Warning: The following contains the most minor of spoilers.
After months of waiting to be selected for Diablo 3 Beta testing, and literally years of awaiting the game's release, I was finally able to sample the game this weekend when Blizzard Entertainment finally opened up the Beta testing to everyone with a Battle.net account. While the purpose of this was largely to see how their servers would cope with the explosion of players, many fans viewed it as a demo version of the game which will be released next month (5/15/12). I know that despite being locked out of the server about 50% of the time I tried to log in and experiencing minor glitches which prevent me from joining games once logged in, the open Beta weekend has only ramped up my anticipation of the game's full release.
In the 13 levels and handful of quests the Beta allows you to play the highlight is definitely the amazing aesthetic quality of the game. Both sound and graphics are absolutely stunning to the point where you'll want to just sit in town practicing your moves and playing around with the zoom key. My personal favorite is the Witch Doctor's Firebats (Starcraft reference?) move, which shoots a stream of flaming bats in front of the character. But the graphics are not to be outdone by the sound quality. The dungeons are riddled with the sounds of bones rattling, ground shaking, and blood coalescing into fearsome monsters. On top of that, everything a character says, be they player character or NPC, is actually said out load and there are also sound clips to go along with scrolls and journals found in dungeons as well as lore which you can listen to when you confront new monsters. Unlike Diablo 2 which featured long speeches by NPCs like Deckard Caine and Akara, quest givers that we've seen so far in the Beta keep it short and simple and even feature a little back and forth with the player character whose lines vary depending on your class.
The scripting for Diablo 3 seems significantly better so far than that of the previous installments. That's not to say that scripting in Diablo 2 was bad, but it was certainly tiring and drawn-out and was often just skipped over entirely. The Beta features such gems as "It's a shame that bard got himself eaten. I could do with some music right now," and exchanges between the mercenaries and player character including one in which the Demon Hunter remarks that he doesn't believe in an afterlife because "Isn't this life bad enough?" Each of the 5 classes has a slightly different script when responding to quest givers, all of which give the same results, (ie. you accept the quest) but the way they respond to the mercenaries when prompted varies significantly, displaying the personalities of each class. It's no Portal 2, which I still hold as the best scripted game I've ever played, but it's done well enough that players will actually pay attention when the characters start talking.
The Diablo 3 Beta only allows players to make a small dent in the first act so as not to reveal spoilers for the rest of the game, but so far the storyline is actually intriguing. By the time you reach the end of Beta content you'll be left with such questions as "What's the deal with the fallen star?" and "God damnit, why can't I keep playing?" As a World of Warcraft player I've been steadily growing fed up with the direction of the storyline ever since the Cataclysm expansion, (let's be honest: the pandas are just a calculated marketing scheme designed to draw in younger audiences) but Diablo 3 seems to have all of Blizzard's good writers. In just the first part of the first act we are given quests in which we must help the blacksmith pity-kill his wife and nameless villagers, a templar get revenge on a former member of his order, and rescue Deckard Cain (it wouldn't be a Diablo game without him). The focuses of the quests and the lore that relates to them are madness, betrayal, revenge, and save the NPCs caught up in all the madness, betrayal, and revenge. There are no pandas, no /dance, and no other cutesy WoW stuff. There's only killing.
Anyone who's played Diablo 2 knows that the mutiplayer aspect of the game was seriously lacking in one significant area: looting. Each boss in Diablo 2 essentially gave loot to whoever had empty bags, no lag, and could click the fastest while everyone else got nothing. Diablo 3 features a system in which each player in a party has separate loot and gold. This system combined with separate achievements and events for co-operative play makes teaming up with other players great for all parties (pun intended) involved. This installment in the series also features an Auction House form which players can bid on or purchase gear from each other without having to create a trading game and wait for hours on end until someone finally has the gear you're looking for. It's almost as if Blizzard wants Diablo players to work together in this game instead of just viciously competing with each other. Unfortunately though, there is no PvP element to the game yet, so even when you want to compete you can't. Blizzard said last month that they plan to add PvP combat including some sort of arena system in a patch shortly after the game's release, but as of now the system they have for PvP just doesn't meet their standards.
