#0 - Feb. 10, 2011, 6:29 a.m.
Innovation is a great thing and can lead to many different revolutionary game designs. Some of the best things about Diablo3 were probably thought up on a whim then pitched to everyone around the team. Does anyone think that the rune system was always in place? It's entirely likely that synergies were still planned until somebody thought that up. The problem with this type of creative, dynamic and unique process is that it takes a very long development time. There comes a point where this begins to completely hinder and stall the game creation cycle to where you're 5 years down the line and the release day is still nowhere in sight. How many times can you think of where Bashiok, Jay Wilson or any of the other members of the development team told us about some mechanic that they have worked on for weeks was taken out of the game?
How many times has the resource system changed for each class? How many different concepts have you heard of for the Wizard alone only to find out she will likely be going back to Mana and now the WitchDoctor is getting a new resource? What about fury, a resource we thought was working for quite some time now we are hearing that it's basically being scrapped as well.
What of the different "Demon hunter" concepts that they fully animated and created but decided to scrap because of how people wanted to play them?
There are plenty of other mechanics, concepts and ideas we could name which have had countless hours of work put into them by Blizzard which were later scrapped and I'm confident many times more that the fans have no idea exist.
It is entirely possible that this style does harm Blizzard by obviously extending the cycle beyond what a normal company would do, but it also makes them lose focus and conflicts other gameplay philosophies. Two things that are brought to mind are the demon hunter and (Not too related to Diablo3) the Starcraft 2 Saga. Each of the four prior classes in Diablo3 all had a very unique and rich background which meshed well with the lore set before them. Unfortunately, the Demonhunter stands out like a sore thumb. We have heard many times over that all characters must be human and that we can never play an angel or demon because it's solely about humanities fight for survival. The demonhunter contradicts these statements because someone on a whim decided they wanted to play an anti-hero demonic character, sure a neat concept but they begin to lose focus with these types of decisions.
As for starcraft two, it worries me about the team behind them. At one time they decided each expansion pack of Diablo2 would break the game into three parts with one for each race. This doesn't sound like a bad idea at first, but later on after the game's release and some fan complaints about the story we hear from the developers of the game itself that they do not even know how the game will end.
How do you make major decisions to break the game up into separate expansion packs and finish one before even deciding how the game will end?
Innovation is inefficient, but has it come to the point where the development team of Diablo3 is trying too hard to force the innovation and are now continuously tossing out prior work? Could Diablo3 possibly be the same game it is shaping out to be today if they came up with a plan in the begining and strictly stuck to it? It in all likelyhood would be released right now, but would it be anywhere near as innovative as it *could possibly* be when it does finally hit the shelves?
[Edits add ins and rewording likely]
