Bad villains [spoiler]

[Vasti]

The whole story was predictable and bad....thank god for gameplay and CGI.

possible spoilers below

You find a man who fell from the sky....now who could he be :S.....
You encounter Maghda, after her first sentence I knew she was gonna turn on us eventually

Another bad story moment: At the end when the angels go unconcious just b4 Diablo. My monk says that Tyrael losing his angelic powers might have been good, since now he is fully capable of helping me...what? wait? You want me to go alone? F YOU!!!! F U, u ugly bald guy.....Go wear that hood again and your wings, no one wants to see your bald ugly self, especially when you just let me face 7 evils combined into one! At leat my follower had a good excuse....
Also at the end....they just throw diablo away and with him the black soulstone? Seriously? An enemy that has returned multiple times and that is how you dispose of his remains? HELLO!!!! Do you need any more chance of him making a comeback soon with the black soulstone still intact?

Luckily this game is about gearing and being a challenge...not the story

[von Richthofen]

I think it was all 'according to plan.'

In-game, your character asks Tyrael about the Prime Evil.

Player:
What do you speak of when you say the Prime Evil?

Tyrael:
It is the sum total of all seven Evils housed within one body. There is an ancient legend, known only to a few, of the great Dragon, Tathamet, who was the original embodiment of evil.

The legend says that he was ripped apart during an epic battle with Anu, and that the Burning Hells are composed of his remains.

Player:
Who is Anu?

Tyrael:
Just as Tathamet was the ultimate evil, Anu was the ultimate good. It is said by some that the Crystal Arch is all that remains of this great warrior.

Player:
Then Diablo seeks to become the Dragon once again?

Tyrael:
In a manner of speaking, yes.

So, it would seem Diablo/the Evils goal is to become this dragon again. (shown in the CE art book as a hydra, nothing like what Diablo is in game)

Why would they purposefully want to be defeated? The Scroll of Fate said the angels would lose. The Prophecy of the End of Days includes the line 'as Fate lies shattered forever.' So either something will happen to Ithereal, or it refers to the Nephalem 'shattering' the destined fate that the angels would lose. What is the Prophecy about? Deckard Cain explains himself:

Deckard Cain:
The Prophecy of the End Days is contained within the Horadric tomes I inherited from my ancestor Jered Cain.

It is a warning to those who could interpret it regarding Hell's ultimate invasion of our world, written by many different people throughout history in many different lands.

So, either all these prophets throughout history failed to account for the Nephalem Hero single-handedly thwarting the Evils' plans, or, to quote Diablo from Wrath, 'The trap, at last, has sprung.'

[shadowkras]

I suck and wouldn't make it past the next room, which of course, I did.

Unless you completed act 3 without dying once, he was right.

So, either all these prophets throughout history failed to account for the Nephalem Hero single-handedly thwarting the Evils' plans, or, to quote Diablo from Wrath, 'The trap, at last, has sprung.'

You missed the dialogue where the archangel of fate states that he couldnt predict the hero's fate.

You find a man who fell from the sky....now who could he be :S.....

I hadnt watched the cinematics (except for the black soulstone's) prior to playing the game, and had only played the beta.
So i can affirm with a conviction:
I did not know that the meteor was Tyrael.

I completed the beta nearly 30 times believing the meteor was the black soulstone falling from god knows where.

If you guys watched/read spoilers, its your own damn fault that the story sounds spoiled.

[Drilnos]

Yeah D1 and D2 had no voiceovers and practically no story. The fact that it felt more engaging and real in 640x480 2D with no voiceovers is testament to how shitty the execution is in D3.

I didn't play D1, so I can't vouch for it, but D2 had voiceovers on just about everything. D1 employed a sizeable list of voice actors, but whether that was for cinematics alone I don't know.

[DeltrusDisc]

And don't forget about the AGE OF MEN (and angels lol) at the end!

[shadowkras]

I didn't play D1, so I can't vouch for it, but D2 had voiceovers on just about everything. D1 employed a sizeable list of voice actors, but whether that was for cinematics alone I don't know.

It had lots of voiceover, but they were like someone reading a book out loud, instead of a dialogue.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I listened to some of the voice acting for Diablo 1 recently. There were some good pieces here and there and some were a bit bad. The original voice of the Skeleton King was Chris Metzen (it's kind of funny in retrospect, really). His dialogue was pretty much as corny as in Diablo 3, but he had like what, two sentences/1 line? There really was not a lot to it, but the narrator for the books were a delight listening to. The narrator, as well as Deckard Cain, pretty much made the game engaging, to be honest.

The one thing that was the saving grace of the story line was the atmosphere they managed to create in that game. It was a once in a lifetime thing, since they did not manage to recapture it in Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction (the cinematics were better in the second game, though). It has a lot to do with the characters feeling a lot more powerful and less helpless when hunting down the the Prime Evils, which was definitely not the case in the first one. In Diablo 1 you were one Hero that survived by spamming potions and swinging your weapon/casting spells of the same power as a Diablo 3 Monk attacking without any spell attached to the mouse. You simply felt more helpless in that game, which in turn created a more terrifying experience. This is also why Amnesia is considered to be one of the scariest games of all time, since in that game you just feel like you are trying to survive.

