The problems with Diablo 3's story are myriad. Its very one dimensional, you can predict the entire story from Act I onward. There is little to no subtlety, with them spelling out every bad guy's inner thoughts in their dialog. Plus there are some rather large gaping plot holes. This pretty much sums up the entire story in a hillarious manner (deleted by Blizzard).

This wouldn't be so bad if Diablo 3 wasn't about the story. HOWEVER, when you read the interviews with the game designers, or see their replies on the forums, you quickly see that... in their eyes... Diablo 3 is about the story. Hence why there's no "Skip Boring Cut-scene" check box in the options dialog. Forcing you to manually escape those annoying boss cut-scenes.
[spoiler]VILLAGERS: OMG THE UNDEAD ARE RISING

LEAH: ITS JUST UNCLE DECKARDS CRAZY STORIES

*VILLAGER GETS HEAD EATEN OFF

LEAH: AGAIN, JUST STORIES, I ASSURE YOU

*NAKED OUT OF PLACE WITCH DOCTOR SHOWS UP

LEAH: I TOTALLY TRUST YOU COMPLETELY, LETS GO FIND UNCLE DECKARD

LEAH: LOOK THERE HE IS, FELL DOWN 100 FEET OR SO BUT HES FINE

*EVERYONE GOES BACK TO TOWN

DECKARD CAIN: RANDOM WITCH DOCTOR, GO KILL THE SKELETON KING, HE RESURRECTED JUST BECAUSE THIS ENTIRE ACT IS A DIABLO 1997 REFERENCE

WITCH DOCTOR: K

*WITCH DOCTOR KILLS SKELETON KING AND FINDS A NAKED BLACK MAN

WITCH DOCTOR: YO DECKARD, I FOUND THIS NAKED BLACK DUDE

DECKARD CAIN: K GO FIND HIS SWORD PIECES

WITCH DOCTOR: Y????

DECKARD CAIN: DUNNO LMAO, JUST A GUESS

*MAGDA SHOWS UP

MAGDA: I COME FROM WORLD OF WARCRAFT TO DESTROY U

WITCH DOCTOR: K LMAO ALREADY GOT THE SWORD PIECES

MAGDA: DAMN!!!!! ILL JUST GO STEAL THAT NAKED BLACK DUDE AND PROLONG THIS ACT FOR NO REASON

*SHOOTS FIRE AT CAIN, STEALS BLACK MAN

LEAH: STORIES KILLED MY UNCLE!!!!!!!!!

WITCH DOCTOR: PRETTY SURE MAGDA DID, NUB

*WITCH DOCTOR RUNS TO SAVE BLACK MAN

WITCH DOCTOR: OMG THE BUTCHER, ANOTHER POINTLESS RESURRECTION OF A 1997 DIABLO CHARACTER WITH NO EXPLANATION

BUTCHER: AH FRESH MEAT!!!!!!!!!!!

*BUTCHER DIES, BLACK MAN SAVED

TYRAEL: YO HERE I AM FOOL

WITCH DOCTOR: WHY U BLACK NOW DOG?

TYRAEL: TOKEN BLACK ANGEL LMAOOOOO

*GOES TO ACT 2

VILLAGERS: OMG THE PRINCE SENT ALL THE GUARDS AWAY

WITCH DOCTOR: HE MUST BE BELIAL IN DISGUISE

LEAH: NO, NO WAY, LET'S GO ON A POINTLESS QUEST TO DO A BUNCH OF CRAP DESPITE THE FACT THAT WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON.

ADRIA: HEY DAUGHTER SUP

LEAH: OH HEY MOMS, JUST MORE STORIES TEEHEE

ADRIA: WE MUST GET THE BLACK SOULSTONE USING THIS OLD HORADRIM DUDE THAT CREATED IT

WITCH DOCTOR: K

*WITCH DOCTOR RECOVERS THE SOULSTONE:

WITCH DOCTOR: WAIT, HOW DID THE SOULS OF THE OTHER 5 DEMONS GET IN HERE ALREADY?

ADRIA: DON'T WORRY BOUT IT DOG... CHRIS METZEN

WITCH DOCTOR: GOT IT!

