EPIC MAJESTIC UBER GRITTY DIABLO III OPENING CINEMATIC

[flushfire]

TRAILERS do not decide gameplay.

who said they did? you high or smth?

 

[shihonage]

Diablo 2: "To the East. Always into the East..."
Diablo 3: "UNCLE!!!!!!!"

Likes:

• Deckard Cain shown in cutscene.
• Vulnerability of his niece, a female, can be potentially used in interesting ways if she serves as the player's window into the world through eyes of a vulnerable character - playing the same role as the old guy in Diablo 2.
• High polygon count, skillful modeling of humans.

Dislikes:

• Shitty opening that has an anime feel.
• Generic crap about shit falling down from the sky (this was old in Warcraft 3 already).
• Generic crap about flames, holes in the ground, someone falling into the said hole.
• Why use a crappy new Deckard Cain voice for narration? What happened to the awesome narrator from Warcraft 3 teasers? Did he actually die of old age by now?
• The dramatic sequence of Herman Deckard Cain falling into the abyss was really, really underplayed.
  
  In the past 30 seconds I've thought up of two better versions of the sequence. Stereotypical as they are, they suck less than what transpired in the video.
  
  Version 1:
  
  In the beginning, niece jokingly downplays Cain's crazy apocalyptic rambling. "Why are you at this again, uncle? Here, I brought you some soup." And Cain says, "It is happening. You can feel it... you believe me, don't you?" Close-up of his eyes; he may be crazy.
  
  (fast-forward to action sequence)
  
  Deckard Cain yells "No! You don't understand! Without those scrolls, we're all dead!", and turns back for the manuscripts. The ground cracks and separates between them, as niece watches helplessly a darkness rise up behind Cain. He glances to the side, but dare not turns. With shaking hand, he flips open the spellbook, and starts chanting out a spell, when two glowing eyes appear high above him. Darkness envelops him and whisks him away. Niece reaches instinctively for him, falling to her knees, and sees, down from the pit, creatures climbing toward her. One of them drags her down. She yelps. Falling, she grabs onto a rock on the opposite side, reaches forward for Cain's staff, and whacks it in the noggin'...
  
  Eventually she makes it out alive, running away into the outdoor chaos.
  
  Then her somber voice is heard, "When the old man spoke of monsters and heroes, I thought it just a fairy tale to keep me from running wild". She's sitting in a cave, illuminated by torchlight. Ragged, torn clothes.
  
  Close-up of her face - unwashed, bruised.
  
  "I was wrong."
  
  (blows out torch, screen fades)
  
  Version 2: They keep running, with things crumbling around them in flames. Niece yells something like "Sure regret selling my horse right about now!" and Cain yells something like "YOU SOLD YOUR HORSE?!". And then the close-up on the niece as she yells something like "It was a tough week! I meant to tell you later!".
  
  There's no response, as we see that she's running alone. There's a clanking noise. She stops and slowly turns around. Cain's staff is lying on the ground. She slowly approaches it and sees marks left in the ground by the staff as he was being dragged backwards. She sprints back, handycam shaking over the shoulder view, heartbeat sounds, and she catches a glimpse of unspeakable evil, and something horrible seemingly consuming Cain. Cain reaches to her, and says "Incantationo Portalio Illuminate" and is whisked away. And then the unspeakable evil turns its eye toward the niece, its minions surrounding her. THere's no exit, except for the Town Portal that Cain summoned for her. She sprints toward it, and jumps in just in time...
  
  etc

 

[DraQ]

Diablo stories were NEVER GREAT.

Diablo's atmosphere, however was, as well as Diablo II's cineatics.

 

[nihil]

Fuckin' sucked, man.

