The lords of hell rage within the Black Soulstone, their souls screaming for vengeance and release. Before the artifact can be sealed away forever, Malthael–Angel of Death–manifests in the mortal realms with a deadly new purpose: to steal the Black Soulstone and bend its infernal power to his will.
So begins the end of all things...
Highlights of the next Diablo III game appear to include:
New Crusader Character Class, a clear inspiration from Diablo II's Paladin
Malthael is formally introduced into the Diablo games, previously seen only in literature
New level cap (presumably 70)
Act V introduces Westmarch
Of course, new items, monsters, allies
New game modes for end game, still no true PvP aside hosh-posh Battleground arenas
Check out the cinematic and gameplay trailer over at the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls site and additional information released today.
I think Blizzard just aims to destroy as many stupid tropes/cliches as possible because they know they don't know how to write at all. If this were any other industry besides the tech industry they would get torn apart.
Deep within Pandemonium Malthael has located a Nerazim phase generator that allows him to remain incorporeal to all forms of attack while also further driving him mad. The player will inevitably descend deep in to Pandemonium, join up with Zeratul, and proceed to destroy the phase generator with timing to coincide as Tyrael once again pierces Malthael with his sword. This time the machine stops, Malthael becomes material, and the sword strikes a mortal blow. Malthael's face becomes visible as his hood slides down, his eyes deepen with sadness but also a sense of peace as his brother- the champion of mortals, seeker of justice and heartfelt wisdom- pulls him close, the two kiss, and he dies.
Achievement: Help Zeratul destroy the phase generator in under 5:00 minutes.
Is it sad that I could see a mortally wounded Tyrael being imprisoned as a vessel to the lodestone in that same device from the Reaper of Souls' trailer? At this point he could totally pull a Bolvar sacrifice play.
I can see the rose petals raining down and hear the bells tolling.
I am not sure if I should be surprised or not that they are trying a new expansion. On one hand, there is money to be made but on the other hand, it would be one of those obvious lost causes.
I saw the videos and screenshots but beyond the flash but I didn't see anything that could even hinted that they fixed things with Diablo III or truly change anything critical.
It went down so badly that an expansion will be laughable at this point. I have the impression it will mostly only keep the cash-oriented players going longer to suck whatever money they are willing to throw at new gear on the Auction House before Blizzard calls it quit unofficially with Diablo III.
They seem to be putting some effort in to addressing loot and the issues that the Real Money Auction House created. At least there's lots of blue about it. I don't think the issues have gone unnoticed and I'm willing to give any changes made to address these issues a fair chance.
Removing the Auction House would fix the problem it created, but that would also create new problems, like chat spam (WTS/WTB [item link]) all day long. That's definitely not ideal, either. One of the ideas driving Loot 2.0 is that players should not feel that they need to use the Auction House. We don't mind if players use it, but targeted drops, reduced trash items, better stat ranges, new Legendary effects, and the Mystic should help players feel empowered by the item hunt, and not forced to use the Auction House.
Also, I kind of always liked the Paladin in Diablo 2. The Crusader doesn't look too bad at a glance. This might all be irrelevant though if I never exit Hearthstone. Well, unless I need to login to Reaper of Souls to unlock epic collector's cards for Hearthstone, but Blizzard is pretty good at account-bound rewards now. Hehehe.
Deckard gain, trapped within the soulstone, reappears, only to be brutally killed once again.
Next: any other character you can remember from the diablo franchise is killed in the lamest way possible.
When asked on their design philosophy for the expansion, head designer Satan, Lord of Hell remarked, "We thought there might be a few people from the original games that still had faith in humanity. We wanted to mercilessly rip away this faith and feed it into my pet alligator's mouth."
I always wondered who the fuck Horner was, he's probably the Seraphim or whatever the fuck the chosen one of the day is in diablo these days. He rescues the world by his good looks and charms, and rolls a stunning DC of 69 versus THE ANGEL OF DEATH's DC of 42. They engage in docking and wrestle each other in mud for 666 nights before he came out on top. Raynor was the lovechild.
Interesting that they reveal this in August. I was expecting them to save the announcement for BlizzCon, two-and-a-half months from now. Ah well, at least we know it's a sure thing that those who go will get to try it out.
Cinematic Trailer
Can't destroy the Black Soulstone, eh? Where's a Mt. Doom when ya need one. So they go to hide it, because that worked so well the last three times. Apparently there are still Horadrim around? Not that any of this buildup matters in the end; cue the Angle of Death. I like the dual sickles he has over the standard/cliché scythe. I'm happy with his design: his elongated hood gives him a gaunt appearance, despite lacking a face, with a creeping forebodance to his motions, such as cocking his head to the side and grazing Tyrael's face with his blade.
Dialogue was succinct. Given past deliveries, I expected a cartoon-quality response to, "The Nephalem will stop you." along the lines of "No one can stop me!" but instead got a weightier "No one can stop Death."
Overall, I like the cinematic. It concludes the silly falling-through-the-clouds 'cliffhanger' in D3 and presents us with a fairly interesting new villain. I'll have to see more of this guy to determine if he will ultimately win me over.
Gameplay Trailer
Blizzard, please don't overuse the "No one can stop Death" line. It worked once, but if you beat it into the ground...
New Crusader looks a tad too chunky, like a Barbarian with crosses. I look forward to reading about his ability set and how he fits in as the third melee class. I'm guessing there will be plenty of shield-based abilities, and the flail will probably be a class-specific weapon like the Wizard's wand.
Auction House
Trade chat spam or a core gameplay element utterly deflated, which is the lesser evil here? I like the Auction House only in theory. It is another game onto itself, one which saps drop percentages and rare-izes most rewards to conform to a global economy. Though Blizzard could mitigate some of these downsides by not designing the loot system around it -- the AH would naturally follow suit by hosting only the most perfect rolls, rather than being the only place you could hope to acquire a build-enabling Legendary.
Itemization
Blizzard could learn a thing or two from Path of Exile. Legendaries in that game offer unique effects and tradeoffs, rather than just being another colored stat stick. Imperfect items, with enough currency, can be finessed into your ideal item. Oh, and not everything boils down to your DPS.
So begins the end of all things...
At least apocalyptic language goes with the Heaven v. Hell genre. It's in Starcraft that it absolutely did not belong. I mean, SC1's conflict, when you get right down to it, was just about an alien species fulfilling its biological imperative.
I know a lot of these tropes have been used before in many stories, but Blizzard still does a good job of rehashing popular themes. The Archangel of Wisdom has become the Angel of Death.
Even if you hate the games, Blizzard Entertainment is still the undisputed king of cinematics. There's no other company that can bring pause to the Internet than a Blizzard cinematic announcement to a new title.