It's very glossy, highly-polished shit, to be sure, all glossy and kinda pretty from a sufficient distance, but if you get close enough to smell what it's made of... well, there's just no mistaking what it's made of:
- of D3's four primary attributes, two are mechanically identical to each other, a third is mechanically equivalent to the first two, and the fourth (Vit) goes up at the same rate for all classes as they level, meaning that it may as well not exist, either;
- of D3's many, many skills, most are so boring and useless as to see no use at all; the only ones that get used are those with 6-piece sets, or set-compatible legendary items, to support them;
- breaking the game's attribute system actually broke its combat mechanics, creating a "hit box" problem which gets worse as characters' move speed increases, which is (at least partly) why characters' move speed bonus is capped at 25%;
- breaking D3's attribute system broke its itemization, too, resulting in a game where every character, regardless of class, uses exactly the same gear, where the gear is mostly boring and interchangeable, and where melee characters need 30% of extra damage reduction to be viable;
- gutting the game's RPG systems and putting all of its gameplay into the loot system resulted in a game where short-circuiting the loot hunt is game-killing, according to Blizzard themselves, and yet also essential, which is why they added Kanai's Cube (and its multiple legendary-yielding formulae), and eventually Haedrig's Gift (which just gifts you with a 6-piece set if you play the latest season);
- leveling a new character is so trivialized that it's possible to reach the level cap in just 33 seconds;
- the story is so lacklustre that Reaper of Souls added an entirely separate game mode in which players don't have to interact with the story at all;
- even in that mode, bounties are so boring that people only run them when they need the crafting mats that you can't get any other way, and rifts are only run to obtain greater rift keystones, resulting in an expansion that actually contracted the experience, leaving all of the remaining active player base doing one thing, and only one thing, which is running grifts over and over.
Most of these issues have been issues since the game launched in May of 2012; four-plus years of additional development have added polish and gloss, but haven't actually fixed the game, since the developers have been either unable or unwilling to admit that the game's problems all have their roots in these core design flaws. D3 is a game which feels very fluid, thanks to some stellar character animation work, and which is neurologically stimulating, thanks to glossy visuals full of flashing lights, bright colours, frantic motion, and constant chiming sounds, but it's pretty and stimulating in exactly the same way slot machines are stimulating; and, like a slot machine, it's designed to be addictive without being engaging at all.
So, if you were wondering why Blizzard is leaked the concept art this week for a new Necromancer class that could be coming to D3... well, now you know why.
That's why the Reaper of Souls expansion sold so poorly that Blizzard won't talk about its sales numbers, and redefined the term "Reaper of Souls" at the end of RoS's release quarter to mean all basic game licenses going back to the base game's launch in May of 2012. It's why Blizzard quietly stopped telling Diablo II fans to take off their "rose-tinted glasses," and started talking up their love of the Diablo legacy at BlizzCon 2015. It's why they started nakedly pandering to Diablo II fans with features like Kanai's Cube, which was literally pitched as being reminiscent of the older game:
Those who played Diablo II might remember the Horadric Cube, a unique device which allowed you to combine items. Useful as it was, it was easily surpassed in power by the item from which it originated, Kanai’s Cube. In Patch 2.3.0, players will be able to discover this powerful ancient relic and utilize its incredible potential, including the ability to break down Legendary items and equip their special effects as passive skills (which are separate from your other passive skills), convert crafting materials from one type to another, and so much more.Diablo III is a highly polished turd, a glossy, smelly mess which sells millions of units whenever launched in a new market, but which totally fails to retain those players. Blizzard desperately needs to bring those older Diablo fans back into the fold, but can't just admit that their latest Diablo game is crap, or apologize to Diablo II fans for having spent years talking smack to and about them.
So, if you were wondering why Blizzard is leaked the concept art this week for a new Necromancer class that could be coming to D3... well, now you know why.
Of all the recent BlizzCon Diablo rumours, this is the one that I believe, simply because it's exactly the kind of desperate, pandering bullshit that Blizzard have been doing for years, trying to convince Diablo II fans to come back to Diablo III (and buy its expansion pack) in spite of the fact that D3 is simply an inferior game, in spite of its gloss and polish.
D3's problem is not that it lacks a Necromancer class; its issues are all the result of terrible design decisions which continue to cripple the game from its core, and a terrible story that even Blizzard themselves would rather you not think about anymore. I know, there are some active D3 players who have been basically begging Blizzard for years to add a Necromancer class to the game, and I'm sure they'll get some enjoyment from playing with it, but even Necromancers can't raise D3 from the dead. And when Blizzard eventually add the Druid class (which you'd better believe is next on the list), it will not shape-shift D3 from a shit game into a good one.
So, it's the wee hours before BlizzCon, but I'm not excited. Why would I be? More than anything else, the one and only thing that I want from Blizzard this BlizzCon is closure... which I'm not going to get, because they're still trying to sell their expansion-which-contracts-the-game-experience pack to me.
D2 fans are not going to get an apology from Blizzard for having fucked up Diablo so badly, or for years of belittling and insulting us when we complained about their terrible product, or about the broken state in which it launched. Instead, we're going to get a broken, boring, bastardized D3 version of a popular D2 class in a desperate attempt to pander to exactly the same nostalgia that Blizzard spent years mocking us for.
Oh, and a pre-recorded video of Dave Brevik helping to celebrate Diablo's 20-year anniversary... pre-recorded because he's overseas, helping Grinding Gear Games launch Path of Exile in China, a game that he describes as pushing the ARPG genre "to new heights" in exactly the way that D3 didn't. GG.
BlizzCon 2016 starts today, and Path of Exile is running a three-day race event, with thirty-four races in three days. I think I'll do that instead.