BELIAL: I AM THE WORST LIAR EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR

WITCH DOCTOR: WE KNOW

*CAPTURES SOUL

*GOES TO ACT 3

AZMODAN: YO DAWG, ATTACKING UR RAMPARTS

WITCH DOCTOR: THANKS FOR THE LEAD BRO

AZMODAN: HEY NP DAWG, ATTACKING UNDERNEATH NOW

WITCH DOCTOR: HEY DUDE THANKS AGAIN, COULDNT HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT U

AZMODAN: ANYTIME, HEY COME TO MY PLACE SO WE CAN SMOKE SOME BLOW

*WITCH DOCTOR GOES TO THE HEART OF SIN

WITCH DOCTOR: YO I BROUGHT THE WEED

AZMODAN: SWEET DAWG, BEING A WARLORD IS TOUGH

WITCH DOCTOR: JK LMAO, GOT UR SOUL

*GOES BACK TO BASE

WITCH DOCTOR: OMG LEAH IS THE PRIIIIIIME EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!

ADRIA: YEA PLANNED THIS 20 YEARS AGO DOG

WITCH DOCTOR: BUT, AGAIN, HOW DID U GET ALL THE SOULS IN HERE IF YOU JUST NOW GOT THE BLACK SOULSTONE?

ADRIA: CHRIST METZEN

WITCH DOCTOR: GOTCHA!!!!!!!!!

*GOES TO ACT 4

DIABLO: WELCOME TO MY REALM OF TEAR-OR!!!!!!!!! I AM THE PRIME EEEEVILLLLL

WITCH DOCTOR: WHY DON'T YOU LOOK LIKE A COMBINATION OF ALL THE EVILS THEN???

DIABLO: I DUNNO... ASK CHRIS METZEN

WITCH DOCTOR: K

DIABLO: CAN YOU TELL I'M A GIRL THIS GAME??? I CAN'T STOP TALKINGGGGGGG

DIABLO: LOOK TYRAEL, UR OWN LIEUTENANT

TYRAEL: WAIT, HOW DID IZUAL COME BACK?

DIABLO: CHRIS METZEN MADE IT HAPPENNNNNNNNNN

IZUAL: I AM BACK FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASONNNNNNN

*IZUAL DIES

DIABLO: HE WAS USELESS ANYWAY, COEM KILL MEEEEE

*WITCH DOCTOR ENTERS REALM OF TERROR

DIABLO: WELCOME TO MY REALM OF TEAR-ORRRRRR, NO ONE HAS EVER ESCAPED

*DIABLO DIES

TYRAEL: WE DID IT BOYS... ANGELS.... AND MEN!!!!!!!!!!!![/spoiler]

Again, though...who's playing Diablo 3 for the story? What about the series says "we should expect great things from the plot and be upset if it isn't thrilling"? Who can name one plot point from the previous two games besides "Wirt has a wooden leg" and "Diablo is a thing you should probably kill"?

I guess I can see if the developers were talking up the story, one might be bothered by that...but purely from the perspective of what the Diablo series is as a whole, we shouldn't assume interesting story from a series that's never had it before.

I mean, seriously: mad credit who can stay awake through this thing:

Bad story is one thing, and easily ignored if the game lets you ignore it. (The story was VERY easy to ignore in 1 and 2) Bad story that you are forced to listen to, or forced to hover with your hand over the keyboard ready to cancel that shit as soon as it starts, is something else entirely. Blizzard built systems to highlight the story: in-game cut-scenes, banter between characters, etc... All done as if they wanted to make a story-heavy "RPG" (I put RPG in quotes, because Blizzard has neatly eviscerated the franchise of everything that might possibly have made it an actual RPG). They added all that framework in to tell a story, then the story they told is one of the most atrociously stupid, banal and cartoonishly idiotic things to come out of this stupid, banal and cartoonishly idiotic industry in years. "Argh! You will not defeat me!", "I am legion!", "While you were defeating my plans here, I went and did all this there, muahaha!"

I mean, god. Couldn't they at least have tried? And if not, then why, by all that is holy (LOL), did they even bother with the story-telling mechanisms? That was their worst failure, in my opinion. Not that the story was bad (it was), but that it was shoved down our throats. Then the Blizzard devs have the gall to suggest in their Reddit Q&A that they received extremely positive feedback on the story and, by implication, anyone who didn't worship it for the lovely jewel that it was is an idiot.

