Having recently played Diablo 2 again and started playing Diablo 3 | |
again as well, I finally realized why the story and the performance | |
feel so much weaker in Diablo 3. | |
One of the biggest complaints I've heard about Diablo 3 is how the | |
story is so weak, especially compared to the previous games. It | |
wasn't until my most recent play through that I think I figured | |
out where Blizzard went so wrong, or, rather, what they tried to do | |
differently, but failed. | |
In Diablo and Diablo 2, all exposition and storyline is told to the | |
player. It is very much a story-telling, a one-way conversation. | |
This lends itself well to the mood of the games, I think, and | |
leaves the personality of the player's character up for much | |
interpretation and imagination. Additionally, since there were no | |
real-time conversations in the game, there was no need for any | |
character dynamic between the different characters of the game. | |
Everything was simply prose, exposition, fed to the player bit | |
by bit over time. | |
Diablo 3 attempted to branch out. The story is told via | |
conversations between the characters, including the player's | |
character. In theory, this seems awesome and a natural progression | |
to add more depth to the story and personality to the characters. | |
Unfortunately, in reality, it fell through. I don't know if it | |
can be blamed solely on the writing or solely on the voice | |
acting. Both are pretty sub-par, to be honest. However, I really | |
feel like this was Diablo 3's downfall. | |
I applaud Blizzard for trying something new, and I hope in any | |
future games, Diablo or otherwise, they are able to improve | |
upon this technique. I like the idea of the characters all | |
interacting and having conversations with each other and with | |
the player. I think the somewhat novelty of that difference | |
from previous Diablo games masked the terrible execution the | |
first few times I played through the game. | |
Anyway, this is just my two cents. The next time you play through | |
Diablo 3, imagine if all the dialogue was one-way, and the next | |
time you play through Diablo or Diablo 2, imagine if all the | |
dialogue was a conversation. I think some, if not most, of you | |
will agree with me. |