Tendo City

My own Diablo Fan fiction

Diablo maintained fleshly human desires while in possession of the fallen wanderer, Diablo in the body of the dark wanderer forced himself onto a mortal women named Aisha while passing through the bedouin dessert lands outside of Lut gholein. Aisha fled her village in fear for her life as her own family sought to have her killed before abomination within her could be born. Aisha joined with unsuspecting sailors in Lut gholein set off westward to Kingsports in the hopes of finding someone that could help her.

During the night at sea she began to go into labor, Only weeks after conception, The crew rushed to her side trying to help her in the delivering the infant from her womb. Some horrible unsightly object began to move about squirming in her belly, The sailors began to panic in terror , The young girl screamed in agony as the creature clawed itself out of her birth canal, Finally dropping onto the deck of the ship splattering blood and placental fluid everywhere. Aisha gasped out her last breath and fell back and became lifeless, The child was unsavory sight to behold ,Crying out into the night with a inhuman squeal.

The Captain deep with fear for his life, Shouted at his men to toss the creature overboard, But the men were paralyzed with fear unwilling to go near it. So the captain rushed toward the creature passing aside his distraught comrades grabbed the creature and charged towards the bow of the ship hoping to hurl it overboard, Suddenly two wings erupted from the child and it began to flap them violently in face of the captain ,The skipper ran over smacked it with the end of a broom knocking it out of the captains hands causing It to fall onto the floor motionless, The captain picked it up again but was stopped by the skipper who persuaded him to lock it up in a cage in the cargo hold instead of casting into the sea, Believing that they could trade it to the Mage clan in exchange for gold, Soon after they rapped the dead girls remains in a cloth and placed it into large wooden chest , Which they moved into the cargo hold were it remained untill they arrived in Kings port.

The creature became a curiosity aboard the ship sometime later the next morning, They tried feeding it bits of dried fish but it was disinterested. They nicknamed it Bebé the little terror.

To be continued.

No, please don't continue it. "Fiction" is one of the WORST things you can tack on to the word "fan" (the other is "club").

Diablo 3 eh? Never was a fan of the Diablo games myself. Where's Lost Vikings 3?

Bah, I was hoping it would be that the Xel'Naga would be playable in Starcraft II... oh well. :)

Diablo II was fun for a few weeks while I played it through in single player. Never cared about the multiplayer though. It does have a good story and typical Blizzard production values, though... (and great art and music)

No, picture it! All the puzzle/platformer fun of a Lost Vikings game, of using their unique abilities to get all 3 of them across a massive maze to an exit, but in all 3 of the glorious D's! Mode 7, Super FX chip, that red thing you stuck in the N64, and even maybe mode 8!

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

Gameplay video and cinematic trailer.

But yes, I agree, I'd love to see a Lost Vikings 3. Lost Vikings 1 was the first Blizzard game I played, and I really loved that game...

A Black Falcon Wrote:Bah, I was hoping it would be that the Xel'Naga would be playable in Starcraft II... oh well. :)

Diablo II was fun for a few weeks while I played it through in single player. Never cared about the multiplayer though. It does have a good story and typical Blizzard production values, though... (and great art and music)

With Bill Ropher and Co gone I wonder how their going to make it? Like only 4 people from Blizzard North are still being employed by the company,I find the graphics look to much like WOW.

I didn't even play Diablo II untill this spring, It gets repetitive after a while but then again most dungeon crawler RPG's are like that.

"Continuing story"

Bebe son of terror was adopted by two wizards Dumbledore and Grindelwald who were a gay couple from San Francisco , They named their adopted half breed demon child "Dark Jaguar" and they made him sport the trendiest queer clothing.

Yeah, I'm sure this is mostly a new team...

Oh, and by the way, the "gameplay video" on the official site is actually a 19 minute long video of the game, with some developer guy talking over it explaining what's going on.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Yeah, I'm sure this is mostly a new team...

Oh, and by the way, the "gameplay video" on the official site is actually a 19 minute long video of the game, with some developer guy talking over it explaining what's going on.

Decard Cain must be fucking old by D3 time frame , That if he doesn't pass away in this game he never will.

I hope they explain the still mysterious makeup of heaven, Its seems that the God or Gods are indifferent to mankind (There would Be No game if they were protective), Only the Ark angel Tyrael intervenes for the sake of mortal men.

Hey at least there IS a heaven in that world. In spite of people calling themselves "angels", the Devil May Cry series appears to ONLY have human and demon realms (guess where the "angels" got their power?). Humanity only exists because one demon took pity on them in that world.

