: Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

If you had told me four years ago, in summer of 2008 when Diablo III was first announced, that this was the game that would ruin my faith in Blizzard Entertainment, I would have looked at you like you were mad. And there are probably quite a lot of people out there that will look at me like I'm mad now that I'm actually saying it; Diablo III has ruined my faith in Blizzard.

Blizzard has, in the past, made games that has massive replayability. I don't know how many hours I've spent playing Starcraft, Warcraft III, even World of Warcraft as a casual gamer, and particularly Diablo II. Starcraft II not so much, but that's mostly because, aside from the campaign, that game is so much focused on competitive gaming, and I'm not a competitive gamer. But now there's Diablo III, and I don't see any replayability here at all. I've maxed out two characters to level 60, and feel no incentive to keep playing those characters. And absolutely no desire to create new ones. 

In Diablo II, creating new characters was fun. You had to plan out what you wanted to do, what skills you wanted, how to best upgrade your stats... It required some thought and actual choices. And if you wanted to try something different, you'd have to create a new character and start over. I liked that, I liked creating lots of characters and specialize them. In Diablo III there is no reason to create a new character of a class you've already played, it'll just be the same as the old one. And that's just... Sad.

Don't get me wrong. The game is fun. But it just doesn't feel like a Diablo-game. I probably wouldn't have been this disappointed if this was an entirely new franchise, but... It's not. It's Diablo. And it's disappointing. I don't see myself still playing this game at all in a month, except maybe as a novelty on LAN's. As a matter of fact, I'll probably play Diablo II over III.

Or, you know... Torchlight II. Which is made by the actual people who made Diablo II. And looks so much better.

Anyway... I no longer feel particularly excited about anything coming from Blizzard. I'll most likely buy the next two parts of Starcraft II, as I can't imagine they'd do anything to screw up that, considering the massive professional community around that game. But I have completely lost interest in anything that has to do with World of Warcraft with the recent changes to character development and skills. There's bound to be an expansion to Diablo III at some point, but I can't really imagine being interested in that. They'd have to make some really mind-blowing changes to make me interested. And then there's the unknown new project they're working on, apparently code-named Titan, but... Based on Diablo III and the recent developments in WoW, I'm not gonna hold my breath... Also; It's apparently gonna be an MMO as well, and will most likely be subscription-based, so I'm really not interested either way.

There used to be a time where Blizzard meant quality and longevity. Sadly, that time has apparently passed.

: Thoughts on Diablo III post-launch.

Warning: You might not want to read this post if you don't want to diminish your enjoyment of the game.

I've been playing the game for about a week now, and I've come across several issues that I want to talk about. Before I start I just want to say that I do enjoy the game, a lot. While the rest of this post might suggest otherwise, I don't dislike it, and I think it's real fun to play. But there are several things that consistently reduces my enjoyment of the game.

Simplicity

The absolute first thing that I have an issue with, is the class development system. I mentioned this in my "Thoughts on..."-post, and my fears have been realized. The leveling up of my character, while always giving me new stuff to play around with, really isn't fun. There's absolutely no choice in what skills or runes you get. You can choose what you use, but eventually you'll get everything, and in a very specific order. There's no feeling of customization, it's too linear. I'll admit, the skill trees of Diablo II, Titan Quest, Torchlight, etc, are far from perfect. But I feel that this is a big step in the wrong direction. And I really don't understand why they removed the ability to assign stats ourselves. That's just ridiculous.

Class-specific gear

There's lots of class-specific gear in this game, at least a couple of type for each class, but the problem is that they don't feel special enough. They don't give enough benefit compared to the other types of gear, particularly because the benefits they might give takes up one random enchantment slot. If you get a white class-specific item, there's absolutely no benefits to it at all. In Diablo II, the benefits of class-specific gear was built into the item itself, before any enchantments. I don't understand why they couldn't do it this way in Diablo III as well. 

