Diablo® III

thanks for the post OP, read and although your wording was a bit harsh your points rung true

I was ultimately disappointed with the story, but of the 8 or 9 of my friends that play I seem to be the only one concerned at all with the lore

D3 got Wilson'd hard.

07/02/2012 04:37 PMPosted by Zombietank

thanks for the post OP, read and although your wording was a bit harsh your points rung true

you're welcome.

Considering the expectation of this game, and the large let down, I don't think holding back for the sake of sounding not-harsh was a good idea. I personally felt as though the terrible story was harsh, made worse by the constant replaying of it over and over and over.

07/02/2012 04:37 PMPosted by Zombietank

D3 got Wilson'd hard.

Especially anyone that played a monk (he designed the class, which is why it is so terrible)

* Maghda knows where all the sword pieces are, and can keep track of them.
* Maghda can't get into the drowned temple on her own.
* Maghda waits at the first sword piece until someone strong enough to claim it shows up. She may be watching you from when you get to the stranger.
* Maghda puts up a token resistance so you won't suspect her, then taunts you "by accident" letting you know where the next sword piece is.
* You go into the drowned temple. She knows you've left the first sword piece with Cain. She figures you'll do the same here. So she again just puts up a token resistance - why try to actually fight you when you'll do her work for her? Note here she doesn't tell you where the third piece is -- she doesn't care if you go for that one, she'll just strike whenever you're next out of New Tristram after dropping off the second one.
* You go for the third piece, she's already grabbed that one (Because you got the only piece she couldn't get herself, and you left it behind with Cain) and does what she wants with it.
* This leaves Maghda as probably the cleverest villain in the entire game, AND the only one that I'm actually pleased with the way she tricked me -- because she wasn't ham fisted about it the way everyone else (Including Adria) was.

Two things here make no sense mate. Maghda has no reason to know what i do with the sword pieces. It is never revealed that she would have any spies or something, that would give her the information. So as far as she is concerned those pieces could be with the mass cultist murdering psychopath also known as the PC nephalem, and seeing his growing track record out of her reach.

This could have been easily solved if she used some sort of trick to get you to leave the shards in town. This leads to the second thing, why leave those pieces with people who are less qualified to defend them? A "powerful" fairy, erm... witch wants them so you leave them with an amnesiac and an 80 year old man?

And why do they jump to the conclusion that getting the sword back together would jog Tyrael's memory? That felt very poorly explained to me. As many people have already stated, it was in there just to keep the story going.

ACT 1 (nothing makes any sense, seriously)

THE FALLING STAR!

The game starts with a falling star destroying the New Tristram Cathederal thus drawing our various hero types out of the woodworks to investigate. The isn't a BAD hook (considering who the star eventually is revealed to be). The hero arrives in New Tristram to find it is overrun by ZOMBIES!! Thats right folks, zombies. The Walking Dead. (and skeletons and !@#$ too)

This may seem like a good start, but it isn't. You see, we discover that the Falling star is actually a strange man. The fallen angel, Tyrael, now mortal. Around this point in the game some warning bells started going off in the deep parts of my brain. Why would Tyrael's fall from heaven and turning into a mortal cause the dead to rise and slaughter people? Regardless of what rational reasons you might come up with, Tyrael himself explains it. Basically he says:

"My Angel Juice leaked all out while I became mortal and caused all the pissed off dead to rise up and kill innocent people for no reason. This has nothing to do with any impending doom or demon attack and actually was just a sad byproduct of me throwing a temper tantrum in heaven, voluntarily ripping my wings off, and giving up my angel-hood for no real discernable reason considering that as a normal human I have nothing to contribute in the fight against the demon hordes."

This is what happens when you pay absolutely ZERO attention to the story at all, and you just make up your own completely fake, asinine statements just to spite the story, very immaturely too. We get it, you're a man full of hatred and sadness.

Everything does get explained logically to why things happened as they did, and why the skeleton king and zombies rose in Tristram. The reasons they arose was because Tyrael's essence being that of justice roused all of the dead who were injusticely slain. That does include King Leoric, as he was fully possessed by Diablo's will before he was killed by Lachdanan.

Why did Tyrael cast off his wings and become a mortal? Did you completely skip the act 1 ending cinematic? The Angiris Council judged Tyrael guilty for his involvement with mortals. Imperius was even hell-bent on terminating Tyrael. How could he continue to exist alongside his brethren?

Not gonna bother with the rest of this poorly thought out post. You really have to do your homework before poking holes at the story.