Some backstory information:

http://kotaku.com/5020721/the-man-behind...-battlenet

So get this. I look at the gameplay trailer and the one thing I notice above all else is the art is MUCH better. It's not a world of brown, tan, and grey. I always got the impression looking at the previous two that this was the Mud World, World of Mud in a post apocalyptic past where all the grass is dead and the skies are permanently cloudy, and people forgot that paint or die exists so they just decorate their houses with more rocks and mud. Realism = no color. This is in spite of the fact that I can look outside my house right now and notice nothing but primary colors like green blue and red everywhere I look (grass, sky, and the SUN to name a few examples). Sure the real world lacks "lense flare" (excepting Sun dogs or if I'm actually USING a video camera) but that's fine. Oh look a rainbow! I bet in these worlds they'd have some sort of "greynbow". I'll note that this has been chiefly a problem with American "serious" games rather than either Japanese games as a whole or more playful American games like Duck-a-Muck. Oh how about that! It's that special kind of afternoon where an orange haze is cast over everything! Ah the leaves are changing color to... brown... well I'm in Oklahoma so that's normal here but in OTHER places fall looks beautiful.

So with that in mind, the care for adding a wide pallette so as to say "screw you" to the color blind is a nice change of pace for the upcoming Diablo and Starcraft entries.

Also with that in mind, different people have different tastes. While I love a splash of color here and there, some people prefer things so grey you have to slit your wrists just to see color (like living in north Korea). That's all well and good except they've made a petition saying they don't want it looking like "carebears" or something stupid. Seriously, have they never SEEN color before? Is color unrealistic now? Is reality unrealistic? Has the use of grey tan and brown become so common that adding a decent amount of the rest of the rainbow now looks "unrealistic", like how realistic sounding gunfire makes some people say "guns don't sound like that" or "I thought I heard fireworks going off"?

It's all well and good if they want things colorless, but seriously they should at least recognize that it doesn't make anything look ridiculous to have more color than games are using as of late.

http://www.petitiononline.com/d3art/petition.html

As an example quote there... they seem to hate "lush green forests" and "waterfalls where even rainbows take place". They really need to go to a waterfall at some point. Those things happen! It's physics!

Here's what I had to say about it on neogaf... just as applicable here. I should say that I really liked the art style and design of Diablo II... it does have some bright color, like the desert, but it also has darkness, which is the trademark of the series... like how it's night almost all the time, and you have the circle of light limiting your vision most of the time. I think the circle of light is a great gameplay mechanic, really. I don't agree at all that there was a problem with the art design (or brightness level) in Diablo II...

But still, it's the Warcraftization of the art design that is my main concern. Samwise Didier is awesome, but does EVERYTHING Blizzard does need to look like his work?

A Black Falcon Wrote:

Crescendo170 Wrote:http://i27.tinypic.com/2jexp1x.jpg

So their solution is to remove all colors from the game... genius!

On the one hand, I sort of see their point. Diablo III is clearly infected with WC3/WoW-style cartoonish art designs, just as SCII is to a degree, and just like Starcraft and Diablo I and II were not... with Warcraft it started earlier; WCII was the first cartoonish one (WC1 being more realistic styled). Blizzard has slowly extended that style across all of their games, it seems -- and those shots of Diablo III do look a LOT like WoW or WC3 shots, I will agree... and I would also agree that that isn't necessarily a good thing. I have nothing against cartoonish graphics, it works well in Warcraft, but... Diablo and Starcraft are different... the styles are bleeding over a bit too much, perhaps. Blizz thinks they need a "Blizzard" art style, perhaps? Sure SC had humor, and definite cartoonish elements to its art design, but it's definitely more pronounced in SCII, like the whole game went through a WCIII/WoW filter. It maintains enough of a SC look to look distinct from WCIII/WoW, but it looked less different than SC and either WCII or WCIII, I think. In the case of Diablo III, things seem to be even worse. Some of those shots look indistinguishable from Warcraft stuff... but the old Diablo games were distinctly different in art style. Those differences are obviously much less pronounced now, though they are still present.

It is worth nothing that the concept art hasn't changed. It's just the ingame models that have. Compare WCI and WCII and WCIII's concept art, for instance... each game has a very different ingame art style, but much more similar concept art designs.

Anyway, but on the other hand, too many games these days have no color, so is the solution "drain out all the colors" really a good one? There's too much brown-and-grey as it is... but is Diablo the right game for cartoonish graphics and bright colors? Probably not. But even so, some of their pictures aren't improvements. The answer isn't "just remove all of the blue, green, and yellow!" Diablo II had plenty of colors, where they were appropriate... and longer draw distances and bright colors, in the day, particularly in the desert. The question really is if what we've seen of Diablo III so far is representative of the whole game or not, and we can't answer that question yet. As for their edits, removing a lot of the blue and green really doesn't help anything. In some the darker colors make things look better, but just removing almost all of the blue from spell effects, for instance? That's not a good change. Color isn't inherently bad, it just needs to be used appropriately. Blue in spell effects looks fine...

