Found my fun, finally. Playing eternal 224 paragon, all my season leftovers, torment 2. Perfect balance of explosions vs needing to keep awake vs gear meaning something. Loving it.
So as i do im story playing the expansion, doing all the content in each zone before following along the main quest. Honestly i’m having a really good time. The amount of spice in this expansion is just about right, or at least, im actually convinced im in a diablo game, and love it.
The problem is every single word of the narrative. I think the only written dialog that doesn’t make me cringe are the white exposition options some npcs have. Its particularly bad. Who wants to watch a dozen times some tortured girl be pathetic, and then WITHOUT ANY INPUT change her mind and be less pathetic in the same conversation and move on. Thats the main story. And somehow ONLY the main quest seems to use character pronouns incorrectly, yet every single sidequest is witten to not have this problem. Put it this way, i am so glad that lead writer left.
Basically if d4 had the same disney heat as nehantu and actually had a coherent story, the package that blizzard put together could have been a generational masterpiece. But they didn’t. And i bet they’re overcompensating on the edge lord stuff for the next expansion because the consensus is voh was too soft.
Game over man, game over
I mean why did the writing have to be so bad? The tone is actually really really good.
Just in case, i finally finished the game. Its almost as the narrative is going out of its way to make you hate it. I actually “feel” crap after playing it, and fully understand why everyone just complains.
Lingering for ages on insufferable / cringy moments in cutscenes. Using the pronoun “they” in 3 or 4 sentences in a row referring to you, but then neyrelle is a “she”. In that entire finale sequence when they dropped the “she” bomb it felt like an alarm had gone off. Nothing but the dumbest possible events occurring. Neyrelle framing the entire campaign like it was all about saving her (player doesnt exist). Using akarat as a female gaze model (anyone but that character, i guess same as zoltun kulle being gay in season 2, lore sacrilege). The only thing positively interesting was the very last cutscene.
Yeah, i honestly felt negative as a story player from the campaign and feel glad that its finished. I dont think the campaign is supposed to do that in an “endgame” game. Seriously people with no interest in the game or blizzard simply had their way with d4.
As a rule I have always just skipped past cut scenes and ignored video game story telling. But D4 and especially VOH had what I believe to be the absolute worst story of them all. I only heard about it after the fact and was shocked at how mind numbingly dumb it was. So stupid I didn’t believe it. Yet it was confirmed by several other sources.
If you want a good fantasy story, go watch Game of Thrones seasons 1-4, or The Witcher, or pop in Lord of the Rings triology. But dont waste your time on this amateur hour drivel (at least not the Blizzard of today).
Kinda is what happens when the storytelling is worked by two different people when comparing the base game and Vessel of Hatred, like not enough homework was done to try and retain the same cohesive manners I feel like it was all just great before expansion, although I still liked VoH narrative when disregarding what you highlighted, only wish it had been more lengthy to make up for it.
Considering the topic probably is about VoH story, IMO it wasn’t bad, it was just unfinished
They should’ve added 1/1.5 chapter at the end where you end up fighting the corrupted version of Akarat, THAT would’ve been a real story-twister and a real unpleasant surprise
Fine with the fact that Mephi was kept for the next exp., it adds more tension to the story, but the problem is the way VoH ended feels rather unfinished and relatively uninspiring overall
Oh, well, disregarding what I highlighted yes it was great actually. The story itself was a great diablo story just the way it was told and the characters that told it, well one in particular anyway.
Also just a bit shocked that my female character wasn’t good enough to be referred to by her gender yet neyrelle was. Clumsy disrespect im sure… See they do know about boys and girls at blizzard. Proof!
While deserved its also a shame the expansion flopped. I would have chosen a full expansion of akarat causing mayhem all over sanctuary before he was beaten as mephisto. That could have would have been good (if another writer did it).
While I agree with you and hope this will be improved upon in the next expansion, part of what I also hope gets improved is the pacing as well, honestly it felt like they were just rushing to get it out rather than going for another iteration with the dialogues.
Well because i hadn’t experienced the finale yet, i was still quite positive about the expansion, and had a quest tracker up and completed all the side quests and dungeons in each zone as the campaign moved along. Doing this at least buffed out the rushed feeling.
Though i admit the side quests had nothing to do with the campaign, barely anything to do with diablo even.
Yeah i guess my review would have been at each major zone there could have been alot more exposition about where the story was at more than 2 white dialog lines.
Link or name? Tracking Blizzard positions is like looking for a specific grain of sand on a beach.
…
Edit: nvm found it. Eh. I suspect it’s for the better… the only place I knew her from was this promo… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7kZBgtcKWvw
…and nothing she said was impressive (nothing any of them said was impressive… but the writers in particular should have interesting ideas when they speak imo).
I’ve had tons of bile re: narrative in this game… replacing some of the writing staff can only be a ‘good’ wager.
My prediction is expac #2 out by late spring next year, so…
I assume the narrative is mostly done, and that voice parts are mostly recorded & cinematics are in production. I wonder how much difference it could make if they’re replacing writers at this point.
The cancelled diablo 3 after a well regarded expansion.
Im in a sour mood because of the narrative, but really apart from completely ruining any campaign replability for me, the rest of it is not too bad. I think runes are interesting even. Zone maps are alright. Music is great. Dungeons are great. Havent tried spirtborn yet… and honestly probably never will now.
Im going to assume none not be disappointed, it was all made prior to blizzards political climate changing, but the only hope is they didn’t show it at gamescom, which could mean they’re taking extra time to… redo… parts of it? Yeah i know far fetched. The staff member leaving though is usually significant.
Yeah i haven’t played in a while, but i heard the wow stories have… become different… over the last 3 or 4 expansions… well. Luckily that was a long time ago now