I've been thinking about this. In D1, Diablo was the "lord of terror". Meaning - he was a spiritual, metaphysical force first and foremost. It didn't matter if you killed him as a physical entity, he'd always come back - because terror is an essential part of existence. Now in D2 and D3 he's just a big frog you kill over and over again with your powerful dick you grinded with your 13 years old friends

Secondly, the "forces of heaven" - I remember reading in the D1 manual that they were not any better than the forces of hell. The point was that the two sides wanted to win humanity over to help them win their war and rule over the world. The forces of hell would corrupt men, and heaven would enroll men into their religious orders. The angels were inhuman, cold, disciplined and ruthless. It was more about law vs chaos than good vs evil, if we want to use that shit from D&D. It never was about helping man, just using him.

And this war ultimately wasn't meant to be LoTR bullshit, all out fightan orcs agaisnt knights. It was metaphorical. The existence of man is where the war really happens. The story of the hero in D1 is symbolic of that.

Bullshit, man.

This bullshit again? Are we looking for literary value in Diablo now?

He's right, though. The tone is very different in Diablo 1. And no, I wouldn't say literary value, but atmosphere and an interesting theme to catch your interest.

 

[Menckenstein]

Why does Diablo look like a walking tribal tattoo instead of a demonic dinosaurman now? :/

 

[nihil]

demonic dinosaurman now

Off topic: That reminds me of the final boss of Deathsmiles, Demonic Imperator Tyrannosatan. Best boss name ever.

 

[Mrowak]

Look. Guys.

TRAILERS do not decide gameplay.

Trailers DO NOT decide gameplay.

Trailers do not decide GAMEPLAY.

Yeah, yeak, no ones dumb here - it's not Bethesda's boards or anything. You just forget that while trailers are not gameplay they to indicate the shift in design. If the trailer is derpy it's odds on, the game will be as well.

Sea's preview of the D3 is a better measure of D3 playability than the trailer. Diablo stories were NEVER GREAT. They were always good and enjoyable due to their connection with gameplay.

No, they were not great stories - big ass demon under mah village - kill it. But, at least in D1 it was atmospheric and made some lick of a sense.

If you loved Diablos for their story, you belong to the class of people who criticize the art direction of C-grade Porn movies.

Honestly, as much as I enjoyed gameplay in D1 - because it was tied so closly to (not best but atmospheric) story - D2 left me cold. I mean going thropugh endless plains and jungle and doing nothing but *click, click, click* is my definition of boring. PvP helps a lot here, but only that - it helps, but does not save the grace.

Also, to be frank, Diablo 2 was shit in this deparment - save for cinematics. Judging from D3 trailer there won't be any good cinematics in this part so I will skip it altogether. I cannot into derp, sorry.

 

[DraQ]

Diablo 2 makes a lot more sense.

It might, but the game does really lousy job conveying that.
And it's more than just a complete botch job when it comes to portraying the gameworld itself.

You wouldn't get the most real story at all from plying the game and not reading the manual.

Not really. There were all those tomes of exposition scattered around dungeons.

But that's not the point. The point is that what you are calling Atmospheric is not a result of the stories: Its the result of... LEVEL design and music and enemy types etc. Gameplay elements. Although Diablo has better music and horror, those elements are almost a bug than feature. At least they feel like that. Yes, I consider the perceived minimalism a bug for Diablo. But that could be just my gut.

Wat.

Wat.

You had to click click click in Diablo 1 as well. In any case Diablo 2 has the same basic structure of gameplay

Not exactly. In D2 you had a lot more trash mobs that posed little threat, you always had bail-out button handy in the form of sprint function, you didn't really have any incentive to use choke points, character planning and development was as much a part of both games as was clicking monsters dead, same with loot drops, and since the latter were much less generous and not farmable thanks to persistence in D1, the former was much less deterministic, especially when instead of skill trees you got spellbooks.

better map design

Lolno. Just no. For starters the maps in D1 had a lot more structure. Since in D2 action was mostly occuring outdoors, and outdoor maps were almost as exciting as empty parking lot, D2 loses by default.

better implementation of the loot system

Better loot system - yes, better implementation - fuckno.

In D1 uniques were less tiered, good drops were rare and you couldn't farm, which resulted in far more satisfying looting, even though the items themselves were really cool in D2.

