I just finished the section on Diablo 2 Resurrected. As a former Vicarious Visions dev, I have a lot of emotions wrapped up in that year (2021). While I had never been a huge Blizzard fanboy, I was initially excited to work with them after rolling off of Tony Hawk 1+2 (Resurrected had been in development in parallel for a little while at that point). Blizzard was THE development house. So many of my coworkers were fans. It was a feeling turned deeply sour within the year. Between the lawsuit, and the loss of our studio head Jen O'Neal to the EXACT SAME kind of discrimination outlined in the lawsuit, and the unwillingness of Blizzard leadership to let our studio be relatively autonomous within the company, I ended up jumping ship within the year. Hell, most of our design department followed suit. Acti-Blizz vets, some of whom had been with the studio for 10+ years, all floated away in the wind. I really appreciate the review you've given to that work they did. It was one of the best things to come out of the studio, but it was also the last thing.
Thank you for crearing a sincerely faithful recreation of a beloved game, carving it out from the rest of the dredgepool that is current-day Blizzard products. Diablo 2 belongs to the glorious days of old, and the Resurrected version pays proper homage to it. It may just be the best remaster of any game I know of.
It warms my heart to see that Noah's patreon is doing so well that he can't read out all the names in a single take anymore. I remember the task took so long you could see the drift of the shadows from the movement of the sun comparing the beginning and the end of the segment.
and his patreon policy is the complete opposite of Diablo's Immortal, there's no other benefit to subscribing to his patreon other than having your name read at the end of a video, which 90% of viewers will skip, Noah doesn't lock his patreon posts either, people support him because they want to see him keep doing what he likes
The fact that the diablo immortal section is basically a dissection of how casinos work tells you everything you need to know about it. This is why you are one of the best out there Noah
I avoid gotcha games and anything seemingly reliant on mtx for this exact reason. I like the idea of Diablo but the gameplay sounds like everything I hate
@@MrDalisclockThe thing that gets me is that Diablo Immortal, from what I understand, is somehow even worse than your average gacha game when it comes to monetization.
@@Calvin_Coolage Josh Strife Hayes did a Diablo Immortal video around the time the game came out that went into detail on the multiple pass monthly buy-ins and how they all played off one another. Pretty much 'what if all the gatcha mechanics all the time'.
it’s no exaggeration to say that Operant Conditioning is a foundational principle of game design. They taught us about BF Skinner’s work in literally my first term of game design school, and Diablo 2’s loot mechanics were one of the prime examples they used to explain it. Slot machines were the other big one. BTW, burying this below the fold because I don’t want to “um ackshually” such a great video, but Japan’s legacy of Action RPGs dates back to 1984, with the release of Dragon Slayer and Hydlide on PC and Tower of Druaga in arcades. Japanese devs were less hesitant to break away from the genre’s tabletop roots because D&D didn’t reach their shores until 1985, years after they got their first taste of roguelikes. If you’re ever interested in exploring the parallel evolution of their take on real-time dungeon crawling, the “Ys” series from Nihon Falcom is a great place to start. Personally, I would love to see you talk about it some day.
I got into the ys series a few years ago and it's honestly astounding how far they go back considering they're not really a big name today but they still release some amazing games so excited for Ys X's western release
Well, I'm 20 minutes in and I've already been reminded several times why you are, for my money, simply the best writer about games (and also travel) on UA-cam. I mean that. The best. I hope you're proud of yourself. Usually that phrase is only said sarcastically, but no, I really, really do hope that.
He's in a completely different league than other video game essayists. If his videos would be sold in book form I would buy them. They're just so well written and thought out.
I completely fucking agree man, it's like basically purple prose but done right. I used to be a big fan of Jacob Geller but the way he phrased things just fucking annoyed me a lot, and then I found Gervais and haven't gone back. He also isn't a fuckin breadtuber lmfaoooo
At the end of 2023 I quit my job, looking to get back to freelance work I was more passionate about. In early January, my dad was rushed two hours to a Portland hospital and the next day had his foot amputated. The next month or so, in between snow storms and medical visits, I would drive out to his house two hours away to take care of his cat, his house, etc. While I was out there I didn't have access to my PS5, but I did have his PS4, and access to my Blizzard account. So I started playing Diablo II again for the first time in a long time. I even managed to beat Diablo on Hell mode, though I didn't get into the really late game stuff like Uber Tristram. As the weeks went by and my dad recovered and everything became more stable again (he's doing well now), I left Diablo II again. But the ending to this video really hit home. All I wanted to do when I was stuck out there was to escape the cage and click on monsters and get my little treats.
For anyone interested, here's a couple of works quoted by Noah in this video (Thanks again for an awesome essay, Noah!): Natasha Dow Schüll - 2014- Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas Lauren Slater - 2005 - Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century Roger Ebert - 2008 - "Critic" is a four-letter word
My brother is ten years older than me. As a kid I always remember him playing Diablo, but I was too young to even be allowed to spectate him. By the time I was old enough, he had moved out and there hadn't been a new Diablo game in years, and I always felt like I missed out on that connection to my brother by not getting to play it with him. We played Diablo 4 together earlier this year, and the biggest takeaway we both had at the end of our session together was, "Wow. This game really wants your money." Thanks, Blizzard, for uh, all the memories.
One of my best experiences last year was playing diablo 2 resurrected with my brother. I have to recommend that if d4 let you down Just have a lanparty together and see how far you can get in a weekend. I hope youll love it as much as we did
"Wow. This game really wants your money." I cannot decide between a "oh palease" or "oh you sweet summer child" a reply to your little possible true story.
@@xBINARYGODxthe story is so mundane (not an insult btw) that I can't possibly see how you'd imagine it's fake. I mean I guess it could be? But it's such a mundane thing.
My wife and I were driving in shifts on our road trip, I took the night drive. I like having all that road to just listen to whatever and think peacefully. I picked this because I figured your tone was calm enough to not wake her. Just as I was listening to you talk about the battle pass, thinking of my own experiences and why I stopped playing certain games, you hit me with my birth name over 10 bucks and I guffaw loud enough to wake my wife. It was fun!
