This article is written by Turky, a member of the Battle.net forums. However, seeing as Ghetto knows nothing about Diablo II, he will take responsibility for anything lost in the translation.

“I thought the point of an expansion, was to expand on the original game, not change it?”

Let me start by saying Diablo 2 is my favorite game of all-time.  Most of Blizzard’s other titles are up there as well.  But Blizzard has made a common mistake with their games: They make a game a certain way, and then change it during the expansion.

To me, this is a flaw.  This is a flaw because the original game made it popular in the first place.  As far as I can tell, this hasn’t affected the Starcraft series.  But with Warcraft and Diablo, this is contagious and out of control.

Diablo 2 comes out.  It takes a while to level, and you spend time on a character because you feel you’re developing it with every upgrade.  Rares were better than Uniques, and should be, because they have different stats, everybody looked different, and everyone collected items to trade for something special.  Yes, there were duplicated items, but they were rare, and since everyone could imbue items, you could create items that were better than the duplicates.

Classes were well-balanced and any class could kill another.   Don’t let anyone tell you different.  The glaring difference between the expansion and the original was that every specialization for every class had a role.  Lance Barbarians had a purpose, as did Scythe Barbs, as did Sword Barbs and Mace Barbs.  There was a place for Fire, Lightning, and Cold Sorceresses.  Even if the time required to level these characters was different, any class could easily solo their way to level ninety.

With the Diablo II expansion, everything changed.  Damage was normalized, and classes became more powerful than others.  In order to succeed, players were pigeonholed into specialized builds.  People were clones of each other, everyone wanted the same items, and everyone played the same specs.  Where did Lance Barbians go?  In the past, classes had incentive, pros, and cons to choose a specific weapon choice.  Since they normalized range on melee weapons as well, there is no difference between a Sword Barb and a Lance Barb.  Only now, swords deal similar damage to lances, and a Sword Barb has the option of equipping a shield.

Player-killing was a big part of Diablo 2, but was crippled in Lord of Destruction.  Yeah, you lost experience that could take days to regain in the original, but it made you a better player.  It built community.  If one person gets killed, but me and my four friends had an amazing time, fix-out-of-six are having fun.  In the Diablo 2 expansion, you have five-out-of-six upset.  That’s a terrible ratio.

If you didn’t give up when someone went hostile towards you, Player vs. Player made you better.  If I was in River of Flame grinding and I was attacked by three players, I’m going to do everything I can do make sure I don’t lose my grind spot, or my experience.  The only way to do that is to kill those three players.  This was possible in classic Diablo 2.  You used the elements around you to let your opponents make mistakes.  In RoF, you could kite a player with Teleport or Leap and then wait for another player to make a mistake.  Because the minority cried, the element of surprise was removed from PKing.

Then they introduced Synergies.  I just want to pretend these were never added to the game.  More pigeonholing.  Why should a player be punished for choosing one spec over another?  Have you ever thought I don’t want my Paladin to toss hammers?  Probably not.

In a way, World of Warcraft is similar to Diablo II.  Not in game style, but the way Blizzard hit us with the dipsy doodle.  What I mean is this: Like Diablo II, the expansion to WoW is nothing like the original game.  It might as well be a completely different game.  I thought the point of an expansion was to expand on the original game, not change it?

Classic World of Warcraft was like classic Diablo II.  Most classes could kill other classes.  (Don’t let anyone tell you different.  These are the same people who thought Enhancement Shamans were some big, bad, dominant PvP class.  This should be a red flag for anyone who was good at the original WoW, because they have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.)  Again, you stuck with one character because you were actually building a character.  You wanted to improve your character, and that took time.

“Raid or die!” is a myth.  It’s an excuse by bad players (not casuals, but bad players) who didn’t know how to properly manage their time.  Instead of fixing the problem, they just complained until it got changed.  People say you need to raid to be good in PvP.  Somewhat true, but you didn’t need to be a Naxx Grade-A raider to dominate PvP.  Where do you find decent gear?  It’s not in those three-hour Scholo runs bad players bring up all the time.  It’s in the three-hour ZG and AQ20 runs.  As far as PvP, ZG and AQ20 gear was not far behind AQ40 gear and almost on par with BWL gear.

But that would make too much sense.  People saw the word “raid” and thought you had to throw your life away.  Wiping in Scholo for three hours with five people and getting no reward?  Or running ZG for three hours and getting decent epics and blues?  Blasphemy!  So Blizzard changes this.  Free loot for everyone!  Or at least it seems that way.

Normalizing gameplay is a bad thing.  People say it makes the game more popular.  I disagree.  The Burning Crusade is my favorite example.  People say it made WoW more popular because it made the game more casual friendly.  Wrong.  When it was “Raid or die!”, WoW brought in seven million unique players (dual-boxing was rare in classic WoW).  After The Burning Crusade was released, people got easy-mode epics and badge loot.  Like Diablo II, PvP took a shotgun blast to the knees, and the WoW subscription base increased to ten million people.

But that makes the game more popular, right?  Wrong.  WoW stumbled and crawled to ten million subscribers.  It maintained the seven million players who enjoyed WoW the way it was (At least most of them, how else did 40-man raids get filled?) and added three million more.  But seventy percent of that subscriber bade came during “Raid of die!”  That’s a bigger number than the three million who came during The Burning Crusade, when the game was normalized and became more casual-friendly.  To get those extra three million, Blizzard ran television commercials (something they hadn’t done before), and dual-boxing became more rampant.

(Let’s not even get into Wrath of the Lich King, which is completely the opposite of the game I bought in 2004.  I bought an MMORPG in 2004, and I’m not sure what this expansion is, but it’s not an MMORPG.)

What does this mean?  It means Blizzard cops out, a lot.  They start with a great product and then destroy it in order to appease the minority, who screams so loud they seem like the majority.  Most game companies make game-breaking changes when they are losing customers, but Blizzard pulls the rug out when they are doing the opposite.  If it isn’t broke, why fix it?  The casuals and bad players will still buy the game and (while complaining) play it, but you will keep the majority (those who already enjoyed the game) happy.  You lose one way or the other, but at least this way you don’t have to dumb down your content.

Why will the bad players and casuals still buy your games?  Because their friends play it.  Why do the “Raid or die!” crowd and Diablo 2 PKers keep playing?  Because their friends are also playing.  What’s the difference?  You don’t have to sell out as a company to keep both crowds, because they will continue to play regardless.

Diablo III is a mature-rated game, and a three-year-old shouldn’t be able to play the game regardless.  A mature rating means more than blood and guts; it means you’re old enough to see it, at least by law.  So why it make it kid-friendly?  What are the talks about removing PKing?  The only people who will cry about it are:

1) People who don’t play with friends, but why are they playing a multiplayer RPG in the first place?  Pokémon for the DS is that way.
2) People who aren’t old enough to buy the game anyway.

Blizzard, don’t make the same mistake you have been making since 2001.  I’m aware there are exceptions, but people like your games the way they were, not the way they are.  Will they change anything?  Doubt it, but at least they can understand where I’m coming from, and why I get frustrated with the company.  You know, the people who actually finish your games, the people who try to play your games at a high level; not the ones who sign on, hop into a game, get killed, and log out for a week.  I deserve to play the game I bought, and feel my money is being wasted on games that no longer exist.

Casuals and bads will play as long as their friends continue to play.  Good players will do the same.  Just find that middle ground in your upcoming games.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Blizzard Entertainment, Diablo, Gameplay, Other Writers, World of Warcraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.