Tag Archives: Diablo

BlizzCon 2014 Wishlist/Predictions + New Article

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We’re now a little over a month away from this year’s BlizzCon, so now feels like a good time to go over my predictions for the convention’s reveals, as well as what I’m hoping to see.

Warcraft:

A player garrison in World of Warcraft: Warlords of DraenorI can’t imagine there will be much to discuss in regards to World of Warcraft at BlizzCon this year, since Warlords of Draenor won’t even be out yet. A surprisingly large number of people are speculating they’ll announce the expansion after WoD, but I think that’s crazy talk.

Time to face facts, people: Blizzard isn’t going to deliver on their promise of faster expansions. They’ve been saying it for half a decade, and we’ve still gotten a year-long content gap every time.

Even putting aside how absurd it is to think they’d have anything to show from 7.0, they wouldn’t want to spoil the hype around WoD, such as it is.

I could see them making some reveals for the first content patch of WoD, but that’s about it.

I don’t think we’ll be lacking news for the rest of the Warcraft franchise, though.

I fully expect to be hearing a lot about the Warcraft movie at BlizzCon. There was a teaser trailer shown at Comic Con this year, so I would be surprised and more than a little disappointed if they didn’t release the first publicly available trailer at BlizzCon.

A screenshot from Warcraft: Orcs and HumansSomething else that we might see is news of remastered versions of the old Warcraft strategy games. It’s already been announced that Blizzard is working on updating them for newer systems, and this year is the twentieth anniversary of the Warcraft franchise, so now seems a good time to release them.

Unfortunately, I suspect all they’ll do is update the code so the games run well on modern operating systems. Heck, Warcraft I was a DOS game.

But what I’d really like to see is full graphical remakes. They can keep the game mechanics the same — maybe better pathing and some quality of life tweaks, but nothing more — but redo them in the StarCraft II engine. That would be nothing short of amazing.

There have been rumours swirling of an HD remake of Warcraft III, but I dare not get my hopes up. Plus, as much as WC3 is my favourite installment of the franchise, and as much as I would love to see it with revamped graphics, I think the earlier games would benefit from that treatment a lot more. WC3 still runs okay on modern systems, and the graphics have aged reasonably well due to their cartoony style. Even in if the earlier games could run on modern systems, they’d look and play rather poorly.

But I don’t see Blizzard wanting to put forth the effort necessary to fully update those games, sadly.

There’s been a lot of talk of another expansion for Hearthstone lately, so I expect an announcement of it at BlizzCon.

StarCraft:

A screenshot of Zeratul in a StarCraft II cinematicIt’s been a while since Heart of the Swarm launched now, even in Blizzard time, so I think it very likely that we’ll be getting a major dump of information on the final expansion, Legacy of the Void.

Protoss have always been my favourite race, so it’s hard to imagine myself not loving LotV. I’m a little nervous since the story for HotS was pretty underwhelming, but it would take some serious effort to make an entire game full of Protoss not be awesome.

I greatly hope they will make Zeratul a Warcraft III style hero as they did for Kerrigan in HotS. It adds such an interesting extra dimension to the gameplay, and Zeratul is such a legendary figure that he deserves to be more than some guy who only shows up every few levels and just hides in your base.

I’m curious what other unique mechanics the campaign will bring. Given the identity of the Protoss, I think it might be interesting if, instead of applying blanket upgrades to unit types, individual units could become veterans based on their kill counts, gaining better stats and new abilities over time. Your strongest veterans would follow you throughout the campaign, becoming ever more powerful.

I’ve heard it said they don’t plan to add any new units to the multiplayer, but I expect them to renege on that. It feels pretty underwhelming if they don’t add anything to half the game, and why would multiplayer fans need to buy the expansion if there are no new units? Doesn’t make good business sense.

As futile as it seems at this point, I’m still hoping they find a way to make carriers actually useful for something.

Diablo:

A cutscene from the crusader class in Diablo 3I fully expect there to be at least one more expansion for Diablo III. It’s been rumoured since before the base game was even released, and the ending to Reaper of Souls had multiple cliffhangers.

It does seem a bit soon after RoS for another expansion to be announced, but one can still hope. Much to my surprise, I’ve come to greatly appreciate Diablo III, and RoS was nothing short of spectacular, so I’m very excited to get my hands on another expansion.

As for what the actual content of the expansion will be, it’s hard to say at this point. Undoubtedly, we’ll be hunting Diablo himself once again, but beyond that, it’s all guesswork.

My hope is that the destruction of the Black Soulstone means Leah’s spirit has also been freed, and that we may see her be redeemed. She did not deserve her dark fate, and I’d like to see her get her happily ever after, or something close to it, at least.

I also hope to see more conflict with the angels. One of the most interesting aspects of Reaper of Souls was realizing that the High Heavens were as much a threat to humanity as the Burning Hells. And Imperius really needs to be taken down a peg.