"To be both cunningly complex and also a selfish silly little goblin creature is the beating heart of the human experience". Man, Noah synthesized humanity in a one line in an essay about a video game. What a fucking legend
I was once in an "special ed" class in the middle school. We weren't slow or anything, but many of the students had serious behavioral issues. That's not important, what's important was our Teacher, MR. I-forgot-his-name. He would often brag about how smart his son was and cite this game, diablo 2 as proof. He would talk about how much work and effort it was to play this game and how confusing the title was. And that his mere son of 13 figured out everything and was playing at a high level. At this time, my only experience with video games was whatever parents got me for the ps2. So I had little idea what PC gaming was like. So just hearing about armor stats and online play with others sounded pretty amazing and above everything I experienced before. He also lied to us and said the best behaved student would get a custom-made laptop. And I believed it all. I highly respected my teacher at the time. He was one of those "cool teachers". So... I had this image in my mind's eye of what diablo 2 was. DIABLO 2, a gamer's game. A game that made boys into men. A video game that required not only a good reflex but also, a clever mind. And a computer. Now that I'm in my early 30's and whenever I heard about the diablo game series, I just think about how this father was so proud of his son for being good at a video game.
As a teacher, I’d love to see my students apply their learning and ability to think to essays such as this. Thinking about games is just as worthy an endeavor as thinking about any other art, and you do it well. Thanks.
@@RedWolfensteinDid you know when writing was popularized in Egypt, they worried people would be unable to memorize things? The kids will be fine ultimately, if the adults don’t write them off.
coincidentally, the same behaviorism is the cornerstone of our educational institutions...which is a fundamental part of the reason kids aren't commonly submitting anything like this 🙃
When I was a kid, I used to sit on the floor of my brother's room watching with supreme attention as he was mowing through demons in the first Diablo. He would always tell me not to ask questions or I'd have to leave and I would behave...for a time. Until it got to something that made my brain itch to the point that I just HAD to know what was going on. And despite fearing being kicked out, I'd push forward with my questions. And every single time, with much gusto and enthusiasm, he would go on long rants about the details of the game he'd gleaned and I would be enthralled and pushed further to ask more questions and we'd get caught in a delightful little loop. My absolutely favorite memory of Diablo, though, is how our very religious grandmother came into the room while he was playing as a paladin one time and went "What're you playing? Baseball?" as his paladin whacked the head off a demon. He and I look at each other, me desperately trying not to laugh, and he nods his head and says "Yeah, grandma. It's baseball". I think about this every time I think about Diablo and it was a joke running between the two of us so deep that we almost exclusively referred to the games as "baseball" for years. So, thank you for posting this and bringing up these wonderful memories, Mr. Noah Caldwell Gervais. This is, hands down, my new favorite video of yours. Just. Thank you.
I have a similar story to the baseball anecdote with my brother. My grandma was the only one in the family with a computer nice enough to run DOOM, which my brother and I had managed to find a copy of. (I think we stole it from somewhere!) We didn’t get along very well when we were younger, but one thing we’d perfectly cooperate on was playing it together. Neither of us had the coordination or practice to play the game by ourselves, so one of us would steer the game with WASD, and the other would aim and fire with the mouse or arrow keys. We actually managed to beat the game like that. Granted it was on the second easiest difficulty, but for two eight-year-olds it felt like quite an achievement. Anyway our grandma came in one time, and she asked if we were playing our “king quest game”. She caught us by surprise, so her answer was the combined sound of a chainsaw revving and the pained screams of a demon being sawed in half. My brother managed to snap out of the surprise long enough to mutter “yep”, and then we just sort of sat there. She said “okay” and disappeared around the corner. I don’t think she was convinced in the slightest, but she probably let us keep playing because it was good to see me and my brother cooperating on something for once! The good news is we get along much better now that we’re both adults. Your core memory just unlocked one of my core memories is all 😂
I am continuously impressed by this mans ability to turn a phrase. Barely 20 minutes in and I know exactly what he means "competing choirs argueing over a conference call" and will likely use exactly that description in the future.
Hi noah, I'm a professional musician with quite bad tinnitus. The only way I can sleep at night is listening to audio to distract me from the ringing. It's the night of my 30th birthday and I'm happy to be listening to your essays as I fall asleep. Please never stop, your creativity is endlessly inspiring.
As someone with an embarrassing amount of hours in Destiny 2 (and who easily gets sucked into live service games in general), the whole second half of this video hit real hard. I always had trouble putting my urge to play into words, but "the machine zone" hits the nail on the head, and it's cathartic to hear it finally described. I see a lot of folks respond to criticism of this kind of design with "just stop playing" which makes sense, but it forgets that getting players addicted isn't an accident. It's a deliberate design choice.
This essay is a perfect example of how fundamentally anti-cynic Noah's writing style is; he's able to square up his fundamental love of the Diablo games with an unflinchingly frank dressing-down of all the shady economics and predatory crook-psychology that has come to underpin the series, in a way that doesn't make either element of his essay feel insincere or invalidated. He doesn't shrug his shoulders and go "well, what ya gonna do!" But neither does he in good conscience let stuff like this slide. It's just, SO refreshing to see a writer able to articulate these kinds of complex moral contradictions in a culture that I feel increasingly buffets between toxically manic positivity and gun-in-mouth pessimist declinism.
"buffets between" that imagery you created in our heads with your words is why UA-cam exists. It's not just Noah who is a great writer but his fans too.
