[Update: Jay Wilson issues apology.]
Diablo 3 hasn’t exactly earned the same reception as its predecessors. Online-only DRM, new purchase restrictions, lack of end-game content, exploits, a controversial real-money auction house and missing features like PVP after more than a decade of development threw a few dents in what otherwise was a successful PC release for Blizzard, both in terms of sales and critical reception.
David Brevik, one of the founders of Blizzard North and a key part of the development of Diablo and Diablo 2, is currently working with Gazillion Entertainment on their similarly-styled action RPG Marvel Heroes and recently offered his thoughts on the release and response to Diablo 3, a response that certainly didn’t go unnoticed.
In chatting with IncGamers openly on the matter, Brevik said the following:
“I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was and how unique and special that group was. I am hoping that, as this happens very often in the industry, you see it with Call of Duty and things like that, when the people leave the game changes and it shows how critical people are in this industry.”
This elicited troll-like responses from current Blizzard North employees Jill Harrington and Jay Wilson which sparked yet another Diablo 3-related controversy online. Seeing a Diablo 3 dev f-bomb a dev of Diablo 1 & 2 is an odd thing to see, to say the least. No wonder it was deleted so quickly from Facebook, but not quick enough for the world to see of course.
Peet Cooper, now an artist for Riot Games, earned the most likes for laying down some maturity and logic in his comments:
And in a response to the matter in defense of Brevik’s opinion, Gazillion offered the following statement to Eurogamer:
“We admire Blizzard and Blizzard games. David was asked about Diablo 3 and gave his honest opinion and we stand by him 100 per cent. Marvel Heroes is David’s vision and is the spiritual successor to Diablo 2.
“We’ll be in closed beta soon, so visit MarvelHeroes.com if you want to check it out.”
Labeling Marvel Heroes the spiritual successor of Diablo 2 is bold, especially for a company unproven in the realm of triple-A releases. We now wonder if Marvel Heroes can live up to the expectations and whether or not its gameplay will be better suited for Diablo players who prefer the old to the new.
If the game wasn’t as entertaining as you hoped, at least this situation partly is. Are you hopeful of Diablo 3 with its upcoming patches and eventual new content, or of Marvel Heroes?
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Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.
Source: Eurogamer
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How could “Marvel Heroes” even be considered a plausible successor to Diablo II? It’s an MMO so you are forced into a world where you have to contend with other players whether you want to or not. With Diablo II you could choose to play offline or online. I like a good dungeon crawler with plenty of areas to explore and lots of loot to be found but I can’t stand MMO’s so I’ll pass on this one.
What game is a much closer resemblance to Diablo II and to which I have very high hopes for? Torchlight II.
There’s no offline mode for Diablo 3. You need to be connected to play.
He was stating that Diablo 2 has an offline mode.
Ah, misread. Thought he was comparing D3 to Marvel Heroes as which is the better successor.
Dont worry we dont need marvel heroes to be that
Lineage Eternal & Path Of Exile are Tons Better Than D2-D3
But Hey I Dont Expect Blizz Fangirls To Agree With That anw
hahaha totally true, fans are the reason games (and sequels) dont evolve or innovate has much as they could/should b/c the ‘beloved fan$’ will cry about something being to different (odd b/c d3 is a lot different to d2).
i always support the minority or the under dog b/c in most cases these smaller or less attention grabbing games are better (have more innovation and diversity due to wanting to appeal to as many people as possible), plus the communities for them are generally easy going and helpful as opposed to ‘i come here to show off my s***’.
i say bring on marvel heroes, def excited to play as my fav super heroes (and villains if i can).
only down side to torchlightII is that the graphics are abit too cartoony
That may be an issue for Marvel Heroes too.
Huh, who knew Blizzard staff can be as butthurt as the fanboys. (not all, just the really moronic ones)
WoW! Those people have no taste (which is evident in their creation of Diablo 3) because Hellgate was an awesome game.
Or you could just keep playing Diablo 2 like the rest of the hardcore Diablo fans do. Diablo 2 is still enjoyed by over 20K+ players each and every day, so it’s still going strong. I still play and I love it. Diablo 2 is a much higher quality game than Diablo 3 (currently) is. Maybe in 10 years they will have ironed out most of the problems with Diablo 3 and added some new content so that it might, just might, come close to Diablo 2 quality. That says A LOT for the original Blizzard North developers; they did an excellent job and the new guys are sore because they did such a poor job.
It’s really funny how Jay Wilson and co call David Brevik a loser and such while he’s the one who’s franchize they messed up.
Diablo 3 also isn’t even the best sold game ever, it was pre purchased for 90% and annual pass baited for another 5%…