YOU have just missed any kind of point my friend. Someone explained it in an earlier post a few pages back brilliantly, if the sun comes to town you can't have record below freezing temperatures. The aspect of justice, or rather the ex aspect of justice came to town so the dead that died unjustly rose up and started unjustly murdering some more innocents?
This makes no sense and is a weak reason. It works for the story but is truly weak.

Tyrael's sacrifice... What i don't understand is why he didn't rip his wings off when they tried to vote Sanctuary dead. That was a grave injustice so Tyrael should have ripped his wings off back then.

Also regardless of that if all he wanted to do was warn Sanctuary people of the impending doom, he should have just descended as an angel and warn them, then deal with Imperius being mad at him. Someone said he could not spend any more time on Sanctuary as an angel, well that is false since there is no more Worldstone to prevent him spending time there. And if angels don't watch sanctuary and have to be present to witness events it would have taken Imperius a very long time to find Tyrael down on Sanctuary anyway.
Bottom line, warning the humans could have been done easily.

Another point to Melyria's arguments, born from the last statement, he said that Imperius would have hunted Tyrael down for defeating him. Why doesn't he do it after he becomes mortal? He is a lot easier to kill now and the offense is still there.
Or, if we branch out and say that him becoming mortal is punishment enough (weak argument because it was of Tyrael's choosing and does nothing to appease Imperius pride), why did they not vote the destruction of Sanctuary again, as wisdom is clearly out the window and without Tyrael the vote would have passed. Sanctuary goes bye bye all is well and safe.

So you see? We don't need to poke hols in the story, they are already there. Some of it works, but even WHEN it does, it's weak and stupid. In my opinion anyway.

Posted by Bianary
Iirc, Sauron had a great deal of air defenses (Hello, ring wraiths and other flyers)

Only seen after the ring destroyed the Nine's land steeds. The Nine were already on horses, far from Minas Morgul. Gandalf snagging some Eagles would've resulted in Sauron basically throwing curse words at them from his tower as they zip past toward the mountain.

And you know this for sure how? What, their landmounts got destroyed and Sauron decided, right time to get my boys flying!? C'mon stop speaking nonsense.

The flying wraiths would have worked just as well even without riders. There is no reason to believe they did not exist from the start. We can speculate all we want on why Sauron did not use them from the beginning but it will be just that, speculation.

And before you start murdering my sending those lizards without riders idea, If eagles were as smart as they seemed it shouldn't have been so hard for Sauron to command the flying lizards to attack everything that flew around and looked like eagles.

D3 is not even trying to give good explanations for things, they just explain and expect you to take it as it is. Adria has to be trusted because they said so, Azmodan is a great tactician because they said so, Belial is a the lord of lies because they said so.... see the pattern? In game i never trusted Adria, i never seen Azmodan's tactical genius (again just because he uses several different tactics does not make him a tactical genius), I saw trough Belial's lies from the start and i still believe he is the worst liar of all times.

Tell me all you want that he is so bent on lying that he lies to himself, even if that's what they went for (no reason to believe it is btw) it is just a very weak way to do it when making him an actually good deceiver would have been a lot more captivating and immersing.

I agree on most of the points made by the OP, especially about Cain's death. It would've made more sense if he was killed by Adria after discovering where her true loyalty lies or by Leah after Diablo's incarnation.

Poor decision. Really, really poor.

Reversing that, since Act 2 has big problems then Belial has issues even if at every single individual event he's reasonable.

No.

Was Zoltun Kulle bad? Was his voice acting? Were his lines? How did Kulle's lines suck or be great because of Belial?

What about Magda? Was killing her any degree satifactory? What about Eirena? Or what about your companion's comments?

Stop tying Belial into everything like him simply existing as the end goal suddenly ruins the entire Act in every possible way.

That's like saying Mass Effect's story was bad because of its ending. It wasn't. The story was good up until that last 5 minutes. Just like Act 2 was not completely bad in every regard, just because the end goal fell short.

You are whitewashing.

You assume our opinion is that only Belial was badly done. You are wrong. Again.

Zultun - could have been interesting, voice acting is above par, well at least above the others that seem like jokes compared to some of his, BUT, and here's the kicker, his laughing teleport breaks everything for me. As well as the presentation...
PC - "You won't betray us once we bring you back right Zoltun?"
Zoltun - "Riiiiight. I completely won't betray you even though I am just saying that the Black Plothole is my life's work and wouldn't let anyone else play with it."
PC - "he seems legit. Let's bring him back!"

5 minutes later we ignore the fact that he's very hard to kill and just simply kill him dead for good, riding into another pointless plothole.

