Blizzard is not innovative

[Pussycat669]

Ever wondered why playing Diablo feels so much different than playing Diablo II?

It does? The only change that I recall was the inclusion of ammunition for bows because it sucked.

 

[Raapys]

I'd say Diablo 2 is actually a very different game from Diablo 1. In D1 it's all about the scary and excellent atmosphere, while in D2 it's about character development and, most importantly, item grinding.

Diablo 2 with Diablo 1's music & graphics would be epic win. Someone should make it a mod.

 

[Castanova]

I thought Diablo was about item grinding just as much as Diablo 2. It's just the grind ended earlier because the universe of items was way smaller or you could just "steal" copies of items (it's not stealing because nothing was actually taken from their inventory) from other people using one of those cheat programs. In some ways it was even more of a munchkin game considering your warrior character could simply gather spellbooks and have every spell maxed out in no time, creating the ubz0r all-around character.

King's Sword of Haste + Whale's something or other armor. Hell yeah!

 

[Damned Registrations]

The best melee weapons were actually fire enchanted. Gave you 100% hit rate.

But spell casters ruled anyways. 100% mana shield and you can carry how many instant full mana pots, with no limit to spell learning? Chain lightning will clear whole crowds easily if you line them up right because it actually just cast a bolt at each enemy, and still railed through them. Fireball or wall for the lightning immunes, holy bolt for the undead fucks and diablo. Or if you felt lazy, just a staff of apocalypse. Not like you had anything else to spend all that money on, why not spam insta kill the room spells and recharge for less pocket change than what just fell on the ground?

 

[Suchy]

But the guy is right! D3 is soooo last gen...

...btw Diablo is to be blamed for today's lack of R in RPGs. Painfully dumb clickfest and sold like fresh rolls...

Huh? Diablo basically just does what all the first RPGs did; give you a dungeon crawl. It was later that 'role-playing' was introduced.

Yeah, Ultima 7 was such a dungeon crawler

 

[Volourn]

L0L Ultima 7 was one of the first? It was fuckin' part 7 of a fuckin' series. It was nowhere near one of the first. HAHA!

 

[Suchy]

Heh I'm not saying it's the first, just stating that proper role-playing was introduced way before Diablo. Actually way before U7 too.

 

[Volourn]

But, that wans't what he was arguing. He's right. The vast majority of 'early' RPGs - including the very early Ultimas - and, hell even the 'God of RPGs' D&D were mainly about combat, and dungeon crawling.. just like Diablo.

Just look at the progress of the Ultimas through this pretty decent article: http://www.411mania.com/games/columns/7 ... Series.htm

I don't vouch for it's 100%a ccuracy sinc eit's been a long while since I actually played any Ultima game; but it shows that Ultima's reputation as 'deep role-playing, story telling, and writing' isn't soemthing that it came by naturally. It evolved.

 

[IlkuWarrior]

I don't vouch for it's 100%a ccuracy sinc eit's been a long while since I actually played any Ultima game; but it shows that Ultima's reputation as 'deep role-playing, story telling, and writing' isn't soemthing that it came by naturally. It evolved.

This made me wonder could the same thing happen to Diablo.

Already they've got Boyarski doing his story and world thing on 3 now...
Who knows, maybe by Diablo 7 we will have a hardcore RPG masterpiece :D

 

[Zakhal]

I think people just like to play action isometric games just like they want to play action 3d games. Modern 3D shooters have story yes but somtimes its so non-existant that you ignore it and play the game just for the action.

I played F.E.A.R and addons last spring and the "real" story lasted about 5min into the game and after that it was mostly somthing a 5-year old might write on a roll of toilet paper. But I had fun shooting through the series so it didnt really matter.

Hellgate was not a success but I would like to see more of 3d action rpgs. Perhaps somthing with system shock2's rpg system. It was quite fun collecting loot and advancing skills in that game while gunning down those mobs - I could play another game like that even with only a light story.

 

[Lurkar]

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6193315/p-2.html

Jon Miller: A new intellectual property. As much as I like discovering new loot, I find the hack-and-slash gameplay of Diablo too simple for my tastes. I'm excited for co-op play, I'm excited to see how Blizzard will improve upon Diablo II's formula, but I feel that the action RPG is evolving. Diablo was a seminal game, yes. But years later, action RPGs have a lot more diversity. For my money, I prefer Oblivion or the upcoming Fallout 3. I respect the Diablo franchise, but I was hoping that Blizzard would blow me away with something new it hasn't yet tried. Sadly, it didn't.

I actually see myself agreeing mostly with the chick. When people say "INNOVASHUN" what they typically mean is "stupid change done for the sake of making a stupid change." Blizzard doesn't see themselves as kings of video games or champions of innovation - they treat the name Blizzard like a product, so they make sure they ONLY release games that have their complete seal of approval as a damn good game. Years from now, Oblivion will be forgotten save as "that shitty sequel to it's better games," whereas Blizzard games will be remembered as "That fucking awesome game I spent two months straight playing."

 

[Volourn]

"Years from now, Oblivion will be forgotten save as "that shitty sequel to it's better games"

Doubtful.

Codex does NOT = THE ENTIRE GAMING COMMUNITY.


Dumbass.

 

[Alec McCabe]

To be fair, even World of Warcraft feels like Diablo 4 at times.

