I usually wouldn't consider myself a purist. I don't take the things I like too seriously especially when it's as far back in my past as Diablo is. Maybe the original Diablo has such a special place in my gaming past but when Blizzard announced they were "remaking" (Did they actually say "remake"?) the original Diablo within Diablo 3 I was very excited. However, what Blizzard seemingly did was make a new dungeon with the same assets/tile sets of the cathedral in Diablo 3 and throw something akin to a scanline filter on top of it. Okay, it's a little better than that with some redone animations and an old looking toolbar but level layout and enemy design is pretty much what you saw in base Diablo 3.

Also, call me crazy but I think the original Diablo actually looked better than whats in 3.

Anyway, I guess this is just a rant of sorts. Tell me what you think... I love you

I think the move is sort of indicative of the larger problem that Diablo 3 has - it's just a rehash of prior Diablo games with a much less interesting character development system and a Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic that doesn't go with the rest of the series. The entire first chapter of D3 is pretty much the first chapter of D2 with a boss from D1 at the end done in a much way less interesting way. Same goes for the other chapters.

And then they release this. A redo of the first game with a character class ripped from the second. And if it plays anything like the rest of the game, the Necromancer will play and feel virtually identical to the other character classes.

Also, I agree with you - I still think that D1 is the best looking of the Diablo games, given what they were going for. As old as it is, it does the best job of hitting the Gothic Horror vibe they want.

I just got my wife into playing D3 and she seems genuinely interested, though sh emay just be trying to placate me (hey she asked to play).

If they could do a high res version of D2 I would be so into that versus D3. I love, and have dropped way too many hours into D3 (my "turn off brain and listen to podcasts game"), but all the characters feel the same - basically everyone fights at distance, throwing or shooting something at the enemies.

When I first heard they were redoing Diablo 1 inside Diablo 3--I thought they were redoing the whole game. Then I found out it was only a dungeon...then I found out that the dungeon is only time limited. Then I decided not to bother at all. Was this really supposed to get people excited Blizz?

I have to wonder if Blizzard really knows what to do with Diablo as a series, other than making a Diablo 4. Feels like they have no direction right now. Or maybe they are making a Diablo 4, but they still want people to play Diablo 3 in the mean time. Which would explain the introduction of the Necromancer. But if there's no new expansion content, then I don't really see the point in playing through a FOUR year old game again but with a different class.

Maybe I just don't see the appeal in playing the same game for dozens and dozens and dozens of times just to get slightly better gear. But then I guess that's the style of play that Diablo is known for.

It's poopy.

The implementation sucks, a minor reskin, of a rift ... wooooo.

I think it's neat, for what it is...maybe they announced it wrong or something. Maybe I'm just too detached to really care. But I think it's just a neat little "hey remember Diablo 1?" kind of thing :)

Yeah after watching their diablo panel later after it was announced it was pretty clear it would be a disappointment for most people. And its only open in January, so, yay. Combine that with Necromancer not being available til the second half of 2017. Hopefully Diablo 4 is being worked on or something because as much as I want to play more Diablo 3 there sure isn't a compelling reason to for the next 7 or 8 months.

I am however very much looking forward to the Necromancer class.

@ethanielrain: Aye, I feel like it would have been better received if it had just shown up in the game one day.

Diablo 1 and 2 looked so much better than 3. I love the series but Diablo 3 doesn't give me much hope for its future. If it's just more of what Diablo 3 is then I'm really not interested.

Well put. They really got people on the hype train, especially remaining hardcore D3 fans, then went and took the wind right out everyone.

I love DIablo 3. I have countless hours on that game and I still play it but what Blizzard did was really *Makes a fart noise*

I assume it's still Diablo 3 buried under that cheap filter, and I've been kinda done with Diablo 3 for a while. The first Diablo has a very specific feel to it, and I'd pay good money (about $15, maybe even $20) for a higher resolution, slightly updated version of it, maybe alongside a higher resolution version of Lord of Destruction. Of course, those would actually require work on Blizzard's part, and I'm sure they're too busy making people angry with Hearthstone and Overwatch rebalances to do that. I seem to remember reading that during one of the Blizzcon panels one of the higher ups explained that the reason they hadn't re-released Warcraft 1 or 2 was because those games "aren't fun anymore," and I'm sure that applies to the old Diablo games as well.

Never went from "super excited" to "can't be bothered" quite as fast before. Blizzard and I seem to have wildly different definitions of "We're remaking Diablo 1 in Diablo 3".

