First up, the big Diablo III announcement news. Kill Ten Rats' Ethic made the most classic announcement ever.
I love it. It's hilarious. It can be read in so many ways, and everyone can agree with it. Because it is true. In its own multipronged way.
I finally had some time to go check out the promotional website today. In true Blizzard style, it is beautifully polished with stupendous graphics (meaning both the website and the game.)
Detractors will argue that "Bleh, it's still the same game," and they're absolutely right. It looks true to the formula - isometric view, co-op play that caters to a god-mode complex by allowing one swing of one's sword/spell to massacre 5-8 trash mobs at a time, levels, feat trees and all.
And now I'm wondering if that's really such a bad or tragic thing.
Face it, with Blizzard's reputation and absolute class at polishing up a game until it is ridiculously shiny, who won't predict that this game will be lapped up like hotcakes by millions and millions of people?
For myself, I'm totally getting Diablo 3 this time around. Why?
Because after playing through Diablo 1 and 2, I am fully aware that I do enjoy the playstyle - hell, if Progress Quest can work havoc on my synapses, any other slightly more interactive level-up game will do.
And if it follows its formula true, Diablo 3 will cater to both solo play (an important criteria for me) and co-op play (which is its main draw.)
Therein lies one of the key tenets of the addictive power of the Diablo formula. People to play with. Blizzard's reputation will allow them to hit critical mass of players in short order, and this energy feeds off each other. Lowest common denominator and all.
Catering to a mid-range computer system only increases the possibility that there will be more people to play with. And I can even entertain the hope that there will be real life (ex-)colleagues I know who might be interested, even if there is no guarantee we'll still be working in the same location by the time Diablo 3 comes out.
I also like the art style. It has the characteristic Blizzard coloring (a little bit WoW-like) but because it's a dark fantastic world, there's a distinct lack of blocky cartoony characters and more realistic shapes. Nice eye candy to my subjective POV.
Sure, perhaps it's tragic the way that Hollywood-style sequels seem to be taking over the brilliant pioneer frontier spirit of the ancient internet and old classic PC games. But when you compare the money that indie works of any media are making, to the glitz and glamour of the tried and true, the wisdom of the crowds seem to suggest that they like the lowest common denominator recycled pap, thank you.
And maybe, just maybe, some of it isn't horrible lowest common denominator stuff, but somehow tapping into the wellspring of archetypes and saying something important about humanity's subconscious and common tastes.
After all, we're still playing chess and solitaire after how many thousands of years?
Or what the heck, why even argue about whether there's any inherent value in classic game genres... Does it really matter if rulesets change or remain the same... Aren't they just a good excuse to have fun together with people?
The only time this fails is if the people you're playing with all look up at the same time and collectively say, "this is boring, let's do something else." Just how this happens, I'm not sure though. Worth thinking about for another time.
Conclusion: As long as Blizzard doesn't face an unfortunate mass hysteria of unified boredom after a few days of gameplay, Diablo 3 will be healthy for a long time to come. Plenty of room for content expansions and class additions and so on.
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The other 'D' distraction is Guild War's impending Dragon Festival.
I'm a complete sucker for in-game events, and I can't quite help but notice that Rollerbeetle Racing is going to be back.
*twitch* *twitch*
Yay.
I guess I'll have to take some time off from Age of Conan next week. Enough to catch the Festival anyways.
Since the times given are all in PST, time for me to translate it to the SG version:
July 4 (Fri) - 3am: Shing Jea Boardwalk, Dragon Arena and Rollerbeetle Races open.
July 4 (Fri) 5 (Sat) 6 (Sun) 7 (Mon)
Mission 1: 7pm 3am, 11am
Mission 2: 11pm 7am, 3pm
Mission 3: 5pm, 11pm 5am, 11am
Mission 4: 7pm, 1am, 7am, 1pm
Mission 5: 4pm, 10pm 4am, 10am
Mission 6: 6pm, 12mid 6am, 12noon
Mission 7: 8pm, 2am 8am, 2pm
July 6 (Sun) - 5pm, 7pm, 9pm, 11pm & July 7 (Mon) - 1am: Finale event
I hope I didn't FUBAR the timing accidentally.
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