Diablo III: Nerds gonna whine!

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Apparently, I hate Diablo III and Blizzard, and if the next patch doesn’t produce the results I want then I’m going to stop playing Diablo III and every other Blizzard game forever. I just learned this today by reading it on the forums. I didn’t know I felt this way but, I have to since the poster said I do. And just in case you weren’t aware, you feel this way too. You can see what I’m talking about on the forum titled Patch 1.0.4 Info Coming Soon.

Sure it’s a little out of context, but I challenge you to find a single thread on the Diablo III forums where at least one person isn’t claiming to speak for most players or even everyone. Rather then man (girl?) up and say “I”, they feel the need to group me, and a fuck ton of other players, into an army of haters and say “WE” just so they can feel like someone has their back. And someone probably does, but I don’t. My friends don’t. In fact I don’t personally know anyone that states that Diablo III is Blizzard’s last chance to prove that they can make good games. Probably because Blizzard makes great fucking games, but who knows?

You want to know what I think about Diablo III? Probably not, because it’s not your opinion, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I love it. It’s fun. Easy to pick up and play for an hour here and there without committing my life to it. Good to play alone, great to play with friends. It’s a fantastic game, in moderation. I haven’t played in over 2 weeks, which, according to the forums, means I hate Diablo III and that Blizzard has scorned me and owes me money! When in truth, it means I have had other things to do. I’m getting married in 2 months and I’ve spent most of my time preparing for that day. I’ve picked up some other games to play in my spare time. I’ve been catching up on reading comic books. Regardless, just because I’m not playing it doesn’t mean I hate it. I haven’t turned the Wii on in over 3 months, so I must really despise the most intuitive and successful console of this generation then! But I don’t. I just haven’t felt like using it.

Blizzard’s listening to what you’re bitching about, regardless of how large your digital army is. One opinion is just as important to them as “most people’s” opinion. The idea here is to let Blizzard know how YOU feel. Leave everyone else out of it and Blizzard will be more likely to not only listen, but respond to you.

I do have a nifty idea to alleviate some, because someone will always find a need to complain about something, of the complaints surrounding Diablo III. The most common issue I come across on the forums is the lack of permanent choices. For whatever reason the vocal players aren’t content with being able to choose from any skill available at any time, instead they want their choices to be permanent, mostly in the form of skill points. We all know skill points aren’t coming back, Blizzard has spent far too much time developing and balancing the current system to just drop it all and revert to the archaic skill trees of yesteryear. But who’s to say they can’t add a “Talent Tree” similar to ones seen in MMOs?

Blizzard could give players 1 talent point every “X” levels to add to a talent of their choice. The talent boosts some kinds of skill, or adds passive abilities to the character. To make this work and to balance properly, you make the entirety of the game harder. Also make the talents optional. Don’t force the player to choose one, let them do it on their own or skip it all together to thrown in some additional challenges. Lastly, make the talents “Permenant.” By this I mean you cannot just swap one or the other on the fly, instead once the point is used it cannot be removed unless some crazy requirements are met, and the player spends a couple million gold.

This will quiet those who are complaining the game is too easy, and those that demand permanent choices. Of course it will probably bring up some complaints that the game is too hard, and that permanent choices go against the philosophy behind the rest of the game. But I guess you can’t win them all. . .

Eric is not a boss. You can Email Eric or follow Eric on Twitter @EricSweeten or Facebook

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