Saturday, June 9, 2012

How Blizzard tricked us again


How Blizzard tricked us again

Note:  This article is going to contain some spoilers.  You have been warned.

Since the day it was released, I have played quite a bit of Diablo 3.  Not as much as some people have, I am sure, but more then many people I do know.  I have found the Whimseyshire, fought a bunch of crazy creatures, seen the game through to the end, played through nightmare mode, and a bunch of other stuff.  After all the time I have spent on the game, I have come to a couple of conclusions.  Are these conclusions unique to me, probably not.  But I am gonna vent about them anyway.  So let's start this fun downhill slide shall we?

It has been ten years since the release of Diablo 2, and over the last ten years Blizzard has done lots of great things.  World of Warcraft for instance, as well as a bunch of other stuff.  A lot of these games were amazing.  World of Warcraft captured my mind for years, as well as the minds of many of my friends.  As W.O.W. Continued however, it began to drop off.  The first expansion led to a reinvigoration of many of my gamer friends desire to play.  Wrath of the Lich King did the same.  But Cataclysm held most of us for 2 months, and that was it.  So naturally you would assume that perhaps it was because they were focusing in on their next great big hit, Diablo 3. 

You would be wrong.  The formula of Diablo is the same, which is good.  The graphics were better, sure, but in a game like this, it doesn't really matter.  The detail is so lost with your view, there really wasn't a lot of point.  Sure, it looks better, but lots of people played Diablo 2 up until Diablo 3 launched, and would probably keep doing so.  So really, who cares.  I actually reinstalled Diablo 2 just to get a taste of what the old game had to offer.  And I found I enjoyed it so much more then I did when I tried to play it only 2 years ago.  And one of those reasons was that I found a piece to a set  within the first hour of playing.  I have put tons of hours into Diablo 3, and not a single recipe has dropped yet.  What's more, my second play through on Nightmare actually uncovered LESS yellows from bosses then my first play through.  In fact, I only got a yellow from Diablo himself.  I played back through some of the levels to get some experience, and before I started on that path, I dropped some series magic Item find gear and gems onto my monk.  I found even less blue items.  I know, this is really just me bitching, but Diablo is a loot centric game, and not getting loot, especially the awesome stuff, really sucks.  I was about to give up when I saw a yellow popped out of one of the near by monsters I had just killed.  So I started fighting my way through the horde and suddenly....

...Disconnected.  Just like that, the first yellow I had found in a couple of hours was lost to me.  Just because my internet had a hick up.  And just like that, it was gone.  Thanks forced online connection.  Which I sort of understood, what with piracy and online cash auction and PVP and WAITAGOODGODDAMMNMINUTE!!!  When that happened, they had still failed to launch the cash auction house or PVP.  Which means the online connection required only helped versus piracy.  Which I didn't do.  Nor have I ever pirated a video game before.  And I never will.  But thankfully Blizzard wants to make sure I never will, be not allowing me to play offline, even by myself.  But in the grand scheme of things, this is really the least of all offenses in my eyes.  I mean it's not like I am dropping gold into a system that only occasionally rewards me with something I could really use.  Not like I am using oodles of goodies I have collected from all of the various items I have salvaged in game in hopes of uncovering something to help me compensate for the fact that the random treasures dropped from the creatures I have been fighting fail to be of any benefit to me. 

OH WAIT I AM!  Yup, the blacksmith  in Diablo 3, the guy you have been paying to learn more things, fails to ever produce something of use for me, sucks.   I actually drop a stupid amount of resources into this moron of a artisan.  I feel in hind sight I would be better off dropping 50,000 gold pieces in the suction house  for something I didn't find myself .  At least I would have all my salvaged materials left.  Not that they help me in any other way or anything. 

To be honest, I really do enjoy the game.  It's fun, it looks great, and I really enjoy playing with my buddies.  Do I think I will play this game on and off for the next ten years.  No I don't.  And that is really the saddest thing of all.  Unless Blizzard releases something amazing in the way of an expansion, Diablo 3 is gonna be the shortest amount of time I have ever given to one of their games.

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