07.02.2008

Diablo 3 Announced

In my younger days, I was as avid a computer games player as anybody today.  I concentrated on a few games to feed my obsession, games like Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Anarchy Online. 

And then there was Diablo I/II/LOD.  The time I spent looking for miscellaneous Diablo loot by doing Baal and Mephisto runs far exceeded the total time I spent grinding my Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies, the time I spent getting to BR20/CR5 in Planetside, the time I spent playing RTCW to improve my gameplay, or any other effort I put forth on any other of the games I played in.  Literally hundreds of hours over a several year period were spent playing the Diablo series of games.  I grew older, my priorities shifted, and Blizzard started putting it’s push behind WoW so I figured Diablo had run it’s course and was done.

Well it turns out that Diablo is going to be back for a 3rd installment.  After reviewing the PC Mag story and the 1up.com writeup, I’m left with some brief and probably premature impressions.

I like the following about what I read/saw:

Game Engine: The game engine looks strong.  They’ve retained the isometric perspective (although tweeked a bit) and have done a seemingly great job with things like creature scaling, interactive environment, and textures (with one notable exception I explain below).

Performance: While I realize the gameplay shown was just a demo and likely tweeked/enhanced for sellability, the gameplay looked smooth and didn’t appear to be struggling.  Hardware is only going to get better by the time this is released so there is at least some hope that the game will be playable by what will then be mid-line rigs.

Viewable Demo: So many times when a game is announced, there isn’t anything other than artist renderings of what the game will look like.  The clip on 1up.com shows a full 20 minutes of gameplay through an entire section including one boss.  I have to applaud Blizzard for getting that done before announcing the game to the public.

Having said all of that, I do have a couple of concerns:

Color Palette: One thing I didn’t really care for is the choice of color palette used in the demo.  Diablo has always been a dark, dare I say gothically skinned game with lots of browns.  The demo appeared very blue to my poor eyes, a bit too clean compared to previous Diablo efforts.  I’m hoping that Blizzard keeps an eye on the online petitions circulating requesting a change in the overall color palette.

Vaporware: Blizzard seems to deliver what’s promised, I just hope they haven’t bitten off more than they can chew with this effort, WoW, and the upcoming Starcraft II release.  Sony Online Entertainment suffered from too much product in the pipeline too quickly, I’d hate to see Blizzard have to make some bad choices.

Subscription Model: If Blizzard forces a monthly subscription on players, I suspect this game will fly like a lead balloon.  I’m hoping that Blizzard decides to keep the game free to play online even if a larger amount of money is needed upfront in terms of sales price.

I’m going to keep an eye on this, if the game isn’t subscription-based and not too outrageous in terms of cost, I’ll buy it.  While I’ll never play an online game the same way as before committments, there is room for distractions.