History Headscratchers / Diablo

* Perhaps it's the same thing. Blood Raven's soul is banished--to the afterlife, just as Izual's is.
* Or maybe Blood Raven's original soul is already completely gone and replaced by the possessing/corrupting soul is all that's there and that's what's "banished forever".

* why didn't the angels intervene during the dark exile or baals assault on my arreat
** Because the angels voted on wether to destroy humanity once, and Tyrael feared that if they became aware of what was happening they'd vote to destroy humanity and the world to stop the forces of hell from winning the war.

** The hell you see in D2 at the end may not be the home plane. It may be a bridge dimension that allows them to move to and from the world, Sanctuary. The soulstones may be what allows them to go back and forth so freely or even use it.

** AllThereInTheManual, literally. A ''full'' soulstone can trap a demon like Diablo or Baal by itself. A ''fragment'' can only trap a demon in the body of one human. So, basically, Baal needed the stone removed to have his movement freedom, possess Tal Rasha completely, them put the stone back to achieve full power. Diablo was able to take possession of Diablo I warrior body because he a not as much willpower as Tal Rasha.

* Grave-robbing for fun and profit. Even the Paladin, a supposedly ''holy'' warrior, has no problem with scavenging undefiled graves, urns and catacombs in general. Were this [[DungeonsAndDragons D&D]], he'd be stripped of his holy powers faster than you can say "Alignment Violation".

** Or just a matter of differeng standards. Yes, it's against the rules in D&D, but this ''isn't'' D&D. These Paladins may simply have [[ValuesDissonance different rules]].

* In Act II Decard Cain tells you that you'll have to kill Tal-Rasha in order to destroy Baal. If that was an option why didn't the Horadrim do it?
** That would banish Baal back into hell, and he may end up escaping sooner or later. As long as Tal Rasha holds out, they can be sure Baal isn't going anywhere. They did leave the Horadric Scroll behind with instructions on what to do should Tal Rasha lose control of him (assemble the staff, open the chamber, kill Tal Rasha), which is exactly what happened when the player came along.

* Is ''{{Diablo III}}'' really that easy on Nightmare mode? Because one common complaint I'm hearing is that the game's "too easy" or "simplified". Really? I've not played Nightmare or Hardcore at all.
** Most of them found some way to do something like perma-stun bosses or are using the four-monk party to end up with nigh invulnerability, bitching that the game is "too easy" and are [[WhatAnIdiot surprised that it's nerfed]]. And most of the simplified stuff...really, I didn't find it any more Simplified than Diablo II was. Oh, before oyu say "Why can't I arrange my stats then", one word: Vitality.

** You know, that's a very good question. According to the Witch Doctor from VideoGame/DiabloIII, they go to some place called the "Unformed Land," though I'm not really sure about the afterlife beliefs of some of the other cultures of Sanctuary.

* Where exactly did the labyrinth come from anyways? Is Tristram on top of a giant cave or did Diablo did it out?
** The former. The Horadum found or made that cave system and sealed Diablo there, and Tristram was built on top of it.

* So what happens to people when they die?

*** Isn't there a trope about building stuff on top of your "defeated" enemies? (And then sometimes ending up realizing how big an oops that was...)

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** The former. The Horadum found or made that cave system and sealed Diablo there, and Tristram was built on top of it.

<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

**** [[WhatAnIdiot And then they wonder why game developers see gamers as a bunch of]] [[EntitledBastard entitled bastards that make Russell Hantz look sweet as pie]]. No offense, but I can't say I blame most game devs for thinking ViewersAreMorons.

*** Maybe it's just me but I see it as a lack of foresight on ''both'' parts - Blizzard didn't expect it and two, players have learned ''nothing'' from StarWarsGalaxies, WorldOfWarcraft, or how many times online-ticket services were sent down by snipers flooding it the second sales go live. I don't see why [[KarmaHoudini the players are all completely harmless here]]...maybe it's just weird becuase I can see the ''players'' being [[NotSoDifferent just as bad as the developers they so claim to hate]].

** I don't know, that by the time the game they spent ''at least'' 60 USD on was made publicly available, they would actually be able to ''play'' it? This wouldn't be such an issue if the DRM the company was using didn't mandate you be logged onto the server to run ''single player mode''. This is in no way the fault of the paying customers--Blizzard knew how anticipated the game was, and they shot themselves once in each foot by 1) rigging it up so you can't play the game offline at all and 2) not keeping in mind the number of copies they sold when they put together the server.