For now players will have to deal with a purely PvE game, which is not necessarily a bad thing as the dungeon content is stunning. We don't get a wide variety of monsters in the Beta, (mostly various forms of skeletons) but the environments housing these monsters are way more interesting than the previous games. Rather than just standing around waiting for something to fight them, many monsters will spring out at you from walls and traps, as well as climb through windows, form from the blood of dead villagers, crawl out from bushes, burst forth from other monsters, and literally be puked into existence. Most of the indoor environments feature traps which you can use to drop chandeliers or sections of walls on your enemies, and there are even minor experience bonuses for doing so. If you get bored slaughtering the endless horde of monsters, you can destroy many of the objects in the indoor environments for more experience bonuses, including statues, tables, bookshelves, altars, tombstones, and barrels.
Like Diablo 2 we are given 5 classes to choose from, and you have to assume that Blizzard plans to release expansions with additional characters at some point down the road (Blizz is all about the expansions). Each of the classes has a unique play style while still following the Diablo paradigm of "just kill stuff," rather than the Tank/Heals/DPS setup of World of Warcraft. The way talents are done is significantly different, however. Each class is far less customizable and given only a handful of actual skills to use compared to the Diablo 2 skill tree. This game gives the player a choice of 4 skills for each mouse button and the 4 numbered hotkeys where potions used to be (potions now stack neatly in a single item slot in your inventory) which are upgraded throughout the game. Starting at level 10 you can earn passive skills which give you a slight degree of customization as you choose one or the other.
If there is a downfall of Diablo 3 it's looking like it might be how linear the game is. The talents are certainly captivating now, but Diablo has always involved a lot of grinding dungeons which could prove to be boring after many levels using the same basic set of skills. Of course, the achievement system will keep some people grinding away all day no matter what, but if further content proves to be as interesting as the Beta content it may be enough to make the players forget that they're essentially just spamming a couple of moves throughout whole dungeons. The Diablo games are far less open-ended than many other MMORPGs because they lock you in to path to complete quests, beat bosses, finish the game, and repeat on a harder setting, so there will definitely be some grinding. The only question is will this remain entertaining throughout the game given the relatively small set of skills each character has? I'm hoping so because the Diablo 3 Beta has definitely sold me on the game.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
It's Fated That You Should Shut Up
Every time you attribute events to fate, destiny, divine planning, or any sort of pre-determination you are refusing to acknowledge the literally countless factors which ultimately influence every minuscule event in the universe. Nevermind that some of these factors are exponentially more evident than others, (heart surgeons are generally more effective at prolonging lives than the people who made sure the beds were cleaned prior to the patient's arrival, not that this isn't also a factor) some people will always inflate their egos as much as possible by assuming the cause/effect relationship exists only for their benefit. These are the kinds of people who just KNOW (deep down in their souls!) that grandma survived the heart surgery not because of the surgeon's skill, the timely ambulance arrival, or the sterility of the hospital accommodations, but because they were not fated to die just yet.
Yes, that's right. God saved grandma from almost certain death because he's not done with her yet. He's given her an extra year or so of rapidly dwindling health so that she can continue to fit into the divine plan by accruing social security checks and voting Republican (not because she's old, God just hates change. Things were going just fine when he sent Jesus down here, why mess up that system now by giving minorities rights, restricting pollution, and funding science?). This idea of fate is really one of the saddest, most egocentric lines of thinking any individual can believe in. No wait! Let's step this up a bit, (superegocentric, I guess) because there are actually people who believe, against all all understandings of the concept, that they influence or change fate.
Let me preface this next bit by saying that anybody who is at all familiar with ancient Greek theater knows how ludicrous this concept of altering fate is. If the name Oedipus rings any bells then you already know that if fate exists there's no getting around it. If you were fated to ace a test anyway, then all the good luck rituals (false idols!) and karma enhancing acts (Godless heathens!) you performed were really just a waste of time. All the studying was a waste too when you get right down to it. You could have shown up drunk and vomited all over the test, but fate would still have allowed that the end results were exactly the same.
But let's shift this back towards religion because God doesn't care about the education or sobriety of children. What He cares about is the loyalty of the ignorant pig-apes He created in His image to populate an otherwise perfectly balanced worldwide ecosystem. Let's say for just a moment that there is some sort of plan that we can't possibly know, but everything is fated to work out as He has it planned. If such is the case, your free will is just a useless figment of your imagination, nothing anyone has ever done really matters, nor will any action ever taken. When God appeared before Abraham and told him to kill Isaac, Abraham could have just said "Fuck yourself," (like any sane parent) and we would still all be exactly where we are today, praying for the same God to change His same perfect Divine Plan.
