The Pandering continues...

If you were wondering which was actually the most successful game of Blizzard's Diablo line, consider this: after years of claiming that Diablo III was a YUGE success, Blizzard has apparently abandoned development on D3 almost completely, with only one further DLC (the Necromancer class) planned, and nothing else in the pipeline. Diablo II, meanwhile, appears to be getting a high-def remaster.

From GameRant:

Without a doubt, the Diablo franchise is one of the most revered series to ever be released thanks to its populous fan base that is so dedicated to the titles, that some have even made a theme wedding revolving around the art, characters, and design style of the releases. With this being the case, long-time followers and even newbies to the action-RPG will likely rejoice to learn that a job listing on Blizzard’s website points to the possibility of there being a remaster for Diablo 2 in the works.

The posting on the publisher and developer’s jobs page is advertising a “Lead Software Engineer, Engine” role and it insinuates that not only is Diablo 2 seemingly getting an HD upgrade, but also a Warcraft 3 remaster is in the cards as well. The open position originally alluded to these titles getting enhanced versions, but it has since been changed. Thanks to the screenshot from Blizzplanet below, however, fans can see that the following quote was at first used as a means to get folks to apply prior to being scrubbed and relisted as an “unannounced project.”

The job posting itself looks like this:



I've said it before, and I'll say it again: D3 is dead, and Blizzard knows it. Their best hope for resuscitating the Diablo franchise involves pandering to the same D1 & D2 fans that they spent years talking alienating, but they've been trying to have their cake and eat it: pretending that D3 was still a popular goldmine, while simultaneously pandering to D2 fans with Kanai's Cube, the Darkening of Tristram event, and even the classes they've added to the game, starting with almost-the-Paladin, and culminating with straight-up-the-Necromancer.

Well, the pretense seems to be finally nearing its end. With a straight-up remaster of D2 in the works, and nothing much in production for D3, it sure looks like Blizzard is squarely aiming their nostalgia cannons at D2 fans in an effort to win them back, while simply letting D3 lie fallow.

The problem? After having spent years telling D2 fans that they needed to let it go and move on, most of them actually have let it go, and moved on, mostly to competitors' games like Grim Dawn and Path of Exile. Having moved on to other, better games, from developers that didn't spend years shitting on them, I'm not sure that D2 fans actually have whole lot of nostalgia left for Blizzard to tap into.

Time will tell, I suppose, but I'll tell you for nothing that I'm neither excited nor surprised by the news that Blizzard is taking the obvious next step with their Diablo franchise. It's just a little too little, and much too late, for me to actually give a shit.

#D3isdeadandBlizardknowit
#xisdeadandtheyknowit

Yes, I'm still banging on about D3's latest PTR...

I can't help it. I'm finding the reaction Blizzard's latest D3 PTR to be rather fascinating.

The next take? Paul Tassi's, at Forbes.

Blizzard just rolled out the patch notes for 2.5.0 for Diablo 3, and while they are adding a few welcome features to the game, they show just how dry the well is starting to run as well.

Positive changes include new tabs for materials to free up stash space, a quasi-buff to bounty rewards, and a new “loadout” armory system where players can save not just gear, but skills, socketed gems and even Kanai Cube powers to be able to switch easily between builds.

[...]

But the one addition in the patch that’s managing to roll a lot of eyes in the yes-we’re-still-playing-Diablo community is the addition of Primal Ancient Legendary weapons.

Right now, there current system in place has Legendary/set weapons/armor that drop with special properties and increased stats over “normal” items. For a while now, there has been a chance for each of those items to drop as an “Ancient” variant, which has increased stat ranges in categories like Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, Resist All and so on.

Now, Primal Ancient Legendary Weapons will be even more rare, and have a chance to drop with even better stats than those.

Why is this bad? More powerful gear is fun right?

Yes and no. The problem is that this puts yet another insane level of RNG into the game as a way of artificially extending playtime without actually adding anything new or valuable. The concept of an “Ancient Ancient,” or a Primal Ancient, is the definition of pure power creep.

[...]

This may not be a big deal, but it’s emblematic of Blizzard sort of throwing in the towel when it comes to supporting Diablo 3 in what are apparently the last stages of its life. The Darkening of Tristam event was very underwhelming, and now the answer to “now what?” is just creating yet another god tier of items that push power creep up to new heights, and make players feel like the builds they’ve perfected so far are now trash.

What can I say? I agree with all of this.

I did take issue with one thing that Tassi wrote in his article, though, when he described the Armory as "something every game in this genre desperately needs." D3 definitely needed an Armory, because D3 doesn't have characters in the way that most RPGs have characters. Instead, D3 has loadouts, which means that switching around your equipped items changes your entire build. 

Games with robust RPG elements don't work this way. Path of Exile, for example, has a passive skill tree that profoundly affects the way your character plays, and which simply cannot be respec'ed in a few seconds with a couple of button clicks. PoE has characters, and encourages players to make more than one character in order to experiment with different builds and various game mechanics, all of which would render an Armory system like D3's useless. 

By saying that every game of this genre desperately needs an Armory-like system, Tassi is either saying (a) that Diablo III isn't an ARPG, or (b) that he knows very little about ARPGs, and needs to play some Path of Exile, stat. Or Torchlight II, or Grim Dawn, or Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem... or, really any real ARPG.

Go on, Paul. Give it a go. You're bored with D3, anyway.