[D3] Diablo 3: A Game Reborn?

Did you ever have something you were really looking forward to but when you finally got it the thing was nowhere near what you expected; in fact, you got something substantially worse? A birthday where you looked forward to a shiny new gaming console but ended up with a block of wood? A promotion that turned out to be a move from the corner office to the basement? Whatever your experience that's a bit like how I felt about Diablo 3. Now, in all fairness it was not "trash" but at release it was not a very good game. Comparing it to its contemporaries it didn't do anything exciting and was somewhat unremarkable aside from the "Blizzard Entertainment" sticker. The franchise that had brought the ARPG genre into the sun had seemingly phoned-in its third installment.

[Diablo 3] Blizzard tries to unring the bell

Blizzard announced today that it intends to close the Diablo 3 auction house on March 18, 2014. They claim it is because the auction house undermines the basic premise of the game ("Kill stuff, get cool loot.") and I think they have the right of it; the auction house had the benefit of facilitating trades, but with Diablo's crazed scaling, the AH's generally poor interface, and nothing to really guide prices, it did more harm than good.

F__k that loser!

Funny that Diablo 3 might end up being remembered for three words, "Fuck that loser!", posted off the cuff on Facebook by Jay Wilson in what he thought was a private conversation. You would think a lead developer at a major gaming company would know that nothing is private anymore. In this post I aim to discuss why those three words mean far more, and how they represent a pivotal change at Blizzard. Given my previous discussions about professionalism in gaming, it seemed prudent to throw in my hat.

Getting tired of Diablo 3, or, "Trying to earn enough on the RMAH to buy Torchlight 2"

The horse is basically a pool of red goo at this point, but I find I personally have just hit "that" point when I have more or less stopped booting up Diablo 3 for lack of interest in playing. In the interest of full disclosure: My highest character is 52, I have played every class through Normal at least once, and I have yet to hit a "bump" at which point my keyboard nearly found itself embedded in the drywall. That all said, Diablo 3 is failing to interest me lately....I play it with friends at their request but I do not play it on my own or jump to suggest it. This got me thinking...why did the successor to one of the most beloved games in history only keep my attention (barely) for a matter of weeks and within a year will likely be forgotten.

A "Player" first storyline

I know I promised to do Part 2 of the Professionalism post, focusing on player-to-player interactions, but that post is requiring a lot more detail than expected but is coming! In the meantime, I was reading an article on Joystiq about the "5 Worst Raid Encounters in Cataclysm" and Chase brings up an issue that highlights many of the issues I have with Blizzard's story writing.

"Professionalism" in Gaming Part 1

Today I was reading on Reddit about the first person to kill Diablo in Diablo 3, on inferno difficulty, in hardcore mode. Now that is no small feat...but what overshadowed this, was the conduct of the individual that achieved this and the conduct of Blizzard towards this person over the last few weeks. Suffice to say the two have had a rocky relationship, and it sparked what will become a series of post on "professionalism" and how it might apply to gaming. There are two main topics I aim to address; the conduct of the company towards its players and they to it, and the conduct of one player to another. Today I'll start with company and player interactions.

Diablo 3 Musings Part 1 [Minor Spoilers]

It has been almost a week now and I feel as though I have enough of a handle on Diablo 3 to give a fair review of it thus far. Currently my highest level character is 33 and I have finished the game on Normal, played a little on Nightmare. I know Hell and Inferno are a whole new ballgame and I'll address those another time. As is my custom I am not looking to attach some 1-10 score to the game...I am going to point out my opinions of what works, what doesn't work, and what nags at me as I play.

Warning, there are some spoilers ahead but I will try to keep them minimal and vague.