D1 also had much cooler item graphics.

more fleshed out characters.

I would consider it more of a bug than feature, actually.


Charsi, for example might have been more fleshed out than Griswold, but who of those two you'd consider more memorable? Because I'm sure as fuck it's not going to be a wench in leather apron.

Sure there were several semi-memorable characters in D2 (Tyrael, that mage-smith in Kurast, that paranoid alchemist in Lut Golein), but overall the cast sort of blends together, while in D1 all the characters, including speaking monsters and bosses are unforgettable.

I blame the shift from very distinct gothic fantasy style and characters befitting such gameworld to derpy and bland mish-mash of generic fantasy elements.

 

[Shadenuat]

D1 also had much cooler item graphics.

I'd say they even, however, in D2 you actually can see where are voodoo masks and other curious peices of equipment come from lorewise, while you had't even got a clue what was a full set of japanese do maru doing in a dark, gothic and knightish setting of D1 which people seem to like a lot.

 

[waywardOne]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=ZtYfGIR4kZs

 

[hiver]

Ok assholes,

There is apparently a load of beta videos on tube.
This one is Monk gameplay. The guy commenting is a bit boring of course but thats not whats important anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNyBiqwv2x8

You can see the Monk saving Deckard Cain from that dungeon he fell into apparently in that video, as one thing.

Apart from that just looking at the visuals, atmosphere and gameplay it seems pretty fucking good and more Diablo I gritty and dark than anyone hoped for.

Too many fucking special effects for each god damn strike though.

 

[hiver]

A wizard play without idiotic comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KELGm0045hw

 

[Damned Registrations]

I found the Diablo 1 NPCs more memorable as well. Mostly because I was actually interested in the shit they were saying, which was usually something currently happening, like the poisoned well or the magic rock. It felt like they were talking about things they were genuinely interested in and trying to help you or ask for help.

In Diablo 2, most of the sidequests were complete random shit that the people you could talk to about it either shouldn't have known about or shouldn't have cared. Charsi's hammer and Blood Raven, fine. The Countess? The Den of Evil? The Black Tome? The Jade Bird? All that kind of shit was obscure lore crap that had no direct impact on anyone. Why the fuck is Meshif talking about Radament? They're not in some tiny village where everyone knows everyone else. Why would he give a fuck, or know anything about it? By comparison, it was much more interesting when you found out Ogden's sign got stolen and everyone was kind of worried and reacted in their own ways. Or the fact that the townsfolk were genuinely worried about you, since you weren't just another guy with a sword, whereas every fucking place in Diablo 2 has so many armed guards they give you fucking mercenaries for hire and clearly shouldn't need you at all. Fuck, I could rape the whole game without a PC if you just gave me a few dozen mercs. Hell, give me one from each act, it'd still be overkill. And I'm supposed to give a fuck when the guy in charge of a small army wants me to do a fetchquest for him? Fuck that.

Edit: Clip of all the different townsfolk talking to you when you ask them about the Halls of the Blind. Also, wtf is with Adria's voice in the journal for D3? They didn't even TRY to make it sound similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1bsTHzp ... re=related

 

[Neeshka]

I thought Starcraft 2 had better cinematics. Seems odd given both games are from the same company. Even the wrath of the lich king cinematic seemed more coherent.

The girl seems a bit too anime; and deckard cain looks small and pathetic. The guitar riff also felt un-diablo-ey. There is a distinct lack of flow in the cinematic too unfortunately.

However the hand drawn parchment segments were good and I liked the fact that the demons/monsters aren't the same typical bullshit found in every other RPG.

But true to blizzard tradition the cinematic has a lot of polish. It's just the opening cinematic and people are getting a bit carried away with hating blizzard based on it.

Either way D3 will probably still be one of the best action RPGs to come out in years; and a much more fun experience than Shitrim ever will be.

 

[Grimlorn]

Been pretty bored lately so I tried the D3 Beta. The game is pretty bad imo after trying a few classes.