[Leonard McCoy]

I listened to some of the voice acting for Diablo 1 recently.

Does anything in d3 ever manage to match the sheer awesome of

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

I thought not.

[Strah]

The enemies sound weak and stupid because you guys can RESPAWN. Play the game on hardcore and you will see things differently. Azmodan will actually make sense then.

This guy pretty much nailed it with just those sentences.
If i was a powerful demon facing some random nephalem i'd brag and treathen him all the time, the way Azmodan or Diablo did.

Put yourselves in the villain shoes, rather than in the shoes of the immortal,chosen one nephalem.

[Deleted]

I didn't play D1, so I can't vouch for it, but D2 had voiceovers on just about everything. D1 employed a sizeable list of voice actors, but whether that was for cinematics alone I don't know.

I guess I should have specified more, they did have voiceovers just didn't give the actual bosses any lines that I can remember until you actually ran into then. With a lot less words and a lot weaker graphics I felt more immersed into the game. I actually had that same feeling in D3 until reaching the blabbermouth butterfly, that's when things turned south for me. Of course that's subjective and just my personal experience.

It might also be that I played D1 and D2 in the dark and alone as opposed to with a friends list that spammed me with "x is online" every 2 min. So there is that too.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Does anything in d3 ever manage to match the sheer awesome of

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

I thought not.

Apparently you did not bother reading the entire post, since I adressed that part in it. <.<

[announced]

triyng to finish act 3 with azmodan not stfuing every 5 seconds when i reached a new area made me really want to turn off sound for a while.. plus hes distracting when his ugly face keeps popping up.. id rather they stick to diablo 2 .. making the horadric staff whole was cool.. and placing it in the orifice was awesome.. lightning shot around and the door broke open... and big bad duriel came out to eat everyone.

[Leonard McCoy]

Unless you completed act 3 without dying once, he was right.


You missed the dialogue where the archangel of fate states that he couldnt predict the hero's fate.


I hadnt watched the cinematics (except for the black soulstone's) prior to playing the game, and had only played the beta.
So i can affirm with a conviction:
I did not know that the meteor was Tyrael.

I completed the beta nearly 30 times believing the meteor was the black soulstone falling from god knows where.

If you guys watched/read spoilers, its your own damn fault that the story sounds spoiled.

I didn't read a single fucking thing about the story, didn't participate in the beta and my only experience was based on the previous two games. As soon as I saw the man at the bottom of the cathedral I figured he was Tyrael in a second. it's not very hard to put 2 and 2 togethe.

[florestan]

I generally agree with the OP - whether cliche villains are good or bad storytelling depends entirely on the intended audience and the style of the narrative, though.

Side characters like Krull, the Templar, Jondar or the Scoundrel are much less one-dimensional than Maghda, Belial, Asmodan, Diablo, ... so it clearly is not a question of capability (of Blizzard to write interesting characters) but a conscious design decision.

[Callax]

Completely agree, I would take the silence from D2 any day over Maghda or Beliel being corny as hell. Diablo and Azmodan also fit into this category. But there is one thing I would like to comment on with Azmodan.

He wants the Black Soulstone so he can become the Prime Evil right? And he knew Leah and her pals have the soulstone, so he tells them where he will strike so they will come to him, then he can kill them and take the soulstone and become the Prime Evil.

At least, that's the only reason I can think of him doing something as outrageously stupid as telling us where he will attack from.

[Deleted]

Also agree. Diablo shouldn't even speak. At most he should say some intimidating few words

[nightshark]

diablo 1 you learned of the lore through the townsfolk and books, same with diablo 2 but with cutscenes. the feeling of awesomeness when you let diablo out of his cage in diablo 1 far surpasses any feeling i got when i knew the battle was coming in d3. you'd spent the whole game HEARING about diablo and finally you'd found him and were taking him down (or be taken down)... in d3 you just constantly have to listen to the bosses saying "LOL I PWN AND UR NOOB"

[Joey Ray III]

ye it's like 80s cartoons villains. evil, awesome masterplan and badmouthing, topped only by their huge fucking failure at the end.

d3 is just one big cheese.

[Arrowspace]

I didn't mind the story too much, as i wasn't expecting anything amazing.

However, the delivery of the villains was really, really bad. I was sick of it by the time I hit A2 normal, and I was wondering if it was ever going to end by A3.

I would rather not have a villain shown to us at all than have them shoved down our throats every 30 seconds to remind us that they're evil.
In previous games, you didn't know their personality until they were attacking you, and that worked out fine.

[nightshark]

triyng to finish act 3 with azmodan not stfuing every 5 seconds when i reached a new area made me really want to turn off sound for a while.. plus hes distracting when his ugly face keeps popping up.. id rather they stick to diablo 2 .. making the horadric staff whole was cool.. and placing it in the orifice was awesome.. lightning shot around and the door broke open... and big bad duriel came out to eat everyone.

hearing "looking for baal?" before getting WTFraped when i went into duriel's chamber the first time will go down as a good memory of D2.