In the end though, I think when the game is finished this won't be an issue. The gamestill has quite a ways to go. I think they'll find an acceptable balance between WoW-izing the graphics for better sales and keeping the graphical styles that make the Diablo series what it is.

But still... it really is too bad that the art style and art direction had to change so dramatically. Ignoring all the lighting and color issues (which, as I said, are relatively minor), the fundamental art style of the game is definitely different from Diablo II, and more like WoW. That's too bad.

"Cartoony" always seemed off to me. I mean the old games weren't very realistic, and it's not like we're talking Disney here. It's still a serious style.

I will say this though. I personally have another issue with a lot of American character design, in the form of "muscles on muscles" and "permanent angry scowl". I don't mind that they show the occasional barbarian warrior screaming at you. However, when EVERY picture of EVERY character class in the manual is a muscled guy looking angry, well I don't like that.

Why can't they have SOME of them look angry but occasionally show a warrior just sitting beneath a tree next to a sword in the ground looking contemplative? It's not like if they ever show a character not being dead-set focused on the grim task at hand the game can't be taken seriously any more.

It's absolutely incredible how upset people are getting about the art style in Diablo III, just blows my mind. Are they going to keep at it for the next two years? Nevermind that the trailer showed glimpses of the series' trademark ultraviolence and artwork has shown areas of darkness and death aplenty.

Quote:It's absolutely incredible how upset people are getting about the art style in Diablo III, just blows my mind. Are they going to keep at it for the next two years? Nevermind that the trailer showed glimpses of the series' trademark ultraviolence and artwork has shown areas of darkness and death aplenty.

I think their reaction is perfectly reasonable. I want my Diablo and Warcraft (and Starcraft) separate too! Starcraft II was bad enough -- my first thought when I saw the game videos was "this looks more like WCIII than SC, maybe..." -- but this is worse.

As I said, Samwise's art is great, but so is variety, and having all of your games having almost exactly the same art design and style isn't variety, particularly when before the serieses had more differences.

That said, some of the things they could do to improve things are very simple, and they likely will do -- replacing those most obviously "Warcraft" elements like those pillars and statues for instance, making the character armor designs and stuff look a bit less like WoW designs, etc... and I don't think the "too much color" thing is really a problem. As many of those edited shots look worse as look better, though a few do definitely look better edited for more darkness. I'd say just increase the darkness, though, don't remove all the blue and green...

Anyway, maybe the reaction is strong, but it's not entirely off base.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:"Cartoony" always seemed off to me. I mean the old games weren't very realistic, and it's not like we're talking Disney here. It's still a serious style.

I will say this though. I personally have another issue with a lot of American character design, in the form of "muscles on muscles" and "permanent angry scowl". I don't mind that they show the occasional barbarian warrior screaming at you. However, when EVERY picture of EVERY character class in the manual is a muscled guy looking angry, well I don't like that.

Why can't they have SOME of them look angry but occasionally show a warrior just sitting beneath a tree next to a sword in the ground looking contemplative? It's not like if they ever show a character not being dead-set focused on the grim task at hand the game can't be taken seriously any more.

I absolutely agree, but unfortunately, Blizzard knows that most Americans do not. Americans overall expect that over-muscular look, and complain when they don't get it... the best example would be the original, less muscular Blood Elf design for World of Warcraft. Blizzard was criticized for it so much that they redesigned the Blood Elf to be more muscular looking.

The original design looked better, of course.

As someone who comes close to being a Blizzardologist,Having played all their games including Warcraft Orcs and humans and always religiously followed every update on their website since grade school.

Starcraft originally was developed off the warcraft II engine, The first version of the game looks nothing like the finished product.

That is what the alpha build for Starcraft looked like when it was first unveiled.

The Alpha build was so horribly mocked and ridiculed, The producer was forced by the company management to overhaul everything and buy a new build kit off another company.



Its not a shock to me that starcraft II is based on the warcraft III build.

Diablo is different in that another 2nd party originally called Condor developed and created the series, The first Diablo was near release when the buy out happened and the game was rebranded under the Blizzard entertainment name but was the work of a 2nd party.

You misread ABF.

He was talking about art style, not engine.

You "even played Warcraft 1" did ya? Now THAT game had a different art style than WC2, that's for sure. I didn't especially like it's appearence. WC2 looked like a more serious version of Lost Viking's art. I guess it's not too surprising.