All skills scale to weapon damage which is fine for abilities involving using those weapons. But if you create a wizard and equip a club with a higher DPS than your wand, your magic missle and other spells do more damage.

They got rid of mana. Now you have a pool of arcane power that regenerates very quickly. It's there so you can only use a certain amount of spells before being out of arcane power. There don't appear to be any potions to restore it so you have to run around until it fills back up or use magic that doesn't require arcane power. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. I don't like it, but it might end up working.

Smithing seems good. You can break down all the garbage you find for mats instead of having to return to town and sell it. Then you can use the mats to create eq that is better than what you find 99% of the time.

I don't like the controls. They still want you clicking thousands and thousands of times. It's like D2. Your mouse still controls movment. The LMB and RMB also have abilities attached to them and 1-4 are meant to be the other abilities you get. So you're kind of stuck spam clicking all the time. Maybe it's better when you have all 6 skills slots unlocked and more abilities to choose from. But at the beginning of the game you only have 2-3 abilities to use.

I think I'd prefer the LMB control movement and the skills be attached to the keyboard. The controls would probably be more fluid then. But I don't know, the game still seems to be focused around hitting the same buttons repeatedly as fast as you can. I'm wondering if this game would play better with a controller. Seems like it would.

If you liked all the mobs they threw at you in LOD then you will probably love this game. The beta is about 3 hours long if you go through everything and you end up killing about 1500 mobs in that time. So plenty of clicking.

The atmosphere seems a little better than in D2 but it's tough to tell with only a small part of the game. There's not a lot going on, but everything is dark and foggy. The music doesn't really help set the dark tone. It doesn't really seem to fit.

There are some huge server issues. These could be fixed at release, they might not be. I've noticed getting dropped from the servers and having to restart everything from the last checkpoint again losing any items I've gained. So it doesn't save your progress at all or as far as I can tell it doesn't unless you exit the game properly. This could be fixed though in the future so you don't lose stuff if you're dropped. I don't know.

I kind of wonder what they've been doing all these years. The game shouldn't have been that difficult to create since everything scales to weapon damage. This sounds like something you'd get from an indie game with a low budget not a company like Blizzard. They actually have the money to spend and supposedly spending a lot of time on this game, yet they did this. It just comes off as extremely lazy.

I'm just not impressed at all and don't see this game being very good. I could be wrong though and this game might be much better later on and in higher difficulties.

If you loved D2 and all the endless grinding and clicking then you will probably love this. It's more of the same with a few tweaks and some additions.

 

[shihonage]

I'm pretty sure that one "innovation" in D2 over D1 was that you could hold LMB while attacking the same monster.

Surely that made it into D3 as well.

 

[waywardOne]

All skills scale to weapon damage which is fine for abilities involving using those weapons. But if you create a wizard and equip a club with a higher DPS than your wand, your magic missle and other spells do more damage.

I can't imagine this lasting beyond the first patch if it even makes it to release. It does say that their pvp testing is shit, though.

Smithing seems good. You can break down all the garbage you find for mats instead of having to return to town and sell it. Then you can use the mats to create eq that is better than what you find 99% of the time.

This seems bad to me. Half of the series' attraction is acquiring phat lewt. Being able to craft better stuff pretty much negates the entire point of playing.

I kind of wonder what they've been doing all these years. The game shouldn't have been that difficult to create since everything scales to weapon damage. This sounds like something you'd get from an indie game with a low budget not a company like Blizzard. They actually have the money to spend and supposedly spending a lot of time on this game, yet they did this. It just comes off as extremely lazy.

I'm pretty sure this is their fallback build since the devs who made D1 so good have nothing to do with D3.

I've seen the videos and the first thing that sucked were the little combat messages floating over your head like "SLAUGHTER!!! 10 kills in a row!" and shit like that.

If people under 12 were forbidden to play games, D3 would send Blizzard to the trash bin.

