I already posted this once on my Fictionpress.com page.  Just so no one accuses me of plagerizing myself.




 

A Letter to Blizzard

Dear Blizzard Entertainment,

I’ve really enjoyed playing your videogame Diablo II.  In my opinion, it’s probably the best videogame I’ve ever played, despite the fact that it’s damn old.  To cut to the chase, I’ve heard rumors that Diablo III might finally be in the works, and I have some things I’d like to say.

(For the benefit of those of you who have never played Diablo II:  Diablo II is the continued story of a hero’s quest to defeat Diablo, the Lord of Terror; in this one  you also run into his two brothers, Mephisto lord of hatred and Baal lord of destruction.  You can play as an Amazon, a Barbarian, a Paladin, a Sorceress, a Necromancer, and (in the expansion) an Assassin or Druid.  It kicks ass.)

One:  Do Not Give It Graphics Like a Cinematic.  I realise that graphics technology has advanced quite a bit sense Diablo II was made back in the caveman days, but I like it.  To be perfectly honest, I hate Warcraft Three and World of Warcraft (two other Blizzard games), and for one simple reason:  The graphics.  They’re TOO good.  They look like you were trying to make the games look like animated movies, but only got halfway.  It’s hard on the eyes.  Diablo II’s graphics make for a good, natural flow that you can stand to look at for hours without getting eyestrain, as opposed to World of Slowcraft.

Two:  No More Arbitrary Barriers.  Do you know what the pervasive area barrier was in act one of Diablo II?  A fence!  A dry stone fence!  A fence that couldn’t have been more than waist high!  A Barbarian could jump over the fence!  A Sorceress could teleport over the fence!  Hell, any moron could CLIMB over the fence!  You could probably kick it and make it fall over!  It’s arbitrary, and it annoys me.  Make a wall of trees or something; Hell, just make an invisible barrier.  But don’t make a stupid fence!

Three:  If Diablo III has a Hell act, make it more in-depth.  Now don’t get me wrong, Act Four was probably my favorite act of the game, and the environment was really original, but it just isn’t what you’d expect from Hell.  I thought that there’d be an example of every demon that my guy had faced in the previous three acts as well as some new ones; it was Hell, after all.  But it had a very small number of different demons, which was sort of a let-down.  Also, it was ridiculously small and didn’t have much variety of terrain.  If Diablo III has an act that takes place in Hell, try and make it more in-depth.  Try looking into mythology and religion; The Bible depicts Hell as an empty place away from the love of God, not as a burning place.  Islam’s Hell is a small, fiery place where you are quickly judged for your crimes, as opposed to just floating there forever.  In Norse Mythology, Hell is a cold wasteland adjacent to a fiery land of Giants.  In Greek Mythology, there are two Hells; one is a burning place where truly evil people are sent and the other is a boring place where average people are sent.  In Dante’s Inferno, one of the deepest circles of Hell was a vast, frozen wasteland where misers and corrupt holy men would spent their eternity frozen upside-down, and one of the more interesting trenches of Hell was a dark and empty forest where people who committed suicide spent their eternity as immobile, ever-living, ever-suffering trees.  Imagine how epic it would be if you included some stuff like that!

Four:  Give Diablo Some Pants, For Cryin’ Out Loud.  I know you can’t show Diablo’s gonads without getting an AO rating, but don’t just give him no equipment to speak of.  Give him a loincloth or something.

Five:  Do Not, DO NOT Make the Most Powerful Enemy in the Regular Game a Spiderclown.  Baal, the Lord of Destruction, whom you must face in the last act of the game, looks exactly like Captain Spaulding from the movie “The Devil’s Rejects”, except that he walks on crab legs.  What the Hell, man?

Six:  If You Make Us Pay For the Multiplayer, I Will Hurt You.  I lied above.  I have one more problem with World of Warcraft other than the graphics that are so good they give you eyestrain.  You have to pay a monthly fee in order to play it on the Internet.  You.  Greedy.  Bastards.  Why?  Why would you do something like that?  Do you hate us?  Is that why?  Do you want to make us suffer?  I don’t care HOW good the game is, I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR IT.  You give us a game that takes away hours upon hours of our lives while giving us nothing back but a hollow sense of accomplishment that goes away every time a new patch is released, AND THEY MAKE US PAY THEM FOR THE PRIVELEGE.  What the Hell is that?  Screw you, man, I ain’t payin’.  I can play Diablo II 4 t3h free.

Seven:  If You Give Diablo III an Editor, Make it Comprehensible.  As much as I put on heirs, I’m no l33t haxx0r.  The editor on StarCraft (a Blizzard game) is difficult, and the editor on Warcraft III is totally useless.  I am not a videogame programmer, I’m just a guy off the street who has some cool ideas for new levels.  Warcraft III’s editor is terrible; you have to have an M.I.T. degree or be a damn 7^th-grader to use it without getting a headache.  I wish oh so very much that Diablo II had an editor; I’d love to make some of my own Acts.  Like how ‘bout one that has terrain like in Act One, where a village (a couple of Rogue Encampments and some of those houses) was besieged by an army of those little gremlin guys from Act Three?  That would be awesome.  Feel free to use that in Diablo III.

Che Viva,

The Mullet Man.