Brilliant analysis. As a former game developer (Skyrim/Fallout), I really appreciated the in-depth review here. What you ultimately exposed - the soulless loop of gameplay - is the reason I've largely stopped buying Diablo-esque games. I found the art in D4 to be absolutely, bar-none, top-notch. The gameplay felt soulless and uncaring and unrewarding. My character actually felt weaker with ever rising level, and the emptiness I feel at clearing a dungeon - knowing that dungeon will just pop back next time I load up the game - really made me feel terribly alone. What I mean by that is, with a game like Baldur's Gate, it feels like the developers have thought and cared about every aspect of the experience... it felt handcrafted, with love. Playing Diablo just makes me feel lifeless, machine-like -- as if the developers left halfway through Act 2 and just left me alone with their soulless slot machine.
I hope your spirits have been lifted, brother. I get it; it's terrifying in a weirdly mundane way. You are made to feel like a pointless aperture, connected to the miracle of womanhood by virtue of her affection, and nothing else. But believe me, being a father is so much more than duty. Wait for the moment, it will come. There is a moment when your child will do something that only you can understand. This moment will not be in opposition to anything else. It will just be a moment no-one else will ever comprehend. From now on, your comprehension of yourself will override anyone else's. From now on, you will see the everyday lies and hypocrisy with a diamond clarity. As a man, you are aware of the towering lists of demands that you must meet. Spend 30 minutes alone with your child. None of these mean a thing. There is a truth and beauty to your existence which is purely your own. Look at your child, and realise how much of your previous life is due for destruction. And then, smash into it. The moment you feel the reality of being a father is the moment you realise you have everything it takes to be a hero.
This may read like weird bullshit written by a freak stranger. If so, fine. I just remembered how I felt, three years ago, when I was in your position. Today, my son says I'm his best friend, and he clings to me when he's tired. When he was born, he was born in a woman's world. This is fine. I'm no misogynist. But 12/13 days later....how heavy the demand feels. Be the perfect father, the perfect lover, the perfect man (pragmatic, energetic, sensible, kind, patient). People ignore you, and yet expect you to be a perfect person, perfect servant, perfect leader etc. Anyway....if you need anything, a person to talk to, advice, to feel less alone on your freshly sprouted tree branch... Give me a shout. Or don't, and let this be a cringeworthy graffiti of gauche public embarrassment for me. Jus sayin'
Synergistic Software was my first full time gig in the industry. I started right after they shipped Hellfire. Sierra was such a mess, they had the Hellfire team (which I had joined) working on a LOTR game using the Diablo engine. I was in heaven, building a Mines of Moria tile set for about half a year. Then they shut us down. Turns out they had never actually secured the LOTR license!
This bears no direct relation to the video, but I want to comment here what I've thought about your videos for some time, and what some may relate to: you are the best anti-brain rot creator on UA-cam. Between your writing, your narration, and your minimal editing style, there is not a single thing about your videos that reminds me that the online experience is an attention economy.
When I feel distractible and foggy, I can just throw on one of these videos and immediately feel sharper and more attentive. I don't know if it's priming or what, but I deeply appreciate it.
His videos have made watching a lot of UA-cam feel boring and manipulative and feel as meaningless as it often is. I'm much more discerning with what I watch on UA-cam now and much less patience for shallow crap.
He need to do a little more editing imo, when he mentions other games that he’s comparing, or goes over the iconic sounds, he just continues with the same background gameplay…
@@bizzzzzzle I have ADHD, I'm not watching the video anyway unless Noah says something about what's on screen. It may as well be the pipe screensaver; I'm here to hear him talk.
You're so right about the sound scape. I can still hear Deckard Cain, clear as day, saying "Stay a while and listen", a town portal opening, the "twip" of a bow, the swinging of a sword or club and the moan of a ghoul. Ofcourse the obligatory cows going "moo ma moo moo moo" 😅
As a former high-school baalrun grinder myself I feel I need to point out that two games in one deal has been there since diablo2. The vast majority of people in the endgame were farming gear or leveling for their highly specific PvP builds, there were even 3v3 tournaments going on with teams based on synergies of different classes and builds. There is a surprising level of depth to character and gear minmaxing, and an immense amount of satisfaction in coming up with and perfecting new builds tied to specific gear choices, perfectly juggling entire spreadsheets of breakpoints for casting and hit recovery frames, resistance stacking, etc. and later on, in mastering the mechanical aspect of actually fighting other players with the character you engineered. I guess it's just a shame a lot of casual players are gatekept from experiencing it.
Wow, I just randomly thought of the channel after like a year in jail and dropped in to see what’s up and only an hour ago you released this masterpiece on Diablo, truly I am blessed. I have to work tomorrow so you’re going to talk to me sleep again Noah, just like old times
One thing I'll add about the switch from turn-based to real time: if I recall the story correctly, Brevik was partly opposed to switching to real-time in part because he assumed that it would take a ton of work to get it working, and that they couldn't afford to take such a risk if it didn't work out. But then he decided to sit down and see if he could do it, and found out that because of how the game was architected, getting the game to run in real time was actually almost trivial! He was able to get a build working in a few hours and so the staff, after weeks of arguing about it, actually got a chance to play the game in real-time and once they did most opposition to switching to real-time disappeared. It's interesting to think that it's due to that accident of how they decided to design the engine that allowed them to take the risk of making the game real time, otherwise we might never have gotten Diablo as it exists
The transition from games to money generators is most clear in the case of Angry Birds. The first game was a set of interesting challenges. The second game was a set of boring challenges made to frustrate players into spending money.
Sorry, I know you won't read this but I just want to get this out there. Been going through a bit of a rough patch lately, so seeing you had a new video made me happy. Seeing it was about a game series that I grew up with as well (I'm 36) made it even better. Then, the little opening rant about "back in my day" just made me burst out laughing. Thank you for releasing your videos, you come across as an old friend that I like to hear from time to time.
Yeah, Diablo missed me, although a lot of my high school friends were into it. The only "click on monsters" ARPG to really grab me was the first Torchlight. And only the first one! Somehow the second didn't grab me the same way.
Noah I am very sick right now. I think im on the recovering side but I get very fatigued even when leaving my bed for short time. Your calm, inquisitive voice has kept me company in the bursts that I can handle listening to something without getting a splitting headache. Thank you.