Edit: Should clarify that I'm not mad or anything like that. It's just not the thing I was lead to believe. Still cool that they did a thing.

I mean, they could have done nothing. Sure it isn't as cool as Diablo 2 with a brand new polish, but it's a silly little thing that probably didn't cost them too much to implement. I really liked Diablo 3, not as much as I loved Diablo 2, but it's a fine game. So if they want to do a goofy Diablo 1 throw back with a silly filter, and not ask for any money, then why be upset by it?

Could they have done more? Probably, but they may not have the man power spend on a large side project. I'm guessing they just wanted to do a thing to keep people playing, but not put a lot of resources behind it.

It's just a nice little freebie nothing to get mad about.

There is another thread like this on diablo 3 forums. Essentially the hype wasn't blizzard. They didn't promise anything they didn't deliver on. They essentially said it'd be 16 levels, have some original(D1) bosses, a visual filter, 8 way movement. They also added alot of D1 items.

I think free content updates like this shouldn't have expectations of being free expansion packs. That's not doable. If you really want to just play diablo 1 you can. Also, diablo 1 and 2 look like crap compared to diablo 3. When Diablo 2 came out, awesome, but even after a couple years it looked like junk. Diablo 1 never looked great but it was cool enough nobody cared.

The real problem with this is the nostalgia people have and the poor memories they have, probably from being young when the stuff came out and having little context for what else was really out there at the time. I played alot of D1 and D2 and D3. Even the fairly junky sierra addon with super lousy new area. This small time limited free add is just fine for what it is. You go through it and play diablo a little then you're done. It's what diablo has always been. Just think about all the things they keep adding and changing for free, you shouldn't be disappointed you should be happy they did anything. It's not bad content, it's just not as grand as you wanted.

I've seen people even complain they didn't add the 3 original classes and I think that's completely crazy considering alot of those same people are ready to pay for a necro class which will probably be WAY more disappointing for them. Almost nothing looks new, just changed, and they're going to charge for it. I think blizzard would do well at this point to end support and then they dont have a forum full of complaints about the new things they add. Can just be people complaining about the lack of free updates, and they don't even need to bother moderating it.

I mean anything somebody puts out for free I can't really complain at

i can never understand why people think diablo 3 looks cartoony. it's dark and gothy as hell to me.

I want to know what fucked up cartoons they are watching.

@maginnovision: That's a really good point. Well said.

I probably like Diablo 3 as much as any sane person can (read: any person who's not still actively involved in completing each and every season) but even in its idealized form this announcement never really moved the needle for me. When have you ever heard someone say "We rebuilt Game X using Game Y's engine" and have it amount to anything meaningful? The ability to play BG1 on the BG2 engine is literally the only example I can think of.

I think people were hoping that either Blizzard would do one or more of the following:

• Announce continuing support for Diablo 3 in a meaningful way
• Announce port(s) or remake(s) of Diablo 1 / 2
• Announce something hopeful about Diablo 4

What we ended up getting was none of the above.

• The Diablo 1 time limited gimmick dungeon is nothing. The Necro class (with no new content) coming in late 2017 (at best...) is nothing. Diablo 3 is dead.
• All hope of D1/2 ports or remakes is dead
• Diablo 4 is nowhere in sight (the unborn count as dead)

TL:DR - Diablo is a dead series

Considering the kind of feedback they get from their fans on the offical Diablo forums, it is absolutely no surprise that they are doing this. I don't think it's close to an exaggeration to say every change the devs makes to Diablo is never good enough for the fans. Every single news releases is met by a hord of fans bitching about how awful Diablo 3 is and that it will never be as good as Diablo 1 or 2. To me this is just Blizzard going, "Here assholes, you want more Diablo1?!?".

On a side note I guess this is where I admit that diablo 3 forums as my guilty pleasure. It's my equivilant of trashy reality TV. For every good post, there is two posts that is absolute vile trash of hate with very little, if any, valid criticism. I hate it so much, but I can't help but going back to the forums once or twice a month.

@ssully: I haven't looked to verify but I'm pretty sure blizzards forums all attract the absolute worst of their players. It's why they sticky virtually anything useful, it's rarity. WoW forums used to suck, D3 forums suck, SC2 forums sucked... If you're looking for trash those are good places to check.

To be fair that might be all official game forums now. I did notice the gears 4 forums were pretty bad too.

Never played the first game so this is a neat little thing for me. More deflated about the Necromancer not being available until the back half of 2017.

Old Blizzard is gone. The one we cherished and loved, the one that gave so much to the world of games.

