Through the Looking Glass

Diablo II: Resurrected General Discussion
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It is a strange thing for me to look at this forum. I feel like I’m looking through time at something happening on the other side of a piece of glass, perhaps. Have I seen it all before?

I suppose I became an addict of reading the Warcraft III: Reforged forums daily on my phone. There are a lot of stories of people who are addicted to their phones, but I wonder how many people become addicted to checking the Blizzard Entertainment forums for upcoming games.

What surprises me the most when I look at this Diablo II: Resurrected forum is that history repeats itself. The way the excited players post on the forum is so familiar. I see you guys bicker and argue about obscure elements of the game, whether everyone is going to get some kind of charm inventory or if the game will remain unchanged… What do the purists think? Do we care? There are so many possibilities, aren’t there?

So I paid the dark lord his due just now in order to allow myself to leave this nice message here for you on the forums and see if others would reply regarding how they handle the problem that we all know is on the horizon. You see, although the evolving messages on the official Warcraft III: Reforged forums were deleted at some point and so the full history of those communications is lost, I still have my chat histories on other applications. And when I go back to 2018 or 2019 when Warcraft III: Reforged was only an idea, I see something amazing. Regarding the topic of Warcraft III: Reforged, I sent to a friend in 2017:

So, what if my part to play in the imaginary remaster of wc3 that I’m hoping for is to release a better model editor around the time the thing drops for sale
So that the custom modeling community can continue to exist with even better technology when all the old 3d fan models are basically invalidated and thousands of hearts are broken

The following year I sent another message to a friend (who worked at Blizzard at the time) in 2018:

They will come upon you in the thousands, wanting to cry out, wanting to be upset about the death of ancient games…

By 2019 I was describing this a different way to a different friend:

And nobody will know why. Maybe some of the people will miss Warcraft 3, but all of the people who subscribe to the normal, standard, measurable ways of being will not play the game

These are the actual things that I said to people about that game in those years. All of those messages were sent before I had ever had my hands on any kind of playable Beta of any kind or ever experienced the Warcraft III: Reforged gameplay.

Now, I do not necessarily know you, my dear reader, but you probably have been told that the release of Warcraft III: Reforged had something wrong with it. Let us not focus on exactly what it was, or why, but in theory you have probably heard there was some element of the game there that was not ideal or that did not go how you would have planned or expected.

But when I review that message history of mine, looking back it seems not only that the public reception of Warcraft III: Reforged was entirely predictable but also I am inclined to believe that I more or less predicted it.

So, I have a theory. I am here to ask you whether to believe in my theory or not. My theory is that our society and our communication is machine manipulated in a manner that is non-innocent. We are all manipulated towards a common end – and this includes myself. The goal of the manipulation is to increase time spent on a series of social platforms, and by extension to decrease time spent away from those social platforms. This sounds simple, but if you assume that this goal is actually being achieved, it has certain consequences for society. One of these consequences is that anyone whose future is undecided – a person who might play Diablo II: Resurrected or who might spend time socializing – will end up decided not to play Diablo II: Resurrected if there is any way other people or communication can influence the decision.

So by extension, I want to posit the idea that if you do not play Warcraft III: Reforged because you believe there is “something not right about it” or some reason that it has a problem, then it is predictable that you will also not play Diablo II: Resurrected because you will be told to think there is likewise “something not right about it” – even if you paid for Diablo II: Resurrected already. And this is through no fault of Blizzard Entertainment, per se, I am not making a statement about that, but rather about the predictable future if you are a user of social systems such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and what have you.

For my own part, I have done what I can. There is a second element of the equation of socializing that to me sometimes felt like some shadowy bad actors decided that it was in their best interest to do a smear campaign against Reforged. And I might not be correct about this, maybe it is paranoia, but there is someone obviously who is still paying money to maintain the server that hosts warcraft3refunded.com. So, if you sort of imagine the same kind of page for Diablo II: Resurrected, what I am saying to you is that even if passionate innovators spend a lot of time developing Diablo II: Resurrected there will still be people making web pages like that. They are not doing it because they care whether it is based on truth, rather they have another reason.

And it is in this same line of thinking that for the past many months I have been proudly maintaining diablo2refunded.com as a parody of the smear campaign against Warcraft III: Reforged. By sitting on this URL myself and filling it with a lot of stupid and impossible nonsense that is obviously never going to happen, I am preventing the smear campaign people who take themselves seriously from ever getting the domain. I like to believe I am doing you all a favor.

So, obviously there are a few minor factors that may cause Diablo II: Resurrected to have a different public reception upon release than Warcraft III: Reforged, but in general even despite my efforts these factors are minor. I will continue to predict that Diablo II: Resurrected will receive the same public reception as Warcraft III: Reforged, and I do not doubt that I will be right about it. Do you believe that I am not correct? And if so, why?