We’ve also got to help Shen track down Dirgest, and we have to solve the murder of Lyndon’s brother.

Battling atop the battering ram outside Pandemonium Fortress in Diablo III: Reaper of SoulsThe setting is a big question mark. For some reason, I get the feeling we might end up in jungles of Kurast, but I have no real basis for that. The Dreadlands also seem a likely prospect, being a hotbed of demonic corruption.

Personally, I’d like to go to Xiansai. A far northern land with Asian inspirations? Hell yeah. Plus, it’s the homeland of two of my favourite characters: Covetous Shen and Li-Ming.

I also expect another new class in the inevitable second expansion, whenever it comes around. Necromancer is probably the most commonly requested one, but I think it might be too close to the witch doctor.

Mind you, I said the same thing about monks and paladins, and then we got the crusader. And it is worth noting that a lot of people — myself included — enjoyed the necromancer in Diablo II and do not feel the witch doctor is at all a valid substitute.

But I think my money is going to be on druid. It’s the only class from Diablo II whose archetype does not seem to be at all represented by any of the D3 classes. I’m not sure exactly how a druid would play out in D3, partly because I’m not sure how they worked in Lord of Destruction, but I think it could be interesting, particularly if shape-shifting is involved.

Heroes of the Storm:

My team prepares to begin a match in the Heroes of the Storm alphaWith the final stage of technical alpha before us and the last account wipe behind us, I expect we’ll see an announcement of an imminent beta for Heroes of the Storm at BlizzCon.

I think it will either be an open beta, or a closed beta with the option to buy access through founder’s packs. Either way, I expect this will be another case where “beta” means “soft launch.” The alpha is already surprisingly polished, and the game feels almost ready for primetime to me.

I’m predicting an official release in early 2015.

I hope to see a bunch of new hero announcements at BlizzCon, as well. Hopefully some of the more iconic heroes. It feels very strange to me that they’re already putting out ultra obscure heroes like Rehgar Earthfury and completely new creations like Brightwing when major icons like Thrall, Jaina Proudmoore, Sylvanas Windrunner, Fenix, Mephisto, and Baal are still nowhere to be found.

Would be nice to see a new map or two, as well. I really want to see a StarCraft-inspired space platform map. So far, every map has been fantasy-based. Let’s get some sci-fi in there for flavour.

Other:

Sadly, it was recently announced that the upcoming MMO known only as “Project Titan” has been cancelled. Not that it was likely to be discussed at this year’s BlizzCon anyway, but it’s still a bit disappointing.

That said, there’s still the chance Blizzard might surprise us. There have been rumours of another unannounced game aside from Titan, possibly a shooter similar to the Left 4 Dead series. The term “Overwatch” was supposedly trademarked by Blizzard aways back, so that might be related.

The Jacobs Installation mission in third person shooter mode in the StarCraft: Mass Recall modI wouldn’t mind seeing a shooter set in the StarCraft universe, especially if I can play as a ghost. On the other hand, it might be nice to see Blizzard take a chance with a new IP. They haven’t done that since literally last century.

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What about you? What are you expecting to see at this year’s BlizzCon? What are you hoping to see? Share your thoughts.

New article:

In my latest published article, I delve into the darkest mysteries of the World of Warcraft and seek to uncover the truth behind the enigma of the Old Gods.

Review: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

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Ah, Diablo III. What a strange odyssey this game has had. Massive fiscal success, but panned by fans. It got so much right, and so much wrong. It evolved greatly, eventually solving many of the problems it launched with. Despite its stumbles and my ambivalence toward the Diablo franchise as a whole, I stuck with it through the ups and downs, and now, my patience has been rewarded.

A cutscene from the crusader class in Diablo 3Diablo III has come into its own.

No one can stop death:

I enjoyed the story of the first game. It had some good twists, and an excellent cast of characters kept me emotionally invested. It did have its stumbles, though. Pacing, in particular, was wildly inconsistent, and some sections seemed to drag on forever with nothing particularly interesting happening.

Act V has all of the good of D3’s story, and none of the bad. Far from being sluggish in its pacing, it hits the ground running and continues at a breakneck pace, almost without pause.

There is so much going on in Act V it’s incredible. You can hardly go five paces without stumbling into an event, and there are conversations and pieces of lore everywhere.

The story of Reaper of Souls is suitably epic. The former archangel of wisdom, Malthael, has determined that humanity is the last and greatest bastion of demonic power left following the defeat of the seven Evils, and he has unleashed an army of angels and undead upon mankind to end the Eternal Conflict once and for all.

Battling atop the battering ram outside Pandemonium Fortress in Diablo III: Reaper of SoulsThis expands on something that has been hinted at but not fully explored before in Diablo: The war between angels and demons is not a battle of good versus evil. It is simply a war between diametrically opposed forces, neither of which gives a damn about humans save as tools.

The message of Reaper of Souls is loud and clear: Angels are as much a threat to humanity as the forces of Hell.

