Okay, first, my biases here:
* I played Diablo 2 and enjoyed it, but I never got into Hell mode because I found the late game far too repetitive.
* I found Diablo 3 to be a better game than 2, mainly based on the ease of trying different builds.
* Similarly, though, I didn't enjoy the late game enough to keep playing it forever. I mostly stopped playing after my monk killed Diablo on Inferno for the first time, with a bit of messing around on alts after that.
* I'm guessing that Borderlands 2 will be a more fun game than either of those.
Now the story. David Sirlin is a game designer and professional Street Fighter player with a blog that sometimes goes into interesting design topics. He had a post up a few months ago about differences between Diablo 2's and Diablo 3's skill trees, [http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/5/3/diablo-3s-ability-system.html] for example. In a recent post, he talked about game addiction, about the differences between the things that we "like" to do and the things that we "want" to do. It's a great thread if you have a moment to read it. [http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/8/22/addiction-diablo-3-and-portal-2.html] Sirlin specifically points out differences between the experiences of Diablo 3 and Portal 2. He suggests that he much more "likes" playing the Portal 2 multiplayer than playing D3, but D3's addictive qualities were things that he "wanted" to do more to satisfy a craving.
In the comment section, we got to that thing that we have in any blog or news post that mentions Diablo 3 - the angry Anonymous gentleman who believes that D3 wrecked the franchise that was perfected by D2.
As someone who disagrees that D3 was the worse game, I replied to the post, suggesting that the skinner box qualities of D2 contributed to the angry comment spam that always pops up, that players felt a deeper "love" for the game because they couldn't respec, so any desired changes in build had to be accompanied by additional grinding on a new character.
Anonymous's response to my post was one of the most incredible trollings I had ever read:
As someone who is not in the sciences, it hurt me that I was not a person on higher edge of the intelligence scale. I could not appreciate that enjoying D3 was something straight out of an Orwell novel.
Sirlin got to the response first, and he simply replied: "Anonymous comments tend to be much lower quality. There was exhibit A."
Anonymous was seriously offended, and to this he penned a thesis paper explaining the science of enjoying one game over the other.
So now I hope all of you Blizzard fanbois understand the truth - brain science has proven that Diablo 2 was the best Diablo of all time.
* I played Diablo 2 and enjoyed it, but I never got into Hell mode because I found the late game far too repetitive.
* I found Diablo 3 to be a better game than 2, mainly based on the ease of trying different builds.
* Similarly, though, I didn't enjoy the late game enough to keep playing it forever. I mostly stopped playing after my monk killed Diablo on Inferno for the first time, with a bit of messing around on alts after that.
* I'm guessing that Borderlands 2 will be a more fun game than either of those.
Now the story. David Sirlin is a game designer and professional Street Fighter player with a blog that sometimes goes into interesting design topics. He had a post up a few months ago about differences between Diablo 2's and Diablo 3's skill trees, [http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/5/3/diablo-3s-ability-system.html] for example. In a recent post, he talked about game addiction, about the differences between the things that we "like" to do and the things that we "want" to do. It's a great thread if you have a moment to read it. [http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/8/22/addiction-diablo-3-and-portal-2.html] Sirlin specifically points out differences between the experiences of Diablo 3 and Portal 2. He suggests that he much more "likes" playing the Portal 2 multiplayer than playing D3, but D3's addictive qualities were things that he "wanted" to do more to satisfy a craving.
In the comment section, we got to that thing that we have in any blog or news post that mentions Diablo 3 - the angry Anonymous gentleman who believes that D3 wrecked the franchise that was perfected by D2.
The real issue is generational turn over, Diablo 3 for me was one giant disappointment. I speak as a former diablo 1 / 2 addict that played marathon sessions until the game started to give.
For me I would always begin to lose interest in diablo 2 going into nightmare in the first act.
The real issue is diablo 3 isn't a very fun game compared to diablo 2, diablo 2 was going in the right direction by adding moves to characters like the pally (shield bash + charge, etc). Action RPG's are really fighting games from isometric camera perspective. It's as if you've taken soul calibur 2 and adjusted the camera and combat for isometric perspective.
