Blizzard Talks Enchantments, More in Reaper of Souls
Blizzard has updated the Diablo III Portal on Battle.net with new information about Myriam Jahzia, the Mystic. This will be a new and powerful ally in the Reaper of Souls expansion pack, a wise woman who will offer you sage advice. She's a skilled Artisan, capable of altering the very nature of even the most elaborate armor and weapons.
"She and her clan are nomads known as the Vecin—a spiritual people, blessed with magical visions. They hail from a matrilineal society who worship a powerful deity known as the Allmother. The Vecin believe that the Allmother is the source of their visions, and that it is because of her that all Vecin possess a sixth sense they call the Sight. While the Sight always manifests more strongly in Vecin women, it's especially strong in Myriam."
"Although she is quite a resourceful individual, Myriam proves no match for Malthael's forces and is trapped by their relentless advance," the blog adds. "You will have the chance to save Myriam while adventuring in the city of Westmarch, and shortly after encountering her, she will offer her Artisan services to you, regardless of your level."
Blizzard's blog also talks about enchanting. Players can reroll one property on a Rare or Legendary item by speaking to Myriam, opening up her Enchant menu, and then paying a material cost. Not all properties can be rerolled, but the ones that are capable can be rerolled over and over again. Blizzard wants the enchanting to be "meaningful" while allowing players to still hunt down loot with even better properties.
"Since the resulting property you receive during Enchanting will be random, it's possible that the new properties you're provided may end up being less desirable to you than the one you are replacing," the blog reads. "But fear not! In order to mitigate this type of buyer's remorse, Myriam will also offer the previous property in the list of options when using Enchanting. So if you don't like the new property that Enchanting offered you, you can always choose to keep the old one."
The blog also goes into Transmogrification, which can be read here.
D3 seems to get more and more like a FTP world of warcraft all the time. I would prefer they implement something like runes and charms again. It doesn't have to be the same, but something similar would be nice, add some variety.
Its interesting too. Even with the removal of the AH system coming soon, it will still be an always online game
They also seem to not know what people really want, as has been said before, more variety and a better item system. It gets tiring picking up the yellows to find all of them are pretty much vendor or the legendries and finding they are nothing but shiny brimstones.
If you still have the legit CD keys for D2, you can make an account on Battle.net and put the codes into your profile to be able to download D2, without needing a disc to play.
Some of the comments I read about the game are filled with so much RAGE, it's scary; like the author of the comment actually would do harm to the developers if they could. It makes me feel sorry for the developers. So much of the feedback out there is negative.
I produce content, and like most people in the production business, I emotionally invest myself in my product, so virulently negative criticism really hurts. I can tell that a lot of time was spent on playability optimization in Diablo III. And the artistic detail really stands out in some places (bloated corpse and basket of heads animation/sound effects are disgustingly realistic; I love it). There are some things in the game I would change if it were my product. But it isn't, and as a content producer, I can accept that as a difference in taste, or as a side effect of producing content as a business (if you spend the time to make it perfect, you've spent too much time).
One thing is for sure, if my clients were as caustically negative as the large number of critics Diablo III has, I would fire them, and they would not be my clients anymore.
Some of the comments I read about the game are filled with so much RAGE, it's scary; like the author of the comment actually would do harm to the developers if they could. It makes me feel sorry for the developers. So much of the feedback out there is negative.
I produce content, and like most people in the production business, I emotionally invest myself in my product, so virulently negative criticism really hurts. I can tell that a lot of time was spent on playability optimization in Diablo III. And the artistic detail really stands out in some places (bloated corpse and basket of heads animation/sound effects are disgustingly realistic; I love it). There are some things in the game I would change if it were my product. But it isn't, and as a content producer, I can accept that as a difference in taste, or as a side effect of producing content as a business (if you spend the time to make it perfect, you've spent too much time).
One thing is for sure, if my clients were as caustically negative as the large number of critics Diablo III has, I would fire them, and they would not be my clients anymore.
I am a game developer myself, and the reason for the passion behind Diablo III hate, is how great Diablo II was. They took a winning formula, and instead of tweaking the strongest points of the game that were so well loved by all who played it...they rewrote it to more closely align with their blockbuster MMO. Which, apparently not many D2 fans actually played (I know none of my friends I played D2 with play it for sure, and I tried it, hated it, and unsub'ed after a week).