 

[Grimlorn]

All skills scale to weapon damage which is fine for abilities involving using those weapons. But if you create a wizard and equip a club with a higher DPS than your wand, your magic missle and other spells do more damage.

I can't imagine this lasting beyond the first patch if it even makes it to release. It does say that their pvp testing is shit, though.

I suppose they could make it so Wizards only use wands so it makes some sense, but I don't think they are going to make the abilities and skills not scale to weapon damage. They would have to change the entire system.

Smithing seems good. You can break down all the garbage you find for mats instead of having to return to town and sell it. Then you can use the mats to create eq that is better than what you find 99% of the time.

This seems bad to me. Half of the series' attraction is acquiring phat lewt. Being able to craft better stuff pretty much negates the entire point of playing.

I'm guessing end game loot might have to be grinded in Inferno level while you can craft eq you can actually use in the earlier difficulties. It may change later in the game and the gear you craft may not be as good. There are also still rares and perhaps set eq.
The reason I like it though is because it puts less emphasis on the RMAH for eq and gives you gear you can actually use opposed to a bunch of crap dropping and never getting anything good like in earlier games or having to revisit the merchants a hundred times.

I've seen the videos and the first thing that sucked were the little combat messages floating over your head like "SLAUGHTER!!! 10 kills in a row!" and shit like that.

If people under 12 were forbidden to play games, D3 would send Blizzard to the trash bin.

Yeah, you get those messages and bonus exp for killing several mobs in a row without stopping or by killing several in one strike. To be honest, I just think this style of game is behind the times. There are plenty of better action games out there and it will likely do well just on it's brand name. Because if you took this exact same game style and called it something else it, no one would buy it.

I played these games back when I was a teen and even then I couldn't finish a Nightmare playthrough because of all the boring clicking and using the same ability over and over. I thought after seeing the first gameplay videos a few years ago that this might be different and better because it looked like you could combo different abilities and wouldn't be so limited but it doesn't look that way.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So, is Hell not a difficulty any more? That seems kinda derp considering the only reason not to continue using it is protesting religifags/censorship. And since hell is already a place in the game (where you GO TO) that would be pretty retarded.

 

[Grimlorn]

So, is Hell not a difficulty any more? That seems kinda derp considering the only reason not to continue using it is protesting religifags/censorship. And since hell is already a place in the game (where you GO TO) that would be pretty retarded.

No there is still hell. The difficulties go normal, nightmare, hell, then inferno. Inferno requires you be max lvl which I think is 60 and every monster in Inferno is a higher lvl than you. Sounds cool but you have to play through the game probably at least 3 times to get there.

 

[sea]

I can't imagine this lasting beyond the first patch if it even makes it to release. It does say that their pvp testing is shit, though.

I agree, weapon damage for spells is dumb. It's fine for physical abilities. The problem is that attributes can no longer be customized and so you have to have some other way for the player to influence damage other than just straight scaling per level. Certain equipment is locked out due to level or class, but I'm not really sure how they'll fix it. It totally makes sense, say, that a better wand will give more effective spells, but if you can equip a greatsword and get better effects, that's dumb. My guess it's either a bug or unintended and will be patched out.

IThis seems bad to me. Half of the series' attraction is acquiring phat lewt. Being able to craft better stuff pretty much negates the entire point of playing.

It gives a use for trash loot and awards persistence and exploration Crafted items are better than standard ones but only within that tier, so magical crafted items are better than found magical items, but not as good as rares, rare crafted are better than standard rare, etc. The costs associated with crafting also make it a pretty big trade-off for the better stuff, and unless you farm bosses, you'll find yourself fairly limited in how many items you can create. I also have yet to see a single unique item after playing through five times, so chances are they'll be in a class of their own.

I've seen the videos and the first thing that sucked were the little combat messages floating over your head like "SLAUGHTER!!! 10 kills in a row!" and shit like that.

It's one of the ways they encourage you to play at a quick pace. You get bonus XP for killing quickly and frequently, for making use of traps in dungeons, for destroying objects, and so on. It's extra incentive to get into the fray, just like Health Globes and the removal of Town Portals.