Diablo always felt like the best manifestation of the wall between blizzard gamers and other gamers that used to exist in my mind. Diablo people weren't necessarily players of other games, they were store managers, bosses, a parent's coworker, mechanics, dads, people who in my experience weren't really "nerds" and didn't have the more 'gamer' vibe. Of course the idea of only gamers playing games is very narrow and in fact there's nothing weird about people being fans of just one series, but it was a combination of that with this "blizzard games aren't like other games" PC game prestige the company used to have that really coloured my impression of them. I remember being shocked how many "normies" came out to buy Diablo 3, many of them ending up horribly burned when it wasn't like Diablo 2 the game they had casually broken over their knees in hundreds of sessions inbetween their tax returns and watching the football. It was just an illusion I had but then it kinda burst like a bubble after Diablo 3, Overwatch, WoW, etc failed to win people over. Still saw the same people turn out for Diablo 4 all these years later. There were way few of them this time tho.
Makes sense seeing as how Diablo 1 is apparently very hard and requires attention to detail as well as resource management and planning. Is it no coincidence that the types of people you listed would be very adept at Diablo since they have jobs that require a keen sense of management, planning and detail?
@@4T3hM4kr0n I've played through all of Diablo 1 a couple years ago and honestly I wouldn't say it requires much resource management or planning. It is hard yes, but mostly on a mechanical level. I was playing the warrior/whatever its called class, and basically my entire playthrough was "grab the biggest stick, wear the heaviest armour, and run at people." The resource management wasn't anything deeper than "try not to get hit so you can save on potions" and the planning was "that room has 5 enemies, try to fight as few at once as possible." Maybe the experience is different for the other classes, idk.
i dont even play diablo games, but a 4 hour long video essay from a quality essaymaker at a time where i am DESPERATE for something to watch? how heck to the yeh
For those interested in the systems of economy in Diablo Immortal, I would like to reccommend Josh Strife Hayes' video essay on the topic. As always, a phenomenal essay Noah, and probably a healthier run time than the last one 🤣
i loved the original diablo as a kid, i rented it on the PS1 and played through co-op with my little brother, very good memory - i played wizard and "not enough mana" continues to be a phrase i repeat every once and a while
Something that I think has helped me settle with your channel being my favorite, in addition to the quality writing and interesting videos, is that it feels like you have about the same tolerance for game length as I do. I have a friend who's probably put over a thousand hours into fallout 4, friends who are perfectly co tent grinding away for hours on seasona of fortnite, but I've always felt so exhausted by games that aren't meant to end, and it feels nice finding such a good essayist who feels similarly about that
Right, I'm only four minutes in, and I'm already compelled to pause the video and remark that eight-year-old me once sat down and steadfastly counted how many licks it took me to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Now thirty-one-year-old me is delighted beyond all measure to learn that not one, but *four* universities somehow not only ran actual studies on the same question, but arrived at no different an answer than I did sitting in my childhood bedroom one random spring afternoon. In a four-hour video essay about fucking _Diablo._ This, right here, is why Noah is inimitable.
@-Monad- Like I said, the same figure the university studies found: about two hundred! (Well, actually, my exact number was two hundred eighty-one - I remember because I made a big production out of emblazoning a piece of printer paper with my discovery and didn't get rid of it for an embarrassingly long time - but it didn't occur to me until midway through my experiment that turning the Tootsie Pop every now and then to lick a different spot undermined the whole logic of the test, and by that point eight-year-old me couldn't be fucked to go back and correct my methodological error by way of a fresh Tootsie Pop. 😂 So if I hadn't done that, yeah, I'd've been left sitting at right around two hundred.)
I honestly don't understand your original comment. How is it profound that Noah reminded you of licking a lollipop when you were a child? I fail to see any correllation.@@JustAndre92
@KajiCarson Oh, I don't mean to say the actual personal anecdote is profound in the slightest. 😅 What I was trying to demonstrate was, what other video essayist would even think to draw a parallel between the deteriorating design ethos of the _Diablo_ franchise and a long-bygone ad campaign for suckers - let alone pull it off so evocatively that a childhood memory I haven't thought about in close to half my lifetime hit me with that much clarity and force? So yes, the memory itself may not be at all profound, but the difference between how everyone else on this platform approaches gaming analysis and how Noah does can't rightly be described as anything _but_ profound.
Hearing about actual creative vision buried under Diablo immortal is heartbreaking and a good reminder. A lot of these games have genuinely great game designers trying desperately to make something good and compelling but fundamentally compromised by the greed from above. It's sad really, think of the game we could have gotten.
Based Noah always talking about the most interesting aspects of a work and glossing over bs where many other games writers get bogged down (i.e. squabbling about precise numbers and other unimportant specificities, or spending too long on rote explanation aka reading wikipedia into the microphone)
@@rizon98I played the first two games A LOT, so this one is a big deal for me - but yes I have been watching every one of Noah’s videos, and even the ones on games I’m unfamiliar with are fascinating.
Great great video, thank you! Love how you manage to talk 4 hours about monster clicker make numbers go up, and it's 4 hours filled with interesting, funny, and genuinely deep thoughts and factoids.
can I just say... that new mic or recording setup you got was absolutely worth it. you sound like a midnight radio host, your voice is so like, crunchy. it sounds great, and I think it enhances the experience of wathching a lot.
Noah, I can't tell you how much I smile when you post a new video. It doesn't matter if I've ever played a game or even like a game but I'll listen to you talk about it for hours.
Had a wave of relief seeing your video right as I was about to go on break at work. Absolute treat to listen to. 3 hours in and going to finish it tonight. Love all of your videos Noah, keep up the amazing work.
absolutely fantastic as always Noah! you always hit it out of the park ;p as a side note, i just LOVE that the patreon supporters are so numerous, that it's no longer feasible to read out all the names at the end of the video. im so glad the channel has caught so many peoples attention. ill miss the supporter name reads, but i love the reason why they stopped
I love how excited I get to see a new video from you. With how long passes between videos, it's always a big event with my friends! Looking forward to finishing this one!
