Thanks for responding. Sincerely. I'm sorry that your first post here comes over a confrontational issue. I'd rather have been introduced to you under other circumstances, but I'll take this as it comes. My biggest complaint with your company in recent times has concerned several issues that add up, in my perception, to "not showing up" to take responsibility for various matters involving fan/customer discontent: from beta CDs not arriving at all to issues concerning bugs and game features, and undoubtedly many vaporware complaints arising from problems we create for ourselves, or misunderstandings that are not your fault.

You showed up today.

As a creative professional, and as someone who has organized multiple activities and groups involving games, I'm well aware that there are more "theorists" out there than you could shake a stick at -- people certain they can build a better mousetrap, who want everything run their way. I get accused of being one of those in these parts on a regular basis, but having been on the other side of it, I do appreciate your position. The only way to build something innovative and successful is to find your vision and stick to it, and that means staying the course even in the face of impassioned disagreement.

Having played with them, I agree with you that Assassin traps are not likely to be efficient player killers. For one thing, they all vanish if you return to town via waypoint or portal (unlike firewalls and hydras, which are now on timers and with shortened durations). Death Sentry could be QUITE lethal if used while the opponent is standing amidst a mass of monster bodies, as that trap will chain the explosions almost instantly, but that's not likely to happen in a "surprise" ambush, so it would be avoidable. The idea of Assassin ambushes may have set off this thread, but is tangential to everything I have had to say.

Do we "encourage" people to PK? ... there is almost no effort given to "encourage" PKing, other than not preventing it.

Almost no effort. Almost.

That's accurate, in my view. There are no banner ads on bnet touting that type of play. The box doesn't showcase the hostile option. No illustrations or artwork in the manual depicting "evil" characters and glorifying that activity. You did, as I often call it, "throw a few bones" to those who would rather opt out of all PvP play, in that most PK fights can be avoided if you pack up and quit. The days of instant-hostility-backstabbing, of God mode and a billion hit points and town kill, were left behind when you created the Realms and the current hostile system. The Realms have worked as well for the purposes of preventing cheating as could be expected.

Almost no effort. Almost.

But see, that's not the same as none, and even that little bit is destructive, and I find it offensive. I don't expect to persuade you -- as you say, you've been over this issue for years now, and you may have heard it all before or at least feel as if you have -- but here you are, so I'll make my case. I'll start by addressing your points.

1) The entire game is set up to kill your player.

No, it's not. If you wanted to, you could impose on the player a challenge that could not be overcome. You COULD kill the player at any time you see fit, simply by making it happen. You could make it happen with or without corresponding in-game rationale to "explain" it.

As far it goes, yes, the game elements are there to kill you. However, that description is oversimplified PAST the point of validity. It misses vital elements, and paints a false picture.

Closer to the truth is this: The entire game is set up to threaten your player. If the player fails to respond adequately, he will be killed. Some few circumstances may be put in there to pose extreme risks, with the express intent of daring players to see if they can find ANY way to survive. Even so, that a player should have options, even if feeble or inadequate, is essential to the game.

The hostility system fits that paradigm well enough. You've included options: town is a safe harbor. There are password games if you want to play privately. There's squelch to shut up the rude and the aggressive. So even the PK option the way you have designed it is intended only to threaten, not to kill outright. It's up to players to survive. At least, that's how I read your view of it: PKs are just another threat to be managed.

On one condition, though. I'll come back to that in a moment.

Every monster, boss, and trap has as it's only goal the death of your player. The addition of the occaisional anti-social player only adds to the feeling of tension and fear that makes the rewards of success that much better.

IF the player subscribes to the challenge, yes, tension and fear that can be entertaining, rewarding.

If that challenge is unwanted, on the other hand, no. It DOES NOT add even a shred of entertainment, only frustration, anger, resentment, and feelings even more hostile.

There is a difference between playing at hostility and true emotional hostility mano a mano. PKing crosses that line. I know it, you know it. In Diablo 1, without secure servers, this was completely out of your hands. You could NOT control the issue even if you tried. You shut down town kill and other tamperings with clients, but you had no control over the other side of cheating: the things happening on the opponent's computer. In that context, you were free of any direct responsibility for the activity. What "jerks" (as you called them) would do was out of your hands. The hostility button was next to irrelevent anyway, as there was friendly fire damage. Even players cooperating, trying not to kill each other, could hardly avoid doing so.

In Diablo II, you took control. The Realms. Secure servers. You could still not control everything, but you came very close (and nice job, well done). That puts the full burder of responsibility for the results squarely on your shoulders. You admit that, yet... no, you don't quite admit it.