I played these games back when I was a teen and even then I couldn't finish a Nightmare playthrough because of all the boring clicking and using the same ability over and over. I thought after seeing the first gameplay videos a few years ago that this might be different and better because it looked like you could combo different abilities and wouldn't be so limited but it doesn't look that way.

Well, it's Diablo. Bitching about lots of clicking, grinding and repetition is like bitching about having to drive a car in a racing game. It's expected to come with the package and that's exactly what people like about it.

Also: you think people don't like boring, monotonous stuff made by developers other than Blizzard? Just look at any other MMO, or crap like MapleStory. Blizzard owns the market because they're a goddamn titan, and because they have name recognition, but it's not like these games would be unpopular otherwise.

Personally, I like a game like Diablo now and then, but only now and then. The core mechanics are rarely enough to keep me occupied for too long. Diablo III looks like it will have enough narrative hooks, random encounters and interesting environments to keep me going through it a few times (it looks fucking great, too), but I just can't play a game like this for extended periods. I do think it's wasted potential that Blizzard don't take it to the "next level" by making some more drastic changes, but they have a bunch of nostalgia-hungry fans to appeal to so it's hard to blame them for keeping the status quo. At least most of the changes they've made outside of the core mechanics (jury's still out there) are for the better.

 

[Grimlorn]

I played these games back when I was a teen and even then I couldn't finish a Nightmare playthrough because of all the boring clicking and using the same ability over and over. I thought after seeing the first gameplay videos a few years ago that this might be different and better because it looked like you could combo different abilities and wouldn't be so limited but it doesn't look that way.

Well, it's Diablo. Bitching about lots of clicking, grinding and repetition is like bitching about having to drive a car in a racing game. It's expected to come with the package and that's exactly what people like about it.

That's BS and you know it. Just because D2 was successful with it over 10 years ago doesn't mean it will be successful today. D1 didn't require spamming attack buttons killing thousands of monsters in a few hours. Even Skyrim where you're just using the mouse to attack (somewhat like D3) wasn't as boring because you weren't sitting there killing over a thousand monsters in a 3 hour period.

If another Diablo clone were created today the same way D3 was created, it wouldn't sell millions of copies because there are better action games out there. Diablo has an established fan base and will do well based on that. Not on actually being a good action game.

Also: you think people don't like boring, monotonous stuff made by developers other than Blizzard? Just look at any other MMO, or crap like MapleStory. Blizzard owns the market because they're a goddamn titan, and because they have name recognition, but it's not like these games would be unpopular otherwise.

No. I know there are people who like casual, boring games. That's why I made a point to say that I never played through Nightmare on D2 because I know there are probably people here that have played through Hell with several characters and they will probably love D3, which is fine I guess. I'm just disappointed with quite a few of the changes and I thought it would play differently, so I vented.

 

[poocolator]

Save niece from Diablo.
Rape saved niece.
Kill raped niece.
Rape killed niece.
Consume niece's corpse.
Find Deckard Cain, crouch over Deckard Cain and shit feces containing niece onto face.

This is what I thought of after watching that trailer.

 

[St. Toxic]

In all seriousness, what happened to subtlety? Have storytellers forgotten how effectively engaging it is to actually keep shit back from the player? To merely imply that great evil is stirring, ala the Diablo 1/2 intros, rather than shoving ultimate evil in your face until it's simply another overused prop that nobody gives a shit about.

 

[Mrowak]

In all seriousness, what happened to subtlety? Have storytellers forgotten how effectively engaging it is to actually keep shit back from the player? To merely imply that great evil is stirring, ala the Diablo 1/2 intros, rather than shoving ultimate evil in your face until it's simply another overused prop that nobody gives a shit about.

You don't get it. If they did that it wouldn't be EPIC!!11111. It's all about EPIC!!!1111 these days man. If I ain't no chew through mega lord boss from hell, it ain't EPIC!!111 enough.

Homer rolls in his grave...