I think it's more that irritation by some nerds (including myself, whatever) that the Diablo II cutscenes were, while still dumb, genuinely interesting by being told from the perspective of some crazy PTSD loser forced into the whole mess rather than from the hero. There was background info, but like Starcraft, it was clear the writers were just having fun making shit up for the manual (MYSTERY NECROMANCER ISLAND).

Now we get an opening full of turgid backstory (no doubt cross referenced with the novels thrice because CONTINUITY) and gooey CGI featuring deckard cain because hey those guys love deckard right?? This ties in with the (probably very justified worry) that Diablo 3's story is going to be some boring fantasy epik as opposed to the stupid (but fun!) "now you are in a desert there was a mage war here okay fight in the harem giant maggot creature" plot of Diablo 2.


hugahgaghgh.

No. "Something" would be a character that you care about encountering a believable problem that will serve as the conflict for the plot.

What we have here is just badly written and internally inconsistent cliches masquerading as plot.

"Justice shall fall upon the world of men; The armies of light and shadow will clash across the fields of eternity."

So, justice falling upon mankind is a bad thing? And how does that relate to a clash of armies? And what's a field of eternity?

See? Nothing.

But I sure hope whiny little Leah can rescue Uncle No Name from that pit, let me tell you!

And now I've gone an analyzed a video game opening sequence. Fucking gamers. Why can't they put down the Mt. Dew and get some exercise?

Uncle No Name?! That's CLEARLY Deckard Cain, you bastard.

As someone else put it:

Diablo 2- Broken man in a mental asylum crying in his own piss and filth as he has nightmares about the time he saw an entire building of people butchered by denizens from hell.

Diablo 3- A young woman falls asleep while her uncle reads a book. Some comet we know nothing about falls and does nothing obvious of consequence.


The raven watching the fiery meteor fall is not to be confused with the raven in the Warcraft 3 intro watching a fiery meteor fall.


Blizzard writing is like fourth generation cliche regurgitation to the point where you can't even distinguish kernels of corn in the turd anymore.

oops, yeah what Corpus said. The original Starcraft kept it at a simple, effective space adventure plot tying together a game ordering dudes around.

Every...single...thing Blizzard has written since then is some thinly veiled COMMENTARY where the bad guys are really the good guys and vice versa because the good guys have been corrupted by the Gu'Krack'Dom'um chaos taint of the netherfel. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out Diablo just wanted to deliver puppies to children before the evil tainted allegory for the catholic church imprisoned him.


(the demon hunter preview is also a good example of empty cliche dialog. YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE!)

Corpus, that shit was pro.

I was never a big fan of cutscenes in video games. Metal Gear Solid 4 had fantastic gameplay, but I absolutely couldn't stand that game because of the incessant cutscenes.

Anything that frequently interrupts my playing of the game to force me to watch some expository bullshit, or tip tap through a quick time event, takes away from my experience of the game. I skipped through this video skipping 10 seconds at a time and watching 2, but when I play the game I'll just hit escape.

Diablo, gloriously, allowed me and my friends to enjoy countless hours of mindless, unending slaughter. I sincerely hope that Diablo 3 is no different.

The Command & Conquer series has always had the best cutscenes.

Blizzard has always been shitty at writing. Even the first starcraft had a really stupid plot, we were just too young to tell. You spend half the game collecting magic space crystals for the honorable space samurai.

They accidentally wrote a good plot in Warcraft 3 the Frozen Throne. I really don't think that could have been on purpose if you look at the rest of their crap.

I posit that you can't have a fun game with a good plot. The two things are mutually exclusive, and I think you should leave plots to movies and books.

Planescape Torment, Kotor, Grim Fandango are both fun and has good plots

Kotor didn't have a good plot, and Planescape Torment and Grim Fandango weren't really fun (but they had great plots). Like if you took the plots out those games would really be not fun.

This is getting into the area of opinions though.

That describes every cutscene Blizzard has produced since Diablo 2.

D'oh! I already used up my stars! May justice fall upon me on the Fields of Eternity!

Dohohohohoho!

Constant internet connection? For serious? Screw that, I'm with you matey.

I get that developers want compensation, and to do that they need to figure out a way to limit piracy, but when you bring your DRM to the point that a seventy dollar legit copy is far less user friendly than a free pirated one, you might as well just throw in the towel.

Boobs?

Chris Metzen can eat a dick.

Tryin' to stay true to tha (original Warcraft) game, homes!

Of course, back then the office staff provided the voices. A friend of mine called Blizzard when looking for a summer internship and the guy who answered the phone was the dude who voiced the dwarven demolition team. He was cool and even recited his lines.

I remember when I was 14 after Warcraft 1 I typed up a letter with sequel suggestions and mailed it to them. I actually got a non-form letter back from them in specific reply to the (god awful) stuff I wrote. That was pretty neat!

It sounds like Bill Roper was responsible for the old fun clowning around Blizzard. Then Kris Metzen climbed the ladder and turned everything to shit.

(though that doesn't explain why Hellgate London was such an abortion)

Judged in the light of the first two games, "stupendously mediocre" is a resounding "suck". And this is assuming the game will even get released. It's been, what? Four years since the first character renders and "gameplay teaser" trailers were released? And they've yet to offer even a tentative release date? Nevermind that Diablo 2 itself is older than my kid sister, four years is a heck of a long time; I have no idea what country they live in, but here in Americuh we call this sort of crap "vaporware".

But oooo, we've got a "closed beta" now. Whoopdeefriggin'doo. Blizzard can take their God of War health orbs and their real money micropayments and go rot in Hell. A big, fancy, CGI Hell with crap monsters and online DRM.

they're saying next month

They're always saying next month. And even if it comes out -tomorrow-, they've still missed their window by about seven or eight years.