It's been a poor, poor five years for fiction in the video game industry

[OVerLoRDI]

Diablo 2 is incredibly generic. It's just a case of clicking the mouse, in order to kill as many enemies as possible, to get as much loot as possible.

It's about as mindless as they come.

Diablo 2 definitely isn't perfect but it successfully taps into something very basic in the human mind: instant gratification. You click on stuff, stuff dies and you get loot. Blizzard successfully balanced this mechanic in such a way that you get rewarded through loot often enough to keep clicking, but not too often to make it boring. It is a genius game in that regard.

Also Diablo 2 on normal difficulty is pretty trivial once you get a hold of the game. Diablo 2's challenge comes in at Hell mode, where party design, loot, and teamwork start to matter. Yes you are still clicking on stuff to kill it to get loot, but you are also progressing through a challenging environment with friends.

That challenge resembles old school video game difficulty, aka "unforgiving". If you design a poorly balanced party, once you get to Hell mode your party stalls and you are doomed. This is where Diablo 2 is not mindless, you have to plan far in advance to create a successful party or else you get no where.

There is a reason that many many people spent an incredible amount of time playing this "generic mindless" game. Many of those people who did are not the ones now currently playing COD 2012. Diablo 2 was definitely not the COD of is day as far as level of generic-ness.

 

[Veliko]

Diablo 2 definitely isn't perfect but it successfully taps into something very basic in the human mind: instant gratification. You click on stuff, stuff dies and you get loot. Blizzard successfully balanced this mechanic in such a way that you get rewarded through loot often enough to keep clicking, but not too often to make it boring. It is a genius game in that regard.

Also Diablo 2 on normal difficulty is pretty trivial once you get a hold of the game. Diablo 2's challenge comes in at Hell mode, where party design, loot, and teamwork start to matter. Yes you are still clicking on stuff to kill it to get loot, but you are also progressing through a challenging environment with friends.

That challenge resembles old school video game difficulty, aka "unforgiving". If you design a poorly balanced party, once you get to Hell mode your party stalls and you are doomed. This is where Diablo 2 is not mindless, you have to plan far in advance to create a successful party or else you get no where.

There is a reason that many many people spent an incredible amount of time playing this "generic mindless" game. Many of those people who did are not the ones now currently playing COD 2012. Diablo 2 was definitely not the COD of is day as far as level of generic-ness.

Once you got to hell mode, most people got bored and stopped playing.

You are trying to make out that Diablo 2 is more than it really is.

 

[thejunglegod]

Wasn't the Mass Effect series released in the last 5 years? That was some solid writing obviously excluding the end to ME3. And DA Origins as well. That is fiction right? Or am I horribly mistaken?

 

[Veliko]

Wasn't the Mass Effect series released in the last 5 years? That was some solid writing obviously excluding the end to ME3. And DA Origins as well. That is fiction right? Or am I horribly mistaken?

No, you aren't mistaken. There's Heavy Rain as well.

The article is just another moan about nothing, really.

 

[diesbudt]

Wasn't the Mass Effect series released in the last 5 years? That was some solid writing obviously excluding the end to ME3. And DA Origins as well. That is fiction right? Or am I horribly mistaken?

Portal series is relativly new also.

Maybe portal 1 wasn't in the 5 year span, but if I remember right Portal 2 was. And the writing and voice acting for Wheatley and GLaDoS, was supurb beyond all rights. Puzzles were also fun, and this idea of a game (with portal 1) was unique.

What I think the OP was talking about is that CoD # 102, is too similar to COD # 79. Instead of trying new games or just playing games run by the big companies.

 

[epidemis]

i've come to realize that almost all of the people that complain of 'how things used to be better' are those that lack insight and are completely blinded by nostalgia.

I just played "The longest journey" & Planescape:torment within the last year. I don't know what they were drinking around the millenium that makes them that skilled, but I think we have devolved as a species

 

[diesbudt]

i've come to realize that almost all of the people that complain of 'how things used to be better' are those that lack insight and are completely blinded by nostalgia.

Whenever I see that I think of Grandparents and their story "Back in my day..."

From our point of view back in their day sucked. But to them it was better. A lot of people, whether it is a natural occurance based on brain chemistry, or evolution happen to never look at new things as better, but as worse then their most found moment/memory.

"Back in my day we used to walk 15miles in the snow, uphill both ways! If we wanted to even have a chance to stand in line to play at one of the baseball diamonds or basketball courts. And even then you weren't promised to be picked on a team!"

 

[DominionSeraph]

might as well compare diakatana with portal 2 then.

Portal you say? Myst (1993) was also a puzzle game.
Are you sure you want to go there?

 

[shortylickens]

To be fair, the general public keeps buying dumb, simple games in record numbers. If people want widgets and you choose to keep making flim-flams do you expect to stay in business very long?

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Portal you say? Myst (1993) was also a puzzle game.
Are you sure you want to go there?

my point was to stop with the nonsensical anecdotal bullshit. you need to take a statistics class or at the very least look up sample size and selection bias on wikipedia.

 

[DominionSeraph]

my point was to stop with the nonsensical anecdotal bullshit. you need to take a statistics class or at the very least look up sample size and selection bias on wikipedia.

Silly girl, I'm allowed to select, because the developers of the last five years have likewise been able to select from the best of the Golden Age of PC gaming as well. The characteristics of a good game PC game are all there. Yet they made Dead Island instead of coming up with a System Shock 3.
Where is the weight of great games like we had in 1998-2004?

 

[Cookie Monster]

Once you got to hell mode, most people got bored and stopped playing.

You are trying to make out that Diablo 2 is more than it really is.

With regards to the first statement, all I can say is dont confuse Diablo 3 to Diablo 2. Sounds like you've never played the game seeing as there being millions on bnet even after 5~6 years from its release iirc.

Theres no question about the fact that Diablo 2 is one of the greatest of all time games that defined its genre for its time.

 

[Veliko]

With regards to the first statement, all I can say is dont confuse Diablo 3 to Diablo 2. Sounds like you've never played the game seeing as there being millions on bnet even after 5~6 years from its release iirc.

Theres no question about the fact that Diablo 2 is one of the greatest of all time games that defined its genre for its time.

I've played Diablo 2. I found it generic, and boring.

The fact that people still play it, means nothing. People still play Counterstrike, after all.

 

[Veliko]

Silly girl, I'm allowed to select, because the developers of the last five years have likewise been able to select from the best of the Golden Age of PC gaming as well. The characteristics of a good game PC game are all there. Yet they made Dead Island instead of coming up with a System Shock 3.
Where is the weight of great games like we had in 1998-2004?

What on earth does any of this even mean? Who are the 'they' that you are referring to here?

It's interesting that you choose System Shock 2 to highlight the Golden Age of PC gaming, because you don't seem to be aware of what happened to it.

Here's a reminder: it flopped, completely and utterly, much like the rest of Looking Glass' output.

If you want to know what happened to the great games of 1998 to 2004, take a look at the sales figures for some of them.

Blaming the CoD kids of 2012, for the actions of the Golden Age kids of a decade ago, is bloody stupid.

 

[DominionSeraph]

It's interesting that you choose System Shock 2 to highlight the Golden Age of PC gaming, because you don't seem to be aware of what happened to it.

Here's a reminder: it flopped, completely and utterly, much like the rest of Looking Glass' output.

If you want to know what happened to the great games of 1998 to 2004, take a look at the sales figures for some of them.

Blaming the CoD kids of 2012, for the actions of the Golden Age kids of a decade ago, is bloody stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts

 

[Veliko]

Congratulations, on once again saying absolutely nothing.

 

[GoStumpy]

Derp.