Now I have given you what I believe to be the truth. Take it. Take it, take it, take it! I’m glad this is finally over, Tyrael!

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Too pompous for my taste.

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Yes! YES! Show them no mercy! Give no pause to your attacks!
Let hatred and rage guide your blows!

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Honestly I don’t understand why you think the same outcome that happened with War3:Reforged is going to happen with D2:Resurrected. With the release of D2: Resurrected, the original Diablo 2/LoD games and original Battle.net server will continue to run as they have been. The original game will still have all of the problems that have plagued the game as well. Those that choose not to purchase D2:R aren’t going to suddenly have their original clients force-upgraded to the new D2:R game, and for example nixing their abilities to play the mods they’ve been playing which aren’t compatible with D2:R.

Blizzard stepped on a lot of toes with War3:R with the force upgrade. With the backlash and number of refunds they processed, I think it’s safe to say they’ve learned their lesson on how NOT to remaster a game.

Hold onto that website if you want, but I don’t think it’s needed.

To those that are skeptical about purchasing Diablo 2:Resurrected: Wait for the game to come out! Reviews, reviews, reviews! Watch gameplay footage! Scrutinize everything about the game before deciding to purchase. Blizzard has confirmed the original game will stay untouched, it will stay running, it will still be playable on Battle.net has it has been and the beloved mods that have come into existence will still continue to work. The only thing that I can say with almost 100% certainty is that there will be no further updates to the original game with the exception of keeping the game compatible with modern systems.

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Hmm. I think we can agree to disagree. You still seem to believe there is one specific failure or reason why Warcraft III: Reforged had problems. It’s not a specific thing. The problem is that there is more money to be made from insulting and laughing at the Warcraft III: Reforged product than the money that can be made from the product itself. Money changes everything.

This is a developer update from last summer that talks about a whole bunch of new Reforged ladder and ranking features. It’s all lies though, none of those features exist and they never will. That is the ongoing way in which this company operates. It’s not any one guy’s choice, it’s because they have to give up on a game like that contrary to what they say, because they have to do profitable things. There are probably individual WoW mounts/pets on the store that have made more money for Blizzard than Warcraft III: Reforged.

It is the fate of Diablo II: Resurrected as well. It is not what anyone wants, that’s just what has to happen. There will be a release date of the game, followed by media manipulators insulting it to profit off of the attention, followed by an end to any future changes or content for the game whether the developers like it or not.

It’s not a question. I paid for the D2R preorder but I probably will not play it. I am here for the comedy that it is to me to sit back and watch this same show happen again the same way… And it is the same!

So, for me it’s just really funny to see you say this. Because like even now in the present, right, there is still no large money being spent to improve the situation with Reforged. Nor do I expect them to spend money on it, since I cannot imagine them getting anything in return. That developer update about introducing ladder was probably written by people who were too passionate about the Reforged game and did not understand that their job was going away soon. Money and manipulation are what matters in this situation. It is the ongoing state of this company, not some historic event.

It will be the fate of Resurrected as well. I really cannot see it any other way. Your only hope would be for there to be microtransactions, if you have those there might be a chance for the game to still be receiving meaningful patches a year after release, contrary to what we see with Reforged. Personally although I get it, I don’t much enjoy the whole notion of the microtransactions, so I will be laughing on the sidelines either way. That’s how I get my forty dollars worth from this. :slight_smile:

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Here’s how I view D2: Resurrected, it’s a separate PAID upgrade of the original game:

  • It gets the game on the modern Battle.net platform, solving a wide range of connectivity issues, restriction problems relating to VPN/business ISP usage and other silly restriction problems. This also enables better cheating countermeasures that aren’t possible with the original game.
  • It brings a larger stash to the game, which I’m pretty sure they TRIED to do with the original game, but due to problems that decision was cancelled.
  • Minor QoL features added, shared stash tab(muling), autogold, ctrl+clicking to move items, updated Battle.net interface which has yet to be revealed, etc.
  • The graphics update, which is in my opinion where most of the nitty gritty long man-hours hard work has gone to for making D2:R a reality.

You do you, that’s all I can say. Enjoy.

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Yea yea! It was then I realized Retera hadn’t been gaining strength… he had been losing what was left of his humanity!

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You listed four points and generally all but the first one are about the ingame systems. Reforged spent a lot of time with the ingame systems, but that doesn’t sell the game to new players. A lot of players see that Reforged style menu and it just makes them upset and they want to go back to the game they knew, which they define as being the menu they knew. You can truly understand if you imagine from the standpoint of a manipulator – only point 1 matters because that one can allow you to stop people from playing the game, so then they never know about 2, 3, or 4.

