So Diablo 3 was finally announced this weekend and the internet went nuts leading up to this announcement and went critical after it was official. Forums everywhere analyzed the teaser image on Blizzard’s website, trying to decipher what it could mean. Some were convinced it pointed to a new Diablo, some were convinced it would be the announcement of the official release date for the new World of Warcraft expansion. A few others vainly hoped it would be Blizzard announcing that the aborted Starcraft: Ghost was coming back.
But after all the speculation, it turned out to be what most had hoped for, the next in the Diablo series. And a great cheer went up across the internet. Except from me. I just don’t get it.
Blizzard has a gigantic following among gamers. Their games are played and fawned over seemingly by everyone. The fact that Starcraft, a ten year old game, is still being played with near religious ferocity is amazing. And while I can admit their games are very solid and have an interesting art style, I just don’t find anything mind blowing about them. Their games just don’t have anything that hooks me in. I tried Diablo 1 and 2 and found them both boring and repetitive, the same with all of the Warcraft RTS games and even Starcraft.
This isn’t a matter of me not liking the style of games they make. I enjoyed the Command & Conquer series for a time but those got stale quickly. I’ve migrated on to the Company of Heroes style of game, I find that sort of RTS much more compelling. Warcraft never really grabbed me. Diablo was touted as an RPG but at the time my thoughts of an RPG were the Baldur’s Gate or Fallout series, which Diablo was certainly not.
And then there’s World of Warcraft. I can’t believe how popular that game is. All of my friends have multiple high level characters. My sister even plays it and she has more characters than a normal MMO player would have I think. This game has managed to grip nearly everyone I know in it’s dirty clutches. I played it for quite a long time because my friends were there. I kept telling myself it was fun but I really hated it. I could not decipher it’s appeal.
All of this love for Blizzard’s games really confuse me. No one can successfully explain it to me and at this point I’m just assuming there’s something wrong with me. I’m not their target audience, but it’s almost impossible to find someone who agrees with me, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone agree with me completely on this. So I must be the broken one, the one who can’t see their greatness.
Then again, I’d like to think everybody else just subscribes to the Cult of Blizzard. Don’t get me wrong, there are worse cults to belong to, I just wish I could see the appeal of this certain one so I could get as excited as everybody else.
One last thing, I apologize for neglecting my posting here, the last week and half have been hell at work, it’s our crunch time. I haven’t had as much free time as I’d like, but I should be back on track now.