Same! I woke up this morning and was like "hell yeah its gonna be a good day", not because it's easter, but because I saw Noah in my notifications lmao
At first I was dubious about starting a 4hr video, but figured I would give it a shot - after all it's nothing compared to the hours I sank into D1 and D2. A few minutes in I was hooked, and not once was I disappointed. In fact I'm so impressed that much like an amazing new restaurant, I will have to return again in a day or two and digest again. Blizzard haven't earned any money from me for MTX or skins or season passes or whatever from D3/DI/D4, but I may very well buy D4 based on this video, which is somewhat ironic. But it sounds like, for the story, it's worth it.
Diablo was the game I sat on the floor watching my dad play when I was a kid. It was the game that sort of got me thinking about what games could be, what secrets there were in those digital worlds. It was what excited me, and then, later in life, it was what disappointed me the most. I'm only just starting this video, but I am tremendously excited to see what you have to say about this part of my own personal history.
This reminds me of when I would go over to my friend’s house in elementary school and his dad would often be playing diablo 2. Sometimes i would just spend hours watching him play it and talking to him about different things.
Always enjoy these. I understand that it's an essay format, but in cases of talking about foley or the Tristram theme at such length, I felt like it might be useful to break from tradition and play us some of the sounds/songs that you're talking about.
I hear ya, but it’s very easy to pause, type “Tristram Theme” into UA-cam’s search bar, and find that context for yourself. I do it all the time, looking up big vocab words like “nadir” and “turgid”. I understand and empathize with your frustration, but this is very easy to painlessly rectify
Also he does play part of it, as the introduction song! (guess who found that out when she decided to look up a video of that song from Diablo 1 and 2)
@@AllDaySure The main purpose of a video discussing a game is to show us the game and let us hear it, otherwise a simple article would have sufficed. It costs nothing to add ost or sounds when they are mentioned in a video. If you think about it that way, I could have written the video myself, so what's the point of watching it ? Without the sounds effect and the ost, the viewing is impacted when he talks about the game's sounds effect and the ost. It's not dramatic, but it's still a problem.
@@timothymclean do we care what that person thinks? They sound like an idiot. Besides, even if i thought someone was an idiot, i wouldn't make them play Diablo Immortal, it's just cruel.
UA-cam, I have multiple watches on videos of this man that are longer than most workdays. How does it take the algorithm more than a workWEEK to notify me that he has a new one?
And Also Channel 5 Crime Zone Warlockracy The Bad Movies Bible Accursed Farm Second Tough Joel Haver Shaun Matt Orchard Clever Dick Films Kim Justice Ragnarox hbomberguy The Morbid Zoo
The video really comes to a head at the end and is so satisfying. Makes wonder why I always gravitate towards a game like Diablo when my irl life feels chaotic or falling apart and tend to shift further away from a slower paced narrative experience like red dead 2. Anyway excellent video
As someone who was gifted the 3rd game because I played Path of Exile and was gifted it "because you like those games" and never "got" Diablo I am very curious about it. Noah's essays usually at least give me an idea for why some people enjoy something.
Gifting Diablo 3 is funny to me because PoE started as basically a fan version of Diablo 3 because it was taking so long to come out. It was made by fans of Diablo 2 making their ideal version of Diablo 3 and it ends up being widely different because of it. Definitely give Diablo 2 a look. I think you'd be surprised how much of PoE can be found rooted in there.
Once again, stellar work! I am amazed how you managed to contribute something new to existing D1/2/3/4/Immortal discussion while still giving your narrative a strong theme of the gameplay loop and with such a strong beginning and ending. You also told the other side of the story behind Hellfire's development and expressed your fondness of D4's campaign (and gameplay up to lvl 50), which many people shit upon. Bravo!
People didn't like Diablo IVs campaign? That's like the one thing most critics were positively surprised about: Blizzard actually had the chops for serious dramatic writing after years of camp and WoW expansions of mixed quality storytelling. Even Yahtzee Croshaw liked it!
I can't watch it right now, but you are my "Hunter S. Thompson" x "David Simon" as far as writing for vidya goes. You are an absolute beacon of giving the artform and medium what it deserves: respect, passion, due diligence, humor, context and most of all, love for it all. Cheers from HTX.
I think the way you describe the point of killing the monsters to more efficiently kill monsters is spot on. I spent hundreds of hours in Diablo 3 tediously collecting best in slot gear for my Monk only to immediately quit playing once I had done so because there was nothing left to collect.
First time tuning in to any of your work and I'm genuinely blown away. Ive always thought of Diablo, and games in general, in terms of clicking and it's such a funny way frame the whole concept. But also by your comparative language and your ability to reduce things to its basest nature, but not in an overly cynical or shitty way. The bit about sending electricity through metal and sand to create a hallucinogenic state but having that be the audible reward of coins..jesus. This is fucking brilliant and I'm only at about the 20 minute mark. Reckon I'll stay a while and listen.
This came out an hour after I was looking at your channel and I was glad to be notified at 4am and could be rest assured that you still have that same energy when I found you in my teens. Thanks Noah.
never played these games but really enjoyed this video, especially the discussions surrounding gambling, casino soundscapes, and microtransactions. I liked the note you ended about analyzing ones own consumption. great stuff, thanks
20:53 your experience growing up with Diablo is identical to time. I was obsessed with Diablo in about 5th grade and then spent most of my freshman year playing Diablo 2
We've missed you, Noah. It's really good to see you again. This isn't a complaint about the upload schedule. Do what you have to do, quality work takes time. I just wanted to say thanks.
Noah- just got back from a trip and stoked that you dropped a new video. I still go back to videos you made six years ago and give them a listen. They hold up, but I hope you know how insanely far you’ve come in your performance and production. You’re the best there is at what you do.
So happy that you don't put background music in your videos, it's one of the many reasons I keep returning to your channel, keep up the amazing work Gervais!