Now I'm no philosopher, (though I do occasionally think things through so I have a leg up on the majority of people who practice religion) but if God answers your prayers doesn't that mean that either A) It was part of His plan all along and your prayers were completely useless, or B) The Divine Plan is subject to change if you just get on your knees and ingratiate yourself hard enough? What happens when people pray for things that are in direct opposition to each other like in wars or sports events? (because God really cares which of His jacked-up pig-apes can catch a ball and then obtain enough momentum to knock the other freakishly large pig-apes aside as they hurl their inflated torsos at each other) Does God just tally up your prayers to decide who wins? Is that why people you're close to die even though you prayed extra hard for their recovery? Because there were just more people praying for them to die? Or was it just their fate to die and leave you in emotional pain?
What's that? Prayer and subservience to a metaphysical force aren't worth a damn compared to observable cause and effect relationships? That's kind of a cop out, don't you think? You can't know what God's thinking or planning any more than you can disprove fate or his love of my still living relatives. Just shut up and enjoy the ride, because our understanding the world was never part of His plan to begin with. God likes his pig-apes sheepish.
Yes, that's right. God saved grandma from almost certain death because he's not done with her yet. He's given her an extra year or so of rapidly dwindling health so that she can continue to fit into the divine plan by accruing social security checks and voting Republican (not because she's old, God just hates change. Things were going just fine when he sent Jesus down here, why mess up that system now by giving minorities rights, restricting pollution, and funding science?). This idea of fate is really one of the saddest, most egocentric lines of thinking any individual can believe in. No wait! Let's step this up a bit, (superegocentric, I guess) because there are actually people who believe, against all all understandings of the concept, that they influence or change fate.
Let me preface this next bit by saying that anybody who is at all familiar with ancient Greek theater knows how ludicrous this concept of altering fate is. If the name Oedipus rings any bells then you already know that if fate exists there's no getting around it. If you were fated to ace a test anyway, then all the good luck rituals (false idols!) and karma enhancing acts (Godless heathens!) you performed were really just a waste of time. All the studying was a waste too when you get right down to it. You could have shown up drunk and vomited all over the test, but fate would still have allowed that the end results were exactly the same.
But let's shift this back towards religion because God doesn't care about the education or sobriety of children. What He cares about is the loyalty of the ignorant pig-apes He created in His image to populate an otherwise perfectly balanced worldwide ecosystem. Let's say for just a moment that there is some sort of plan that we can't possibly know, but everything is fated to work out as He has it planned. If such is the case, your free will is just a useless figment of your imagination, nothing anyone has ever done really matters, nor will any action ever taken. When God appeared before Abraham and told him to kill Isaac, Abraham could have just said "Fuck yourself," (like any sane parent) and we would still all be exactly where we are today, praying for the same God to change His same perfect Divine Plan.
Now I'm no philosopher, (though I do occasionally think things through so I have a leg up on the majority of people who practice religion) but if God answers your prayers doesn't that mean that either A) It was part of His plan all along and your prayers were completely useless, or B) The Divine Plan is subject to change if you just get on your knees and ingratiate yourself hard enough? What happens when people pray for things that are in direct opposition to each other like in wars or sports events? (because God really cares which of His jacked-up pig-apes can catch a ball and then obtain enough momentum to knock the other freakishly large pig-apes aside as they hurl their inflated torsos at each other) Does God just tally up your prayers to decide who wins? Is that why people you're close to die even though you prayed extra hard for their recovery? Because there were just more people praying for them to die? Or was it just their fate to die and leave you in emotional pain?
What's that? Prayer and subservience to a metaphysical force aren't worth a damn compared to observable cause and effect relationships? That's kind of a cop out, don't you think? You can't know what God's thinking or planning any more than you can disprove fate or his love of my still living relatives. Just shut up and enjoy the ride, because our understanding the world was never part of His plan to begin with. God likes his pig-apes sheepish.
In His Image
The following is a guest post which I wrote for the site Atheist Propaganda (link in title, check out that catchy page layout)which I never posted here because I would have had to either create an entirely new label for it or just jam it in under "other." But now, due to increased rage over similar subject matter and no other place to vent, I am proud to present an "Atheism" label. I considered calling it "Reason" or "Sanity" but decided that I don't really want the titles to come off as that condescending. I want to pieces to do that themselves. So without further ado, here's In His Image.
There are few things I like to hear from a Christian more than the claim that humans were created in God’s image. I love hearing this because it’s a signal to stop debating and start ridiculing. You can’t argue against it any more than you can argue about the number of limbs Shiva has. What you can do though, is point out how completely devoid of any thought such a claim is.
