Re: I feel D3 is too much like WoW because...
I'm doing this post separately because it is entirely devoted to one particular post. Hopefully I don't get bandeded.
The same person that gets upset over the fact someone tells him to first try and write a game before passing judgment on the work of others, decides to pass judgment on the work of others without even knowing them, their history, experience and resume.
Yes, that's actually a very natural progression. I think that I have the ability to critique the work of others. Therefore, I critique the work of others. Why is this shocking to you?
Much less understanding that a game is a process that goes far beyond personal choices.
What's funny about this is, you'd
think that game development went far beyond personal choices. But to hear Jay and the others talk about it, personal choices has largely been what's guided this game.
This is clearly a person bent on discrediting Blizzard efforts without one hint of a real argument.
Right. You don't know me, son. I'm the guy who will buy any Blizzard game, the day it drops, on faith. (WoW excepted, because I have a moral opposition to monthly fees for a computer game.) I'm the guy who refuses to countenance those who say that other game companies are superior, because Blizzard's record speaks for itself. I'm the guy who still plays every Blizzard game released between Warcraft and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, while almost every other game I own collects dust on the shelf. I talk this way about D3--a game which I am going to buy on the day it drops--because I want it to be the best it can be, and I'm disappointed that Blizzard doesn't want to give me that. Please, son. You don't know me. I don't fit into your simplistically defined pigeonholes. You're talking to an adult now.
The notion that "something is like X" is often a fallacy. It's a thought process that results of a mental predisposition for that reasoning.
I wanted D3 to be like WoW? No, I didn't. I was basically out of the loop on this game until two weeks ago. I hadn't been paying much attention to gaming announcements for years. I actually missed the releases of C&C3 and RA3, even though the Command&Conquer franchise is one of my all-time favorites, because I was just not in the loop at the time. I started playing D2 again recently, and was moved to check for a Wiki article about something. I ended up seeing that D3 had been announced. I looked at the official releases. At first, I was excited. "DIABLO THREE AWESOME," I said to myself. But it wasn't Diablo Three Awesome. It was Diablo Three Disappointing. And that's a conclusion I came to on my own.
what's essentially a meaningless game not worth the hubbub.
Art is more important to me than it is to you. Fair enough.
Every game is a meaningless game not worth the hubbub.
Dime-store nihilism. I've played the nihilism game. I can brinkmanship you all the way down to "everything is meaningless and worth nothing," but it's kind of a useless conversation that gets you nowhere, isn't it?
The artistic process wants to be free and the team to try and find their center around the various styles of each of their elements.
Someone has sold you a bill of goods. Company property allows for VERY LITTLE creative freedom. Ask any Superman artist.
For one person to question the validity of the work of all these professionals (professionals, I insist, some of them with years and years of experience on the field) is just offensive, if it even deserves to be taken seriously.
I hope you never read a book review, a movie review, or any kind of artistic criticism of any kind again. Because you are dismissing one of the most important and necessary elements of the artistic community--criticism. Without criticism, artists and creators are completely unaccountable to their public. They become top-down force-feeders, and no one, no matter how qualified or experienced in the critical area in which they participate in, can question it. I do not accept that paradigm.
A lot of things were the work of hundreds of professionals. Like, the CIA coup in Guatemala. But you know what? I question the validity of the CIA coup in Guatemala.
It is our job to accept the artistic interpretation and try and immerse ourselves in it, if we really want to enjoy the experience.
...you'd do really well in a fascist state. Just sayin'.
Otherwise, we lose. And a game is all about enjoyment. Over-analysis or holding a grudge is the best way to kill the enjoyment. Best not to spend your money then.
Don't ever go to a modern art museum. In fact, anything written, sculpted, painted, drawn, assembled, sung, or acted in the last 100 years, it's probably best for you to stay away from. The level of audience participation and interaction and criticism that is demanded is just too much for you. Better to stay in 1805, yes?
One can't just look at a game, say the graphics are too much like WoW, accuse everyone of being incompetent, and not understand the serious implications of what they are saying.
You are too much of a company man. I think that's our biggest disagreement. You tow the company line. I just don't. I don't let them off the hook for their mistakes, just because their mistakes are epic in scale.
At the scale of a game like Diablo 3, it would almost certainly kill the whole game development and Diablo 3 would end its days on the darkest corner of some blizzard executive drawer.
Not so. Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft III were all scrapped and rebuilt ground-up at least once. Warcraft Adventures and Starcraft Ghost were scrapped entirely. Blizzard is not a company that shies away from the tough calls. They will change the entire game--and have done so--if it means a higher standard of quality. They've got the social capital, the credibility, to be very exacting. That's why they can release a game "when it's done." Because we know from experience that it will be a high standard of quality.
who are you to say it is rubbish when clearly others think it is not?
I'm Jonathan ****ing Nathan. That's who.:crazyeyes:
And in the meantime those who actually did the work of art we are so eagerly discussing the merits of, are the ones who are always right. Because they did exactly what they wanted to do.
Oy vey. Such creator worship.