Randomization

I am very disappointed with the random maps system. It's only really used properly in dungeons and underground ares, it seems. All the above ground areas are the same shape every time. Sure, there's some randomness to what events and bonus dungeons you come across within each area... But there's no real element of discovery to it, as it was in Diablo II. After your second run of the game, you can essentially just walk directly from one above ground area to the next without much thought. And that's not what I want, at least. 

Gems

First of all; There's too few of them. What happened to Sapphires and Diamonds? And what about Skulls? I guess they limited it to only four because there are only four different stats, or something. But I can easily think of more bonuses for the other gems, particularly if you re-introduce the elemental-damage part of the gems. I mean, the only really viable option for gemming a weapon right now is a Ruby, the other bonuses seem pointless to me.

Second; Sockets take up an enchantment slot? I don't understand that. That was one of the great things about gems and sockets in Diablo II; Any item could have sockets, even unique items that normally didn't, and could be enhanced further by adding stuff to those sockets! I mean... What? Why? What's the reason behind this? It's one more element of customization gone from the game, essentially.

Monk Combat

This is just a minor annoyance, but why doesn't the Monk use the weapons he has equipped? I created a Monk wanting to go for the bo-staff as my chosen weapon, hoping to see some epic staff-combat (as the bo-staff is my absolute favourite weapon), but he still punches everything. He walks around with the staff in his hand, but as soon as he attacks it's on his back and he's using his fists, no matter what skill I use. I'm guessing this is a result of them removing normal attacks from the game, another thing I cant quite understand. The only times you're able to use your weapon normally is on level 1, before you get your first Secondary skill, as the right mouse button is then set as a regular Attack, and when you run out of your resource and try to use a secondary skill. 

Battle.net

I will admit that there are a few benefits to always being connected to Battle.net, particularly the ability to join and leave games on the fly, without having to exit and set up a server, or, if you are the server, wait until everyone has left before you can leave without being lynched. But, with my current connection, if I try to do anything that uses just a little bit of bandwidth, things start to get laggy as hell. I refreshed my Tumblr dashboard on my other computer, a few gifs started loading, and the game just stopped completely. And then there's server down-time, and lack of a connection... This is not a fucking MMO. I want to be able to play this game whenever I want to. Having the Battle.net connection as an option would be fine, but not a requirement!

: Thoughts on Diablo III pre-launch.

Needless to say, the release of Diablo III is one of the biggest events when it comes to gaming this year. It's been so long waiting for this, and I can't wait to have the game in my hands. Or at least to be able to install and play it, as I'll hopefully have the game in my hands a day or two earlier. But there are a few things that sort of bother me about what I know about the game.

Always on DRM

That is what the need for constant connection to Battle.net to even play in single player actually is, and anyone trying to say otherwise is... Naive, at best. I mean, yes, there is the thing about cross-game chat and all that stuff, but that should really be optional. Needing to go online to activate the game and register the CD-key and all that, that's fine. But after that, there's really no point in them requiring you to be online to play in single player. I don't know what other features than cross-game chat that comes with being connected to Battle.net in single player, but I'm sure I can do fine without them. I did in Diablo II, so why not now?

Part of me really hopes that on release, the servers will crash so hard that they're forced to revert this, and allow single player without connection to Battle.net. This is highly unlikely, though, considering their experience with World of Warcraft and Starcraft II, which has the same type of DRM, but I can dream, can't I?

The other part of me just really wants to play the game. =P

Too simplified character development?

There has been some rumors lately that Blizzard has purposely gone in and simplified the gameplay in Diablo III because they're preparing for a port to consoles. I don't know if this is true, but from what I've heard and read from people who've actually played the game in different states of development, the game has actually become quite a lot more simplified since it was was first announced, particularly when it comes to skill management. I really don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.

On the positive side, the way things work now, you can basically switch your entire spec in just a few clicks. If you've played as a frost-specced wizard the entire game, you can just change a few things and suddenly you're fire-specced. No need to create an entirely new character to play another specialization. On the negative side, this means that there are few to none really meaningful choices when it comes to creating and developing your character. It's all just given to you, and you can just pick and choose what you want to use, and repick at no cost if you're not happy with what you've got. I'd like it better if they had used some sort of re-training system. Like in Titan Quest, where you need to go to an NPC and pay them to remove the unwanted skills.