** I don't know, that by the time the game they spent ''at least'' 60 USD on was made publicly available, they would actually be able to ''play'' it? This wouldn't be such an issue if the DRM the company was using didn't mandate you be logged onto the server to run ''single player mode''. This is in no way the fault of the paying customers--Blizzard knew how anticipated the game was, and they shot themselves once in each foot by 1) rigging it up so you can't play the game offline at all and 2) not keeping in mind the number of copies that was sold when they put together the server.

** I don't know, that by the time the game they spent sixty dollars on was made publicly available, they would actually be able to ''play'' it? This wouldn't be such an issue if the DRM the company was using didn't mandate you be logged onto the server to run ''single player mode''. This is in no way the fault of the paying customers--Blizzard knew how anticipated the game was, and they shot themselves once in each foot by 1) rigging it up so you can't play the game offline at all and 2) not keeping in mind the number of copies that was sold when they put together the server.

** I don't know, that by the time the game they spent sixty dollars on was made publicly available, they would actually be able to ''play'' it? This wouldn't be such an issue if the DRM the company was using didn't mandate you be logged onto the server to run ''single player mode''. This is in no way the fault of the paying customers--Blizzard knew how anticipated the game was, and they shot themselves once in each foot by 1) rigging it up so you can't play the game offline at all and 2) not making a server that could handle (at minimum) the amount of people who each bought a copy.

** I don't know, that by the time the game they spent sixty dollars on was made publicly available, they would actually be able to ''play'' it? This wouldn't be such an issue if the DRM the company was using mandated you be logged onto the server to run ''single player mode''. This is in no way the fault of the paying customers--Blizzard knew how anticipated the game was, and they shot themselves once in each foot by 1) rigging it up so you can't play the game offline at all and 2) making a server that was too small to accommodate for that many players.

** I don't know, that by the time the game they spent sixty dollars on was made publicly available, they would actually be able to ''play'' it? This wouldn't be such an issue if the DRM the company was using mandated you be logged onto the server to run ''single player mode''. This is in no way the fault of the paying customers.

* So yes, I wanted to play Diablo 3 like anyone else...but am I the only one who was ''face palming'' at launch? No, I don't mean because Blizzard's servers couldn't handle the load...but it's moreso at the players. Come on, given the track record of online games, especially really hyped ones, do people forget this? Diablo 3 is one of the most hyped games this year...what did you ''think'' was going to happen?

** [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel You may want to reconsider]] the [[TheWormThatWalks can't take it seriously]] part. [[AnimatedArmor ESPECIALLY if he's got a suit of armor]].

** The hell you see in D2 at the end may not be the home plane. It may be a bridge dimension that allows them to move to and from the world, Sanctuary. The soulstones may be what allows them to go back and forth so freely or even use it.

* Does anyone else hope that the third game will also be the finale? While I immensely enjoy the gameplay, I'm so sick of my characters [[NiceJobBreakingItHero constantly breaking things]] and [[ShootTheShaggyDog ultimately failing to make the world a better place]]. If this game is the last one, maybe I'll have the chance to [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn a happy ending]]. I dunno, games that make you try so hard to fail Just Bug Me.
** I'd be at least happy if there was no [[ThatOneBoss Duriel]] in ''Diablo III''. Was there really any need to make him so "pull-your-hair-out-in-frustration" hard? Not only was he tough as it was, he had the Holy Freeze aura. I don't know what the script writer was smoking when he came up with that boss battle, but let's hope he got brain damage from it.
** It's much more frustrating to play a game with a character for dozens of hours, and grow attached to them, only to find out that you need to kill them in the sequel. Blizzard just loves screwing with the players, don't they?
** It's not just you. I'm actually refusing to buy Diablo 3 for that exact reason. It's plain bad storytelling to not only render your effort meaningless, but do so ''at the end of the game'' rather than at the start of the sequel or expansion.
** Not every story ends happily, the Diablo series is full of [[TheBadGuyWins The Bad Guy Wins]] but that doesn't mean it's a bad game or story. This troper finds the one above him is acting silly.