Remember this: the world of Diablo II is not a safe, warm place. It is a place of great evil, and even greater good.

Riiiight.

You play on the Realms, so be honest. What percentage of players you've played with bother to role play in the SLIGHTEST? As many as two percent? I don't think so.

This is an arcade game for the home PC. There are a great many quintessential similarities to Gauntlet -- far more than, say, to Pen and Paper Role Playing Games (PPRPGs) like Dungeons and Dragons, Dark Consipiracy, Gurps, or even computer RPGs like Ultima. Sure, people can play Diablo like an RPG, but people can also pick up silverware and use them as puppets.

I'm not persuaded in the least by a role playing argument, since role play is at best tangential to the gameplay of your product.

So what about a mechanical argument? The gameplay? You say:

4) A story about heroes and conquests needs villians. Hordes of identical monsters do not fulfill this requirement in my opinion

A story? This isn't a story, it's a game. The cinematics are well scripted and beautifully done, and some of the NPC dialogue is well characterized. The story stops there. "What story?"

Diablo II is not a novel. It wouldn't even pass for a short story. If you got any sales at all, out of the millions of copies sold, on the basis of the "story", I would be shocked.

That is not to say that the atmosphere is irrelevant. The music, the artwork, the themes of the towns and various areas all enhance the game, but come on. Story? Do you honestly believe you are telling a story here? Is story even in the top ten priorities for the production? You've done a good job setting a mood. Good enough, certainly, for the masses of players who bought your game to play the game, including me.

So if story amounts only to dressing and backdrops against which to play the game, how can you trot out story as a justification for diminishing the game experience for a large number of your customers? Forgive me for being blunt here -- I'll remain polite. We're not that simple, Max. We're not that gullible. The game is the thing, and we both know it. A lot of players like to duel, some enjoy the thrill of facing human competitors -- yes, I admit, some like to be hunted by PKs -- but there are many who have no interest whatsoever in PvP.

You are stating flat out that you know what's best for your customers. Customers who enjoy battling "Hordes of identical monsters" are apparently defective in your view. Something must be wrong with them, or else they are unenlightened, not yet aware of the "joys" of the PK hunt. So force it on them, because they "need" a bunch of real life villains to spice up their gaming experience. You know what's best for them, better than they themselves know it? Is that it?

Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"? That does not seem to apply to Blizzard, as I understand you.

That's too much to swallow. I can't imagine you actually believe that. And if you don't... yes, I'm going to say it. Hypocrisy. If you are here spouting a PR line you yourself don't even believe, that's the very essense of hypocrisy, and you'd have done better to ignore me.

On the other hand, my imagination has failed me before. So I'll set aside my disbelief and presume you are sincere. Not just for the sake of argument, either. I'll presume you mean it, that you think you do know what's best, that somewhere inside you, YOUR imagination is failing YOU, in that you can't comprehend that a LARGE segment of your fans do in fact enjoy the hordes of monsters, without end, with no desire or use for intrusions by "real life" villains to interrupt that pastime.

But it's true, there are countless thousands of us out here, attracted to the "dull" part of your game, the monsters, and not the least bit interested in fighting off ambush players who have designed their characters specifically for player killing, with every possible advantage they can angle toward, to ensure that the fight (if you give them one) is as far from anything resembling fair as they can manage. If you wish, I can show you some of the email I got in response to the protest I mounted. I'll send it to you, flames and all, or flame free, whatever you want. A drop in the bucket by your company's standards, but then... every customer counts, right? Right? ...

Right?

The last thing we want is to force people into some idealized regimen of "proper" role-playing.

OK, now hold on just a minute here. Which is it, Max? Do you, or do you not, want to force people out of how they want to play, and into how you think they ought to play?

You lay out your view of "story", which you expressly state MUST include direct human conflict to be of any value (that being the corollary to the AI monsters as insufficient opposition), and now you want to step back and claim you have no interest in forcing a particular way of playing on the customer?

See, this doesn't have to be a zero sum game. Everyone can have what they want out of Diablo. There are people who want nonconsensual hostility and they will fill the Realms with hostile-enabled games. So there will always be targets for the PKs to hunt. There will be those who want to duel, and those who fight monsters, and those who do a little of everything. The PK switch would not break your game. It might have consequences, it might even have BAD consequences, but that's what you get when mix PvM and PvP in one game.