ABF, I think I agree with you there. Variety in art styles (AND WRITING STYLES DANG IT, sorry wrong thread...) sure adds... variety... However that last sentence of mine LACKS it. :D

I took a look at some of those character designs. They do look different when you directly compare them to Warcraft humans for example (to look at them, it would appear that Human mages spend their days lifting giant pillars just like human warriors).

I totally agree about the Blood Elf model thing. That was weird. I suppose it's not too bad but when you consider that all the warcraft females are like half the size of their male counterparts, it gets incredibly silly. In their defense, in the blood elf case it seems that there was some sort of self-clipping issue when the old models did a number of animations.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:You misread ABF.

He was talking about art style, not engine.

You "even played Warcraft 1" did ya? Now THAT game had a different art style than WC2, that's for sure. I didn't especially like it's appearence. WC2 looked like a more serious version of Lost Viking's art. I guess it's not too surprising.

ABF, I think I agree with you there. Variety in art styles (AND WRITING STYLES DANG IT, sorry wrong thread...) sure adds... variety... However that last sentence of mine LACKS it. :D

I took a look at some of those character designs. They do look different when you directly compare them to Warcraft humans for example (to look at them, it would appear that Human mages spend their days lifting giant pillars just like human warriors).

I totally agree about the Blood Elf model thing. That was weird. I suppose it's not too bad but when you consider that all the warcraft females are like half the size of their male counterparts, it gets incredibly silly. In their defense, in the blood elf case it seems that there was some sort of self-clipping issue when the old models did a number of animations.

I sometimes I mistakenly put "build engine and artwork" into the same category , It was not a misreading just a confusion of terminology on my part.

Warcraft Orc & Humans was my first blizzard game , Warcraft II was just released not long after I was first introduced too the first game. Blizzard once offered a downloadable demo for WC1 on their website , The game play had some differences from Warcraft II you had to create adjacent walkways before you could build anything on a lot with exceptions to a gold mine, Even walls were buildable later on.

One thing that held Warcraft1 back was limited grouping, You could only control 4 guys at a time. If you lined up walls of crossbowmen or orcish Spearmen with catapults behind them you could create a impenetrable defense line. Something more difficult to do in WC2, The game suffered from pathing AI problems which the next sequel only improved slightly upon.

Allot of familiar characters units and spells would not make a comeback untill warcraft III.

Water elemental Summons

Orc wolf Raiders

Orc Nercrolites & warlocks

Demon summons

The Human cleric and Conjurer never appear again, Although the Mage in WC2 inherits some of their abilities.

The Human crossbowmen gets replaced by Elven rangers in WC2 and Dwarven riflemen in WC3.

The Orcish spearmen get replaced by the Trollish units in the sequels

Medivh was originally a boss in the dungeon level of the Humans campaign, He summons demons and fire elementals , commands sludge monsters,His fireball attacks did allot of damage.Later we learn that he was possessed by Sargeras and was forced into creating the dark portal, Medivh never betrayed his kingdom out of his own will.

Only Demons & Ogres appear in the first game in the dungeon levels as the sole non O&H humanoids.

Unlike the others games, The player races were homogeneously human and Orc.

The first Orc female to appear was in WC1,Warcheif Blackhands daughter whom your ordered to kill. You don't see Orcs with boobs ever again untill WoW.

WC1 was a dos game, Windows 95 was state of the art when Warcraft II tides of darkness and its expansion beyond the dark portal arrived, But still had Dos components that lead to incompatibility problems in the first release.

Warcraft Orcs & Humans was a classic, You wont see it the same way if you played the much improved sequel first.

My most fondest memories were of WC1.

Actually I myself played WC1 long ago, so I'm familiar with all that.

Before that, I played Dune 2, back when "grouping" did not exist. House Ordos is cooooool.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Actually I myself played WC1 long ago, so I'm familiar with all that.

Before that, I played Dune 2, back when "grouping" did not exist. House Ordos is cooooool.

I don't even know how it would be possible to do it without grouping, Sounds frustrating.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:You "even played Warcraft 1" did ya? Now THAT game had a different art style than WC2, that's for sure. I didn't especially like it's appearence. WC2 looked like a more serious version of Lost Viking's art. I guess it's not too surprising.

I liked Warcraft I's look, actually. At the time I think I kind of preferred it to WCII, after I played the second game... though my biggest complaints about WCII were the removal of the cave levels (with a set army and fighting monsters instead of the normal enemies) and the removal of summons, as well as that you couldn't build walls in single player, only multi. SC fixed the first two of those complaints, as did WCIII, but buildings-as-walls stuck...