So, let’s focus on your point 1. For Reforged, the net impact of moving to Battlenet 2.0 was:

  1. Game stored in a different format so that old modding tools dont work but it can stream download via Battlenet Launcher. These low budget remasters are made in a hurry though, so even though it uses the stream download system they would not actually let you play until the game is 100% downloaded (contrary to big budget titles that are often playable at 20-30% of download)
  2. Friends list integration from Battlenet Launcher at the cost of all the old infrastructure. The old idea of launching the game, and going online, are gone as separate concepts. The game is always online. Single player is online. Now you have to log in monthly or else your game access expires to single player. Inviting another player to your “party” to play a multiplayer game is a new hacked in system that works by just sending a chat message on Battle.net 2.0 since integrating is so difficult for devs. Your friends literally get a bunch of chat messages from you containing the text “/i” from when you try to party invite them on Battle.net 2.0 while development is still getting finished up during Beta, if that gives you an idea how hacky it is for these low budget remasters.
  3. On the new Battle.net System, you get Call of Duty ad whenever you try to launch the game, so that is good for the company also.

The dev time will be mostly spent reinventing pointless stuff you would have thought could have been kept, like the character select screen. The new one will always be missing something you liked, since it was made in a hurry. It probably shows character level, name, and class, but for some reason doesn’t show the items worn.

This is parallel to what Reforged felt like, and it was a PAID upgrade likewise. The money cannot all go to bells and whistles. It has to go to reinventing base systems.

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Warcraft III: Reforged has this too! The new interface is a web page running on chromium embedded into directx game rendering, so the menu is written in JavaScript and you can extract the code and read it. The hidden test version of the page uses fake accounts names that are the names of the biggest FortNite streamers! They got Ninja and Dr.Disrespect in there. They better add those on the new D2R interface as well! I hear it boost the FpS!!

Edit: My brothers streamerz shall not have died in vain!

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I like what you wrote. I’m sure though that perhaps I’m only one of a small few who read the entire post.

Its is unfortunate that we live in a world where everyone wants everything done their way, and be damned with the opinions of anyone else. People are also far to willing to believe the unsubstantiated drivel being spouted by people who are in reality no in a position to comment fairly.

People see what they want to see.

I, for one, have already pre-ordered my copy of Diablo II : Resurrected and will be commenting on it only when I have the chance to judge it properly.

Until then, I’d rather sit back and have a good laugh at the whiners who do nothing but parrot information they’ve probably heard from a friend whose brother’s cousin doesn’t even know what or who Diablo is…

Because people are predicable in making judgements without having all the information?

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There will be people making money telling us how absurdly bad D4 is when it releases, even if it’s fantastic.

There will be people making money telling us how great D4 is, even if PoE2 is far better.

This happens with every game/movie/etc. Who cares.

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Why would we not focus on the reasons behind the failure of WC3:Reforged?
WC3: was handled poorly. The reasons were pretty simple:

many models were ugly, inconsistent with the original WC3 style;
many features were broken and/or missing;
the update was forced on everyone…
effectively the game was not what people paid for in the first place.

If D2:Resurrected ends up failing, it will probably be due to similar, if not the exact same reasons.

As to your theory, I highly doubt what transpired has anything to do with “people being manipulated into spending more time on social platforms” or whatever.
As to people spending their time on social platforms like youtube, facebook and twitter… that’s their business.

You can probably argue, that certain changes to the game… such as the Assassin’s appearance and race being retroactively changed can be a result of certain cultures and ideologies, that you can encounter on places such as the abovementioned social platforms…
but most likely the truth has to do with money… and rather than something like that being done for the purposes of “diversity” and “inclusivity”… most likely it’s done for the purposes of “let’s try and appeal to the Asian market”.

I would say, that the public reception for something like D2:R for me is… more or less irrelevant. This, at least for me, is not a game, for which I care much as to whether it has a large active player base or not, since the way I play it and enjoy it doers not necessarily require it to have a large, active player base in order for me to be able to enjoy myself. I can be happy with playing it by myself or with few IRL friends.

The same cannot really be said for something like WC3:R where the most fundamental element of the game is playing vs others.

For those, that want D2:R to have a large, active player base and that’s a big part of what makes the game enjoyable for them… you know, playing over the “Closed” battle net, playing with stangers, engaging in duels and trading… I hope they get their wish.

Also, I don’t really see D2:R being very appealing to younger players… not with this interface anyways.

So I can’t tell you as to whether or not the game will be well received, or it will receive the same public reception WC3:R received. I can tell you, that when it comes to this title, it matters less…

I’d say it’s a decent investment in terms of money for entertainment value, especially when I’m not really excited about any other titles coming out this year…

:rofl:

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D2R cannot end up like W3R because D2 will still be playable and accessible if you don’t like D2R.

Whereas W3R took away the choice to play the old version.

So if purists end up too mad at D2R, they can go back to D2. Problem solved. =)

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Op mad cause bad.

So much emo I could barely finish his self indulgent post without putting on some old Poison the Well songs from the 90s.

