History Headscratchers / Diablo

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* How is Fate a virtue for Itherael to embody? Each of the archangels are supposed to embody one of the primary virtues of Anu. The other four are all traits one can cultivate, but fate is the predetermined order of events. How is that a virtue? Is Itherael meant to embody a more fatalistic outlook contrary to Auriel embodying hope?

DeuxHero: Blood Raven appears to be evil out of possession or corruption by evil forces. Izual betrayed heaven and humanity on his own will. Blood Raven's soul is "banished forever" while Izual is "put to rest". MoralDissonance much?
* 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."
* I don't think it has anything to do with what they deserve; Blood Raven is mortal, Izual is not.
* Beep, beebeebeep! News flash! [[spoiler: Izual comes back in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', which means that he either got resurrected or he never died at all]]!
** Izual being put to rest always sounded like a temporary thing. Like he can't go to wherever dead angels normally go thanks to his taint but he was freed from the demon he was imprisoned in. Meanwhile Blood Raven can finally move on and pass on to Trag'Oul or whatever.
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* 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 the body of Diablo I's warrior because he did not have as much willpower as Tal Rasha.
** It helped Diablo's case that Tal Rasha had the rest of the Horidiram work to seal him up, while Adric had nobody helping him and had to manage alone.

* 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 differing standards. Yes, it's against the rules in D&D, but this ''isn't'' D&D. These Paladins may simply have [[ValuesDissonance different rules]].
*** Considering Paladins would have converted people by the sword and torch in this setting when they were part of the Zakarum church I think we can toss the "Lawful Good" stuff right out the window.

* 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.
** The Barbarian is not the most cultured person, so goofs like this are expected.
*** Grammatically speaking one would read that sentence as "The land here is dead" *STOP* "And lifeless." So the land itself is dead and its barren of life. Demons probably don't count since, ya know, they're demons. Kind of not really alive or dead as humans would understand it.

* 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.
** They are humanoid constructs like the golems, but instead of using the Necromancer's own energy to animated and fight they use outside power sources. In this case they made up mostly of dirt and little bits of the corpse they are summoned from, use the energy left in the body of the recently killed foe, and are controlled by a bound spirit. They are basically magical, mass produced robots set on auto-pilot that can be made out of literally anything as long as there is a body around to provide the energy for their animation.
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* 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.)
** [[NightmareFuel You may want to reconsider]] the [[TheWormThatWalks can't take it seriously]] part. [[AnimatedArmor ESPECIALLY if he's got a suit of armor]].
** "[[VideoGame/MassEffect3 When]] the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] name the thresher maw, you know that you're in trouble."
*** It's possible that the swarms aren't so much a group of individual insects but a hive mind in miniature that could become self-aware enough to have a full fledged identity. More of a "We are Pox Blister the Destroyer!" and the armor is the leftover remains of their last meal?
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* 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. ([[VideoGame/HalfLife They had a slow teleport?]])
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* 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.
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* 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?
*** If so, ''my'' character isn't wearing it.
** 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?
** If the helmet was on their head then they wouldn't have been decapitated, see?
** Perhaps this is the body of the Nearly Headless Nick?
** Maybe the head was just nearby and you dumped the head out of the helmet before claiming it? Or maybe he wasn't wearing the helmet and that's why he lost his head?
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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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* In Act II Deckard 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.
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* Regarding the playable beta of Diablo III, the Skeleton King Leoric's deaths. In D3 it is said that he is killed a total of three times. First, when he became corrupted and was killed by his lieutenant. The second time, as the Skeleton King, he was killed by his son, and the third time, [[spoiler: he appears in a bossfight in Act I of Diablo 3]]. But how does his appearance in Diablo 1 fit into this?
** The killed three times was supposed to be a reference to him having been killed after you meet him in D3. You revive him and then kill him again.

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* What's this I hear about Diablo 2 having customization? When I played Diablo 2, your customization pretty much stopped at what character you picked - your build was just "dump as much stats into Vitality as possible, only deviating so you can have enough of a different stat to wear the gear". What version of Diablo 2 had more than a few feasible builds? Because I wanna play that!
** So I'll gather you never gave much thought to the skill system? That's where the customization comes from.
** Or all-in energy if you build an Energy Shield Sorceress. Or invest a smaller amount in energy if you're a teleport-heavy sorceress without an infini-mana optimized build. Or all-in dexterity for numerous Amazon builds. One gets 98*5+3*5 = 505 stat points (assuming you hit level 99; realistically, aim for 70-90), base stats starting at 10-30. Achieving max block percentage with one's shield can require over 150 dexterity; the heaviest armors require 232 strength. Even for the multiple non-conventional builds, non-vitality investments are far from insignificant for non-twinked, singleplayer, and/or non-duped/botted-gear play.
*** The problem seems to be that there was a large group of people online who only built characters based on whatever template they found online. So Blizzard figured since a particular group of people was going to play their game one way, like the all Vitality crap, then they were just going to excise it completely.