@@butHomeisNowhere___ There are three ways to incorporate BGM into a video essay: 1. Constant throughout 2. Very sparse 3. Often So let's talk *pitfalls* of each approach (note: each may have a positive aspect too, but I'll focus just on the negatives the way I see them): *1.* You show that what you are saying is not enough to get the people engaged. Trouble is, channels that do it usually use a constant 1-minute loop, that is one "mood". So to keep up with the BGM, the essay itself needs to be constantly one mood. The music is a drone, the content becomes a drone (see Overly Sarcastic Productions as a prime example of good content being delivered as a drone with broken mood; see The Crime Reel for a similar thing, but more mediocre but also more on-point mood-wise). *2.* Essentially you do it either as a transition or as an emotional hook. The latter is exploitative and the former hints at you not being good enough to convey where your thoughts have come to an end and a new thought comes around OR just being crap at segue. *3.* So now you've learned to match the BGM with the mood OR you have decided to use the music from the medium in question. And now your video is tied down not as a whole piece to be one "mood" but instead a paragraph or two. Either that or you're still failing mood-matching. Worse than that - when the music goes quiet, it is expected to enhance the tension, but just as well you might not have had a good piece to match the mood or just ran out of music. In summary: BGM is a crutch that is used to enhance the flow of the narrative piece. If you need that crutch - your narrative is subpar. The only place it has is where you are literally discussing the very thing that is playing in the background. Notice that Noah (or rather Nate at this point) didn't play any music, even when it was the primary topic of the discussion. It is because he's having a discussion with you. You are being read an essay in its raw, true form. And it works, because Noah is a good enough writer and can get the tone to be conversational enough for you to engage in the conversation without the need for artificial enhancements.
@@SGresponse I get where you're coming from, a lot of people use background music very poorly, but that doesn't reflect on its use as a concept. Speaking as a video editor, audio is one big piece of a complex machine being interwoven into (what will hopefully be accepted as) art. Yes, it's not always needed and can detract from a piece or sections of it, but that is due to how and when it is used. I disagree heavily with the summary as well, use of music doesn't point to narrative not having any flow or not being engaging, and I highly doubt that is the reason Noah doesn't use music. It would be like claiming that video games or film use music as an "artificial enhancement." Every aspect of a piece of art is one cog in the machine that makes the whole.
@@butHomeisNowhere___ I say never use BGM in video essays, i'm here specifically for the content, for the voice. I can go listen to music on my own time, I also don't need it to be an immersive experience, just give me the data without extra noise. P.S. That's why I can't do 'regular' podcasts, they waste so much time with music and sponsorships.
We're brothers for being sidequest oriented players squeezed by that vise grip of wanting to take your time soaking in the map vs. blitzing through the campaign in Diablo 4. Life-changing ending. You're the best doing it.
Noah, this is maybe my favorite video that you've done on a franchise. As you started speaking of Diablo 4 in such glowing terms at the start of that section, I decided to try it on Xbox game pass since it was added. I played a lot of 2 and 3 but a version of me that feels very different than who I am today. I tried for what felt like hours and nothing seemed to be working for me. There were no hooks and I felt no urge to go back. So I just didn't, and I didn't miss it. I came back to your video satisfied that I wouldn't mind spoilers. I think what I realized is that maybe I've found my Rat Park where I hadn't a few years ago when I was playing Diablo 2 and 3. Anyway, thanks as always.
i really appreciate this narration through a series i never engaged with. the progression from constructing the skinner box formula into exploiting it to wring out more of the players' money and time is still a familiar story, and it feels. devastating to think about everyone who was wrung out for their labor on the way. for anyone who wants more on the machine zone and the historical progression of video games in parallel to the gambling industry, i recommend the video 'gambling and the desire machine' and its sequel by jimmy mcgee. it's one of my favorite focused discussions of the subject
Thanks for this rec, it was a really good watch! I have a really hard time finding these sorts of indepth videos, often thinking it'll be analysis and then finding out it's summary and deciding to just read another book instead.
This is the greatest video game essay I have ever seen, a true masterpiece. I quit gaming 13 years ago for these exact reasons and it's great to hear you articulate these so clearly. My favorite moments, of course, were the research based citations in actual books. Also the conclusive parallel with the psychedelic experience felt quite appropriate and thoughtful. Thank you
Other UA-camrs on Diablo: here's why Diablo is fun! Noah on Diablo: it turns out happy rats don't drink opiate water and games can be a wider reflection of that. God I love this man.
I don't think I've heard anyone else so succinctly and completely outline exactly why I bounced off Diablo 3 when it was released, including my contempt for the direction the art style took and the implementation of the RMAH bleeding over into contempt for the story. It's always a joy whenever you upload, but this is definitely one of your best, Noah.
I just finished the section on Diablo 2 Resurrected.
As a former Vicarious Visions dev, I have a lot of emotions wrapped up in that year (2021).
While I had never been a huge Blizzard fanboy, I was initially excited to work with them after rolling off of Tony Hawk 1+2 (Resurrected had been in development in parallel for a little while at that point). Blizzard was THE development house. So many of my coworkers were fans.
It was a feeling turned deeply sour within the year. Between the lawsuit, and the loss of our studio head Jen O'Neal to the EXACT SAME kind of discrimination outlined in the lawsuit, and the unwillingness of Blizzard leadership to let our studio be relatively autonomous within the company, I ended up jumping ship within the year. Hell, most of our design department followed suit. Acti-Blizz vets, some of whom had been with the studio for 10+ years, all floated away in the wind.
I really appreciate the review you've given to that work they did. It was one of the best things to come out of the studio, but it was also the last thing.
vicarious visions is really close to me, and I always wanted to apply to work there. Sad to see its went down the crapper like that
@MrLlamaSC
I'm sorry to hear about that. VVisions did such a damn good job on D2R. Thank you for rocking what you could while you could!!!