Adria - never trusted her, had nostalgia from D1 about her but lost it in the first 5 minutes after she appeared. It's not enough that the Black Soulstone came out of nowhere, Adria does the same with an out of nowhere solution to the randomly created problem that Tyrael has no idea how to destroy evils. So Adria, someone that i have never met before comes with a solution i never heard of before about a stone most of us never heard of, that is able to do what no other soulstone was able to do before. And Adria has a spell she does not explain or talks about in any detail or length, that will be able to do something that Tyrael thought impossible.
That is a character that we should trust implicitly? And you Melyria had friends that did not find any of this suspicious? They either didn't pay attention or they need to get themselves checked bro.
I have to say that i did not guess that Leah would become Diablo until i met Adria. I pieced everything that would happen in that moment. Except for the trip to Heaven ofc. But at that moment i realized Adria was evil, and she would employ some sort of betrayal to bring Diablo back in Leah.

Maghda... Really? the worst and possible the most worthless character Blizz introduced into this story has nothing better to do in act 2 than run around until we catch her. Why didn't she go straight to Belial? Why find her randomly in the desert. What was the point at the clever attempt the PC makes to deceive her into believing Belial betrayed her? That just felt pointless.

Oh and as a final thing because i do not want to go over to Azmodan, "master tactician", heh, what is the point of sending the angry messages to their minions that they should stop me or they will die? Clearly what kept on happening was they were trying their best to stop the PC, but the psychotic mass demon and cultist murdering nephalem kept killing them. So threatening them with something that would happen anyway seems kind of pointless don't you think?

Unfortunately shortly before the release of Diablo 3 Blizzard released their Book of cain. A compendium of diablo lore. And in that book it's clearly stated, that the 3 prime evils were banished to the black abyss, a place even they fear.
How did Adria manage to get them back from there.?... uhm... uhhhh LOOK OUT ZOLTUN KULLE SUMMONS GOLEMS!!! *bossfight ensues*

It isn't a plot hole because it was directly addressed, in a sense. Adria said she specifically spent the last 20 years trying to find and mark the souls. It was poorly explained, no detail was given, but it was said.

Also, it was the 2 Evils. Baal's soul was not accounted for in the Book of Cain.

And because they said it you have to believe it and ignore the poor explanation. Not only that but you will like it as well. See what i just did? I just turned a piss poor excuse for an explanation into beautiful rainbows. Rejoice, for all is well.

deleted by Sovereign

07/05/2012 05:11 AMPosted by Sovereign

And because they said it you have to believe it and ignore the poor explanation. Not only that but you will like it as well. See what i just did? I just turned a piss poor excuse for an explanation into beautiful rainbows. Rejoice, for all is well.

This seems to be the end justification for every single argument I've seen saying the story is good.

"They said this <plot hole/problem/mood wrecker> was on purpose so it's not a <plot hole/problem/mood wrecker>!"

For the love of all that is holy would the writers of diablo and every other "Literature Grad student" stop saying the blah blah himself. blah blah itself. It sounds utterly retarded and if you were a literary grad student using himself or itself then your degree needs to be taken away immediately thats horrible literature.

OP, I agree and disagree with your assessment of act 2. It is bad but for many other reasons that what you stated. The real issue is the literal Witch hunt of Maghda: for a large portion of the Act, we are bloodthirsty savages seeking to revenge. The problem this creates is that there is no reasoning here: the heroes know that this is at best an excursion going according to Belial's plan. The fact they send a girl with a bow(Leah) to confront a Dark Lord while they go deal with a lackey is seriously wanting...

The rest of the acts, I don't agree with at all, OP. Also, where is your assessment of the personal conversations with every character of the game? The Followers? Did you even read that dialogue or did you do what every other English grad does and read just enough to argue?

07/05/2012 12:35 PMPosted by VHeretic

The rest of the acts, I don't agree with at all, OP. Also, where is your assessment of the personal conversations with every character of the game? The Followers? Did you even read that dialogue or did you do what every other English grad does and read just enough to argue?

"My guards! There is someone among us. Deal with him harshly!"

...who else's guards would there be? Was the Warden concerned that other guards were present so he had to specify who he was talking to? His talking doesn't even seem to serve a point, as nobody comes to attack you when he says anything, all the enemies just continue to mindlessly stand around until you come near (At which point they behave exactly like every other enemy in the game and attack you on sight. Just like they were doing before the Warden pointlessly yelled about you.)

Yes, there's a lot of decent dialogue in the optional stuff. Unfortunately, all the dialogue you're forced to endure is incredibly corny and over the top (As well as usually pointless, see my previous paragraph).

