Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Laz Radio broadcasting from the spires of Ureh, a city supposed to lie at the foot of a huge mountain and not inside it. But we know Blizzard likes to reuse ideas from classic Blizzard games and they can’t just let all that work on Old Ironforge go to waste.
The fact that in the real world it would be tactically much more useful to build the city on top of the mountain, or at least at the bottom, but not halfway up is unimportant. The enemies in the vibrant mundus novus of Diablo III would be too busy tripping over their shoulderpads and holding podraces around Caldeum to bother attacking it anyway.
‘We gotz us dem spinnaz shieldz, dawg’
Are those big shoulderpads realistic? Someone posted concept art of Diablo 1 as comparison and pointed out that the warrior had a huge gladiator’s shoulderpad on the concept image, which explains why the barbarian’s shoulderpads in Diablo III look like his vehicle mode is a snow tractor.
The fact that concept art is not the same thing as ingame art, unless you’re cheap and use your 3D models as concept art like a certain game company in ‘99, escapes them. Or the fact that the ingame warrior had, in fact, green skin, which may be a slightly bigger violation of reality than those shoulderpads.
Anyway, should shoulderpads be big? Opponents claim that the giant spiked shoulderpads as seen in Diablo III would be a liability in combat, unless you can run over people with them or if the spikes are rockets. Of course, so would the dead grizzly bear on the shoulder of the druid in Diablo 2, but that one just didn’t have as much visual impact at a resolution of about five pixels across.
Also, there will probably be more than one shoulderpad graphic, so you can equip your character with small or big ones according to your taste and sensibilities. Just be aware that the best unique ones will probably be the ones with the flaming horned demon heads on them, so I hope you prefer big ones.
‘You can see the blood on your armor!’
When you crit an enemy in melee, its blood and guts splatter all over your armor.
I suppose if you are a ranged character, the blood will leap over to you. Otherwise everyone will scream that Blizzard totally loves melee, supported by the example of the classic D2 barbarian between 1.03 and 1.05 and the D1 warrior who completely outperformed the other two classes right up until the sorcerer got his first fire wall book, and how this is another blow to the witchdoctor.
Don’t worry, I heard the witchdoctor will get a diving helmet, umbrella and a cuckoo clock backpack, so it’s okay.
‘A Túrin Turambar turún’ambartanen’
So they showed Ureh, that absolutely creepy city of Kingdom of Shadow fame. For those who missed the only good book in the whole Diablo collection: Ureh was misled by a supposed angel who was really Diablo, who persuaded the city mages to cast a spell that would take the city to heaven. Instead it ended up
Aside from the fact that this is blatantly a D&D book with the names changed, like every damned Diablo book so far, the ghost-infested city trapped in the void for thousands of years until the shadow of Mount Nymyr falls upon the ruins leaves a lasting impression, if only because none of the living protagonists do and it would be inconceivable that every Diablo book sucks.
So of course the official version looks like the cathedral of Tristram half buried under a lava flow, backed by the same kind of orange as you may be familiar with from the Warcraft concept art with the gryphon rider. Also, the fact that it is back on this plane means it is an allied city… right? Nuh-uh, satyrs in spaceships landed, randomly made the city evil again, and gave the inhabitants two Apollo rockets with nuclear payloads. Or perhaps those things are just spires after all.
And there’s not even an Eternal Bone Pile to be found.
‘Let’s make this harder… or then again, let’s not’
Every Blizzquote nowadays is about how to increase the difficulty. From Jay Wilson’s crusade against potions and his explanation that MSLE and FE bugs are really just intended to even the odds and kill the character that is otherwise invulnerable and invincible due to massive potion abuse, to Bashiok’s reply that design flaws are no longer accepted as game features.
Let’s not forget that the hammerdin used to be based on a bug in classic D2 that mysteriously caused Concentration to affect hammer damage unlike any other source of skill ED%. Bashiok indirectly advocates the removal of hammerdins, thereby probably dooming the game for the intended target audience. RIP.