 

[Mareus]

"Years from now, Oblivion will be forgotten save as "that shitty sequel to it's better games"

Doubtful.

Codex does NOT = THE ENTIRE GAMING COMMUNITY.


Dumbass.

The entire internet is already filled with "Oblivion Sucks" threads. The only ones who defend Oblivion are console kids who never played real RPG before.

 

[Joe Krow]

The problem with Oblivion was mainly in the expectations. The more familiarity you had with the series, the closer you followed the PR, the more likely you were to be disappointed.

Morrowind was one of my favorite games so my expectations were a little distorted. I'm sure I am not alone. We all played it the first time expecting depth that wasn't there. We rushed through looking for that Aha! moment that never came.

In retrospect it was not really so bad. Oblivion is a traditional Might and Magic type rpg except that it's solo and you can't pause the combat. It also had a fatally broken level scaling system. On the upside, the combat was more visceral and the graphics were fantastic.

I doubt Oblivion will ever be considered a high point but, as an action rpg, i've played far worse.

 

[Volourn]

"The entire internet is already filled with "Oblivion Sucks" threads."

I guarantee you there are a hell of alot more threads praising Oblivion than those bashing it.Open your eyes, and stop being delusional.

 

[Damned Registrations]

"The entire internet is already filled with "Oblivion Sucks" threads."

I guarantee you there are a hell of alot more threads praising Oblivion than those bashing it.Open your eyes, and stop being delusional.

Those would be the console kids. They have computers too you know.

Oblivion really is fantastic if you've never played a lot of the great classics on PC. As shitty as all those quests are, at least they're optional and freely accessible, which is a huge advantage over linear storyline that sucks anyways. The problem is that any old DnD rpg on PC has better quests set up in the same way. We've known better, console kids haven't. What I don't get is why they've decided to dumb down the PC market to adapt to consoles instead of splitting it. Theres room for both types of games.

 

[Brother None]

In reality though, theres a lot of overlap between the words "refine" and "innovate".

That's just the thing, tho', there really is too much overlap. Portal is an innovative game, but all it does is combine some elements from shooters and puzzle games and refine them.

What if Diablo III adds a load of narrative and RPG elements, and by doing so sets off a cascade which brings out a whole new form of hack & slash storytelling, until we reach a weird point where some psycho-genius fuses branching storylines and c&c with hack 'n slash's grinding gameplay (somehow). Then who innovative? Psycho-genius for finishing what Blizzard started or Blizzard for starting it in the first place?

 

[AzraelCC]

There's a huge chance that the psycho-genius who'll finish what Blizzard started will be Blizzard themselves.

 

[Joe Krow]

Those would be the console kids. They have computers too you know.

Idiot.

 

[JarlFrank]

"Years from now, Oblivion will be forgotten save as "that shitty sequel to it's better games"

Doubtful.

Codex does NOT = THE ENTIRE GAMING COMMUNITY.


Dumbass.

Years from now Oblivion will still be forgotten by the whole gaming community because its only real selling point was graffix, and in 10 years we'll have way better graphics and everyone will say "LOL Oblivion who plays that anymore lol its an old piece of shit and it looks crappy".

 

[racofer]

"Years from now, Oblivion will be forgotten save as "that shitty sequel to it's better games"

Doubtful.

Codex does NOT = THE ENTIRE GAMING COMMUNITY.


Dumbass.

Years from now Oblivion will still be forgotten by the whole gaming community because its only real selling point was graffix, and in 10 years we'll have way better graphics and everyone will say "LOL Oblivion who plays that anymore lol its an old piece of shit and it looks crappy".

Do not forget the "casual gamers" posting on the ESF saying "Oblivion is a thing of the past, nobody should endure such complex games nowadays". You will be probably able to control the whole game with mouse only (2 buttons, 3 is too complex) and have a lot of "choices and consequences" throughout the game.

 

[Thor Kaufman]

Ashley is a girl's name ffs :/
Is that guy a postop?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

So. Bethesda, a company that has only dumbed down an RPG system that they've been using since 1994, has the balls to criticize Blizzard for not being innovative?

Not only that, but Bethesda continually waters down their games from the previous one they've done. Heck, Pete Hines even came forward in an interview over a year ago and said Bethesda will only make first person CRPGs since that's all they know how to do. So, they make the same style of game, and just do less each time. That seems to be their trademark.

At least Blizzard has proven they can do more than one type of perspective. Diablo was three quarter view, WoW was third person over the shoulder. Completely different perspectives with completely different interfaces. That already puts them ahead of the game in terms of Bethesda.

Not only that, but Blizzard seems to actually do MORE with each generation. Warcraft 2 had two races, two campaigns. Starcraft had three unique races, three campaigns. Warcraft 3 had four(I think) completely different races, and four campaigns in addition to the hero element they borrowed from Warlords Battlecry. Diablo had three character classes and one dungeon with four zones. Diablo 2 had five character classes, four acts each with gobs of dungeons, and a totally new character system.

So, they do more than one perspective and attempt to one up the previous game. Anyone that works for Bethesda has no room to criticize Blizzard for what they do.

Ashley needs to shut the fuck up and submit a resume to Blizzard if he's interested in innovation. At least Blizzard pushes their own envelope.

 

[Volourn]

L0L Adding a single race, and campaign is considered 'pushing the envelope' around these parts? LOL