First of all, when you ask why there is absolutely no evidence to suggest their God’s existence, many Christians will wriggle and squirm as much as possible to express the idea that their God is somehow beyond the realm of science; that he is a non-physical being despite the many physical interactions he allegedly has with the observable world. Which of course, prompts that ultimate question they never seem to understand: How then can you determine such a being exists? We’re going to skip past that for now though, because it usually just leads to that endless circle of “the Bible says He exists, and He wrote the Bible so therefore He exists.” Instead let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that that He really does exist in the physical universe as we know it, and has some sort of preferred physical form in which image He made us.
Now that we’ve got Him trapped in our otherwise orderly universe, let’s make Him play by the very same rules that everything else must abide by. Assuming God is actually guiding everything in the universe so it works properly and not just sitting on His divine ass watching us struggle, how much energy would he need to run everything and where would said energy come from? Does He eat, shit, and breathe like the miserable creatures he inexplicably created in His image? Since our respiratory and digestive systems are modeled after His own, it would seem that He does! Furthermore, based on the way our bodies process food, it would seem that the Christian God is an omnivore.
But here’s where things get really tricky. Our digestive system really only works optimally with the help of other organisms. That’s right, microscopic bacteria live inside of you and help you get the most out of your food, which is why people often experience stomach problems while on antibiotics. But what of God? Does He have a symbiotic relationship with some sort of divine bacteria? Of course not! The very idea that God needs any sort of assistance for anything is blasphemous, which is why the best possible claim any Christian can make about the nature of their God is that He is and always will be completely and totally unknowable.
I love when they make the claim that we’re created in His image because it forces them to question what would otherwise be just another mindless mantra they repeat to feel better about their silly limited worldview. But unfortunately, their pondering is often corrupted by apologist pandering, which tells them that this is one of those convenient sections of the Bible that’s not meant to be taken literally. God is a non-physical being (just a concept, and not even a good one) and this passage simply means that He made us different and better than animals. This world and everything in it (except that one forbidden tree for some reason) is just a pit stop for Christians to ravage on their way to Heaven, another thing God made exclusively for humans of the “One True Faith.”
There are few things I like to hear from a Christian more than the claim that humans were created in God’s image. I love hearing this because it’s a signal to stop debating and start ridiculing. You can’t argue against it any more than you can argue about the number of limbs Shiva has. What you can do though, is point out how completely devoid of any thought such a claim is.
First of all, when you ask why there is absolutely no evidence to suggest their God’s existence, many Christians will wriggle and squirm as much as possible to express the idea that their God is somehow beyond the realm of science; that he is a non-physical being despite the many physical interactions he allegedly has with the observable world. Which of course, prompts that ultimate question they never seem to understand: How then can you determine such a being exists? We’re going to skip past that for now though, because it usually just leads to that endless circle of “the Bible says He exists, and He wrote the Bible so therefore He exists.” Instead let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that that He really does exist in the physical universe as we know it, and has some sort of preferred physical form in which image He made us.
Now that we’ve got Him trapped in our otherwise orderly universe, let’s make Him play by the very same rules that everything else must abide by. Assuming God is actually guiding everything in the universe so it works properly and not just sitting on His divine ass watching us struggle, how much energy would he need to run everything and where would said energy come from? Does He eat, shit, and breathe like the miserable creatures he inexplicably created in His image? Since our respiratory and digestive systems are modeled after His own, it would seem that He does! Furthermore, based on the way our bodies process food, it would seem that the Christian God is an omnivore.
But here’s where things get really tricky. Our digestive system really only works optimally with the help of other organisms. That’s right, microscopic bacteria live inside of you and help you get the most out of your food, which is why people often experience stomach problems while on antibiotics. But what of God? Does He have a symbiotic relationship with some sort of divine bacteria? Of course not! The very idea that God needs any sort of assistance for anything is blasphemous, which is why the best possible claim any Christian can make about the nature of their God is that He is and always will be completely and totally unknowable.
I love when they make the claim that we’re created in His image because it forces them to question what would otherwise be just another mindless mantra they repeat to feel better about their silly limited worldview. But unfortunately, their pondering is often corrupted by apologist pandering, which tells them that this is one of those convenient sections of the Bible that’s not meant to be taken literally. God is a non-physical being (just a concept, and not even a good one) and this passage simply means that He made us different and better than animals. This world and everything in it (except that one forbidden tree for some reason) is just a pit stop for Christians to ravage on their way to Heaven, another thing God made exclusively for humans of the “One True Faith.”