Removal/postponing of features

It has also been said that quite a few features that was announced at some point, has later been removed from the game. I'm trying to find a comprehensive list of these features, but so far haven't been able to do so. I have, however, found a few featured that was once either announced or in the game, but has since been either scrapped entirely, or pushed back to post-release.

The first one I found was the Talisman. I hadn't heard about this one, but after reading a bit about it, it sounds really sweet. I can't really understand why they decided to remove it. Basically, this is what would have replaced the classic charms from Diablo II. The Talisman was a separate inventory that could only contain charms, which in this case looks like they're parts of enemies you've killed rather than... Whatever the charms in Diablo II were. You'd fill the available slots in the Talisman (I'm assuming the slots would unlock as you level up, or something, I've seen screenshots where some slots seem to be unavailable) with these charms, and they'd give you extra bonuses. But now it's gone. Bashiok has said that they want to bring it pack post-release, and I really hope they do, 'cause as I said, it sounds really sweet. I mean, the charms in Diablo II were nice, but I'd rather have something like this, that doesn't take up my regular inventory space.

Another removed feature, although it can't technically be called a "removed feature" from what I've read, is the brutal death animations. In case you don't know, or don't remember, what I'm talking about, when they first showed the game, the very first video released, they had a boss at the end that, instead of just knocking the players to the ground when they were killed, actually picked the player up and bit off its head. These animations will, unfortunately, not be in the game. And while I understand why, as all of these would have to be scripted very carefully to actually work, which would've taken quite a lot of time, it's a bit sad. I'd been looking a bit forward to seeing my character being brutally slaughtered when I fail. There's no word on whether these will be implemented at a later date, but somehow I doubt it.

One postponed featureg that I, personally, don't really care that is pushed back, is the PvP arena system. I am not a PvP player, and while the PvP system in Diablo III might be better than what it was in Diablo II (which was essentially non-existant (ear-gathering!?)), it's still utterly uninteresting to me, and I'm very glad they decided to postpone this to get the game out earlier.

The last removal I want to mention is one of the Artisans, the Mystic (the other two being the Blacksmith and the Jeweler). The Mystic was originally going to be the goto-NPC for scrolls, potions, magic weapons, runes, charms and enchantments, as well as being able to mass-identify. During the beta she lost the ability to create potions, scrolls (which has all been removed from the game or made into non-item functions), weapons, runes (which you now gain at levelups) and charms (which was removed with the removal of the Talisman). She was basically reduced to an enchanter, and they decided to remove her until they had given her more of a purpose. Which I can understand. I'm just curious how they will eventually re-introduce her.

Auction Houses (both gold and Real Money Transfer)

While having an Auction House in a games like World of Warcraft and other MMORPG's makes sense, I'm not so sure that having it in a game like this does, though. To be quite honest, I'm very conflicted about how I feel about this. On one hand, I feel like it will be a bit of "pay-to-win", only that you're restricted to stuff that other players have found and put up. On the other hand, I probably wont play with anyone who'll actually use this. At least not for buying items. I, and those I'll play with, might sell stuff for real money... But I'm pretty sure at least I don't want to buy anything for real money. I might buy stuff on the gold-AH, but I highly doubt I'll ever use the RMT-AH for buying anything. So... Yeah. I don't know.

They'll probably use the Action Houses as another excuse for the always online DRM as well. Bah.

Conclusion

As a result of all of this, my expectations for this game has been significantly lowered. I'm far from as enthusiastic about Diablo III as I was when it was first announced back in 2008. I'm still very much looking forward to it, but I'm not feeling it as much as I used to do. I hope I'll be proven wrong in the end, and that it'll be as epic it's supposed to be... But yeah, we'll see.