I found both Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 underwhelming games - they are merely milking the unwashed, stupid and inexperienced. Most mass market gamers are not gaming/money smart.
The fact that 6 million plus people bought a DRM infested game is proof enough that most gamers are morons. Diablo 3 didn't realize (sadly) that it's combat mechanics are weak and the classes and skills largely suck.
People who like D3 are just newer gamers without a huge gaming history and are just too easy to please and undiscriminating leading to mediocre games like Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 (which is just a rehash of SC1, no innovation).
* Anonymous
For me I would always begin to lose interest in diablo 2 going into nightmare in the first act.
The real issue is diablo 3 isn't a very fun game compared to diablo 2, diablo 2 was going in the right direction by adding moves to characters like the pally (shield bash + charge, etc). Action RPG's are really fighting games from isometric camera perspective. It's as if you've taken soul calibur 2 and adjusted the camera and combat for isometric perspective.
I found both Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 underwhelming games - they are merely milking the unwashed, stupid and inexperienced. Most mass market gamers are not gaming/money smart.
The fact that 6 million plus people bought a DRM infested game is proof enough that most gamers are morons. Diablo 3 didn't realize (sadly) that it's combat mechanics are weak and the classes and skills largely suck.
People who like D3 are just newer gamers without a huge gaming history and are just too easy to please and undiscriminating leading to mediocre games like Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 (which is just a rehash of SC1, no innovation).
* Anonymous
Anonymous's response to my post was one of the most incredible trollings I had ever read:
I don't think you get why people loved diablo 2 to begin with, it's not that Diablo 2 didn't have problems with over-relying on loot gambling (it definitely did) the problem is the diablo 3 is NOT made by the same people who made diablo 2 the feel of the world, the games story, the characters, the classes, are all different in a bad way. People on higher edge of the intelligence scale can see the subtleties that go beyond your limited abilities. What happens is most people use social proof to change their opinion and attitudes to go along with the crowd, there's a scientific reason why people are so prone to believing propaganda and rationalizing why "d3 is better". Marching to the beat of serious analysis takes lots of time, dedication and playing Diablo 3 and diablo 1+2 back to back so that you can tease out those differences in your unconscious mind and identify them. Provided your not a blithing idiot. Most people don't do that kind of thinking when forming opinions about games so they blather unintelligent nonsense.
Those of us in the sciences know that most peoples opinions on D3 are idiotic because most people don't understand the science of how their brain works. You could be given the most fact based mathematically sound opinion on why d3 is not very good and you'd still reject it because that isn't how your brain works.
http://bit.ly/dYaWUc (editor's note - this links to a YouTube of George Orwell giving a speech)
When you come along blaming skinner boxes or 'nostalgia goggles'. You're not being intelligent. Game mechanics are directly connected to aesthetics AND quirks (even though they may be 'irrational') in human psyche. The problem isn't the bad aspects of diablo 2 (which everyone knows) the problem is the designers who made d2 would have taken Diablo 3 in a better direction then the diablo 3 team which basically copied diablo 2's formula and and dumbed it all down for the moron wow masses.
Games are a communication between developers and the gaming audience and many gamers really don't like what the devs behind D3 farted out. Part of this has to do with lazyness and expense of developing games. The random dungeon element of diablo 1/2 wasn't perfect but the were going in the right direction. In D3 there is next to no sense of randomness or novelty in dungeons and this makes dungeons pathetically uninteresting because the repetition is just too overt and not more obscure and hidden like it was in prior games.
Many of us could write essays on the subtle aspects of diablo 1 + 2, diablo 3 just doesn't have the same excitement factor d1 and D2 had. Whenever doing 'analysis after the fact' 10 years after diablo 1 + 2 were released lots of game design lessons have been learned since then, trying to pin it all on nostalgia is weak minded at best and shows you are part of the mouthbreathing WoW generation at worst.
Diablo 2 had game mechanics going in the direction of a more action oriented game which were cut short by diablo 3's shit classes. Most of d3's classes are utterly boring as fuck to play. Don't tell me many people wouldn't kill to get improved versions of older classes from D2 into D3, you bet they would because the find the new ones so pathetically designed.