The most overwhelming argument against increasing difficulty, though, is their own video showing two characters absolutely plowing through the monsters. If Blizzard makes Diablo III more skill-based, as opposed to purely item-based, then the game would bomb on the market, considering Blizzard’s audience consists of people who consider World of Warcraft just fine in difficulty despite its uncanny similarity to playing Guitar Hero on Easy at 30 beats per minute without the strum bar.
‘Everyone knows this is a PvP game’
Player vs. Player is a major aspect of Diablo 2. The developers have repeatedly stated that they like the additional danger factor of having to watch your back in case someone pops into your game and instantly kills you with triggerhack.
Some players will argue that consensual PvP is what keeps Diablo 2 ticking after all this time, and it must receive the utmost attention in Diablo III. Diablo 2 is, after all, a PvP game at its core, which is why Sacred and Titan Quest are also… wait.
Those players argue that PvP in Diablo 2 offers a level playing field where only skill counts, and they are right. Everyone can teleport. Everyone can roll a hammerdin. Everyone has access to the same scrollhacks, chicken hacks and the same godly duped items.
But in Diablo III there will be no easy way to lay your hands on the best duped gear. And if they outlaw dupes, then only outlaws will have dupes. The more scrupulous players (read: those who got repeatedly swindled trying to trade for dupes and eventually bought a set on Ebay which then got ruststormed) will have to make do with worthless trash like Windforce and Shaftstop and the other guy will kill them as quickly and thoroughly as a fridge door in Crysis.
This will be the end of PvP as we know it. And Diablo 2 came that close to dethroning Counterstrike!
‘Low level skills suck… make the game impossible to figure out plz’
We all agree with the people who brought up this issue that low level skills, like Fireball, suck in Diablo 2 and are usually just prerequisites for higher level skills that are actually useful, like Hydra. Wait.
Anyway, a number of people have suggested solutions as to how to improve low level skills, ranging from the creative suggestion to ‘add more synergies’ to all sorts of sorc-centric proposals for bizarre skill tree systems that stop just short of asking the player to develop the magic incantations themselves.
Interestingly, there already exists a game that pretty much allows you to create your own spells. You choose a base spell type (fire field, for example), then add a modifier that causes it to do physical damage and stun, and then you learn an ability that allows you to cast this several times in quick succession or adds a chance to crit.
What marvel of a game, you may ask, allows for this kind of infinite variety? Should Diablo III copy it?
The game in question is Hellgate London, which should also answer the second question. Sorry, no prize for you, thanks for playing.
More important than discussing ways to make build planning comparable to playing chess boxing on the skill tree icon grid is the ongoing crusade to prevent Blizzard from adding a shedload of worthless skills into the game again. Take Whirlwind, for example.
The barbarian in Diablo III can kill enemies by sending so many rocks flying in all directions that the moon is knocked out of orbit and falls on them, but he still has Whirlwind for nostalgia’s sake. Of course, when you can do pretty much the same thing with a lot more fireworks and from a distance, or charge through the enemies you were about to whirlwind at twice the speed with added knockback on impact, there is no good reason to have the skill in the game unless it is level 1.
But then, of course, it clearly wouldn’t be Diablo anymore and a great flood of tears would ensue.
Thankfully, considering Blizzard’s willingness to quickly cut redundant and overlapping bloat like the terran thor, there is no reason to fear that Whirlwind will be tainted by appearing in the finished game and probably sucking. Wait.
‘Nephalem are people too!’
Still no trace of the nephalem. Refresher course: being spawned by an angel and demon, humankind inherited the powers of both. To avoid this, father Inarius locked us up into his closet and planted the Worldstone as the key. It emits a magic dampening effect that blocks humankind’s innate powers.
This is something Tyrael never bothered to tell us, presumably because he was deathly afraid that Imperius’ angelic supremacy death squad may destroy Sanctuary if he so much as points a finger at the thing.
He then shattered the Worldstone anyway to prevent a demonic invasion. Which means humankind is now on a death clock to grow back Uldyssian-like angel killing powers and establish a mutually assured destruction kind of uneasy stalemate before the anti-human fraction of Heaven comes to destroy everyone, seeing as how they were only prevented from doing so by the pacte infernale with Mephisto which Mephisto then proceeded to break.
Oh, wait. Then you couldn’t kill quill rats anymore. Never mind.