Even they know it - Metzen surely knew, since he's gone now - and nothing will bring it back.

I hope you like Overwatch, because that's all the "originality" they've got left

So because Blizzard is adding free content and a new character class to Diablo 3 that makes them creatively bankrupt? Yet somehow remaking Diablo 2 or doing another sequel is not creatively bankrupt? I don't get gamers.

I can't wait to make for Necromancer to come out, get him to level 70, get the free Haedrig's set armor and then realise there's really nothing left to do but run rifts and hope the connection doesn't drop out for a moment.

@bartok: You had a company that, from 1995-1998, released three (3!) of the greatest games ever made - Warcraft II, Starcraft, and Diablo.

Then from 2000-2004 they brought us Diablo 2, Warcraft III (and to a certain extent, DOTA), and World of Warcraft which singlehandedly remade the MMO genre in their image. They also released a bunch of very successful expansions.

And in the eleven years since, we haven't seen anything even close to how creative and influential they used to be. I know it's fun to pretend that Blizzard is still a great innovator and creative powerhouse, but objectively that just doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

A new, underwhelming homage to D1 and a "new" class (that we've seen before) a year from now just doesn't compare or really even fix D3's issues as they stand today.

Trust me, I don't get gamers either - when a company coasting on past success promises miniscule, underwhelming support people ought to be a little more critical.

I never took this to be intended as a major thing, just a fun little addition to mess with. People seem to be taking it more seriously but I don't remember if the reveal made it seem like more than it ended up being.

I think the issue most people have with it comes from them leaving out the details that are the most disappointing from the initial public announcement. They announced it as remaking diablo 1 in diablo 3 in celebration of the games anniversary, and the only thing that seemed to hint at it not being a full fledged diablo 1 dungeon was when they said how many levels deep it went. It wasn't until the pay-to-view panel later on during the day that they added in the details that it is only available in January and that it is just a reskinned rift which features only a few bosses that are already in the game. Which wouldn't be a huge issue, but the people who did see these extra details are the die hard fans who are most likely to be disappointed by this. I'll admit I was pretty excited for the initial announcements until I saw that later panel. It was the quickest I've ever felt my interest in something drop, and I pretty much tuned out diablo for the rest of the weekend to focus on starcraft and overwatch instead. And then the people who didn't buy the virtual ticket or attend had to hear the news from people who were already on a crashing hype train. Or possibly didn't even notice until they went to test it on the PTR. It didn't make for good impressions for a lot of people.

Blizzard did a pretty good job hyping up an already content-starved fan base beforehand as well which didn't really help.

Not saying that Blizzard mislead people or that its their fault or anything. In the end the fan base are at fault for their expectations, but the way the announcements played out certainly didn't help ease the player's frustrations.

I'd much rather have a demake of Diablo 3 in the Diablo 1 engine, since I really don't like the look and feel of Diablo 3 and those isometric sprite based engines just looked beautiful and moody in a way polygons can't faithfully recreate.

@giantstalker said:

To be fair, while they aren't redefining genres, they are still releasing extremely successful games. Diablo 3, The Starcraft 2 trilogy, Overwatch, Hearthstone and recent WoW expansions are still noteworthy in the grand scheme of things. Most of which are being well supported currently. It's easy to be all doom and gloom about the company when you're only examining upcoming content from their four year old hack and slash rpg. Especially when its the game that's seeing the least amount of support at the moment. I wish they were still releasing games as memorable as Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, and Brood War, but to be honest I can't think of many developers who are releasing games on that caliber anymore.

I think a lot of people forget how abysmal the launch of D3 was. Granted I'm one of those people who loved D3 so much that I was grinding my Hell difficulty runs prior to quitting within 2 or 3 days of it launching. The auction hall ruined that game though and by them revamping the loot system and getting rid of the AH they literally brought new life back into this game.

I do think this game suffers from a pretty severe lack of content for those that don't want to participate in Seasons though. Rifts/Greater rifts are okay but I find that pugging them on the higher difficulty can be a severe chore sometimes. Just be nice to see them add some sort of meaningful content that doesn't take more than 30-40 minutes to complete. Which is the issue the only issue I have with this DLC. I really enjoyed Reaper of Souls and have multiple 70 characters because of it but it's been a long time since I've gone back. While I will come back for this I know it won't be enough to hold my attention for more than a day or two.

It's a real shame because there really is some good posters no the D3 forums, but it's incredibly difficult to sift through the trash. I am honestly amazed how civil (most) of giantbombs users are when compared to the average video game forum user.