For those knowledgeable on D3 lore

[Grimbold21]

So i played D2 and D2 LoD but, unlike with Warcraft / WoW, i didn't take the time to understand the lore. I know it's all about a war between Heaven and Hell, but only recently i just started reading the wiki.

Here's what is bugging me. Supposedly D3 takes place 20 years after the events that occurred in D2 (source:http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/05/01/di...clusive-video/) and from what i've seen of the cinematics and the game-play videos, people don't seem to believe Deckard Cain's theories on the end of days. This is most evident through Lea who doesn't seem to believe her uncle very much.

Question is, was there some sort of memory wipe? I take it that the events that ravaged Sanctuary in D2 would cause enough of an impact on people's mind in order to never forget it again.

So what's up with that?

[Rocketsurgeon]

I agree that after having the prime evils physically stomping about less than 200 years ago and the rash of demonic mayhem that spread around 20 years ago, you'd think more people would be aware of this stuff. I think it has more to do with most people being simple folk who don't know much that goes on beyond their own village and are accustomed to wild tales of what takes place beyond her walls. The short stories going up for each class, especially the barb one, make a hard push for people giving priority to their own growing problems. They've closed their doors and let the world go wild. They're isolated. They're often deliberately misled. And now they're under siege.

Cain is just one more cooc peddling a fantastic story about a world's end they probably won't live to see anyway. It still seems hard to imagine to me, but then I think about all the ignorant teens running around in my city with no concept of World War 2, or the battle for civil rights. Someone who lived through those sorts of things prattling on about their experience can be treated a lot like Deckard.

[BLSTMASTER]

I think what it comes down to is people aren't willing to accept that it will happen AGAIN.

They know what happened before, but with the defeat of the 3 brothers (meph, baal, diablo) they think the threat is over.

At least that's what I'm thinking.

They've been through a lot. They want it to be over.
Well as it turns out, unfortunately, Cain is right...

[Venziir]

I think what it comes down to is people aren't willing to accept that it will happen AGAIN.

They know what happened before, but with the defeat of the 3 brothers (meph, baal, diablo) they think the threat is over.

At least that's what I'm thinking.

They've been through a lot. They want it to be over.
Well as it turns out, unfortunately, Cain is right...

Pretty much this. The idea of the previous Demon Invasion wasn't the "real end of the world" is probably just too much. I mean, Sanctuary has to be a HORRIBLE place to live, I'd personally CLING to every second of peace there was, imagine if it's been peace for 20 years - you start to relax and think "Oh well, maybe everything will be all right afterall!" - only to have the typical bearded man in a robe cry havoc once more. You know deep-down that he is right, but you just cannot accept it.

[Sun-Ra]

Didn't the world get corrected and saved within a really small time frame in D2? The 'Dark wanderer' was no more than a few days ahead of your travels, and the horrors and demons all followed in his footsteps, you even ran into the dark wanderer aka diablo in act 3.

[Venziir]

Didn't the world get corrected and saved within a really small time frame in D2? The 'Dark wanderer' was no more than a few days ahead of your travels, and the horrors and demons all followed in his footsteps, you even ran into the dark wanderer aka diablo in act 3.

D2 ends with Tyrael shattering the Worldstone - which is not a good thing. It's better than having a corrupt Worldstone, but not really a good thing. So no, the world did not get corrected.

[Daos]

D2 ends with Tyrael shattering the Worldstone - which is not a good thing. It's better than having a corrupt Worldstone, but not really a good thing. So no, the world did not get corrected.

I believe what he's referring to is the idea that the troubles stemmed from the Dark Wanderer, and anywhere he went stuff went down. With that said, the idea was that the Dark Wanderer wasn't that far ahead of your character and that you cleaned up the mess as you followed along, so the nasty stuff didn't have a chance to stick around for a long period of time.

Whether that's true or not I can't say, but that's my interpretation of what Sun-Ra is referring to.

[Sun-Ra]

<snip>

Question is, was there some sort of memory wipe? I take it that the events that ravaged Sanctuary in D2 would cause enough of an impact on people's mind in order to never forget it again.

So what's up with that?

With my quote "Didn't the world get corrected and saved within a really small time frame in D2? The 'Dark wanderer' was no more than a few days ahead of your travels, and the horrors and demons all followed in his footsteps, you even ran into the dark wanderer aka diablo in act 3. "

I don't think there was enough horrors going down in that month or so of following diablo to keep people in fear for 20+ years, after all, it only seemed like a week to follow, fix, and correct all of the destruction that diablo brought with him

[Grimbold21]

My point is, through Lea, i get the feeling that it's not like nothing ever happened. I may be wrong but the events that transpired during D2 hit all of Sanctuary. Assuming they were alive, there would be at least 2 generations that lived to tell the tale.

It's like the common folk act like "you fool that's nothing more than a bed time story to scare little children"...it was 20 years ago!!! If millenia had passed i'd be willing to accept that, but seems like a hole in the lore there.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately I forgot where I read this, but I'm 100% sure that it was someplace official. I just can't give you a source atm.

Yet what I read was that even though we travelled through many places in Diablo II only a really small amount of people even noticed that something was going on. Those who know are few since everyone who was present was killed by demons and those who survived are just a few. So basically: Everything we did in Diablo II pretty much went on unrecognized by the rest of the world and everyone who wasn't involved. As someone already said: we cleaned up behind the dark wanderer who was the source of the demons and to the smallfolk these news are nothing more than the usual talk about monsters someone has seen. Plus they come from a very old man who preaches doom and claims to have met an archangel...seriously?would you believe cain without having proof?
So to sum it up: Events went by unnoticed by most people. Those who were effected are either dead/corrupted/mad or simply too few to make their story known. The Barbarians should know, but they blew up with their mountain and those that remain are broken and without purpose.

[Herecius]

The closest anybody ever actually saw that could have seemed like the end of the world in D2 was the Barbarians, when Harrogath was under siege by Ba'al's army... and, well, the Barbarians were very close to being totally wiped out, their tribes scattered to the winds. Harrogath is so far away from the rest of civilization that for most people, all that would have been heard were stories at best.

In Lut Gholein for example, the majority of the people would have known little more than the fact that there were undead coming from the catacombs below the city and that for a short time they faced an unnatural darkness, problems that were corrected by the hero of D2.

In Kurast, all that likely happened if you asked the common folk was that the council became corrupt and turned to doing evil things, sacrificing their citizens and other unwholesome acts, a sad tale for the outside world sure, but hardly the end of the world.

For those in Tristram, the end of the world was successfully averted already, because as far as they know, Diablo was slain, and the vast majority of their troubles came from Andarial, who was little more than his demoness lackey, run amok without her leader.

[Grimbold21]

Well you'd figure that the people from the Sisterhood were enough to spread the word.

[Deleted]

So i played D2 and D2 LoD but, unlike with Warcraft / WoW, i didn't take the time to understand the lore. I know it's all about a war between Heaven and Hell, but only recently i just started reading the wiki.

Here's what is bugging me. Supposedly D3 takes place 20 years after the events that occurred in D2 (source:http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/05/01/di...clusive-video/) and from what i've seen of the cinematics and the game-play videos, people don't seem to believe Deckard Cain's theories on the end of days. This is most evident through Lea who doesn't seem to believe her uncle very much.

Question is, was there some sort of memory wipe? I take it that the events that ravaged Sanctuary in D2 would cause enough of an impact on people's mind in order to never forget it again.

So what's up with that?

But not everyone had Cain to listen to.
Remember, a lot of what we did with our characters was never seen by anyone else.
And perhaps people simply thought it was over by now.