Absolute nonsense.

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I enjoyed and continue to enjoy Warcraft III Reforged by myself or with a small group of other friends. It’s the manipulation of those friends, I think… that moment when they call you up online and when you say you’re playing an RPG on Reforged as the healer, they demand you to stop playing that game and leave your party to die. And I’m just speaking from anecdotal experience, so obviously if you decide you do not care what anybody else thinks, obviously it is your decision what to do. Then the only way they can affect you, I figure, is indirectly – by affecting the developers to stop developing for example.

This post is amazing. Attacking some fabled idea of who I am instead of bothering to consider what I have to say is a great way to serve the manipulation machines, actually! You are doing a great job! By all means, please continue!

It is so strange that you say I am mad. So awesome. On the Warcraft III Reforged forums and related social channels I got people really mad at me because I often said things defending Reforged. We exist in an interesting space of spaces, and channels of channels. Who am I? Just someone who is “mad 'cause bad”? But that’s so interesting if true.

I suppose I think of myself more as being here to see if others shared my opinions and to warn them if not.

The warning has been given. Their fate is now their own.

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The problem is that this far, your ‘warning’ is based on nothing.

WC3R was an objective failure for a number of reasons. Failing to deliver on clear and concise promises was the biggest of those. They promised very specific things in the single player, and objectively failed.

D2R devs have made far less hard line specific promises, and as such will probably be just fine provided launch doesn’t come with a D3-style error message.

Good remade cinematics?
Good similar gameplay?

That’s literally how low the bar is for D2R. They had better step over it.

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I did not anticipate this. I am not a social manipulator. So you guys really believe that because Diablo II: Resurrected does not make any promises of anything, you will not be let down when it doesn’t deliver anything?

I had not really stopped to consider that. That’s kind of beautiful. Yeah, I guess if that’s how it is, then there’s no reason for me to say anything because you won’t be let down when the game doesn’t really deliver anything.

But seriously. Reforged did not fail to deliver on its promises, and the developers kept the playerbase informed about design changes along the way. You’re still imagining there is some difference between the two when there is not any that I have seen, other than the singular fact that the Battle.net 1.0 servers, apparently, are going to remain online for the 2000-2001 version of Diablo 2. Will that be the only saving grace of Resurrected? Your option not to play it? Is that really what you believe?

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It’s not that they haven’t promised anything, it’s that it should be quite easy to deliver.
D2 has no matchmaking system, isn’t a competitively balanced PvP game, all they need to do is nail the cinematics, visuals, and be compatible for most current hardware. That’s literally it.

If they fail to step over this tiny little bar, Blizzard deserves the same backlash as WC3R, but I doubt that’ll happen.

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This is an outright lie. There were many promises made. Cinematic style cutscenes, expanded story, clan options, more maps being redone and many more. They also did not keep the player base informed about anything during that time. When they decided to not do the cinematic style cutscenes and expanded story elements it came last minute and they even went as far as to blame purists for it. Who by the way were very few and more people were looking forward to more additions and changes. You are absolutely delusional if you think that they they came through with promises.

For the record I’m not even upset about WC3:R as I was only expecting a basic remaster at the beginning, but they did get me hyped about certain changes that they later reneged on.

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Don’t take this the wrong way, as I am also a person who likes to create discussion that looks more deeply into aspects that most overlook, but I feel like this thread is a lot of propaganda to stir concern for absolutely no reason.

It’s just a D2 remaster. It’s the same game with better graphics and a handful of very small QoL updates. I’m pretty sure most of us have a good idea of what the product is going to be after playing Diablo 2 for 20 years.

People do need to STOP being so fickle. Blizzard cannot appease everyone. There are so many opinions on every single little change that could or could not be made, and the community is setting itself up to be a victim. I see so many posts here in this forum and in others, where people say things like: “I will refund my purchase if this change is made or if they don’t add this one” which is ridiculous. This is NOT high-end manipulation by any means. It’s a bunch of older gamers who feel entitled to have everything be exactly the way they want it. <- It is impossible for Blizzard to deliver this, because there are so many different people with so many different points of view. No matter what Blizzard does, they are going to piss a lot of people off, and those people are going to act like victims about it and complain and complain and complain.

Imagine being the people at Blizzard who have to deal with this kind of media. No wonder they don’t respond in their own forum to any of this debacle eh? Seriously, no matter what they say, it’s going to piss a bunch of people off. <- This is probably exactly why they aren’t saying anything in this forum. At this point it’s probably better to not say anything at all. Maybe give them a break and some room to finish their game, and try to look at the project through young eyes again. Be ready for some new things to happen and embrace it and enjoy it, rather than be a victim over it.

Again, this is no high-end manipulation. This is just people getting themselves riled up over nothing due to feelings of entitlement.

Just relax, be patient, and enjoy the game when it releases.

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