* In Diablo II, choosing skills, while fun, is also very daunting for players who take the game seriously. If you choose the wrong skill (and there ''are'' skills that are near useless in the long run), you have to live with the fact that your character will by x% less efficient from now on. Not a big problem for casual players who only want to beat Diablo once, but for a serious player wanting to win Hell mode, this makes choosing skills an object of terror, not to mention embarassingly careful research. I guess that serves me right for being a completist and perfectionist?
** I know your pain. From what I heard, you need a terribly overspecialized character in order to even stand a chance on Hell. For example if you pick a Necromancer, you either focus all your skill points on the 4-5 'bone' skills, or Skeleton, Skeletal Mage, Skeletal Mastery and Summon resist, plus one or two curses that best work with whichever one you chose. If you pick a Paladin, you focus on Blessed Hammer, any skill that works well with it, and nothing else. That means, if you learn more skills than what is required for a single build, a quill rat could kill you the moment you leave the Rogue encampment. Of course I could be exaggerating.
*** Well, to stand a ''practical'' chance. It's possible to get by on non-dedicated characters if you don't mind mind-boggling tedium, and numerous individuals have accomplished feats of underpowered victory. Necromancers can reasonably get by primarily on curses and Corpse Explode, Paladins with Zeal, and so forth.
** Lets be honest- anyone who has aspirations for beating the game on all difficulty levels should already know that multitasking in RPG's is rarely (if ever) a good thing.
*** Multitasking in {{Role Playing Game}}s might actually be funny, and it's bad if only one or two builds are useful because it means you have to use the most useful skill, and not the one you like to use. But to be fair, there is a mod that balances skills so that each of them can be effective if you spend enough skill points on it.
** In the latest (series?) of patches (1.13), they finally added a respec option. The up-side? You can finally ditch those skills you never use! The down-side? You get three shots at it, once per ''difficulty'', and any other attempts you want to make have to be ground out of parts gotten from bonus bosses in Hell difficulty. Still, at least you're guaranteed the ability to make a fun, experimental build for Normal, then get down to business when you want to tackle the higher difficulties.
** Oh yeah. 1. Choose Necromancer. 2. Put your skill points in raise skeleton / skeletal mage. 3. Meet [[ThatOneBoss Duriel]] (or [[BigBad Diablo]], for that matter. '''If''' you have the patience to actually get there.). 4. FRUSTRATION!!!
*** Actually, Beating Duriel with a necromancer specializing is skeletons isn't impossible, if you have the patience. You will need Iron Maiden for it though, and you will need a town portal up at all times to leave the place when you run out of skeletons. Not counting the damage the skeletons themselves will cause, Duriel should suffer about 200 points of damage for every skeleton he kills. An extra iron Golem (even if lvl1) helps a lot too. By the time you reach diablo, you will have Bone spirit, boosted with the combined powers of the other bone spells you invested into, which is more then enough to take him down.

{{Demetrios}}: For those who read the books, did anyone else think Lilith's demise at the end of "Scales of the Serpent" was a wall banger? Come on, getting shrunk out of existence? And it included my least favorite special effect: a shrinking character's voice getting higher-pitched as the character decreases in mass (something that was thankfully avoided in ''Honey, I Shrunk the Kids'' and that one episode of ''DuckTales''). A monkey could come up with a better method of execution than that. Try topping [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxl1q7Lb3g8 this]], for example.
* Here's another thing that made that part unintentionally dumb. Lilith ranted and raved at Inarius while her voice got higher-pitched as she shrank out of existence. ...what is this, ''Diablo'' or the LooneyTunes? * Plays a clip of Diablo getting slain in ''Diablo II'', and in his death throes, he gives Porky Pig's famous closing line*
** Well the death screams of the fallen in the first game WAS Diablo's sinister laugh from the auto-run menu, sped up. But in all seriousness, the size of a person's lungs plays an important role in how deep their voice is, so unless Lillith's lungs were sent to another dimension where they retained their original size, it would make sense for her voice to change. Not sped up like in the cartoons of course, but still much higher pitched than in full size.

* Hell. Not the difficulty, the regions. So far, we had the final areas in the first game, and Act 4 in the second that take place in a place called Hell, yet these are clearly physical areas, and not other dimensions. In the first game, it's understandable, because Diablo created them by warping the lowest levels of the labyrinth into a PhysicalHell. In the second game, You enter hell through a portal, the same one Diablo took, implying that this IS the actual hell, but then where exactly is he banished when his soul-stone is destroyed? Same goes for Andariel and every single demon that was banished back into Hell.
** The hell you see in D2 at the end may not be the home plane. It may be a bridge dimension that allows them to move to and from the world, Sanctuary. The soulstones may be what allows them to go back and forth so freely or even use it.

* Baal's soul-stone. If he's really trapped in it, why does removing it from Tal Rasha allows him to completely take over his host's body?
** AllThereInTheManual, literally. A ''full'' soulstone can trap a demon like Diablo or Baal by itself. A ''fragment'' can only trap a demon in the body of one human. So, basically, Baal needed the stone removed to have his movement freedom, possess Tal Rasha completely, them put the stone back to achieve full power. Diablo was able to take possession of Diablo I warrior body because he a not as much willpower as Tal Rasha.

