Diablo 3 - Fans Upset Over Male Wizard

Ok, I've figured this whole thing out.

I took a look at the wizard, but I haven't read any external threads on this subject or anything. Still, the whole thing is pretty straightforward: Blizzard is giving the people what they want.

Now I understand that from our standpoint that may seems counterintuitive what with the uproar and all, but you have to remember that the people who are invested enough in a sequel to a 10 year-old game to even have an opinion on the art direction do not constitute much of a demographic. No, Blizzard is leveraging what it learned from WoW, and specifically the massive popularity of the decidedly faggy "blood elf" character race. And what they learned is: That's what a whole lotta people want to play.

So Blizzard, thinking as it must nowadays in terms of massive, cloase-as-possible-to-universal appeal, has created a character who makes us feel queasy, but who will appeal to that same very significant demographic who didn't retch even a little bit when they unveiled the blood elves.

So there's nothing mysterious about this. It was actually inevitable if you think about it.
 
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Funny how Bethesda gets reamed here while these fans must have too much time on their hands. Funny how that works.
 
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ToddMcF2002 said:
Funny how Bethesda gets reamed here while these fans must have too much time on their hands. Funny how that works.
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Did Bethesda get reamed for character art direction around here? Because I agree with you, anyone who was complaining about that a year in advance of a game's release does have way too much time on his/her hands.
 
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Yeesh said:
Did Bethesda get reamed for character art direction around here? Because I agree with you, anyone who was complaining about that a year in advance of a game's release does have way too much time on his/her hands.
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Get off your high horse.

It's called forming an opinion about shown matter, you know, what nearly happends all the time on forums.
 
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Davion said:
It's called forming an opinion about shown matter, you know, what nearly happends all the time on forums.
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Don't be silly.

That's only when you have a positive opinion. If your opinion is negative, you have way too much time on your hands and need to get a life.

Just like if previews convince you to buy a game, that's normal, but if they make you decide to skip a game, you're being unreasonable and need to give it a chance.
 
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yack...emo wizzard whats next. Why don't they just let players customize their characters looks?
 
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Yeesh said:
No, Blizzard is leveraging what it learned from WoW, and specifically the massive popularity of the decidedly faggy "blood elf" character race. And what they learned is: That's what a whole lotta people want to play.
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People played Blood Elves in Wow because their racials were overpowered and they were the only Palys for the horde. And the ones that played it for the emo look, played females.

I don't give two hoots about D3 but if I did, the belly dancer would bother me too.
 
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Davion said:
Get off your high horse.

It's called forming an opinion about shown matter, you know, what nearly happends all the time on forums.
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My mistake, I thought we were talking about freaking out about artwork for a game that's still more than a year away from release and circulating internet petitions complaining about it. But I guess I was actually criticizing the having of opinions, which now that you put it that way seems pretty intolerant of me. But from this high horse it's just so hard to see how wrong I am all the time...
 
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LuckyCarbon said:
People played Blood Elves in Wow because their racials were overpowered and they were the only Palys for the horde. And the ones that played it for the emo look, played females.
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Yeah, no. There were an awful lot of male blood elves, and your theory about overpowered racials implies that blood elves would appeal primarily to the hardcore player base, right? And yet surely you can't deny that a whole galaxy of wussy alliance n00bs hopped right on board. Would you really argue against the proposition that the blood elves appealed to casual players in a big, big way?
 
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Yeesh said:
Yeah, no. There were an awful lot of male blood elves, and your theory about overpowered racials implies that blood elves would appeal primarily to the hardcore player base, right? And yet surely you can't deny that a whole galaxy of wussy alliance n00bs hopped right on board. Would you really argue against the proposition that the blood elves appealed to casual players in a big, big way?
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Maybe that was because of the Paladin class more than anything else, though.

My mistake, I thought we were talking about freaking out about artwork for a game that's still more than a year away from release and circulating internet petitions complaining about it. But I guess I was actually criticizing the having of opinions, which now that you put it that way seems pretty intolerant of me. But from this high horse it's just so hard to see how wrong I am all the time…
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Why is it important how far away the release is?

The sooner the complaints reach Blizzard, the bigger the chance it'll have an effect. It'd be moronic to wait until release is around the corner.

This is precisely the time to voice concerns, if you have them - even though Blizzard have never been particularly responsive to fan input. They know their stuff and after WoW - I don't think they see themselves as capable of making big picture mistakes. Also, I think the more passionate the response - the more chance of being heard. Then again, they need to have some weight to their opinions, and looking at that Wizard they definitely DO. He's not a character I would play, even if I was into mages. I can't identify with him - and that's something I've always felt was important - even in ARPGs like Diablo.

In conclusion, I think you're dead wrong - but to each his own.
 
They should just go ahead and bite the bullet and make ONLY classes then allow for picking of gender. (I always thought that it was silly how many ARPGs tied class AND gender together... then again I find it amusing that 99.999% of female MMORPG players are actually gender challenged males while the remaiing .001% are split between real females, opportunistic males(some claim that female characters get more stuff/help so they pick female), and the even more microscopic minority of those who are actually trying to RP(or something).)
 
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To me, almost all characters, but especially the both wizard chracters (male & female version) look like they had been designed by a Korean artist - or at least effectively designed with a nod towards Asia and Korea especially - where their biggest StarCraft fans are. I'm quite confident they will try to "convert" some of these fans to their ne Action-RPG and build a similar strong fan-base there like they have already done for StarCraft.

This will be very clearly an "asia-themed" game.

To me, this is an excellent marketing move, nothing more.

And I won't be playing this anyway.

(I have already spent far too much time with D2 [but it was fun ! ;) ] :p )
 
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Yeesh said:
Yeah, no. There were an awful lot of male blood elves, and your theory about overpowered racials implies that blood elves would appeal primarily to the hardcore player base, right? And yet surely you can't deny that a whole galaxy of wussy alliance n00bs hopped right on board. Would you really argue against the proposition that the blood elves appealed to casual players in a big, big way?
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Ancedotally? Yes, on my server all the Belfs I saw were hard-core players with palys or pvp'ers. Then again, I only ran into them in high-level zones, I never started one so I have no idea what the population was like < L60.

I think they designed the the blood elves to draw the pokemon generation alliance players over to horde to balance out the factions. Casual players were/are usually older and not into that art style, unless they liked the pre-teen cheerleader look of the females, which is just creepy.
 
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I was one of those people who complained about the colorful dungeon graphics (I still think they look terrible), but this is simply … face —> palm.

Still, given that there probably won't be any further customization options besides gender — which is already an improvement over Diablo 1 and 2 — and assuming that people will spend a whole lot of of time with those characters, it's understandable that they want their characters to look good all of the time. Even if in actual play you'll not see too much anyway.

GhanBuriGhan said:
No beard, no pointy hat - no wizard! ;)
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Yeah, that might just be it, because as we all know, character profession is determined by beard length. ;)

It's funny though that they complain about the male wizard looking too young, while there were no such complaints about the wizardress, who looks just the same age. To me both wizards look decidedly Asian and I can see nothing wrong with that.
 
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i guess i'm the only one then who doesnt think he looks bad. Wtvr, you know, little caster dude w/ outlandish outfit getting his magic on. Seriously, whats the big fuss alll about

maybe ive been listening to too much Cure or something
 
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