Omni-Incompetence
The following is a guest post which I wrote for the site Atheist Propaganda (link in title, check out that catchy page layout)which I never posted here because I would have had to either create an entirely new label for it or just jam it in under "other." But now, due to increased rage over similar subject matter and no other place to vent, I am proud to present an "Atheism" label. I considered calling it "Reason" or "Sanity" but decided that I don't really want the titles to come off as that condescending. I want to pieces to do that themselves. So without further ado, here's Omni-Incompetence.
The Christian God is supposedly the epitome of all that is intelligent and good in the universe. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, (which I'm not even going to touch upon for now because that one itself is such a complex assertion) and above all, all-good. I've always found it fascinating that Christians can attribute all things good to God, and all things bad to the Devil, and that they can do this all day every day without realizing that God created the endless source of evil they call the Devil. Being creations of God, all good things humans do are attributed to him, but since we are vile, tainted creatures, all bad things are the Devil's doing. But wait a minute! Lucifer was an angel, one of those creatures that God created prior to man for purposes no logic can fathom. Whatever terrible things the Devil has or probably has not done, God is ultimately to blame for His shortsightedness and general incompetence in creating the bastard in the first place.
Assuming that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, He would have known from the very beginning of the Universe that Lucifer would turn against Him. The very moment He was sitting in Heaven and thinking to Himself “I'm going to create a retinue of angels to carry out my work, even though being all-knowing and all-powerful I can manage my own affairs effortlessly, no matter how infinitely complex they become,” from the moment that thought occurred to Him, He should have known all possible outcomes and consequences. He would have known that creating Lucifer would lead to the corruption of mankind, causing Him to eventually send the flood, and later His only son to attempt to “redeem” us. Any God who actually cares about His creations might have examined those consequences using His infinite foresight, and decided that maybe that one angel, Lucifer, could be made just a little bit better, or maybe not made at all. But we all know what happened, God made Lucifer, who became the Devil, who continues to plague us all to this very day. But it's OK, He has some divine plan that no human can possibly comprehend, but which will make the whole thing work out better than if no evil had been created in the first place. Somehow.
Of course, there is an alternative; God really is all-good, but just not all-knowing and all-powerful. Maybe He's just some well-meaning guy who ended up with a job He really can't handle. I'm not sure who I would pray to if I had to chose, the benevolent but incompetent God, or the all-powerful God who just doesn't give a shit about humans. Fortunately there is a third option: simply reserve your prayers until you find a deity that actually deserves them, then thank him that there are so many to chose from.
The Christian God is supposedly the epitome of all that is intelligent and good in the universe. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, (which I'm not even going to touch upon for now because that one itself is such a complex assertion) and above all, all-good. I've always found it fascinating that Christians can attribute all things good to God, and all things bad to the Devil, and that they can do this all day every day without realizing that God created the endless source of evil they call the Devil. Being creations of God, all good things humans do are attributed to him, but since we are vile, tainted creatures, all bad things are the Devil's doing. But wait a minute! Lucifer was an angel, one of those creatures that God created prior to man for purposes no logic can fathom. Whatever terrible things the Devil has or probably has not done, God is ultimately to blame for His shortsightedness and general incompetence in creating the bastard in the first place.
Assuming that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, He would have known from the very beginning of the Universe that Lucifer would turn against Him. The very moment He was sitting in Heaven and thinking to Himself “I'm going to create a retinue of angels to carry out my work, even though being all-knowing and all-powerful I can manage my own affairs effortlessly, no matter how infinitely complex they become,” from the moment that thought occurred to Him, He should have known all possible outcomes and consequences. He would have known that creating Lucifer would lead to the corruption of mankind, causing Him to eventually send the flood, and later His only son to attempt to “redeem” us. Any God who actually cares about His creations might have examined those consequences using His infinite foresight, and decided that maybe that one angel, Lucifer, could be made just a little bit better, or maybe not made at all. But we all know what happened, God made Lucifer, who became the Devil, who continues to plague us all to this very day. But it's OK, He has some divine plan that no human can possibly comprehend, but which will make the whole thing work out better than if no evil had been created in the first place. Somehow.
Of course, there is an alternative; God really is all-good, but just not all-knowing and all-powerful. Maybe He's just some well-meaning guy who ended up with a job He really can't handle. I'm not sure who I would pray to if I had to chose, the benevolent but incompetent God, or the all-powerful God who just doesn't give a shit about humans. Fortunately there is a third option: simply reserve your prayers until you find a deity that actually deserves them, then thank him that there are so many to chose from.
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