* {{WhatTheHellHero}}: Grave-robbing for fun and profit. Even the Paladin, a supposedly ''holy'' warrior, has no problem with scavenging undefiled graves, urns and catacombs in general. Were this [[DungeonsAndDragons D&D]], he'd be stripped of his holy powers faster than you can say "Alignment Violation".
** Probably an example of "cause justifies one's actions". And [[DungeonsAndDragons D&D]] is sometimes weird with its alignments, since being good or not is a matter of thoughts and not actions.
** Or just a matter of differeng standards. Yes, it's against the rules in D&D, but this ''isn't'' D&D. These Paladins may simply have [[ValuesDissonance different rules]].

* A relatively minor one (and possibly justified in-game), but still bugs me: the Barbarian's comment on entering Tristram:
--> "The land here is dead and lifeless!"
{{Department Of Redundancy Department}} much? Also, the fact that you can run into a "ghostly ghost" (in the patched expansion, at least).
** The "dead and lifeless" one actually isn't that redundant - "dead" refers to land itself, and "lifeless" refers to creatures, so it's more like "the land here is crappy and there aren't many humans and animals left". That's how this troper perceives it, at least.
** It's not lifeless if there is a massive demon horde running around.

* Skeletons. Not only can the Necromancer raise (humanoid!) skeletons from the corpses of [[YouFailBiologyForever invertebrates]] like sand maggots (presumably legally different from [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness sediment annelids]] of any [[{{Dune}} other kind]]) but also the remains of ''insect swarms''. The manual {{Hand Wave}}s this, explaining that that a necromancer does not actually raise one skeleton at a time. Bone shards from many skeletons/sources are stuck together into one skeleton. This does not explain how creating skeletons from skeleton monsters results in blood, or how they form from a ghost's corpse (or why ghosts even have corpses).
** I'm kind of surprised they would try to explain something like that, as it seems a perfect example of GameplayAndStorySegregation. Obviously, swarms and big insects wouldn't have human style skeletons, but the game would probably be a lot more annoying for necromancers who would have to go somewhere else to replace their skeletons when fighting these creatures. (Not that this doesn't prevent the game from having a lot of other issues.)
** Diablo 3 tries to Handwave this by saying that Skeletons are not always the bones of one person, and in a pinch they can be assembled from bone chips and dust. It also assumes that since Sanctuary is such a [[CrapsackWorld violent place]] there should always be some material available wherever you are.

* And then there's ''named'' insect swarm ''villains'', as if a swarm of locusts had an individual identity. Sorry, Pox Blister the Destroyer, but I just can't take a villain consisting of tiny black flecks seriously, no matter how lightning enchanted it is. Especially if it's somehow able to drop a suit of armour when you kill it.
** Same thing, GameplayAndStorySegregation. In a game that's very much a loot based game, plus a game with bosses as a big feature, it wouldn't make sense to deliberately design these creatures ot lack these things. (Not that this doesn't prevent the game from having other uneven loot distribution.)
** [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel You may want to reconsider]] the [[TheWormThatWalks can't take it seriously]] part. [[AnimatedArmor ESPECIALLY if he's got a suit of armor]].

* If you travel from act 2 to act 3 on Meshif's ship, and then teleport back to act 2 with the waypoint, somehow Meshif has already sailed back in the presumably-negligible time it took you to return. ([[HalfLife They had a slow teleport?]])

* You know, you gotta wonder if having shelves of ''[[WarpWhistle town portal scrolls]]'' in the '''jail''' under the monastery was a bright idea.
** Why not? Those daemons seem to be mostly illiterate so they don't have much use from them.
** I'm just assuming, but I do believe the first Troper was meaning that it was a daft idea to keep what are basically Instant Escape scrolls in a jail. Where, you know, prisoners are imprisoned.

* The Waypoints in the game are ostensibly teleport-systems left behind by the Horadrim to aid in fast travel. This does not explain why the Horadrim felt the need to build a teleporter in the AbsurdlySpaciousSewer underneath Lut Gholein. The one in the Palace Cellar may have a reasonable explanation, though - the Harem is just upstairs.
** Test waypoint perhaps? (To see if the system actually works, they'd choose a nearby location.) I never actually thought of this before, it is kind of strange. (Though does make the game easier. :) )
** Maybe the sewers were once an ElaborateUndergroundBase that has since been repurposed.

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* Just...*ahem*...where did that helmet come from on that Decapitated Body...?
** AssShove?
** Maybe it was used as a weapon, or said body's owner kept it in his other hand as a memento. But is it really that important?
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* I just had a thought. Since the current ''Diablo'' series resembles the [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy late Middle Ages/Renaissance]], and the Sin War Trilogy is the prequel, does that mean that the setting of the aforementioned trilogy resembles ancient Greece/Rome?
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