I don't think the fallout of the story would be nearly as bad had they released the game with an option to skip all dialogue and cutscenes

OP, I agree and disagree with your assessment of act 2. It is bad but for many other reasons that what you stated. The real issue is the literal Witch hunt of Maghda: for a large portion of the Act, we are bloodthirsty savages seeking to revenge. The problem this creates is that there is no reasoning here: the heroes know that this is at best an excursion going according to Belial's plan. The fact they send a girl with a bow(Leah) to confront a Dark Lord while they go deal with a lackey is seriously wanting...

The rest of the acts, I don't agree with at all, OP. Also, where is your assessment of the personal conversations with every character of the game? The Followers? Did you even read that dialogue or did you do what every other English grad does and read just enough to argue?

Belial's plan is for me tu hunt Maghda because? I thought he wanted the Black Plothole. Erm, Soulstone. My bad.
Also he already had Adria. He could have tortured her for years on end and she would have cracked eventually telling him where it was. Or truly display his awesome lying skills and deceive her into telling him. Fact is we simply don't know how long he had her, but that works in our favor as well as against us. It could have been years. Or he could have taken her out of Caldeum to the Whatever Islands and tortured her there till she told him. We just don't know.

And about the dialog. We never said every line in this game is a cliche and deserves to rot in hell. (just most of them - joke) There are some good lines and stuff, like most conversations with Zoltun, the guy actually makes more sense than anyone in the game and frankly i would have changed him with the blank Tyrael in one second but the dealbraker was he had to let go of the stupid "laughing teleport" and he just would not.

As a contrast do you guys remember the followers in Neverwinter Nights expansion Hordes of the Underdark? Now those were fleshed out characters. remember Deekin? That little guy was exceptionally well made in that expansion, and you really connected with him.
In D3 yeah they have some stories, but most come at specific times, they felt like a chore to me in the first play trough, as they were delivered all at once when changing acts and such. Also they did not seem all that interesting, and i was not all that immersed and never quite realized why i should care. And finally, i was already annoyed with all of them talking so much nonsense while fighting. Before i could get immersed in the templar's story i was already sick and tired of him and his "What a monstrous creature!"

I also agree that the story was terrible with most of the major events happening because the plot needed something in the next act.

Tyrael gives up his immortality, resulting in death and destruction throughout New Tristram, Worthing, and the surrounding lands simply to tell everyone that 20 years after the Worldstone was destroyed Belial and Azmodan are planning to do something. Seriously he doesn't even know what they're planning to do, where they are, or provide any reasons why they didn't do anything over the past 20 years. He also provides no useful information throughout the entire story, while Decard Cain and Adria are responsible for advancing the plot.

The cut scenes make it seem like Tyrael is an important character but he's useless throughout the entire game. In Act 1 his fall from heaven causes death and destruction, and he needs to be rescued. In Act 2 he fails to prevent Leah being captured and spends the rest of the Act in the hidden base, even when Belial attacks the people of Caldium. In Act 3 he alternates between standing around in the Keep and assisting you in the one mission that has a locked door. In Act 4 he alternates between standing around in heaven and assisting you in the one mission that has a locked door. He would have been more useful if he had just remained in heaven. You'd think he would have helped the people in Act 2 and tried to fight the demons that invaded the Keep in Act 3 but instead he does nothing.

Judging by the lore books and comments by people Belial has only recently taken control of Caldium but it's never explained why he wanted to control this city. All he's doing is sacrificing people in the desert until he learns of the black soulstone, then he helps the hero get it. Also why did he want the cultists lead by Magna to investigate the falling star? What did he hope to find?

Despite being in control of the armies of Hell Azmodan hasn't done anything in 20 years, then decides to launch an attack on the Sanctuary because the plot requires him to do something (it's never explain how he knows about the black soulstone or what it does, even Belial didn't know what it does). Also it's not clear why Tyrael thought Azmodan was about to do something, especially since neither Azmodan nor Tyrael knew about the black soulstone until Adria mentioned it.

In less than 5 minute after being possessed by the Prime Evil Leah is able to use all the powers its power and transform into a Diablo like form that is so powerful that they can fight the entire armies of Heaven until they summon 2 portal to Hell. This part felt shoehorned in, like the writers wanted a huge battle to end the story.

Also why is Diablo in control of the Prime Evil, shouldn't it be a new character that's a combination of all 7 Lords of Hell? I guess the writers needed Diablo to appear somehow.

07/06/2012 08:13 AMPosted by uanime5

Also why is Diablo in control of the Prime Evil, shouldn't it be a new character that's a combination of all 7 Lords of Hell? I guess the writers needed Diablo to appear somehow.

That was definitely Diableah, not Diablo.

Blizzard is getting such a ridiculous amount of unfair criticism that I hate to add any more, valid or not, but the story is so important to me that I feel compelled to throw in my two cents, especially with the huge letdown that was the StarCraft II story.

