Diablo III: Im Not Excited and I Just Cant Hide It

I'm still not excited about Diablo III. I know I should be, because it's being made by Blizzard, it's one of the biggest videogame franchises ever made and exactly 68 per cent of my friends tell me that it's going to be amazing. But I'm not. Worse than that, some of the reasons why I should be excited are, in fact, why I'm so cynical.

For example; How can any of my friends assure me how Diablo III is going to be amazing when we know so little about it? None of them have even seen much in the way of trailers yet, let alone played a demo - their optimism relies on little except for trust in Blizzard.

You see, when I say that I don't see what all the fuss is about it's not because I think Diablo III is a bad game, but because I haven't seen anything worth a fuss. Diablo III has been in development at some level or another for more than ten years now and it was recently confirmed to be finally seeing release this year, but I'm still mostly clueless about why it's going to be such a big thing.

So much information has ebbed and flowed around the game since it first started development under Blizzard North in 2001 that it's been hard to keep track. Character classes have been unveiled and retracted, while senior staff such as art director Brian Morrisroe have left the team mid-development. There's more than a decade of work ploughed into the product, but so much of it has proved uncertain that even the explicitly confirmed features aren't safe.

Take a look at the PVP mode, for example, which Blizzard recently announced would not be included in the initial release of the game. This was understood to be a huge and vital feature for Diablo III and yet it's been cut from the back of the box with only a few months to go until release. Blizzard's mollifications about bringing PVP back in a post-release patch don't have much weight with me as a result, especially without a firm date attached.

So, I'm still not excited about Diablo III - and think there's reason enough for my cynicism just in looking at what Donald Rumsfeld called the "known unknowns" too: the things which we know we don't know much about yet. As if that wasn't enough to support my grumpiness though, there's also some of the "known knowns" to consider too.

Blizzard's biggest new feature for Diablo III comes in the form of two new auction houses; one dealing in virtual currency, the other in real-world cash. Through these marketplaces you'll be able to buy and sell much of the rare and random loot from the main campaign - from which Blizzard will take a percentage cut, both for posting the item in the auction house and for selling it. It's something that Blizzard's Rob Pardo initially explained as adding real depth to the experience, and which he said was greatly desired by fans.

Personally though, not only do I find it a little crass to so explicitly and early build further monetisation into what is already a premium product, but I also worry for how it may break my interest in the game. As a player who doesn't possess an extreme abundance of cash, I'm anxious that I'll be disadvantaged when it comes to enjoying the game - I don't want to be embarrassed by the rich kids with all their nice things, in other words.

The retort to this worry is easy and again brings up memories of US politics: all men are born equal, and anything the rich can buy, the deserving can earn. It's a philosophy which doesn't apply as fairly to games as it does to nation states, though - why should I have to grind countless hours into the game just to maintain a status quo? Aren't games supposed to be fun, and wouldn't a more accessible option be to remove microtransactions completely?

Besides, while there's an admitted appeal in working hard to best a competitor, Diablo III's lack of PVP at launch again undermines this by removing the competitive element. The valid metaphor isn't about training hard to win a race, but training hard to not let your team down during a relay.

The problems with the auction house run deeper than just giving some players an unfair lead, though. Blizzard knows that opening an avenue for players to profit from Diablo III will encourage a plethora of bots and hacks to streamline that process too. So, eager to avoid the effects that culture has had on other games, it has opted to stamp the possibility out before it gets off the ground. Diablo III will have no modding tools, and any player-led attempts to work around that setback are expressly prohibited in the terms and conditions.

The upside of this is that there won't be any bots or hacks in the auction house, but the downside is that there's a lot less customisation and potential replay value available in the game. There's also the fact that fans will be unable to create mods that correct what they consider to be the "cartoony" look of the game.

Personally, while I can certainly sympathise with the objections to Diablo III's art style, I see it as more of an issue that there's a such a sizable gap between what fans have come to expect from the Diablo franchise and what Blizzard seems ready to deliver. The extra colour that's been bled into Diablo III isn't anywhere near as dramatic as hyperbolic fans will insist, but that hasn't stopped the petitions from getting signed or the grumbling from continuing. Fans still want to see a darker and grimier version of Diablo III, but Blizzard is pushing forward with only a handful of small concessions made.

Now, I'm not a shallow person and I'd never avoid Diablo III just because someone let off a rainbow grenade in the art department and some of the shrapnel got lodged in the concept art. It seems weird, however, that Blizzard justified the Auction House by saying it was "something fans really wanted", but then said of the protests against the art direction: "We really like this art style, and we’re not changing it."

By far the largest cause for my lack of excitement over Diablo III though is that I'm still unclear about what's going to be legitimately new and invigorating about the game. The auction house may be a big, new addition, but it's really more a way of presenting existing content rather than creating new stuff. Likewise, many of the new character classes seem like little more than analogues to old tropes - if the Wizard is the new Sorcerer then there's nothing really new, is there?

Of the new features that Diablo III does have, it's hard to see them as being either ground-breaking or game-changing. Skill Runes, for example, are a new item that can be spent on your abilities as you level up, changing your skills so that they do more damage or have bonus effects. While this adds more customisation into the game, it's not a reason to froth in anticipation - or to prioritise Diablo III over the competition.

The same holds true of much of the design changes, in fact, from the UI changes to the new character types - none present a compelling reason to play Diablo III over, say, Torchlight 2.

Ah, Torchlight 2. No microtransactions or auction houses, confirmed multiplayer upon release and free mod tools confirmed to launch alongside the full game? Yes. Torchlight 2 is a game I think I'm very excited about.

Diablo what?