So many things are wrong with D:I

TL;DR at the top: Diablo is not meant to be family-friendly, its fan base in centered around PC's and the selection of characters are a mess, perhaps even racist.

 

The art style

To many people, even in this Diablo sub, which is mostly concerned with D3 stuff, Diablo I and II really hit the nail in terms of the vibe and the eerieness. They were gothic, gory and quite frankly perfect nightmare fuel - and that was awesome! Call me an edgelord all you want, but man did I get disappointed when D3 came around with its very cartoony vibe. The gameplay felt really good, as you would expect from a Blizzard game, but the dark, gothic style was gone.

People have been suggesting, even begging, for this old style to return in whatever new Diablo project that would come up next time around. "We are listening" the Diablo team has said… And then they roll up with a mobile game, that not only looks just like D3 with its cartoony style, they even said in an interview during Blizzcon that this game is targeted towards "the whole family" and that this game will not be rated mature. This saddens me a lot, because after Deckard Cain dies in D3, I haven't really had much interest in learning what's going to happen next, and this story that could unfold between the end of LOD and the beginning of D3 could be really cool, but if it takes place in Candy Land featuring Mr. Unicorn and his elven helpers, then I'm out. It would feel wrong.

Imagine if the Lord of the Rings 2 movie was made as an anime instead, while 1 and 3 stayed the same. It would be SO wrong for the LotR fanbase, and while the story could be unchanged, even exciting, the new medium and different vibe would destroy it completely - much like this will also damage their ability to tell an interesting story about the aftermath of the destruction of the world stone.

 

Why on earth would you choose Mobile?

Because that's where the money is, obviously. The biggest issue by far with the Diablo franchise is, that once Blizzard makes a REALLY good game, their future income is hindered by it. Why? Because they get some amount of money for selling a copy of the game, and then nothing else happens afterwards. If you make a really good game like Diablo 2, which people have been playing for 15+ years, that's not really good for the bottom line. My suggestion, while being very controversial, is to please both the players and the shareholders, by having the next Diablo game on PC have a subscription model like WoW. This way the devs have an incentive to keep giving a shit about the game, and in turn the players get a great game and won't feel like they are left behind.

 

Character selection is a mess, and is Blizzard racist?

So we are told that the storyline in D:I is based on what happens after the destruction of the world stone, but before Tyrael becomes mortal. Among other things they mentioned the storyline of assassins, yet they were not in the trailer, nor were they a playable class. The druid and amazon are not there either, to name others. In fact, all the classes that were shown in the trailer were from D3:RoS - except the witch doctor, which was not there. Now, a pet class would be brilliant for a mobile game, in fact I think it would be the best possible class for such a medium, since the AI can do so much for you that you won't have to do with your chubby fingers. There is just one issue with the witch doctor class: the dark skin.

"But Pikseh," you say, "skin color has nothing to do with whether a character is a good fit for an ARPG or not". I agree. China does not. The level of racism in the western world pales in comparison to that of the Asian racism towards people with darker skin. While this is speculation, I feel like we have good reason to believe that this has affected their decisions on which characters to port over to D:I. So not only does it look like Blizzard is not interested in pleasing their original Diablo fanbase, it also looks like they are buying into the deep racism that is present in Asia and China in particular. This is embarrassing on their part - even though one of their major stockholders, Tencent, is a Chinese company, and have probably weighed in on this decision, I feel like Blizzard should have done a better job at not sinking to such low levels.

Bonus: Oh, remember how Tyrael was faceless before he became mortal? Yeah, that way they also get around the issue of having a major lore character being black.

 

D:I is, imo, a hot mess: the art style will limit their ability to tell an otherwise great story, the medium is a kick in the teeth of the original fanbase, and the characters are (almost) a complete copy of D3, while they try to tell a story that is closer to D2 when looking at a timeline.

Submitted November 08, 2018 at 11:44AM by Pikseh https://ift.tt/2D8FMzg