What is lost by enabling players to opt out of the PvP side of the game entirely? Story? LOL. Yeah. What else? Your ability to dictate to players that they MUST subject themselves to random harassment, unfair fights, and the interruption of their gaming sessions -- even the loss of their hardcore characters? Are you really that certain you know what's best for the customer? More to the point, are you THAT sure the customer has no clue what is best for him or herself?

This is not now, nor was it ever, about "forcing people into an idealized regimen" of role playing. It's about choice, about self-determination without having to surrender, in one form or another, to the intrusions of rude players.

Those who place a higher priority on the ability to hostile others who may annoy them, to "teach those guys a lesson" or chase them away... let them have that option.

Those who like to duel, let them.

Those who like to fight the sad AI monsters, let them have the choice of doing that without having someone else insist they NOT do that, and instead play PvP.

And those who want to chase PvM players, let them do so against willing targets.

Everyone will have more fun, except the few whose SOLE intent is to intrude upon, irritate, bully and swagger.

The "story" argument was BS. So is the "we don't want to force on people" when that's exactly what the current system does. The "we threw you some bones, be happy" argument, harkening back to Diablo 1 and how bad it was there, doesn't float either, because it doesn't negate the fact that you have deprived those who want to play strictly against monsters the option of doing so in public games -- because of your personal bias against that sort of gameplay. Three arguments you made, all three failed to persuade me.

What's left? Two more points.

3) Even with a PK switch, there are abundant ways that anti-social people can ruin your game. Believe me, there are far worse things to do than declare hostile and try to attack another player. Without this option, the "jerks" will not go away.

This is the flimsiest of your arguments, tantamount to the idea that police can't prevent crimes, so why bother having police? We have police because certain acts are NOT legitimate, because their presence deters some, and enforces the rules on others after the fact.

If the PK option were removed completely, then yes, I can well see those who thrive on such gaming to move to the next best alternative, be it trapping waypoints, grabbing all the loot, and a hundred other intrusive things I haven't begun to imagine.

I've never asked for the hostile system to be scuttled, though. I just want a choice for myself and others. Let each player choose what the greater annoyances and dangers are for them, instead of you choosing for them. Many here at the Lounge have passionately described why they would continue to choose to play in games with unilateral hostility, even though their primary concern is PvM. I can have a mutual-hostility or no-hostility game without depriving them of their unilateral hostility... IF you guys at Blizzard decided to code that in.

So why not do it?

1) The game is about killing your character. (No, it's not. It's about threatening your character and challenging you to survive.)

2) D2's hostility is better than D1. Shut up and be happy. (Close, but no cigar. The bottom line remains the same: if you don't want to partake in PvP gameplay, your ONLY choice is to run and hide in private games. It doesn't have to be that way).

3) It wouldn't solve anything. Jerks will be jerks. (That was never the issue. This is about choice.)

I'm not asking you to provide me a place of total safety, protect me from all harm and all intrusion, and coddle me like an infant. I'm just asking for the SAME consideration given to the PvP players: the option to play the game -I- want to play, without being forced to abandon it or to defend it in what is invariably an unfair fight. You see, in this regard, you're forcing one MORE thing on your customers: that they should build their characters sturdy enough to stand up to the rigors of PvP. Yeah, thanks. "Father knows best" once again. Sorry. I have next to zero interest in the mind-numbing tedium of leveling up a PvP build through a cakewalk series of games, just for the dubious privilege of being better prepared when someone wants to pick a fight. You put thirty skills in the game for each class, but a bare handful of those can stand up in (I'm going to say it) this woefully imbalanced PvP game. Sure, each class has a few options, but the players had to invent their own balances.

Instead, I enjoy the challenge of exploring all the skills, especially the weaker ones. If you've read about my character Ember, then you already know what I'm talking about. If not, then I cordially invite you to visit my site and see just how interesting and creative of a challenge can be made out of the "Hordes of identical monsters".

http://sirian.warpcore.org/diablo2/ember.html

With characters like this, I'm undertaking to create my own "higher difficulty" by adjusting my character's power downward, passing up the cakewalk options and even the easy options, to go for the moderately challenging options. Chars like that don't fit into the PvP game at all -- and therefore I DESERVE second class treatment because I sometimes play this way? It's "enhancing" my gameplay to be bullied around, or at least intruded upon and forced out of my own game? Is it your official position that Variant characters (and players?) are "weak" and thus fair game to be preyed upon?

4) A story. A story? Well maybe. You said: Rather, we sought to make a game where people create their own fantasies and adventures. Ember would fall into that category. Thousands have read her adventure, and I have piles and piles of fan mail to show for it.