Anyone who doesn't think there are huge issues with D3 has already proven their inability to form a cogent opinion about gaming and should not be listened to in serious discussions in trying to break down why things suck or are unfun.
* Anonymous
Those of us in the sciences know that most peoples opinions on D3 are idiotic because most people don't understand the science of how their brain works. You could be given the most fact based mathematically sound opinion on why d3 is not very good and you'd still reject it because that isn't how your brain works.
http://bit.ly/dYaWUc (editor's note - this links to a YouTube of George Orwell giving a speech)
When you come along blaming skinner boxes or 'nostalgia goggles'. You're not being intelligent. Game mechanics are directly connected to aesthetics AND quirks (even though they may be 'irrational') in human psyche. The problem isn't the bad aspects of diablo 2 (which everyone knows) the problem is the designers who made d2 would have taken Diablo 3 in a better direction then the diablo 3 team which basically copied diablo 2's formula and and dumbed it all down for the moron wow masses.
Games are a communication between developers and the gaming audience and many gamers really don't like what the devs behind D3 farted out. Part of this has to do with lazyness and expense of developing games. The random dungeon element of diablo 1/2 wasn't perfect but the were going in the right direction. In D3 there is next to no sense of randomness or novelty in dungeons and this makes dungeons pathetically uninteresting because the repetition is just too overt and not more obscure and hidden like it was in prior games.
Many of us could write essays on the subtle aspects of diablo 1 + 2, diablo 3 just doesn't have the same excitement factor d1 and D2 had. Whenever doing 'analysis after the fact' 10 years after diablo 1 + 2 were released lots of game design lessons have been learned since then, trying to pin it all on nostalgia is weak minded at best and shows you are part of the mouthbreathing WoW generation at worst.
Diablo 2 had game mechanics going in the direction of a more action oriented game which were cut short by diablo 3's shit classes. Most of d3's classes are utterly boring as fuck to play. Don't tell me many people wouldn't kill to get improved versions of older classes from D2 into D3, you bet they would because the find the new ones so pathetically designed.
Anyone who doesn't think there are huge issues with D3 has already proven their inability to form a cogent opinion about gaming and should not be listened to in serious discussions in trying to break down why things suck or are unfun.
* Anonymous
Sirlin got to the response first, and he simply replied: "Anonymous comments tend to be much lower quality. There was exhibit A."
Anonymous was seriously offended, and to this he penned a thesis paper explaining the science of enjoying one game over the other.
@sirlin
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110903142411.htm
People who have opinions contrary to the group are cast out because of unconscious bias. Given your level of investment in and being too close to developers in the industry. Your analysis of my post is suspect. Unconscious desire to protect and defend people you know and/or your commenters on your blog or your strong feelings for diablo 3 is not insight.
You live on a world of stupid killer human beings, a world riddled with war and poverty, this says something about human minds capacity to perceive reality - it sucks. It takes way too much time, effort, energy to do serious analysis. And we can be certain most people who casually comment here at your blog and even you haven't done enough. I do brain research for a living. The problem is the human mind is not an infinitely flexible machine. There are places people can reach that you simply can't because it's a matter of unconscious processes that work at a superior level of efficiency and it has nothing to do with arrogance, it's just a matter of the universes functioning.
Intelligent people have a level of humility but they also have their limits given the intractable nature of human communication on the internet. What I've intended and what you've interpreted are two separate things.
Don't confuse style with substance. You're only seeing what your brain is forcing you to see. The real issue is once you learn or master a given game or system the stickyness begins to wear off and you want novelty or more things to do. Diablo 3 didn't do any of this. So those of us who've experienced the same game with slightly updated graphics and crappier loot grinding with worse randomized dungeons and questionable classes have serious issues with D3.
There is a reason D3 created such a divide, those with actual curiosity into how different brains work and experience games will be the ones cracking the 'fun code'. It's all a matter of persistence and a cubic fuck-tonne of boring work given sufficient talent.
