself to return to the campaign because the writing isn't merely bad, it's also everywhere.
When I first got back to the storyline right after wrapping up a replay of Brood War, I thought that this was an improvement, because they're giving the story some space, instead of in the original game where things are set up and pay off, like, immediately. Now that I'm near the end of the Terran campaign I just want it to be over.
Some of it, admittedly, must be my fault, as I feel like it's my obligation to click on the things and at least witness the work that went into the game. An unclicked-on dialogue prompt makes me twitch.
Take the Big Bang Theory as an example of this. The first 3 seasons the show was basically nerd humor for nerds. Somewhere around the 4th season or maybe a little past that, they started shooting for a wider audience and a more mainstream appeal. And they started over-explaining every joke. It used to be that they would make nerd references and pop culture references and either you got it or you didn't. Now they have to make sure every joke is explained, so that even non-nerds can enjoy the show, and the result is that the show has been completely dumbed down and overexplained to death.
In 1996 when Diablo 1 came out, things could be left in the shadows and left to nuance. That's not the case anymore. And that's why Diablo 3 is so in-your-face with its monologues and overtold plot.