Besides, some of us did play Diablo for the story. I mean, it's not like it was the whole reason, but there was a part of me that really loved the dark Judeo-Christian symbolism, the tales of a grand war between Heaven and Hell (however cliched) that was going on separate from what the player was doing, the lore of the Horadrim, etc... You got that stuff in hints, by reading game manuals, by picking it up from the occasional end-of-Act cutscene. Now, you get it dressed up in cartoony Warcraftian sugar-coating, sprinkled with gumdrops and unicorns and copious amounts of Bloom filtering, and crammed down your goddam throat with a stick by way of the in-game cutscenes, endless poorly-written dialogue and simpering banter that sounds like it was written by a third grader after watching too many Dragon Ball Z cartoons.

But I agree, complaining about the story in this game is stupid. There are so, so many more and better things to complain about.

True, not many people played these games for their story line, but does that mean a gigantic company like Blizzard, that has the funding and man power to do anything they want, should ignore the story line and give it far less attention? If that were the case, why ask the player if they REALLY want to skip cut scenes? Or why even have cut scenes at all? Even better, why make multiple references to the previous games if the story never mattered?

Personally, I really enjoyed the story up until this game. The cut scenes had a lot of depth and mystery to them even though you kind of know what you're working towards. They never spelled anything out to you, so the game still held a bit of mystery. However, in Diablo 3 they left huge gaping holes in the story that aren't explained, as if they didn't even play the first two games, and spelled every single step of the game out for you. Which, to me, are a HUGE strikes against a team that were suppose to be perfecting the most anticipated game of the decade.

I would much rather watch the above cut scene, from Diablo 2, than this one, from Diablo 3.

Also, aside from the story, the development of game mechanics and progression is something else that I think should be discussed. I know that is a bit removed from the core of what we do here, but it is something that should be taken into consideration when writing a game. I mean, I've had multiple discussions on this board about the mechanics of games we were writing for, so in regards to that here is a video from Kripparrian. He is a major Diablo 3 player that is grinding through Hardcore to be the first to beat Inferno in Hardcore. He gives a good talk about endgame and some of the mechanics that seem as if they aren't being taken into consideration whatsoever.

I feel for Diablo 3 much the same as for Starcraft 2, namely disappointment. They are fun games but Blizzard missed the mark, both in gameplay and in story telling. Diablo 3 is worse on both counts than SC2. SC2 story was a mishmash of smaller plots with little intrinsic relation to them. Old allies in Protoss were ignored so that race could be an enemy again. The individual plots were not particularly interesting. I allow for the fact that I'm older now and have higher expectations, but I do at least remember the first game had a single story flowing from beginning to end, a story they failed to top. Gameplay-wise, SC2 wasn't too bad though I was disappointed by the units they went with, overall. The mechanics were still solid though, thankfully.

Now with Diablo 3 I have been disappointed by blizzard again. Again, like SC2, its a fun game, but it missed its mark. The game play has been torn down, and what they rebuilt from it is a pitiful ghost of the interesting mechanics they had built up by D2X. The progression was harder, the mechanics more varied, the classes more interesting. Now all of it is simplified. Story-wise, I didn't expect greatness, but I will remember how terrible the dialogue was, I don't remember D2 plot at all. I don't ask for greatness, but I was given something awful, something to make me cringe. I honestly feel bad for the voice actors for Tyreal and Adria because of their scene at the end of Act 3. For me that scene was the absolute worst, and I think the voice actors were asked to play it up, not play it straight (not that that would have helped).

Voice acting was over the top throughout the game, the cut scenes were boring, there was never any suspense because you could see everything a mile away and when you got there, they had neon signs telling you what was going on. Pacing was terrible, both in story, and the quests that went along with it. The references to the older games were unnecessary, and the revival of old enemies was too. With a whole world to explore, why are we back at Tristram? Why is the second act another desert? why is the third act revisiting the last game too? They have a map of a whole world, why not throw the dart somewhere else? I'm glad some of the bosses are new, but they don't all fit. One is a throw back to D1, and one is a Warcraft character invading the game. The legit evils work well, but the others don't. Gameplay wise they don't work either. Difficulty in boss fights is all over the place.

