Metzen and the tone shift of D3.

[Wildmoon]

I lost faith in people complaining about D3's story when they whine about the story not being dark enough then immediately follow it up with Deckard Cain not having some huge, extravagant funeral as befitting his status in the lore.

I think people kinda miss the point. It's not about some characters dying or Tyrael losing his wings. To me those are not a big deal. It's the tone shift mostly.

[Allatar]

What are you talking about?

Leah. Titty-Diablo is Leah after she transforms.

[Beefhammer]

I mean, expectations should match the type of game. I don’t expect deep characterizing in Die Hard 6 as much as I don’t expect packed action a la John Wick in a romance movie.

Of course an interesting development is a nice plus, but for me it’s just a plus in an ARPG.

I get it. For me all games are about gameplay first any quality or interesting store is a bonus.

[schwank05]

Everything about the story felt like a shitty wow expansion, not a Diablo game.

As for main points:
An angel somehow turning into a human by himself.
Lord of lies being a terrible liar.
Steve Blum, instead of explaining to us what is happening, starts channeling Palpatine, which our character takes as a cue for a bossfight.
Greatest general of hells armies being a failure that only knows how to zerg rush and tell you everything he is about to do in advance.
Titty-Diablo.
Titty-Diablo mocking you for foiling his plans until he himself is killed.
The angel-turned human returning to the angel council... as a human... somehow.

And worst of all:

Shitty voiceacting.

If you really cared about the story which I don't think most really did we just wanted to kill hoards of demons and get loot. Which the we did get, Ill even admit I liked the RMAH, I made a few bucks and had some fun.

[Verdugo]

If you really cared about the story which I don't think most really did we just wanted to kill hoards of demons and get loot. Which the we did get, Ill even admit I liked the RMAH, I made a few bucks and had some fun.

I think you might be in wrong thread.

[AeneasBK]

Lol at the agnryboi poster here raging about his stupid interpretations of the given story.

[Quaade]

It's the same with Star Wars. When Lucas oversaw the original trilogy he was younger and angrier. With prequel trilogy, he had grown older and mellowed out. It can be seen in the way people tell stories.

I GM a lot and my style were a lot more openly edgy than it's today.

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Leah. Titty-Diablo is Leah after she transforms.

I think Tiablo would be a better portmanteau. Titty-Diablo just reeds of intellectual bankruptcy.

[Vocah]

Issue with the D3's story and its game implementation was that it was a series of "You're nothing, you can't destroy me" and we proceed to do it. It's a repetition of in your face, obvious tells and the things still happen. I mean, was there ever any doubt Zoltun Kulle was a shady character? Was there ever doubt who the boy emperor was?

The most ridiculous is the last act with Diablo constantly telling us we will fail, but not really, and also how all the Prime and lesser evils combined were still weaker than the Nephalem.

It was, personally, a downgrade from D2 where, if I recall correctly, there's no visible connection or exposition between whatever the evils are and the player. There isn't much acknowledgement of our existence.

I still don't understand why the Player Character betrayed him. If I remember it right, we go to were the Black Soulstone is, Zoltun Kulle goes something like "Wait, something isn't right! It's not supposed to do this!" and suddenly we fight him.

To me it basically said that we ignore that it did something not expected and that we don't even know if he will honor the deal to give it to us, but because he didn't give it to us NOW we kill him because he already fulfilled his purpose.

[Florena]

I miss Metzen so much, even if he was a bit stereotypical on his storytelling (By his own admission). It's so much better than what we have now I think, which seems to be this weird "Let's just do fanservice" council of writers on all their games. Yes Metzen didn't write everything but all the major story beats of all of Blizzard's big 3 games were from him, which 100% drove the tone of all 3 of those franchises.

Also was the Diablo 3 story really that hated? I had always thought the hatred was for the gameplay stuff, like the RMAH and how the game was clearly designed around spending actual money on the RMAH.

The only story beat I actively disliked was Cain's death at the hands of...whatever that butterfly demon woman's name was. I was totally fine with him dying, and I actually went into the game expecting he would die at some point, but not by a miniboss of a single act who ultimately did not matter to the story overall.

I really liked Leah and her fate, it felt really fitting for Diablo. In the interview he says people complained the game wasn't as fatalistic as the first two, but I donno man seeing Leah just realize she's fucked and having to watch it on screen and not able to save her, that felt really Diablo to me. Also the entire ending of the original D3 was as dark as the ending of D2 imo. Yes Diablo was defeated but Heaven was totally wrecked, Leah and Cain were dead, Malthael was missing, and Imperius very nearly became a villain in his own right.