I did eventually come to like WCII's cartoony style, but I wouldn't say "it is better than WCI's." Both are good.

Quote:ABF, I think I agree with you there. Variety in art styles (AND WRITING STYLES DANG IT, sorry wrong thread...) sure adds... variety... However that last sentence of mine LACKS it. :D

I took a look at some of those character designs. They do look different when you directly compare them to Warcraft humans for example (to look at them, it would appear that Human mages spend their days lifting giant pillars just like human warriors).

I totally agree about the Blood Elf model thing. That was weird. I suppose it's not too bad but when you consider that all the warcraft females are like half the size of their male counterparts, it gets incredibly silly. In their defense, in the blood elf case it seems that there was some sort of self-clipping issue when the old models did a number of animations.

Blizzard's working on three games (WoW Northrend expansion, SCII, DIII)... is it really asking too much for them to actually each have substantively different art designs and styles? Unforunately, it seems so. Oh well... :(

These look a little different, but much, much more similar than they used to, and that's the point.

Oh, and some games allow you to adjust height, thickness, etc. More customization options wouldn't be bad, Blizzard.

I only said I liked it better myself.

I personally actually hated the "set number of units wandering around" types of levels, as found in WC1, WC3, and Starcraft. I just got bored. I mean there wasn't much in the way of strategy in those levels. It was just "look around this corner, now kill those guys, now around this corner, okay more guys" and occasionally I found a pocket of extra units for myself. I dunno, I just didn't see the point in adding those levels. Generally when those were finally over and I could get back to the real game, I was always happy.

Oh yes, and as you might imagine, I was severely disappointed in the Orc campaign in Frozen Throne. It felt like an MMO, meaning "boring". I mean seriously. They TAUNTED me with those structures and never having a chance to actually build anything. I just ran around a map killing things, and in a RTS where individual unit play is rather boring except in the form of group strategy, the whole point of the game, it was actually worse than playing an MMO with only one player. I only really played it to see the story, but they kinda screwed me out of the orc "introducing new buildlings and units" stages that they were supposed to include. At least I saw the units...

Quote:Oh yes, and as you might imagine, I was severely disappointed in the Orc campaign in Frozen Throne. It felt like an MMO, meaning "boring". I mean seriously. They TAUNTED me with those structures and never having a chance to actually build anything. I just ran around a map killing things, and in a RTS where individual unit play is rather boring except in the form of group strategy, the whole point of the game, it was actually worse than playing an MMO with only one player. I only really played it to see the story, but they kinda screwed me out of the orc "introducing new buildlings and units" stages that they were supposed to include. At least I saw the units...

I actually agree about this one, I also got bored during that campaign... orcs are my least favorite race in WC3, and a whole RPG-style campaign with them... I got bored, quickly. Sure, it's probably the best WC3 RPG ever, but it's still an RPG running in an RTS engine... and at least those Custom map RPGs have multiplayer to entertain you, even if they aren't as large and complex as the Orc campaign.

However, I liked those levels in WC1 and SC... I think part of it was that the WC1 and SC ones were challenging and did require thought, while the WC3 ones were easy as usual for that game. WC3 also had a lot more of it, thanks to that expansion Orc campaign... but I liked those levels in WC1 and SC. Some of the Installation missions were pretty cool... as for the WC1 ones, there were only a few of them, so they were a nice change of pace every once in a while. It was also fun seeing a whole new set of enemies. :)

To be honest I found the level where you kill Medivh retroactively letdownish. That is, he was more or less an evil wizard at the time, but by WC2 they had added so much to that whole story that he basically became, literally, the physical incarnation of the greatest force of magic and evil in the entire universe.

I killed him with a few straggling footmen.

So... yeah. I suppose at some point I'll read some thing about how in reality a couple of those soldiers were some awesomely trained level 10 badarses with all sorts of moves that LOOK like magic but are actually just good training, like hitting the bad guy into the clouds (indoors) and somehow jumping a mile into the air to HOVER and deliver like 70 hits that can level mountains before falling back to the ground and cleaving the floor in TWAIN. I've seen the high level abilities those warriors in WOW have... Wish MY footmen and knights could pull that off. Then again, this is pretty much to be expected. Ever since D&D they had to let the physical fighters manage to keep up with the likes of ultimate wizards and holy paladins somehow.

WC1 was the first to have distinct looking hero unit, I recall how badass Lothar was when you first rescued him in the dungeon level and revived him using clerics.
WC2 heroes didn't appear untill the expansion, They were just uber versions of regular units with their own soundsets and icons.
Lothar's death in warcraft II was easy to miss, He fell in the battle of Blackrock spire as a NPC unit.

