Blizzard I love you.

I love you so unreservedly that it is painful for me to have to write this.

I have been playing Diablo 2 with a group of friends of mine since before it came out, basically.

I am still playing it, on and off, now. Thanks for keeping battle net going, Diablo 2 is simply the best game on the market, uncontestedly, as far as we are concerned.

Let's talk about Diablo 3 for a second though, can we?

I'm writing this because in between wondering if Zac Efron's having said Ian Mckellan was his favorite actor in Rolling Stone meant that he was gay and thinking about how one would go about explaining Ludwig Wittgenstein to the Dalai Llama (the secret to which is in Frank Herberts Dune and Bruce Lee's JKD, if you were curious about that last one, the first one I don't myself know about - ) I started thinking about something my friend Paul said.

My friend Paul is really good at a few things, I should explain. The thing that's germane (and on display in this particular comment) is in divining what the most competatively advantageous class to be is in any given system.

The remark was: "Paladins shouldnt exist as one class in Diablo 3."

This is so true that it deserves public forum, which is part of why I'm here. What I was thinking about alongside this comment is the other part, and it's to do with what I almost chose as the title for the forum post - Franchise Management, a depressing exception to the similiarities in the Blizzard and WoTC corporate structures.




What in the name of all that is right and good in the world are you doing with the classes in this game?

I Don't Understand You. I -DON'T- Understand.

Obscenities are required for me to be more expressive, but I think that's a true enough level to proceed in explaining what so upsets me.

You have to look at it like this.

In a game like Diablo, classes are like individual cards in Magic the Gathering.

Ok, I have to explain a little bit further here because although it seems like you guys are in related fields I don't know how much you communicate with eachother or are familiar with eachother's work.

So in Magic the Gathering, or in what I have read of it, there is a concept called 'Design Space' which refers to a kind of conceptual terrain for the designers of new additions to the game (of which there are many, designers for and additions to, magic is a very dynamic game). This terrain is in some senses of the word a resource, and the development of it, of new arenas within it, and of sustainable ways to maintain it, is the business of the R&D department (with interface to the management..etc. I am constructing the shell of the thing you understand.

Interestingly, although only a little relatedly, there was a mechanic that was humorously highlighted as being overbroad in this same way as the paladin, the split card mechanic. Hahaha, anyway.

Paladins. They are overbroad in design space.

This is just kind of true, they gave them the ability to be a credible melee class fairly easily, Hammerdins are god's own terror and have a unique element that nothing resists, and they can get into elemental @!#! if they need to.

Paladins.

Hahah, but here's the messed up bit.

I don't think you guys get that, but I -also- don't think that Diablo 3 is going to have enough classes for it even to really -matter- , which is what I just DONT understand.


YOUR JOB IS TO MAKE MAGIC CARDS AND YOU DONT MAKE LOTS OF THEM.


Now hold up, slow up, stop, control.

I'm not crazy. I get that balancing classes is probably really, really difficult.

I get that manz.

That's really not what I'm talking about, although hey that would be cool. You guys should probably de-mystify that for us in the consumer base by the way, it would be nice to know what it was that wasnt making the cut, having some kind of voter system for what ideas that get cut get developed into the downloadable content later.

That is so obviously the paradigm replacement for MMOs by the way is just a system of codifying expectation with respect to seasonal expansion packs. Ala City of Heroes but better.

Whatever.

What I'm -really- talking about is the Archivist.

Your joke department.

Yeah.

Ha.


See the joke is, I take it, that you wasted time designing that instead of an actual new class.

My point blizzard is that if you want to have only 5 classes you -can't- have them be the Amazon and the Paladin.

I'm sorry brothers, there's nothing I can do about that.

That just isn't a good game, and it is doomed to failure.

The three classes you have released to us so far have been the Barbarian, who is from Diablo 2, where he was the spiritual heir to the Warrior of Diablo 1.

Fail.

The Wizard, a renamed Sorceress who was a femal Sorcerer. Diablo 1.

Fail.

The Witchdoctor, who is the Necromancer and I guess some scraps of the druid it looked like. Hahaha.

Fail.

You are out of options dudes.