If someone wants to make an adventure out of PvP, go for it. I don't. I want to play MY adventures, my fantasies, and I want the option of both unilateral hostility (as it now stands) and mutual-consent or no-hostility, because there are times when I want to play with strangers, meet new people who enjoy the same things about the game as I do, and play in peace.

It's a GAME, not a lesson in sociology. And even if this were a lesson, it'd be a poor one: in real life, things are often unfair, but there are a whole lot more serious consequences to be incurred, that deter most of the type/degree of behavior seen from PKs, or else weed those people out as they get themselves beat on, killed, or jailed.

I'm no slouch at competition, when I care to compete. I've been ranked #1 in the world at Descent 1 and 2, at one point in my past. Sure, that was a much smaller playing community than for Blizzard games, but internet gaming STARTED with Descent, with Kali, and I'm sure you know at least a bit about that, as your own service, battlenet, bucked the trends and followed Kali's lead in the area of one-time-fee, then free for life (for Kali, twenty bucks, for you, buy a game) and it helped build your company to where you stand now. However, while I enjoy competing at Descent, I find Diablo PvP completely uninteresting. There's no fear, no thrill, just an element of your game I don't care for. Yet you know better than I do what I will find fun? That you need to set your game up to ensure that public games MUST mean PvP games at all times?

A story needs heroes and conquests need villains, but frankly you don't understand your own game if you think the players are at all role playing here. They're killing monsters, hunting up treasure, and passing time in an arcade game.

So... if your first four arguments all fall flat, that leaves your final argument:

5) Diablo II and the expansion are the games that we at Blizzard want to play. That is our formula for success.

Amen. Kudos. Applause. Very fine games, too, even if I find a few things about them quite annoying and/or frustrating.

So you guys like to PvM, and you also like to PvP, and you like mixing them. Fine. Do that. But where, exactly, is the part at which you must not allow PvM gaming to occur uninterrupted except in private games? Is that part really necessary?

The ONLY element to which that is necessary is the one that requires unwilling victims. So is that the game that Blizzard and its employees like to play the most? To lure in a bunch of prey with an attactive PvM game, all the while ensuring that PKs can attack these players, and will have huge advantages on hand when doing so?

PKing stops being a game. Remember how I started this reply. The game is NOT about killing the player, it's about threatening the player, forcing him or her to respond skillfully to survive. The PK, on the other hand, IS about killing the player. Killing the player by surprise ambush, "dirty tricks", by way of bugs and loopholes in the game. Remember the town portal bug? What about loading lag at waypoints, always fun stuff to be dead before your machine can load hoggy graphics and sounds. One-shot-kill weapons, skills, moves. Characters far higher in level than the target. Teams of PKs working to ambush one player. On and on and on the list goes, NONE of it sporting or meaningful. It's all about the cheap shot, and yes I'll say it again: it's slimy, top to bottom.

You say the avoidance of PKs is a relatively trivial matter -- sure, if you suck it up and surrender control of the game. Your quest, your progress, the people you may have been playing with, the mood of your gaming session, all STOLEN away by an aggressive PK who has the power to impose his will.

Yeah, trivial. Nice to know that you think the interests of PvM gamers are trivial.

You have a lot to be proud of with your games, Max. But where you find it unfathomable that somebody would get anything meaningful out of the endless hordes of rather inept monsters and traps you've laid out, I find in incomprehensible that you'd put so much care into making the PvM game entertaining, yet despise it as you seem to do, and feel it necessary to force all your customers to engage in the rather shoddy (by comparison) PvP side of the game -- or jump through hoops to avoid that.

When Bolty convinced me NOT to shut down my site permanently, but instead to take a more complex and weighted approach to my objections on this matter, he said something I won't soon forget. He said, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the exact quote: "There are countless people who buy this game because it's big, it's hyped, it's everywhere -- casual gamers who buy only bestsellers. They try it, log on, get suckered/ambushed/deceived/bullied by some rude PK, decide they don't need that sort of gaming experience, and log off, never to buy another Blizzard product or be heard from again. As much money as Blizzard makes off PKs, they lose even more. How they can NOT see that is beyond me."

Do we "encourage" people to PK? ... there is almost no effort given to "encourage" PKing, other than not preventing it.

Almost no effort?

I object. I disagree. I've made my case. My protest will continue for as long as I remain unsatisfied about this issue.

Cordially Yours,

- Sirian

Click this link to Read Max's Second Response

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