The issue with the entire thing is, not only did they butcher the game, but the cash auction house was a blatant money grab. The people who are around since Diablo, through D2 and it's expansion, didn't want any of that garbage. The beta testers even so much as told Blizzard openly in the beta forums about what they would like to see changed.
Blizzard didn't listen. When you make a product for people who pay for it, you should listen to them. Look at Mech Warrior Online for an example of this. People don't even have to pay to play it, and some of the design decisions that were made after community feedback, that went counter to the direction that was felt best by the community, have been met with hostility.
As a game developer, I love the games I work on as much, or more, as anyone. However, I also realize that the game is ultimately a product being used by consumers who pay to play it, in some way, with their disposable income. So, I take what they have to say with a great deal of weight; as opposed to trying to cram what someone else thinks is best down their throats. You can't please everyone ever, and you most certainly won't please someone every time; however, if you can please mostly everybody, most of the time, then you're doing better than most.
EDIT: The era of "this is what you get, so deal with it" is mostly over. More and more games are going to more open development formats. This benefits the consumer and developer, as you can ensure your product will target the core audience and cater to them (making them happy), and also ensure your game is well received and successful.
Additionally..."firing" your clients doesn't make you any money. Then you just have the game that you love, and your clients, whom you fired, are not paying for your product and hate it. That makes your business unsuccessful, and unpopular (see: Blizzard post D3).
Producing art, for me, is mostly about what I want to do first and foremost. I stay true to MY vision, and the RIGHT customers will come and appreciate my work for what it is. Consider, for a moment, if this was not the case. If I compromised on my art to cater to what I thought would make more money, I would be labeled a sell out, and my job wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.
Alternatively, with commissioned work, you are hired to help a client do what THEY want. They pay you to do the work, but it is their creative vision driving the project. This is NOT how Diablo III came to be, so these rules should not apply, no matter how much you want them to, because it benefits only you.
If Blizzard made a mistake, it was asking for too much feedback from the fan base of their previous games, which may have led to the false assumption that creative control was in the hands of the players, not the producers. As a result, when everyone says they want Diablo II, they get offended when they don’t get it. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – attributed to Henry Ford
Blizzard is not EA. Their design decisions don't seem to be related to milking money out of people.* The amount of technical finesse present in Diablo III makes it obvious that these are seriously passionate people at the heart of this operation, and they care that the game isn’t hampered by clunky UI a la Skyrim (another game made by true artists, but is unjustly panned). I hope they stay true to their own creative vision, and they don’t sell out to the criticism. Stay strong, Blizzard.
* Take the auction house, for example. A common complaint is that it’s a cash grab. On the contrary, it is a means to rapidly explore alternative build scenarios that would be otherwise impossible. The real money version is a logical extension of this idea; people are going to just use real money to buy gold for the gold auction house anyway, EULA be damned, so why not cut out the middle man? They added these in FOR the players, not despite them. This was a mistake it seems, considering how it was interpreted by those very same players. But being the true artists they are, they are correcting this mistake by removing the auction house and revising the loot system to give users an alternate means of rapidly exploring alternative build scenarios (loot 2.0; enchanting). They are functionally the same—pay gold, get different gear. But this version will be accompanied with less gnashing of teeth.
As for art versus commission...
As an artist, you are commissioned, by those who would buy your product.
Picasso would never have been a recognized name, and his paintings would have been worthless, if he hadn't become a pop culture icon in his time. People enjoyed his work in all facets...
However, had he not painted something that appealed to pop culture and critics...he would have painted the same work. It just would have never been recognized as being great art.
By the same token, I could make the most expansive, immersive, creative, graphically stunning game of all time and burn $100 million developing it. It could score 100 on metacritic; however, if no one buys it...it was just a flop.
Look at Star Wars: The Old Republic...EA dumped 200 million doing that game, with AAA voice acting talent, and all sorts of things involved. However, the knock is that the game is just a WoW spin-off with Star Wars IP...it's not monumental, it's not different, and it's not unique. It's a good story...I expect that from BioWare; however, it's not a great story, or compelling. The mechanics are clunky MMO mechanics you see in games that have been out nearly 10 years...yet the game was a 95 on metacritic. It struggles to make money every quarter because recouping the costs is taking far longer. They even dropped the sub only model because they were hemorrhaging players so fast, they had to or shut the game down.
That in and of itself is proof you can write something that is a technical masterpiece, spend tons of money on it, have extremely popular and dynamic IP to work with, and still produce a relative flop if you don't appeal properly to the right audience, your core target audience that will play your game and pay most for it.