I mean, you -HAVE- to advance your franchise, or it will die. Austin Powers is the proof of this, right? Like all bad franchises, just feeding on its own gut.

You can't -just- have the old stuff back with the new shiny skin. It doesnt work, and even when it works ok you have just made essentially Titan Quest 2 instead of DIABLO 3, do you understand?


But it's ok. There is still time. You are blizzard, we weren't expecting this game until forever anyway. You can go back. You can mine for new veins of actual potential that still fits with Diablo 2.

Also, hey.

Remember? That game was awesome. You can do more direct incorporation maybe than you think?

You should have seen our Anti Paladin man. You know like on the Forge.net, where everybody has their fantasy heartbreak game? I feel like every real player of Diablo has their heartbreak folder of things they hope you are going to do.

You get to do it man! I would be writing out classes every damn day if I were in your position. We all would. Because you get to make the next one of a really really successful game franchise.

I like the idea of the rage bar, that's cool.

Our Anti Paladin had a similiar thing, we designed a passive summon mechanic? So the idea was that when the Worldstone barrier got weaker the people of the church of Zakarum either went with the vestiges of the councils black heresiarchy or were incorporated more fully into the angelic ranks, so the class splits into Cleric (active healer, ala the necro's curses, with some passive nods to making it give back a little mana..etc.) and Anti Paladin, who gets the paladin's offensive aura tree and then this passive one with the summon branch.

So the idea was that you filled a sacrifice gauge with personal kills, and then once it was full every successive kill had a percentage chance to trigger whichever of the summons you had designated (or possibly just whichever one you had the most points in, that would work). So they have either hitpoints or a timer, I liked hitpoints he liked timer, and then cooldown to the bar.

Isn't that awesome? So you'd get a sometimes valkyrie.

We were thinking a blaster one, like the lich in Titan Quest, and then a Melee One that would get a taunt or something with higher levels in it, and then (maybe) a shadow-paladin, like the assassin's pet, but see the trick would be that this one has your skills, including the passive summon, so the shadow could (small chance) recurse itself, and you could have like three.

So awesome! The occasional one man front line.

I dont know, I like it a lot, we had a couple others. EVERYONE has a couple of these.

YOU should have a couple of these, and they should be a hell of lot better researched and worded.

You are PAID to do this.

Please.

I want to enjoy your games. I was begging for you to just palette shift some monsters, shuffle some boards and scramble the skill trees and charge me 20 dollars.

We all were, but now it's a whole new game, and it's time to be honest about it.

We're all -probably- going to play your game, but that doesn't mean it will be something you should be proud of, nor that it won't be the ultimate death of the franchise itself.

And you can make me not play it, and that's if you show me loudly enough that you don't care about it any more.

Enough jokes manz. I like your story a lot. You should too.

*phew* Ok let me sum that up for myself and everyone else - "The classes shown thus far are not unique enough".

Ok.

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Q u o t e:
Seriously? That's the post you wanted?

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Obviously not, but ... come on, that post was all over the place. Go look at it. Don't even read it, just look at the formatting. It's spilling crazy all over the floor it's so full of crazy.

Anyway, there are a few archetypes of classic fantasy characters. Expecting us to do something completely outside of those archetypes for the sake of trying to be original is unnecessary, and would probably lead to something that's just ridiculous and not fun, or difficult to design - let alone balance.

I'm more than happy with you expressing your opinion, and as I summed it up yes essentially your opinion was that you wanted more originality. That's fine, but I was just saying the way in which it was presented was practically inedible.

Haha I think you've only served to confuse me more.

Well, I'm not sure I can discuss much more without showing our hand. But! I think we'll have at least one class in the game that will appeal to everyone. And that's sort of the goal with the core game, hit those main archetypes that everyone can identify with. "Hey, a Wizard... I'm pretty sure I know what that's all about without even seeing it." Any potential expansions are probably where you'd try out something not of a core archetype like, say, an assassin or druid. ;P

The witch doctor is a bit riskier, and I think sometimes written off as just a twist on the necromancer, but no one has really seen most of his abilities and the flavor he brings. He still has a lot left for people to discover.

P.S. Tell Paul I said hi.