Just because you think someones opinion has no basis in reality doesn't mean that is true, your mind gives you a 'beginners model' a suggestion based on your past experiences whether something is 'true' or 'bullshit'. Given the limited level of your education and actual research in the field itself of the brain sciences you have no idea the things that have been discovered are undermining entire idea of 'subjective/objective' distinction, there will be a science of fun one day and we'll have scientific reasons why people like or dislike something sooner or later and be able to point out specifics. The enlightenment was wrong about how the human mind operates but it was also wrong about the subjective/objective division of the world. The real problem is thinking clearly about these issues and it's obvious you don't have the expertise to form high level opinions on a lot of what you comment on.
Real creative intellectuals are resisted because of modelling problem of the mind given its limited resources, if you are as intelligent as you think you are then you should know that your mind doesn't live in reality, it lives in it's 'model of the world' and given that most of your opinions, ideas, likes, dislikes are a matter of biological functioning you identify with whatever your nervous system is generating. Questioning whether the words and ideas passing along it when they are generated have anything to do with reality is intelligent, assuming you know and not engaging your curiosity is not.
That being the case I'm also a human being with a passion for games and am not immune from intractable nature of communication on the internet. That being said, some games have been dumbed down over the last 10 years and anyone who says differently is definitely ignorant of reality.
* Anonymous
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110903142411.htm
People who have opinions contrary to the group are cast out because of unconscious bias. Given your level of investment in and being too close to developers in the industry. Your analysis of my post is suspect. Unconscious desire to protect and defend people you know and/or your commenters on your blog or your strong feelings for diablo 3 is not insight.
You live on a world of stupid killer human beings, a world riddled with war and poverty, this says something about human minds capacity to perceive reality - it sucks. It takes way too much time, effort, energy to do serious analysis. And we can be certain most people who casually comment here at your blog and even you haven't done enough. I do brain research for a living. The problem is the human mind is not an infinitely flexible machine. There are places people can reach that you simply can't because it's a matter of unconscious processes that work at a superior level of efficiency and it has nothing to do with arrogance, it's just a matter of the universes functioning.
Intelligent people have a level of humility but they also have their limits given the intractable nature of human communication on the internet. What I've intended and what you've interpreted are two separate things.
Don't confuse style with substance. You're only seeing what your brain is forcing you to see. The real issue is once you learn or master a given game or system the stickyness begins to wear off and you want novelty or more things to do. Diablo 3 didn't do any of this. So those of us who've experienced the same game with slightly updated graphics and crappier loot grinding with worse randomized dungeons and questionable classes have serious issues with D3.
There is a reason D3 created such a divide, those with actual curiosity into how different brains work and experience games will be the ones cracking the 'fun code'. It's all a matter of persistence and a cubic fuck-tonne of boring work given sufficient talent.
Just because you think someones opinion has no basis in reality doesn't mean that is true, your mind gives you a 'beginners model' a suggestion based on your past experiences whether something is 'true' or 'bullshit'. Given the limited level of your education and actual research in the field itself of the brain sciences you have no idea the things that have been discovered are undermining entire idea of 'subjective/objective' distinction, there will be a science of fun one day and we'll have scientific reasons why people like or dislike something sooner or later and be able to point out specifics. The enlightenment was wrong about how the human mind operates but it was also wrong about the subjective/objective division of the world. The real problem is thinking clearly about these issues and it's obvious you don't have the expertise to form high level opinions on a lot of what you comment on.
Real creative intellectuals are resisted because of modelling problem of the mind given its limited resources, if you are as intelligent as you think you are then you should know that your mind doesn't live in reality, it lives in it's 'model of the world' and given that most of your opinions, ideas, likes, dislikes are a matter of biological functioning you identify with whatever your nervous system is generating. Questioning whether the words and ideas passing along it when they are generated have anything to do with reality is intelligent, assuming you know and not engaging your curiosity is not.
That being the case I'm also a human being with a passion for games and am not immune from intractable nature of communication on the internet. That being said, some games have been dumbed down over the last 10 years and anyone who says differently is definitely ignorant of reality.
* Anonymous