No good deed goes unpunished
Thank you for crearing a sincerely faithful recreation of a beloved game, carving it out from the rest of the dredgepool that is current-day Blizzard products. Diablo 2 belongs to the glorious days of old, and the Resurrected version pays proper homage to it. It may just be the best remaster of any game I know of.
It warms my heart to see that Noah's patreon is doing so well that he can't read out all the names in a single take anymore. I remember the task took so long you could see the drift of the shadows from the movement of the sun comparing the beginning and the end of the segment.
and his patreon policy is the complete opposite of Diablo's Immortal, there's no other benefit to subscribing to his patreon other than having your name read at the end of a video, which 90% of viewers will skip, Noah doesn't lock his patreon posts either, people support him because they want to see him keep doing what he likes
The fact that the diablo immortal section is basically a dissection of how casinos work tells you everything you need to know about it. This is why you are one of the best out there Noah
I was surprised that he'd never heard, or would choose not to repeat, the "Diablo Immoral" moniker that was commonly used.
I avoid gotcha games and anything seemingly reliant on mtx for this exact reason. I like the idea of Diablo but the gameplay sounds like everything I hate
@@MrDalisclockThe thing that gets me is that Diablo Immortal, from what I understand, is somehow even worse than your average gacha game when it comes to monetization.
@@Calvin_Coolage Josh Strife Hayes did a Diablo Immortal video around the time the game came out that went into detail on the multiple pass monthly buy-ins and how they all played off one another. Pretty much 'what if all the gatcha mechanics all the time'.
More like Diablo Immoral am i right
it’s no exaggeration to say that Operant Conditioning is a foundational principle of game design. They taught us about BF Skinner’s work in literally my first term of game design school, and Diablo 2’s loot mechanics were one of the prime examples they used to explain it. Slot machines were the other big one.
BTW, burying this below the fold because I don’t want to “um ackshually” such a great video, but Japan’s legacy of Action RPGs dates back to 1984, with the release of Dragon Slayer and Hydlide on PC and Tower of Druaga in arcades. Japanese devs were less hesitant to break away from the genre’s tabletop roots because D&D didn’t reach their shores until 1985, years after they got their first taste of roguelikes. If you’re ever interested in exploring the parallel evolution of their take on real-time dungeon crawling, the “Ys” series from Nihon Falcom is a great place to start. Personally, I would love to see you talk about it some day.
It appears you're as based in your taste in other youtubers as you are in your own content.
I got into the ys series a few years ago and it's honestly astounding how far they go back considering they're not really a big name today but they still release some amazing games so excited for Ys X's western release
Ah, Your Holiness! Always a pleasure to see you in the comments section of other dope UA-camrs.
Make a response vid to Scamboli's brutal mockery of you
@@-Monad- Scamboli is a talentless hack. Next question.
Can't wait for Noah's tie-in travelogue where they visit the nine circles of Hell
The dark timeline: Noah makes a video about Dantes inferno
The light timeline: Noah makes a video about ultrakill
This comment wins for me.
Noah's Inferno
"The places that inspired Diablo" and he's just chilling in Salford, England
I didn't know he was traveling to Georgia
This might be the longest amount of time anyone has talked about Diablo 1, and i just really appreciate that.
Well, I'm 20 minutes in and I've already been reminded several times why you are, for my money, simply the best writer about games (and also travel) on UA-cam. I mean that. The best. I hope you're proud of yourself. Usually that phrase is only said sarcastically, but no, I really, really do hope that.
" I hope you're proud of yourself, Mr man"
He's in a completely different league than other video game essayists. If his videos would be sold in book form I would buy them. They're just so well written and thought out.
@@amysteriousviewer3772 I agree his language is so flowery and measured. He's by far my favorite essayist.
Other video game youtuber essayist just can't grab my attention and interest. Idk how Mr. Gervais does it. He's on a higher tier than the rest imho.
I completely fucking agree man, it's like basically purple prose but done right. I used to be a big fan of Jacob Geller but the way he phrased things just fucking annoyed me a lot, and then I found Gervais and haven't gone back. He also isn't a fuckin breadtuber lmfaoooo
At the end of 2023 I quit my job, looking to get back to freelance work I was more passionate about. In early January, my dad was rushed two hours to a Portland hospital and the next day had his foot amputated. The next month or so, in between snow storms and medical visits, I would drive out to his house two hours away to take care of his cat, his house, etc.
While I was out there I didn't have access to my PS5, but I did have his PS4, and access to my Blizzard account. So I started playing Diablo II again for the first time in a long time. I even managed to beat Diablo on Hell mode, though I didn't get into the really late game stuff like Uber Tristram.
As the weeks went by and my dad recovered and everything became more stable again (he's doing well now), I left Diablo II again. But the ending to this video really hit home. All I wanted to do when I was stuck out there was to escape the cage and click on monsters and get my little treats.
For anyone interested, here's a couple of works quoted by Noah in this video (Thanks again for an awesome essay, Noah!):
Natasha Dow Schüll - 2014- Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas
Lauren Slater - 2005 - Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
Roger Ebert - 2008 - "Critic" is a four-letter word
Lol I love the returning "Noah's old Pizza place manager" subplot.
It's incredibly wholesome.
Can't wait for a Netflix or HBO adaptation.
Makes me smile everytime. I remember the days of the old pizza place in years past!
A good boss leaves a lasting impact
My brother is ten years older than me. As a kid I always remember him playing Diablo, but I was too young to even be allowed to spectate him. By the time I was old enough, he had moved out and there hadn't been a new Diablo game in years, and I always felt like I missed out on that connection to my brother by not getting to play it with him.
We played Diablo 4 together earlier this year, and the biggest takeaway we both had at the end of our session together was, "Wow. This game really wants your money."
Thanks, Blizzard, for uh, all the memories.
One of my best experiences last year was playing diablo 2 resurrected with my brother. I have to recommend that if d4 let you down
Just have a lanparty together and see how far you can get in a weekend. I hope youll love it as much as we did
@@ahouyearno very much 2x!
