Re: Diablo IV

On Fri, 2 Aug 2024 15:51:34 -0000 (UTC), "Mark P. Nelson"
<markpnelson@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote in
news:192najh9mjkh4j1nqn7795e7oedfjloj46@4ax.com:
>

But most of that isn't evident from the start. It feels very much
'generic fantasy world #5662' and it gives you very little reason to
care to explore it. People who persevere will enjoy it, but I wouldn't
be surprised if a lot of players gave up before leaving the tutorial
map. It doesn't onboard new players well at all.

>
That's what I did. More than once.

I really enjoyed the Witcher games, but all of them dump you into the
deep end from the start, especially regarding the games' setting and
politics (well, the first game was a bit smoother in the transition).

"Nilfgaard is attacking Temeria except Redenia is fighting back even
though they're getting no support of Novigrad and there is in-fighting
amongst the Lodge of Sorcereresses and Ciri is missing and the Wild
Hunt is possibly hunting you and maybe her because she is a Source
(which also interests the Lodge and also the Scoiatel) and you have at
least two romantic interests and there's trouble a'brewing between the
Wolf and Bear and Cat houses and Geralt is facing suspicion over the
murder of King Demavend, and..."

It's just a lot to take in, especially at the start if you've not
played the first two games and don't have much familiarity with the
franchise. I mean, even /I/ have problems keeping track of everything,
and I've played the games, read the novels, watched the TV show, and
own the tabletop RPG books! I'm _saturated_ with Witcher lore, and
sometimes even I go, "Hey, wait, who's that guy and why should I
care?"

Once you start playing for a while, things start pulling together and
you can begin to appreciate the depth of the setting. But it
definitely makes for a rocky start. Yet I'm really not sure /how/ the
developers could allieviate that. In a sense, that's exactly what they
tried to do in "Witcher 3" by slow-burning the story in its
introductory map, and everybody (myself included!) complained that
it's boring and the least memorable part of the game. ;-)

I guess that when the complexity of your game is its best part, it's
really difficult to onboard new players without scaring them away with
its complexity.