On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 10:22:30 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<
justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 10:48:08?AM UTC-7, Trimble B wrote:
DIABLO III - Buyers Loathe It ...it really is meeting with a a lot of
disapproval.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/diablo-iii/user-reviews
The heavy online commitment /component & need to buy 'stuff'
(is it single game player at all ?)
will almost certainly will drive this Bunny from a purchase.
Just bumping for the questions on why people didn't like D3.
link is still good.
When looking at reviews, you need to remember that there are really
two "Diablo III"s... the one we got on release, and the one that's
available now.
The game on release was... problematic. It didn't help that this
iteration marked a significant change to the franchise's art style. A
lot of fans of the original found the new style too colorful and gaudy
and - in their ever-so delicate ways - made their distaste known.
That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, but Blizzard didn't help
themselves with how they responded to the criticism (essentially, a
"fuck you, this is how it's gonna be" to the long-time fans). That
sort of set the tone for the whole release. "Diablo III", Blizzard
insisted, was going to be different and they made it clear they didn't
really care about any concerns people raised, whether it was about the
art style or the real-world auction house.
Which was problem #2 with the game. The real-money auction house was,
perhaps, created from a desire to control some of the cheating and
grinding that was rampant in "Diablo II", but it wasn't well
implemented, gave an impression of profiteering on Blizzard's part,
and demanded an always-on connection for the game... even if you just
wanted to play the single-player campaign. And, again, Blizzard did
themselves no favors with their response to any critiques of the
feature: like it or lump it, they said; they weren't going to change.
Fortunately, Blizzard eventually did lighten up on the subject and -
after the console releases shipped without the controversial auction
house - a patch removed it from the PC version. This won back a lot of
favor from fans that Blizzard had earlier disregarded. That, combined
with numerous game mechanic patches and with the passage of time have significantly transformed the game to the point that many can't
understand why people may have been upset. Judged simply by the game
itself, as it stands today, Diablo 3 is a significantly better
experience for the player.
Nonetheless, while the scars have healed somewhat, the Diablo
franchise no longer has quite the cachet it once did, and I think
that's largely due to D3's release shenanigans. It's hard to remember
how much "Diablo" once dominated the loot-based ARPG genre. Games like "Torchlight" and "Titan Quest" were developed - and flourished -
because so many true fans got pissed off at Blizzard and supported the alternatives instead.
Even today, Activision/Blizzard can't shake the stain of how poorly
they responded to customers (it doesn't help that they've
foot-in-mouthed themselves repeatedly on innumerable other occasions
on other topics over the last decade too). But it's earned the
corporation a reputation of being more profit-oriented than interested
in creating a game that customers want.
Myself, I was never the biggest fan of the Diablo franchise, so - when
Blizzard announced "Diablo 3" was going to be online-only - it was
easy for me to give up on the game; I wasn't really interested in
playing it anyway. Similarly, I've got nothing invested in "Diablo 4",
so I'll pass on playing that one too. Activision's reputation - which
started to sour with the whole Diablo 3 debacle, hasn't sweetened any
since 2011, and the game hasn't become anymore appealing to me. So
it's an easy decision to avoid their newest game.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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