I have allot of nostalgia for WC O&H my first RTS experience.

Part of me doubts that Blizzard will ever make a new WC RTS ever again, Since they have finished off to much of the story on WOW.

I cant wait for starcraft II arguably Blizzards best RTS series all round, Everything you could want in a game, excellent Gameplay,multiplayer,Thrilling single player mode.

Part of me questions Blizzard judgment in making a new Diablo game on the heels of WOW?

To me lost vikings would have been the shit!

Quote:WC1 was the first to have distinct looking hero unit, I recall how badass Lothar was when you first rescued him in the dungeon level and revived him using clerics.
WC2 heroes didn't appear untill the expansion, They were just uber versions of regular units with their own soundsets and icons.

Yeah, right, I forgot to mention that... that was definitely another of my complaints about WCII when I first got it. Where had the heroes with actually different stats gone? Lothar, etc, were just normal units with different names... that the expansion added them in was great.

Quote:So... yeah. I suppose at some point I'll read some thing about how in reality a couple of those soldiers were some awesomely trained level 10 badarses with all sorts of moves that LOOK like magic but are actually just good training, like hitting the bad guy into the clouds (indoors) and somehow jumping a mile into the air to HOVER and deliver like 70 hits that can level mountains before falling back to the ground and cleaving the floor in TWAIN. I've seen the high level abilities those warriors in WOW have... Wish MY footmen and knights could pull that off. Then again, this is pretty much to be expected. Ever since D&D they had to let the physical fighters manage to keep up with the likes of ultimate wizards and holy paladins somehow.

You cannot question these things. Like the fantasy rpg convention that better weapons = more skill... while in the real world, having the best weapon ever would bring you nothing if you didn't have the skill to wield it, in games, all you need is the weapon, that gives you the skill instantly! :)

... and besides, without those added skills playing warriors would be really boring.

Quote:To be honest I found the level where you kill Medivh retroactively letdownish. That is, he was more or less an evil wizard at the time, but by WC2 they had added so much to that whole story that he basically became, literally, the physical incarnation of the greatest force of magic and evil in the entire universe.

Huh, hadn't really thought of that, but that is quite a contrast, isn't it... they later retroactively made him far, far more powerful...

Well in MMOs they do mitigate this by both requiring a certain character level before you can even equip high powered weapons and by giving every weapon type it's own skill level you have to train in before you are able to actually hit things with it.

However for most RPGs, yeah all you need to do is equip that ultimate sword at level 1 and you have perfect strength and accuracy.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Yeah, right, I forgot to mention that... that was definitely another of my complaints about WCII when I first got it. Where had the heroes with actually different stats gone? Lothar, etc, were just normal units with different names... that the expansion added them in was great.



You cannot question these things. Like the fantasy rpg convention that better weapons = more skill... while in the real world, having the best weapon ever would bring you nothing if you didn't have the skill to wield it, in games, all you need is the weapon, that gives you the skill instantly! :)

... and besides, without those added skills playing warriors would be really boring.



Huh, hadn't really thought of that, but that is quite a contrast, isn't it... they later retroactively made him far, far more powerful...

I am not sure, But Lothar couldn't be killed you could always revive him with a cleric? I am not sure its been while, His stats were equal to four footmen.

I read the novel the last Gaurdian.

They explained why Medivh was not at full capacity when Lothar slew him. His possession gave him the combined powers of his mother (previous immortal guardian) and Sargeras, But his mortal body could not bare the weight of all that power and he was prone to bouts of seizures and comas, He was so severely weakened that he couldn't use even a quarter of his true power.

Although he was still quite powerful, As he destroyed Daemon grunts with little effort.

The novel changed a few things from the story, One being that Khadgar was his apprentice and the first one to discover the truth about Medivh and seek out Anduin Lothar to stop him. Khadgar befriended a Orc women who was sent as Guldans emissary to Medivh, She tricked Khadgar into bringer her to King Llane who she then assainated when it became clear that the Orcs were winning the siege.

Interesting idea. Personally I don't really consider any of the novels when I think of the story.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Interesting idea. Personally I don't really consider any of the novels when I think of the story.

Blizzard has declared the novel "lord of the clans" part of canon. All LOTC characters appeared in the warcraft IIIX Horde RPG, The old Farseer was the frost wolf chieftain and the uncle of Thrall.

The first two warcraft game had diverging story arcs.

WC LOTC is a novelization of the defunct adventure game of the same name.