I agree in large part with the OP save for two main points. Tyrael tore his wings off in symbolic protest of the direction that angels were taking, which is acceptable from a literary point-of-view (a better question is why he turned into a human in the first place - there is nothing to suggest that the only difference between angels and humans is nothing inherent between the two species). The other is that Azmodan was planning on invading to retrieve the soulstone regardless of whether or no the nephalem obtained it, so it was not a result of our actions. A small point of disagreement is that the sword pieces would have realistically been cumbersome to carry around with you while you are battling demons, so I had no problem with them being left with Cain.

However, I am with you on pretty much every other point. I am so sadly disappointed with the overarching problems with the stories to the small subtle details. Another thread talked about how Cain should have received a cinematic for his death - I would argue that both his death and Leah's corruption should have received one - there is too much emotion that needs to be conveyed that cannot be done with the in-game models and lack of camera angle and lighting. And Diablo/Leah killing Cain would have been an absolutely amazing turn of events.

Why the villains constantly show up and announce what they did also bugged me to no extent. Why did Magdha show up to tell you that she stole the pieces? She didn't even get a vengeful laugh out of it! And how was Belial the Lord of Lies and deception? All I saw were a few illusions - no gradual corruption over time, the slow decay of a city and its infrastructure. And Azmodan had approximately zero skill as a tactician. Seemed like all he did is mass his forces and bull rush the castle while hanging out in a lava pit. And seeing him in-game was so anticlimactic - seemed merely like a bloated demon without any lighting or particle effects. And why would Diablo tell you that you cannot destroy the Hell Rifts...right AFTER you kill all the demons guarding it and right BEFORE all you need to do is hack it a few times?

The use of strawmen plot devices was also annoying, as OP mentioned - the sword pieces, Magdha, the Butcher - they all serve no actual literary necessity.

Tyrael became the coolest character in the Diablo series and ended up becaming nothing more than a clueless and powerless voice that followed you from act to act. Leah was meant to provide the greatest emotional climax of the game and yet you rarely interact with her, not nearly enough to build up the despair that her corruption should have caused. And Deckard Cain who has been a voice of reason, knowledge, and guidance throughout the series has become a senile frail man with a suddenly acquired poor taste in clothes that left little emotional impact on his death.

There is more to be said, but I will leave it at that for now. I am still very much enjoying the game, but I am sorely disappointed with the poorly developed stories that Blizzard has been crafting of late. StarCraft I was amazing. WarCraft III did an extraordinary job. But Blizzard's ability to tell stories has not evolved with the evolution of their technology and game systems and is something that will prevent me from purchasing any more of their games should this trend continue.

I should also add that Blizzard did nothing short of a brilliant job in creating their cinematics. The cinematics from an artistic standpoint handled lighting, facial expressions, timing, sound, music, cinematography, and color perfectly. They are the only things in the game that did justice to Tyrael, Leah, Deckard Cain, and Diablo.

07/06/2012 01:06 PMPosted by Heladin

he other is that Azmodan was planning on invading to retrieve the soulstone regardless of whether or no the nephalem obtained it, so it was not a result of our actions

If Azmodan wanted the Black Soul Stone, why did he wait for us to

1) Bring Zultan Kulle back to life
2) Kill Zultan Kulle and get the Black Soul Stone with the NEWLY added souls of the lords of hell
3) Kill Belial and imprison him in the soulstone.

he couldn't have known we were going to be able to accomplish (or even attempt) ANY of those things.

So if he was going to get the Black Soul Stone anyway, why wait until after we get it, kill belial, and prime it for being used to create the prime evil?

It doesnt make sense, of course it was a result of our actions.

07/06/2012 01:06 PMPosted by Heladin

small point of disagreement is that the sword pieces would have realistically been cumbersome to carry around with you while you are battling demons, so I had no problem with them being left with Cain.

How would they have been cumbersome? Did it SAY in the game that they were cumbersome? My barbarian swings around a giant tree trunk like its a rapier, he can stand to hold SHARDS of a sword.

This is YOU coming up with some excuse or justification on YOUR OWN. It NEVER SAYS IN GAME that the sword shards are cumbersome. The reason we leave the sword shards with Deckard Cain (as it says in game) is to help Tyrael get his memories back, which seems to happen instantly once a new sword shard is brought to him.

Considering that we KNOW a seemingly powerful witch with a coven of evil cultists at her command is ACTIVELY trying to steal the sword, it makes the MOST SENSE for the super powerful nephalim player character to keep the shards with him. Leaving them behind at Cain's is stupid and only goes to further the terrible plot.