The game is fun, and so is SC2, but these games are not their predecessors and they will not live as long, especially D3.

I mean, seriously: mad credit who can stay awake through this thing:

In all seriousness, it's a game intro trailer, so very likely that most players will force themselves to watch it at least once. I watched it just now to refresh my memory of what it was, all those years ago. I'd now have trouble watching it again, unless to analyze it for "what went wrong." Off the top of my head though, they talk a lot about walking through a desert for no apparent reason, other than some artist wanted to put a desert in a cutscene? And then the desert ends, and there's a town that isn't in a desert... oh WOW.

I thought long and hard (durrhurr) why I dislike diablo 3. It's meant for the masses.

I know this doesn't strictly belong here, but these are the mechanics for me broke the game:

• rare mobs are harder than bosses. In D2, mobcombinations killed you. Here you just fight for 20 minutes to kill one rare mob.
  
• automated attributes, I have nothing to do when leveling up.
  
• Skills are unlocked, you have nothing to do when leveling up, and it doesn't matter what you choose anyways, you can always change it.
  
• only 6 skills. Seriously, do they think I can hardly keep myself from drooling over the keyboard? Or can the character not keep more than 6 moves in his head?
  
• progression: Exploding palm still feels and looks as strong at lvl 60 than it did at level 16. Remember the good old javazone?
  
  The last one was the killer for me.
  
  And Storywise i have to agree d2 wasn't the greatest story ever, but it was fine, and you didn't have plot holes the size of continents.
  For starters, remember the ending of diablo 2, the world stone was destroyed, nobody knew the consequences, but they might be dear. I can only imagine tyrael standing there, shrugging his shoulders: "Well lucky me, nothing happened... HEY GUYS! NOTHING HAPPENED! You can all go home now and do nothing for 20 years until I fall from the skies!"
  In D2 you followed the Wanderer (of course it was diablo, but no character acted surprised when it was revealed). Everywhere he went, evil followed, because diablo was so bad. Alright, nice.
  
  In diablo 3? Tyrael falls down, alright. But new Tristram has gone to shit for no reason, Belial decided to take Luth golein... I mean... that other town that totally isn't luth golein, for no reason. Adria suddenly appears for no reason, you had to get the black soulstone for... why again? I could go on for days.
  
  The only new part that diablo3 introduced was Maghda and the Coven. Both are so bad and generic that i don't even CARE about their story. Anyways, leader of the coven. WHO ARE the coven? Generic demons?!
  
  Investing millions of dollars, having a d2 fan as project leader, having 100 of people test the game early on and nobody noticed how BAD the ingame cutscenes and dialoges are? Did anyone listen to the first act Alaric NPC and think: "Yes, that's the best we can do."?

I think some one did. No way the voice actors did that melodrama on their own. Some one HAD to tell them to shame themselves like that.

Investing millions of dollars, having a d2 fan as project leader, having 100 of people test the game early on and nobody noticed how BAD the ingame cutscenes and dialoges are? Did anyone listen to the first act Alaric NPC and think: "Yes, that's the best we can do."?

Problem is, they didn't have a D2 fan as a project leader. They had Jay Wilson, who hated D2. You can hear that hatred seething underneath almost all the comments he made regarding D2.

[quote name='Jay Wilson']
Yeah, one of the lessons that we learned in development was people’s memories of Diablo II were way different than the reality of Diablo II. They remember all kinds of stuff that never actually happened in that game.

when you ask them about game challenge, they remember what it was like in hell difficulty. They don’t remember what it was like in normal difficulty. They remember something that visually darker than it ever was. They remember a variety and depth of monsters that was never there.

It’s one of those things where if you love a game (Diablo II), then the things that are bad about it become endearing. Everybody remembers Deckard Cain saying, “Stay a while, listen.” But the reason they remember it fondly now is because it was so damn annoying! He said it every time, and you had to talk to him so often!
[/quote]

There is more. Visit the D3 forums and people still bring this stuff up. He's very politic about it, but his disdain for D2 is thinly veiled.

Now, I'm not one to think that Wilson is the only guy responsible for the titanic heap of suckage they call D3. A lot of poop came from a lot of butts to poison that particular bucket of water, and in that stinky mess, Wilson's input was just one more turd.