Wait. Warcraft IIIX? That's not how roman numerals work first of all (that should be VII, assuming that was supposed to be ten minus three), so were those supposed to be roman numerals or am I misunderstanding something? Also, since when is there a Warcraft 7? Also, I know of the Warcraft tabletop game but I was never interested (incidentally I never much missed the "Warcraft Adventures" game from the artwork I saw).

I guess I think of the Warcraft books the same way I think of the Star Wars books. I just don't care about them. Plus, from what little I have read of them in various wikis, it seems like those books contradict a number of things from the games.

Basically what I'm saying is if it's important to the story I want Blizzard to put it in game form and not expect me to have to buy a bunch of books.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Wait. Warcraft IIIX? That's not how roman numerals work first of all (that should be VII, assuming that was supposed to be ten minus three), so were those supposed to be roman numerals or am I misunderstanding something? Also, since when is there a Warcraft 7? Also, I know of the Warcraft tabletop game but I was never interested (incidentally I never much missed the "Warcraft Adventures" game from the artwork I saw).

I guess I think of the Warcraft books the same way I think of the Star Wars books. I just don't care about them. Plus, from what little I have read of them in various wikis, it seems like those books contradict a number of things from the games.

Basically what I'm saying is if it's important to the story I want Blizzard to put it in game form and not expect me to have to buy a bunch of books.

X for expansion

Starcraft X is brood war

Wacraft 3 X is TFT

3 X is a much clearer way to put it than IIIX.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:3 X is a much clearer way to put it than IIIX.

There is going to be Warcraft live action hollywood movie in 2009

Quote:The novel changed a few things from the story, One being that Khadgar was his apprentice and the first one to discover the truth about Medivh and seek out Anduin Lothar to stop him. Khadgar befriended a Orc women who was sent as Guldans emissary to Medivh, She tricked Khadgar into bringer her to King Llane who she then assainated when it became clear that the Orcs were winning the siege.

Garona? She was in WC1 too.

Quote:Well in MMOs they do mitigate this by both requiring a certain character level before you can even equip high powered weapons and by giving every weapon type it's own skill level you have to train in before you are able to actually hit things with it.

However for most RPGs, yeah all you need to do is equip that ultimate sword at level 1 and you have perfect strength and accuracy.

True, MMOs do have level requirements, and in D&D and stuff things may have stat or skill requirements (you need X strength to use this, etc), but still...the sword itself adds to your power. Hold it and you are stronger and a better fighter and more likely to hit the enemy (depending on what its enchantments are). Sure a sharper sword will cut better, but it won't actually add to your skill or power, just your potential for doing damage if you hit...

In the actual Middle Ages, if you look at a poem like Beowulf, the sword in that poem gives the wielder no more power than they already have; a weak person would get nothing from holding a great sword. It is the user's ability that truly matters... of course there were things like named swords and the like, and if magic were real it would make sense that some would be enchanted in some way, so it's not entirely ridiculous, but still... it emphasizes "things" over "ability" which is a questionable move, really.

Ability is a thing too. Or more accurately, muscles are things.

A heavier sword might add power to a swing ya know, but yeah, I agree.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Garona? She was in WC1 too.

Yep thats her

Apparently a 3rd party developer made TLV 2 for the super Nintendo and psx back in 1996, It still is a Blizzard IP.

I wonder if they will rerelease a updated version for the DS and PSP?

I think that Blizzard should start up a new 2nd party that could make console games for them, Blizzard "Arcade".

Id like to see a new Rockin roll racing game for the Next gen consoles, A 3d Lost viking platformer. Maybe a FPS sequel to Blacthorne.

That's why I said I wished they made Lost Vikings 3. Lost Vikings 2 was pretty good, though personally I think I like the first one better.

Lost Vikings II: Blizzard made the original SNES version, The Lost Vikings II. Another Interplay studio made the PC/PSX/Saturn version, Norse By Norsewest: The Return of the Lost Vikings. That's why Norse By Norsewest's PC port is so much worse than The Lost Vikings' was -- Blizzard didn't do it itself, unlike the first game. Despite the better graphics of the next-gen version and the very similar gameplay, the original version of TLV2 is probably best.

I also liked the first game better, though. The second one had some good jokes ("It said 'do not touch', not 'doughnuts!' was funny... :)), but the gameplay just wasn't as good. Giving the characters overlapping powers diluted the point of the game, essentially. Why carefully plan out the moves of several characters when you can just use one character that can jump, run, attack, AND climb up walls?

It hurt the puzzle and teamwork-focused purpose of the game. It was best when each character had a specific, defined purpose that forced you to use all of them frequently to progress.

(Blizzard made TLV1 on SNES, PC (DOS), Amiga, and Genesis; they outsourced the more recent GBA port.)

