Thread by @DropTheDie

#Diablo3 and plot - a thread.
Diablo 1 was a game that fit on a single CD and had fewer resource requirements than Angry Birds, but had what felt like HOURS and HOURS of voice acting, written text, and an understated plot that made you invested in figuring out the "why/what" 1/?

Part of the joy of the game was its dark tone and heavy emphasis on conversation. You'd go fight your way down a labyrinth for a few hours, come back to town, and talk to everyone as a little break. A reward for advancing further downward, it felt like a reward. Genius. 2/?

There was a small cast of characters, all of them normal folk trying to live in this shitty place with this crazy bastard ruling over them, hoping the rumors they hear are not true. They had skills, but NOPE, they didn't want any part of skeleton's with axes, dude. 3/?

So the game utilized you, the hero, as the agent of change, and the townsfolk as a backdrop to give you background detail: Leoric, his missing son, Lazarus, the Cathedral, The Lords of Hell. It felt like you were getting THEIR half of a conversation. 4/?

Fast forward to D3. The plot begins: a meteor fell from the sky and woke the dead in New Tristram. 30 years after the events of D1, no one has forgotten what happened in that place, so adventurers arrive looking for the falling star.
So far, IT'S STRONG AS HELL. Love it. 5/?

Where it grows weak, almost immediately, is that you no longer are the agent of change. You're being pointed to objective after objective with a threadbare reasoning why draped over the top. "The star was a man, and he lost his sword. Go get it." Pardon me? 6/?

This world is still in turmoil, but instead of asking the NPCs whats going on, 9/10 players are so BOMBARDED with colors and items and frantic music, and huge flashy abilities (like hurling 10 ton boulders out of your bellybutton) that they don't bother. It never grips them. 7/?

The quest's never "How do we restore his memories." You're told that immediately. The MOMENT it comes up: go get his sword. You're not looking for the pieces - you're given the location immediately.
The entire first 3 legs of the game revolve around getting White Castle. 8/?

Fetch quests kinda suck. Just true. We don't mind fetching things as PART of a quest, but being told "Go into the castle and on the first floor, just inside the door, is a tapestry - go get that." feels nowhere near as compelling as "There must be a clue hidden in the castle" 9/?

Why? Because the act of uncovering the information, the act of exploring and coming upon the answer yourself FEELS more rewarding, even if it's the EXACT same difficulty. You may talk to the NPCs and HEAR about the famed Tapestries. 10/?

Hell, even when you walk in the room it can be shooting off sparks and glowing bright orange like games like to do these days, but still - in that moment you'd have gained the realization: "This is just the thing we need!" And that is rewarding EVERY TIME. 11/?

No longer being the agent of change, we're a valet going and getting shit. There is another LOOMING misstep - the evil presented in the game seems INEPT by all accounts. D2 - Andariel took over a Monastery stronghold to block passage to the East for the Dark Wanderer. 12/?

That makes absolute sense. Andariel wanted to plug up the path the Dark Wanderer was taking and prevent any from following him, and it worked - until her destruction. In ACT 2, we discover the Dark Wanderer wants to free BAAL, super bad news. So we try to find him first. 13/?

In D3 we arrive at Caldeum we're told, immediately, that the city is in turmoil and that the child emperor is acting suspiciously dark along with his vicious royal guard, who we immediately find out are demons of Belial: in the first leg of the first quest of the entire act. 14/?

The Hero is given a series of tasks all at once: Find Cain's killer + find Leah's mother + Root out the demon in the city. We meet the child emperor, he tries to have Belial demons kill us, randomly appears in the sewers to apologize, and basically says "I'm spying on you." 15/?

So the entire "showdown" is as follows. You find a gem that can trap Belial, fight through 500+ demons to the throneroom, call the emperor out, he says "YOU GOT ME!" - transforms into Belial, and you whack him with weapons until he dies and trap him in the gem. The end. 16/?

Why am I making it sound like it sucks? Because Belial is the LORD OF LIES. His lies were SO obvious that it hurt. If I were to "fix" it - I'd keep Belial obvious as hell, you'd fight to the throne room, kill him, and - realize you killed a 10 year old child emperor. 17/?

The devastating realization would make this plot EXPLODE, allowing you to shortcut the actual confrontation. Belial would turn out to be the beloved captain of the guard, spring an ambush on the hero, and unexpectedly get overpowered and die. 18/?

Evil beings should have weaknesses, but the weakness should never be THE STRENGTH THEIR KNOWN FOR. By putting a layer of lies around Belial as a shield, you're not just slaughtering demons and fighting him - there is a nuance to the situation that DRIPS with drama. 19/?

Because Fist Fighting a Lord of Hell is nowhere near as unsettling as trying to kill an emperor with an innocent human city behind them, that sees you attacking their sovereign, sees you as the enemy. And you prove them RIGHT. Now THAT'S what a Lord of Lies is capable of. 20/?

By giving your evil entities (in videogames, fiction, #dnd) a PLAN to protect them, not just sacks of meat willing to die, you can give the player more options for agency outside of "kill it and win." Such beings prove truly evil in, my opinion, three specific ways: 21/?

1 - They're cunning enough that even if they die, they ensure YOU LOSE. Such plans require careful navigation.
2 - Good and Evil are always on a foot race, they eventually collide, but Evil takes shortcuts good cannot. You have to outpace them.
3 - It makes the hero CAREFUL. 22/?

If you can replace your Hero with a mindless indestructible wood chipper and reach the same outcome, you've not given your Lords of Evil enough planning. They are self involved, fearful of failure, and ruthlessly cunning. POWER only accounts for a small portion of Evil. 23/23

Bonus: Part of what made D1 and D2 FEEL so epic and grand was the fact that YOU (the hero) were on the outside trying to learn and catch up. In D3, you're the focus but have no personality or depth. The WORLD is drawn larger, but it's all held on the shoulders of a flat character