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* 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?
** 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 (or were expecting to sell) when they put together the server.
*** 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]].
*** The reaction was pretty much to be expected. If someone has an internet connection to bitch about the "online-only" thing, they have an internet connection to play the game. We live in the age of knee-jerk complaints and rampant gamer self-entitlement.
**** But if the internet connection weren't required then we would have been able to play regardless of how hard their server was getting hit. I wanted to play by myself, and couldn't because they require me to connect to their server, which was overloaded. The complaints were because we were denied options that we should have had.
*** What did the players do wrong exactly? Dare to complain when the carefully orchestrated, globally synchronized launch - for which they had paid good money - completely failed? No, I'd say Blizard, who took that money and their customer's good faith, building on the experience of the WoW launch that forced them to invent brand new ways to purchase large amounts of servers quickly, and then completely failed to deliver the service they advertised, are the villains here.
*** "Villains"? This is real life, we don't live in the actual game here. Players were overreacting (like yourself but worse) because of an hour delay for logging into a video game. A video game which they now own a copy of and can play for well over a year beyond that date. "Villains". Wow.
**** Actually the whole point was that they COULDN'T play. There's a bigger issue here and that's the fact that they took a game that many, many people play single-player or on local connections, slapped an online required label onto it for no real reason and then the players get the game and they can't play it at all. I could understand if you wanted to go online with friends and the internet was screwing you up The above example, comparing the games launch to that of MMO's illustrates just how stupid the whole situation is. It should NEVER have been a necessity to be online to play a single-player experience. Lastly not everyone has hours per day to wait for a game to let them log in. Some people have things like work, children or just life in general. You drop $50, go to play your new game for the few hours of peace and quiet you have and then find out that "nope, sorry. we're busy" and you proceed to rage.
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* Is ''VideoGame/{{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 you say "Why can't I arrange my stats then", one word: Vitality.
** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint I agree, I never added any points to vitality in Diablo 2 either.]]
*** While the loss of stat allocation is no real loss at all it does kind of sting to have the abilities taken out of the players hands. Not everyone built their character by an online stat sheet. And no the games not that easy unless you purposefully break it. But much like every [[NintendoHard]] game out there players will go out of their way to find ways to break it, or look them up online, and then go to forums to crow about how easy it was for them.

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* Where exactly did the labyrinth come from anyways? Is Tristram on top of a giant cave or did Diablo dig it out?
** The former. The Horadrim found or made that cave system and sealed Diablo there, and Tristram was built on top of it.
*** 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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* Diablo 2 is still being updated, but the icons for Berserk and Natural Resistance still weren't switched.
** Same goes for the quest icons for The Fallen Angel and Hell's Forge.

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* How much time passed between Acts 4 and 5 of Diablo II, and what were the heroes doing during that time? Were they just resting in Pandemonium? (Baal didn't retrieve his soulstone or rally his army until some time after Diablo's defeat.)
** It's very possible that they didn't know what Baal was up to after the events of the main game. So it seems most likely that they headed that way once they heard about the demons rising around Mt. Arreat and then traveled there. By the time they arrived the barbarians were in the state we see them in and nobody was having a good time of it.

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* If angels are made up of light and sound, then how do they reproduce? This especially confuses me because new angels are said to come from the Crystal Arch when the High Heavens are in perfect harmony, and yet, they seem to be able to procreate by conventional means (as seen with the rebel angels and demons birthing the Nephalem). Then again, it's mentioned that Inarius also had a mortal form, so maybe he used that?
** Normally they come from the Crystal Arch but they also have the equipment to procreate normally, otherwise why would they have different genders? And just being light and sound doesn't preclude them from having some form of reproductive system.

* If angels are made up of light and sound, then how do they reproduce? This especially confuses me because new angels are said to come from the Crystal Arch when the High Heavens are in perfect harmony, and yet, they seem to be able to procreate by conventional means (as seen with the rebel angels and demons birthing the Nephalem). Then again, it's mentioned that Inarius also had a mortal form, so maybe he used that?

** It's very possible that they didn't know what Baal was up to after the events of the main game. So it seems most likely that they headed that way once they heard about the demons rising around Mt. Arreat and then traveled there. By the time they arrived the barbarians were in the state we see them in and nobody was having a good time of it.

** [[spoiler: Leoric's first son, Aidan, is also the Warrior of Diablo 1, and subsequently the Dark Wanderer/Diablo's host in Diablo 2.]]

* How much time passed between Acts 4 and 5 of Diablo II, and what were the heroes doing during that time? Were they just resting in Pandemonium? (Baal didn't retrieve his soulstone or rally his army until some time after Diablo's defeat.)

* 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?]])

*** "Villains"? This is real life, we don't live in the actual game here. Players were overreacting (like yourself but worse) because of an hour delay for logging into a video game for perhaps an hour. A video game which they now own a copy of and can play for well over a year beyond that date. "Villains". Wow.

** Same goes for the quest icons for The Fallen Angel and Hell's Forge.

** Same goes for the quest icons for The Fallen Angel and Hell's Forge.
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* How exactly did Tyrael become mortal? It's not like all angels have a "become human" button somewhere on their armour. Humans are explicitly the spawn of angels and demons, so to become one he'd need demonic influence. Just stripping his wings might remove his angelic power, but it shouldn't have made him human.

** Same goes for the quest icons for The Fallen Angel and Hell's Forge.

** Same goes for the quest icons for Fallen Angel and The Hellforge.

* Diablo 2 is still being updated, but the icons for Berserk and Natural Resistance still weren't switched.

* Beep, beebeebeep! News flash! [[spoiler: Izual comes back in ''DiabloIII'', which means that he either got resurrected or he never died at all]]!

** Because the angels voted on whether 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.

** 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.

* 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.