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It's interesting that the cinematics were made by an entirely separate team that barely communicated with the game developers. Somehow it produced a better sto
by panic 11y ago
It's interesting that the cinematics were made by an entirely separate team that barely communicated with the game developers. Somehow it produced a better story than Diablo 3's more traditional mixing of story with gameplay.
- danharaj 11y agoIn some ways advancing the story was a reward for playing, which can feel more compelling than trying to craft the illusion that the player's actions effect the advancement.
- stormbrew 11y agoWell, I don't think this is why. Diablo 3's problem is just that the story writing, and particularly the dialog writing, is extremely trite. Diablo and Diablo 2 had fairly simple but compelling stories that were dropped in at key moments. Diablo 3 is largely progressively more annoying demons telling you how unlikely you are to beat them. It just gets tiresome. That'd be true if they were separated cut scenes as in Diablo 2 or integrated dialog as in 3.
- jonhohle 11y agoI was a fan of the "Death" diplomacy in D3 /sarc. At least for the barbarian role, the solution to all problems was to murder the current antagonist, even when it seemed like the antagonizer's goal was effectively the same as the hero's; they just weren't the hero. The hero him/herself was responsible for as much or more death than any of the enemies.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago> The hero him/herself was responsible for as much or more death than any of the enemies. Isn't it so true about many popular stories? If you tally the body count, it often turns out that it's the protagonist who is the monster.
- eru 11y agoThat's why in nethack you only meet three horsemen of the apocalypse (death, famine, pestilence). The player is implied to personify war. Mildly interesting on a pacifism run.
- qznc 11y agoThe Sword of Good http://lesswrong.com/lw/169/the_sword_of_good/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/169/the_sword_of_good/
- TeMPOraL 11y agoA great story, thanks for reminding me of it! Another interesting but little-known story by Eliezer is http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/.
- golergka 11y agoIn a lot of stealth games like Metal Gear series you can kill only one or two bosses through the whole game, but it's extremely difficult.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoYup. Also a lot of stealth games actually incentivize you to avoid or stun your enemies instead of killing them, whether for scoring reasons or pragmatic ones (e.g. killing is loud, or triggers a heartbeat alarm that alerts others). Star Trek: Away Team, and more recently Invisible, Inc. come to mind. I like games that give you a non-violent path. I vividly remember enjoying Mirror's Edge trying to do a zero kill playthrough. It wasn't easy, because sometimes opponent jumped at you in such moments that you could kick them out of rooftops by accident. But it feels rewarding to play a game in a way that, at the end of it, will preserve both you and your opponents, who often aren't evil per se and don't deserve to die.
- fenomas 11y agoI think the difference is that D1/2 took a reasonably simple story and told it as sparsely as possible, in widely-spaced vignettes, leaving the player to fill in everything else. D3 took a similarly simple story, and told all of it in detail.
- doikor 11y agoJust the fact that the lords of hell were actually talking to the hero makes it very weird/stupid to me. In D2 Mephisto throws one single one-liner at the hero and other demons just laugh/scream and thats it. The story in the cinematics is narrated by Marius not any of the prime evils. (I think Baal actually talks the most due to his conversation with Marius in one of the cinematics).