As for a Lost Vikings 3, I think a 2d or 2.5d (3d graphics, 2d gameplay) game on download services (PC and consoles, probably) would be perfect. Sure you could make a full 3d one, but it worked so well as a sidescrolling game... another game like that would be best, I think.

Quote:Ability is a thing too. Or more accurately, muscles are things.

A heavier sword might add power to a swing ya know, but yeah, I agree.

Muscles are things in your body, though... but ability goes beyond just strength, most importantly it is mental -- knowledge and learning. Games which require stat modifiers to use weapons partially account for this, but still, the emphasis on "things" over "ability" is questionable. That it's there is an aspect of modern consumer culture, probably.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/08/0...ns-tables/

Some very good points about why the game looks like it does rather than those pics, not just from a gameplay or "physically possible" perspective but from an artistic perspective as well.

<img src="http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080806.jpg">

Quote:In what is easily the most inspired news story of the year, MTV Multiplayer's Tracey John dishes up something truly savory.

You might not be aware of it, and that would be to your credit, but there is a "fan outcry" over Diablo III's use of colors other than gray and red. Tracey gets the game's designer on the "horn," and has him explain what he likes and doesn't like about the many fan altered shots of the game that are floating around. What you get as a reader is a surprisingly constructive assessment of why things don't work, or why they have done things differently, or why they have done that - only in an area we haven't seen yet. It's fascinating, wall to wall.

I would like to draw your attention to the last shot they offer, though: a shot which contrasts "Necromancers Choice" with "wow gayness." It was never clear to me if the shot was offered up by a necromancer, or someone who goes by Necromancer, or if this aesthetic is the preference of nine out of ten necromancers, or what. Shit be ambiguous. "wow gayness" is, as a phrase, almost too stupid to contemplate. We tried to imagine the sort of person who takes world-class design, changes the contrast, and then calls themselves the artist. It wasn't especially difficult.

When I buy the next Diablo, I'll be playing it exclusively for the art. I watched the entire direct-feed presentation, and the only things that kept me going were the wild palette shifts and chunky, hewn environs. I could hear the clicking of mice throughout, click click, like insects. The whole thing made me itch.

Some of his points are good, others not so great... but what it really misses is what I complained about most, the actual art style, not just the use of color and light (though many of those added-shadows pictures do look better and more like Diablo II like the full-viewing-distance official shots -- "the tech doesn't allow it (without raising system requirements too high, I would imagine)" isn't really a satisfactory answer...

But it's the artstyle itself and how the game looks like WC3 or WoW that's the biggest problem. I largely agree that the game looks fine with use of color as they have; that's not the problem, and yes, Diablo II used color too.

I'm not sure I get what you are saying. First of all, the tech not allowing it is the ultimate game over come back. You really can't argue against "it's not possible".

My only problem is the muscles on muscles look. Aside from that I love the look of the game. The guy does cover the fact that they do have to have different looks for different areas. Other areas likely do look greyer.

Besides, many of those improved pics look too grey to me. Shadows look nice, but the real world has color, and rainbows. Magic = color most of the time too.

Game looks great. End of story.

Apparently it isn't. Tagging "end of story" on something doesn't seem to work very well.

Quote:I'm not sure I get what you are saying. First of all, the tech not allowing it is the ultimate game over come back. You really can't argue against "it's not possible".

My point is that getting rid of the circle of light that is one of Diablo I and II's defining aspects in both graphics and gameplay really isn't something they should be doing. I'm sure there's a way to make it work, somehow... but it's needed.

Quote:Besides, many of those improved pics look too grey to me. Shadows look nice, but the real world has color, and rainbows. Magic = color most of the time too.

Sure, magic should be color. I agree that the grey spell effects in the edited shots don't look that great. As I said, my issues are mostly with the art style and darkness, not the color.

Quote:My only problem is the muscles on muscles look. Aside from that I love the look of the game. The guy does cover the fact that they do have to have different looks for different areas. Other areas likely do look greyer.

Oh, sure, the art style is okay... it's just identical to WC3/WoW's art style, while before Diablo was more different. Which was the whole point. The same thing happened if you compare Starcraft I to Starcraft II. What's so hard to understand about that? Sure I love Blizzard art design, but I loved it when they looked different, too! They have three franchises, they shouldn't all so similar artistically...

Yeah I can agree with that last sentiment.

What's the circle of light?

The ring of space you can see in Diablo I or II, outside that space it's always very dark... even in bright areas like the desert, night or dungeons means that you can only see a short distance, the ring of light... except in areas lit by torches of course, those are visible. But you can't just see everything like you can in the demo video dungeon.