I have spent about the last hour or so watching and re-watching the opening ceremony where I watch a man who likely has a passion for the IP who has battled higher ups for funding, for more projects for more support and been rejected as seemly he has no blizzard in house Diablo projects to announce, present a game he didn't make, likely didn't approve of to an audience he knows wont take the news well. I'm watching a guy barely keep it together on stage as he is met with a wall of silenced, shocked silence. By the 3rd viewing I'm literally tearing up this guy is dying on stage for a product that likely is a marching order from above his pay grade. I feel for the guy. I agree that I was insulted by the "Do you not have phones comment" comment but its really more of a secondary thing, I think a guy on stage met with a booing crowd lashes back, he should be criticized for it as it comes off as insanely tone deaf but whatever I dont really care what a dude says I am more sad what the subtext of the whole announcement was.
The Real depressing thought is that I used to speak about blizzard with Awe as a company which literally always produced a beautiful product that even when I didnt like the game I couldnt point to a single glaring flaw as to why, more that the gameplay just wasnt for me--Starcraft was that title for me as I was always too shit at RTS to have fun with them. I used to hold blizzard up as the model that you should strive to be a paragon of "When its done we will release it" and having the wait be worth it. This is no longer the case, so many blatant miss steps so many questionable choices across their titles. Diablo 3 is one of the best selling video games of all time, its on the short list. It has a passionate fan base which isnt fully captured by log in hours as Diablo 3 has been content starved for the better part of 3 years. Diablo 2 still has a cult following, many game reviewers site Diablo 1 as one of their favorite childhood memories, they cite it as an entry into dark fantasy video games. I think diabo 3 has a lot of positives and there has been a dirth of good diablo like games that you can learn from and systems you can incorporate into a future diablo title. So the fans are there, the money can be there, inspiration is there, the possibility for a new entry has been open for half a decade yet we still cant seem to get a foot in the door. Its like diablo is a red headed step child who happens to lay golden eggs it makes no sense. Then we are told there would be no announcement, to stem the hype because diablo will have ANOTHER QUIET BLIZZCON and the fans once again bit the bullet and said well another disappointment. Then it turns out that the only announcement was that there is a mobile game, the bane of gamers everywhere. Mobile games have ruined pleanty of potentially very good PC games by porting over the same Toxic, anti consumer, time wasting, and intentionally unfun mechanics that plague mobile games.
When players look at the suite of mobile inspired mechanics we see time wasters, barely disguised skinner boxes, anti consumer economies 5 bucks is 600 gold tickets-- the thing you want is 360 golden tickets better buy more tickets so you dont waste any!, pay to win, RNG rewards and payouts, heavily modified progression curb to encourge more play early and exploit sunk cost fallacies out of players later. A whole HOST of mechanics which are anti consumer, exploitative and manipulative. The sad shit is YOU DONT NEED TO its diablo one of the most well sold games ever on pc. If you cannot make money on the Diablo products you need to restructure the development cycle and the project funding because if diablo cannot make enough profit, no well made pro consumer product can. If blizzard has resorted to extorting foreign markets with one of the most well known, respected and selling franchises this does not bode well for future products.
I hope I'm wrong, I hope there is a brilliant product in the works, which nails the tone, the gameplay, the customization, the RPG elements, the community and the art design and wrap it up in a cool or great story. I really do hope so. Diablo 2 was the first game I ever bought with my own money, I bought several copies and got my friends into it. I adored the art design the gameplay the dark atmosphere the growth and progression and customization. There is nothing I hope more for in gaming than to have an Amazing diablo 4. I just hope I dont need to watch another guy get pushed out on stage to sell us the husk of our franchise on a platform your users dont use, from a developer we dont trust, least above all without some kind of content that your core audience wants. I feel for Wyatt I was dying on stage too with you, Im sure there is a real cooperate struggle to get the Diablo Division traction and that constant day in day out battle ends with you on Stage peddling shit and all but being called out for it on stage, its painful enough to watch I cant imagine being up there, but the diablo fans deserve more.
Submitted November 03, 2018 at 12:48PM by derlangsamer https://ift.tt/2SL9iAL
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