My only real issue with D3's story was actually during the gameplay. Turning the bad guys in the second half of the game into talking heads constantly taunting you etc did a lot of damage to any sense of mystery for me. Diablo in D2 was a lot more menacing when you only saw him in a couple cutscenes and his boss fight. If he'd been constantly shouting at you throughout act IV of D2 it would have been pretty meh I think when you actually confront him.

The actual storybeats I think were fine. Just scrap the idea of villains as talking heads in D4 please Blizzard.

[Ratyrel]

My only real issue with D3's story was actually during the gameplay. Turning the bad guys in the second half of the game into talking heads constantly taunting you etc did a lot of damage to any sense of mystery for me. Diablo in D2 was a lot more menacing when you only saw him in a couple cutscenes and his boss fight. If he'd been constantly shouting at you throughout act IV of D2 it would have been pretty meh I think when you actually confront him.

The actual storybeats I think were fine. Just scrap the idea of villains as talking heads in D4 please Blizzard.

I agree. I think the story telling would have benefitted from a more indirect, showing-only-if-you-look approach, similar to Diablo 1 and Dark Souls. This is there in D3 in the form of the lore books and events, some of which are very difficult to find, but I feel it would have been more in keeping with the tone if this had been applied also to more major aspects of plot development.

[Verdugo]

I still don't understand why the Player Character betrayed him. If I remember it right, we go to were the Black Soulstone is, Zoltun Kulle goes something like "Wait, something isn't right! It's not supposed to do this!" and suddenly we fight him.

He then went "join me, and we will become more powerful than yadda yadda yadda" then we kill him. Still out of the blue.

[Asrialol]

I found D3 to be quite good. D1 and D2 were unplayable for me - complete garbage. People are different I guess.

[cparle87]

I think people kinda miss the point. It's not about some characters dying or Tyrael losing his wings. To me those are not a big deal. It's the tone shift mostly.

Tone? Horrible monsters slaughtering people with near impunity. Every good thing that happens marred by five bad things. Every victory leading to a you're too late or you've just helped my plan moment. Seems pretty straightforward across the entire series.

[Beefhammer]

I'm not sure why people are so hung up on Diablo being so gruesome and dark

The Solaris Temple in Path Of Exile literally has body horror mutants, piles of corpses and rivers of blood, but it didn't really make the world more interesting to me

Just immature people's take what mature really is is all.

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I found D3 to be quite good. D1 and D2 were unplayable for me - complete garbage. People are different I guess.

Wouldn't say complete garbage unless you played them recently for the first time after playing D3. Both 1 and 2 were fantastic games in their day. Neither has held up IMO.

[qwerty123456]

The universe needs consistency. Angels are angels. Demons are demons. Hybrid of the two is human. Those are set rules.
So how the fuck does an angel, and not any angel, but one of the first, turn into a human by just ripping off his shoulderplates.

As for the rest, you can "subjectively" like a garbage, doesnt mean it isnt garbage.



You can see that Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and WoW: Cataclysm were written at around the same time of Metzens career. All 3 started the trend of vapid stories with the "epic for the sake of epic" label.

He didn't rip off his shoulderplates he ripped off his wings and in the majority of stories about angels losing their wings makes them mortal.

[Fallen of Lordaeron]

Ok. And?
I learned today that poinsettas don't actually kill cats and dogs.

That's exactly what they want you to think!
You let those damn flowers into your house, and they strike when you least expect it.

They actually still can make them sick though, so it's not recommended to have them around pets.

[Fallen of Lordaeron]

Blizzard story telling seems to just go from event to event and everything in between they don't care about. Same with WoW really, they write events and then try to connect the dots but fail miserably.

I think that's exemplified in Legion zone design as well. Look at Azsuna for example, every foot of that zone is used as a questing area with no real "breathing room." Luckily BfA zone design fixed that issue a bit, but in Legion is definitely felt like going from quest hub to quest hub with nothing in between them.

[Kokolums]

Metzen wasn't the key to Blizzard's success.

[Yoshingo]

Tone? Horrible monsters slaughtering people with near impunity. Every good thing that happens marred by five bad things. Every victory leading to a you're too late or you've just helped my plan moment. Seems pretty straightforward across the entire series.

Yeah I really don't see how people could say the tone was brighter. I mean the end of the second act starts as a tremendous victory because you've killed Belial and Azmodan, only to realize that Leah is lost and Diablo has become more powerful than ever. And then act 3 starts with him absolutely wrecking Heaven, the only other faction that seemed able to contest the full might of the Hells.

[Varodoc]

Diablo 3 still had some dark moments which rival the previous games. Leah's death is the first one that comes to mind, what happened to her was so tragic and undeserved. Also the fate of Westmarch is just chilling. I mean, an entire medieval metropolis basically zombified because of the actions of a mad angel, that's like the Culling of Stratholme on steroids. The first two arcs are tame but the rest of the story had some moments which still sadden me to this day.