What really impressed about the story, though, is how complex it is. There’s an underlying question of whether Malthael is right about humanity — that we are wicked creatures worthy of extinction. Throughout the story, you’ll be treated to examples of humanity at its very worst. When people should be uniting against the angels, they are turning on each other like rabid dogs.

It reminds me of some of the questions posed by Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica reboot, or my own World Spectrum novels. Is humanity worthy of survival?

At the risk of spoiling things a little, Act V does something I’ve wanted from a Blizzard expansion forever: It doesn’t end with everything wrapped up in a neat little package. Just the opposite — there’s quite a cliff-hanger. I think we can take another expansion as a certainty.

The streets of Westmarch in Diablo III: Reaper of SoulsMy only major complaint with the ending is the lack of one of Blizzard’s juicy, juicy cinematics. There’s just a brief cutscene. What is this? WoW?

Reaper of Souls also continues the character arcs of the followers and crafters, one of the best parts of vanilla D3. There are now Bioware-esque follower quests to further expand on the plots. I like the idea of these, and some offer some pretty major revelations about the characters, but if I must pick nits, they weren’t implemented very well. They appear very suddenly and are over too quickly.

Still, it’s great to see more character development.

Aesthetically, Act V is also an improvement over the original game. The environments are very gloomy and spooky and feel appropriate to the Diablo setting. I’ll never be a big fan of D3’s graphics, but the new areas make the best of them. The music is also quite lovely, and a bit less muted this time.

Act V is incredibly short, and I feel like I should be disappointed by that, but I can’t bring myself to be. It was a fantastic ride, however brief, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Except the lack of a cinematic.

The crusade marches on!

My crusader looking stylish in Diablo III: Reaper of SoulsAside from new story, the thing that most interested me about Reaper of Souls was the addition of a new class, the crusader. I had fond memories of playing a paladin in Diablo II, and I was underwhelmed by the melee classes at launch, so I was eager to get my hands on this holy warrior.

I was not disappointed. The crusader far exceeded my expectations and is now my second favourite class in the game, only narrowly behind the wizard.

Though superficially different, the crusader reminds me of playing Anjali in Dungeon Siege III — one of my all-time favourite RPG characters/classes. Like Anjali, the crusader is a very well-rounded class. It’s a little melee, and a little ranged. It’s a little magical, and a little physical. It’s even got a version of her Fall From the Heavens ability in the form of Falling Sword.

The crusader brings the brutal physicality one would expect from a melee class, but it also has the versatility that comes from a decent number of ranged options and magical abilities. It’s not one-dimensional.

I also quite like the class’s personality. He’s not at all the stuffy holy man one would expect. He’s got a very laid-back, wry air about him. His wit is amusing, and he comes across as an incredibly chill dude.

My crusader having a heart-to-heart with Kormac in Diablo III: Reaper of SoulsPlus, he’s voiced by Gideon Emery, who plays Fenris in Dragon Age II and Lor’themar Theron in World of Warcraft. He’s one of those guys I’d pay to hear read a menu.

And the gear for crusaders looks pretty awesome, too.

Other features:

Most other changes that came with Reaper of Souls were already included in the 2.0 patch, which I’ve already talked about. I don’t wish to repeat myself other than to say that I greatly appreciate the ability to change difficulty settings on the fly now. No more need to wade through incredibly easy content on a low level character. I keep cranking the difficulty higher and higher for my crusader, and he’s leveling absurdly fast as a result. After finishing act one, he’s almost level forty — in my original play through, it took me the entire length of the game to get that high.

There’s a new crafter in the form of the mystic. Her ability to change stats on gear is a bit over-priced in terms of material costs, but it is nice to be able to turn the almost perfect piece of gear into the utterly perfect piece of gear. I prefer her cheap and easy to use transmogrification feature, though even that isn’t as exciting as it could be due to D3’s bland graphics and tiny character models.

But it is nice to be totally in control of your character’s appearance.

My wizard showing off her gear in Diablo III: Reaper of SoulsThe other big feature is adventure mode, an alternative to repeatedly playing through the story. In adventure mode, players can travel to any part of the game with ease and complete randomized quests called bounties.

To be honest, adventure mode doesn’t feel much different from just hopping around using the change quest feature. The only real differences are streamlining the process and offering better rewards. Adventure mode is certainly a positive addition, but it’s far from the game-changer Blizzard’s billed it as.

The one somewhat interesting thing about adventure mode is that it can also unlock ultra-randomized dungeons called Nephalem Rifts. These can get pretty crazy with their combinations of enemies and locales from all across the game and epic boss fights.

I also appreciate that they did provide a certain degree of story justification for adventure mode. It’s not exactly a crucial part of the plot, but it’s not just, “Go kill things for phat lewt,” either. That’s a nice touch.

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Overall rating: 9/10 Diablo III has had more than its fair share of stumbles, but with Reaper of Souls, it’s finally reached its full potential.

Now I’m worried they’ve set the bar too high for the next expansion.