Was anybody else hoping that Blizzard would, I dunno, release an entirely new game rather than going back to the same old wells again and again and again?
I mean, they’ve got some of the best creative staff in gaming, period, both from a design/coding and story/art perspective. Surely they could manage something a bit better than the same old same old?
(This isn’t me saying that I won’t play Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3, mind. But I’d like to see them pull a different rabbit out of the hat.)
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I was hoping for World of Diablocraft, but I guess I’ll take what I can get…
After starcraft came out way back when I had hoped for awhile that they would make a “diablo” style game based on starcraft.
Don’t know now if that was such a good thing to hope for. Now I’d prefer lost vikings 2.
Or now for something completely different.
I’m waiting for the Starcraft MMO myself.
Eh, they are revisiting sequels 10 years afterwards because there is a demand from their fanbase. This isn’t capcom. There are 3 main lines with pretty much with 5 sequels between them and a fourth outshoot that’s pretty much set the tone for mmorpg.
Mc’ed: They already made that in 1994. It was in space and had a werewolf and a dragon as additional party members, and it was awesome. As for the news, i’m excited for Diablo 3 becuase i liked Diablos 1 and 2 (and because you can play as a witch doctor), but something totally new would be very nice.
Am I the only one who thinks the Diablo 3 gameplay looks really tedious?
Honestly?
I was hoping all that ice would mean a new Lost Vikings game, but I really can’t imagine them working on a game that doesn’t use 3D graphics. And Lost Vikings in 3D just wouldn’t be right.
I mean, they’ve got some of the best creative staff in gaming, period, both from a design/coding and story/art perspective. Surely they could manage something a bit better than the same old same old?
Blizzard is iterative, not innovative. Nothing they’ve ever done has been groundbreaking; it’s always been something that existed before that they’ve taken and polished to a mirror sheen. Diablo was nothing more than Rogue with graphics and better multiplayer. Warcraft actually followed Dune. Starcraft followed Warcraft. Blizzard hasn’t come up with new IP for 10 years now, because they don’t have to.
There’s a speech Paul Barnett from Mythic entertainment gave once that described designers as one of two types: The iterative type that played and remembered every game before and knows exactly what worked and what didn’t, and the creative type that was off-the-wall bonkers who just made things weird, but potentially fun. The best example of the iterative type is Blizzard. Probably the best examples of the creative type is the stuff Wil Wright comes up with.
–Rawr
What Rawrasaur said. Blizzard’s company philosophy is to build a strong IP, and then make it as fun as possible.
For all that we’d like to see them do something new, I still welcome the old favorites, and Diablo III is a game I’ve been waiting for for a long time.
There really was nothing new in WoW’s design. As I like to put it, it was EverQuest but fun.
Am I the only one who thinks the Diablo 3 gameplay looks really tedious?
Am I the only one who thinks that Diablo 1 and 2 were both really tedious?
Click click click click
Blizzard hasn’t come up with new IP for 10 years now, because they don’t have to.
And also because the IP they already have is freaking awesome. Starcraft is the poster child for the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule. In some respect, Starcraft 2’s apparent focus on its roots rather than cool new shaders ‘n’ bloom effects is the exception.
(Of course, Blizzard’s decision probably has to be considered in light of the fact that anything else would entail threats of bodily harm by outraged Korean gamers.)
I still play Diablo II about once a year when the mood strikes. It’s just a fun game that has replayability. Plus when I was hurt and bedridden D2 was a game that was easy for me to play lying down since all I really needed was a mouse. i think D3 looks great and I personally can’t wait for it. When it comes to Blizzard I’d love to see a new IP, but I don’t mind getting a sequel to one of my favorites. Now, I would much rather have another IP as opposed to another Warcraft game after this, though.
And also because the IP they already have is freaking awesome. Starcraft is the poster child for the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule. In some respect, Starcraft 2’s apparent focus on its roots rather than cool new shaders ‘n’ bloom effects is the exception.
That’s mostly because their warcraft and starcraft IP is lifted almost verbatim from Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. They even hired Andy Chambers onto Starcraft 2.
–Rawr
That’s mostly because their warcraft and starcraft IP is lifted almost verbatim from Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. They even hired Andy Chambers onto Starcraft 2.
–Rawr
I have to call bullshit on this. There’s a reason Games Workshop lost their lawsuit against Blizzard, and the reason is that in order to make Warhammer and Warcraft the same, you have to generalize them to the point where they sound like a TVtropes entry.
I have to call bullshit on this. There’s a reason Games Workshop lost their lawsuit against Blizzard, and the reason is that in order to make Warhammer and Warcraft the same, you have to generalize them to the point where they sound like a TVtropes entry.
You can call bullshit all you like, but you’ve got to admit that there’s a huge amount of similarity between the Terrans and the Space Marines, the Zerg and the Tyranids, the Horde and the Greenskins, etc. etc. Not only are the concepts and general look of the characters remarkably similar, but Blizzard even hired one of the creative guys from GW to act as a creative director for SC2.
Just because a lawsuit did not go through doesn’t mean it’s not a pastiche of each others’ IP. It just means that they differentiated enough that people would not confuse the two. Look at comics, a rather famous medium for such. How many of “Wanted”‘s characters were lifted nearly directly from DC? How many of characters from the Watchmen or Squadron Supreme were lifted from established characters?
I am not a lawyer, but MGK could probably provide a more accurate legal viewpoint on where copyright infringement vs “basing concepts on” actually begins and ends.
–Rawr
My kingdom for an edit button. Where can I find details of a GW/Blizzard lawsuit? I tried the google and it has only produced pages upon pages of similar people asking but not finding any real answers.
–Rawr
So far as I know, there never actually was a lawsuit; just people saying “GW should totally sue Blizzard for stealing their ideas.”
Which, of course, aren’t horribly unique ideas anyway. Marines in space wearing powered armor? Dozens of sci-fi novels (Starship Troopers for starters, but there are lots more). Buggy aliens? H.R. Giger probably has something he’d like to say about that. Orcs? Uh, J.R.R. Tolkien called and he’s calling you a pussy from beyond the grave. And so forth.
If GW wanted to prove copyright infringement, they’d have to show substantial copying from their own source material beyond “looks kind of the same.” There is nothing, legally speaking, stopping me from writing a book about a young wizard at school called Larry Cotter and the Cryptographer’s Throne, insofar as my book doesn’t exactly copy the plot points of J.K. Rowling’s novel. (And even then, I have a parody defense I can attempt.)
Believe it or not, most of the people who worked on the original Diablo and Starcraft are no longer at Blizzard. They’re at Flagship Studios and ArenaNet. So if you really wanted originality from the team that worked on the Diablo and Starcraft franchise, look to Hellgate London and Guildwars. Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 are in fact the creative offsprings of a completely different development team using well known franchises. Cut them some slack.
😛
See, more than anything, I was hoping to see Blizzard branch out into new genres more than setting up a new franchise. You can get miles and miles of story arc out of the original three world settings. And the way Blizzard converted a mass-unit strategy game into a single perspective MMO was fantastic.
I was incredibly hyped up to see “Starcraft: Ghost” delve into the first-person shooter genre. I would have been more than happy to see Diablo 3 turn into some sort of multi-man squad game a la Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem. It would have been interesting to see them take the gameplay in new directions. But ultimately, I can’t feel bad about D3, because it has such an epic story tied to it.
I mean, like they were saying above, if it ain’t broke…
almost verbatim
Agreed, if by “almost” you mean “except for the part where reading it makes you want to kill yourself.”
Yeah, I’m also for waiting for this. I want something new which is better than others…….