I’m sure Blizzard’s highly paid writers will think of a deus ex machina. Maybe the Worldstone laid eggs before it was destroyed and now there are tens of little Worldstones threatening humankind once again.
They had better, because does anyone really want to know what the neo-nephalem would look like in Blizzard’s happy new world if you could play as one? Two words: Super Saiyan. Fire golem, I choose you!
‘Battle.net got nerfed, woot!’
So Starcraft II will herald the roll-out of battle.net 2.0. (As we know, the first game released for a new system is usually a shallow demo with little real innovation. Just kidding) The groundbreaking new features included in this package of wonders are the following:
- Digital downloads. Another great Blizzard invention along with MMORPGs, the mouse and 3D graphics in 2003.
This is amazing news. Digital downloads are the future! No more wasting 30 minutes buying a DVD in the store near your office! Now you can sit and stare at your screen for 4 hours or until your router disconnects while the 17 GB download slowly leaks through your carrier pigeon connection, during which your entire download bandwidth is being taken up, after which you have to buy your own DVDs and jewelcase and hope you never have to replace your computer or reinstall Windows or the DRM will hate you. All this assuming you don’t live in a backwater third world country like Belgium where the broadband cartel maintains a monthly download limit.
- One account for all games. This increases the potential cost of hacking in Diablo III: now you lose all your precious wins collected through hacking in Starcraft II, too. Which means you need to buy two CD keys instead of one (average extra revenue for Blizzard: $50/ban).
Also, forget about mule accounts (additional character slots: $5/character), and when you grow up and want to rename your account to something more fitting to your job as a junior tax accountant than xXxS4T4NxxDR4G0NxXx, better hope you can make sufficiently convincing puppy eyes over the phone to get tech support to do it for you. Or you could follow the account rename procedure that will no doubt be implemented ($25/account).
- Improved hack protection. No more dupes! Just maphack, trigger hack, chicken hack, scrollhack and farmbots. Well, that sure helped. If you can’t imagine having to fight monsters that could actually kill you, don’t worry: after you buy the game, just take a nice walk with the box under your arm, do some window shopping and by the time you get back home, the first dupes will have appeared.
- Online stats and achievements visible to anyone! This is a very useful feature, because it is well known that any point you make about Starcraft II on the official forums is stupid and retarded unless you have at least 75% wins in Warcraft 3.
As well, you have no valid opinion about anything in World of Warcraft if you don’t wear raiding gear in every slot, your moonkin spec will get you laughed at, and wearing a spell damage item on your priest is like a mark of Cain.
If you thought having your valid anti-witchdoctor arguments shot down for no good reason was bad, imagine posting a four page thread on balance and the meaning of life only to have someone tell you that ‘ur still usin shagstop so stfu’.
In short, if you ever want to participate in meaningful forum discussion about Diablo III after the release, better damn well make sure you have all of the PvP achievements.
‘Yay, more useless grinds!’
In keeping with Blizzard’s efforts to make the gameplay of Diablo III immersive and absorbing, you will gain a bonus when you kill 100 fallen by running them over with the sniper rifle.
Okay, maybe I’m being a little too pessimistic here. Achievements are a great way to keep the hamster wheel turning, and the epic moment when Spartacus dropped his sword and successfully threw bricks at 100 pigeons in 15 seconds is forever etched in our collective memory.
Achievements are easy to implement and will keep fools occupied as effectively as writing ‘The answer is on the other side’ on both sides of a piece of paper, to the point where Guild Wars has an achievement for completing x number of achievements.
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This concludes today’s broadcast from the spires of Ureh. Police is closing in on my location, but don’t worry! I am more than flesh, I am an idea, and ideas are bulletproof. In the meantime, I brought a set of inflatable shoulderpads to carry me to safety.
Broadcasting will recommence when Blizzard announces the next lore element to ruin. I heard the Angiris Council gathers every thousand aeons at the Silver City in a pink castle next to the Care-O-Meter when the people on Sanctuary stop loving each other.
Brothers and sisters, join the revolution!
Disclaimer: Dead Fish is written by Brother Laz and hosted by Diii.net. The views expressed in this column are those of the author, and are not necessarily the opinions of Diii.net.