"Wow. This game really wants your money." I cannot decide between a "oh palease" or "oh you sweet summer child" a reply to your little possible true story.
@@xBINARYGODxthe story is so mundane (not an insult btw) that I can't possibly see how you'd imagine it's fake. I mean I guess it could be? But it's such a mundane thing.
9:11
My wife and I were driving in shifts on our road trip, I took the night drive. I like having all that road to just listen to whatever and think peacefully. I picked this because I figured your tone was calm enough to not wake her. Just as I was listening to you talk about the battle pass, thinking of my own experiences and why I stopped playing certain games, you hit me with my birth name over 10 bucks and I guffaw loud enough to wake my wife. It was fun!
"To be both cunningly complex and also a selfish silly little goblin creature is the beating heart of the human experience". Man, Noah synthesized humanity in a one line in an essay about a video game. What a fucking legend
I feel like I understand the Disgaea series a little better now
Synthesized?
It makes me think of Pratchett calling humanity "Where the Falling Angel meets the Rising Ape" in a good way.
Noah is one of the best critics, possibly in the upper echelons of non-fiction writers generally, of our generation.
@@parkerdixon-word6295 yes, it probably comes from that
I was once in an "special ed" class in the middle school. We weren't slow or anything, but many of the students had serious behavioral issues. That's not important, what's important was our Teacher, MR. I-forgot-his-name.
He would often brag about how smart his son was and cite this game, diablo 2 as proof. He would talk about how much work and effort it was to play this game and how confusing the title was. And that his mere son of 13 figured out everything and was playing at a high level. At this time, my only experience with video games was whatever parents got me for the ps2. So I had little idea what PC gaming was like. So just hearing about armor stats and online play with others sounded pretty amazing and above everything I experienced before.
He also lied to us and said the best behaved student would get a custom-made laptop.
And I believed it all. I highly respected my teacher at the time. He was one of those "cool teachers". So... I had this image in my mind's eye of what diablo 2 was. DIABLO 2, a gamer's game. A game that made boys into men. A video game that required not only a good reflex but also, a clever mind. And a computer.
Now that I'm in my early 30's and whenever I heard about the diablo game series, I just think about how this father was so proud of his son for being good at a video game.
Behavioural issues aka when the teacher doesn't know how to do his job but can't admit that to himself so the school blames the student
As a teacher, I’d love to see my students apply their learning and ability to think to essays such as this.
Thinking about games is just as worthy an endeavor as thinking about any other art, and you do it well. Thanks.
Soon kids won't be able to write a complete sentence
@@RedWolfensteinDid you know when writing was popularized in Egypt, they worried people would be unable to memorize things? The kids will be fine ultimately, if the adults don’t write them off.
coincidentally, the same behaviorism is the cornerstone of our educational institutions...which is a fundamental part of the reason kids aren't commonly submitting anything like this 🙃
When I was a kid, I used to sit on the floor of my brother's room watching with supreme attention as he was mowing through demons in the first Diablo. He would always tell me not to ask questions or I'd have to leave and I would behave...for a time. Until it got to something that made my brain itch to the point that I just HAD to know what was going on. And despite fearing being kicked out, I'd push forward with my questions. And every single time, with much gusto and enthusiasm, he would go on long rants about the details of the game he'd gleaned and I would be enthralled and pushed further to ask more questions and we'd get caught in a delightful little loop.
My absolutely favorite memory of Diablo, though, is how our very religious grandmother came into the room while he was playing as a paladin one time and went "What're you playing? Baseball?" as his paladin whacked the head off a demon. He and I look at each other, me desperately trying not to laugh, and he nods his head and says "Yeah, grandma. It's baseball". I think about this every time I think about Diablo and it was a joke running between the two of us so deep that we almost exclusively referred to the games as "baseball" for years.
So, thank you for posting this and bringing up these wonderful memories, Mr. Noah Caldwell Gervais. This is, hands down, my new favorite video of yours.
Just.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing a heartwarming story of demonic decapitation.
I have a similar story to the baseball anecdote with my brother. My grandma was the only one in the family with a computer nice enough to run DOOM, which my brother and I had managed to find a copy of. (I think we stole it from somewhere!) We didn’t get along very well when we were younger, but one thing we’d perfectly cooperate on was playing it together. Neither of us had the coordination or practice to play the game by ourselves, so one of us would steer the game with WASD, and the other would aim and fire with the mouse or arrow keys. We actually managed to beat the game like that. Granted it was on the second easiest difficulty, but for two eight-year-olds it felt like quite an achievement.
Anyway our grandma came in one time, and she asked if we were playing our “king quest game”. She caught us by surprise, so her answer was the combined sound of a chainsaw revving and the pained screams of a demon being sawed in half. My brother managed to snap out of the surprise long enough to mutter “yep”, and then we just sort of sat there. She said “okay” and disappeared around the corner. I don’t think she was convinced in the slightest, but she probably let us keep playing because it was good to see me and my brother cooperating on something for once!
The good news is we get along much better now that we’re both adults. Your core memory just unlocked one of my core memories is all 😂
I am continuously impressed by this mans ability to turn a phrase. Barely 20 minutes in and I know exactly what he means "competing choirs argueing over a conference call" and will likely use exactly that description in the future.
*arguing
Hi noah, I'm a professional musician with quite bad tinnitus. The only way I can sleep at night is listening to audio to distract me from the ringing. It's the night of my 30th birthday and I'm happy to be listening to your essays as I fall asleep. Please never stop, your creativity is endlessly inspiring.
As someone with an embarrassing amount of hours in Destiny 2 (and who easily gets sucked into live service games in general), the whole second half of this video hit real hard. I always had trouble putting my urge to play into words, but "the machine zone" hits the nail on the head, and it's cathartic to hear it finally described. I see a lot of folks respond to criticism of this kind of design with "just stop playing" which makes sense, but it forgets that getting players addicted isn't an accident. It's a deliberate design choice.
This essay is a perfect example of how fundamentally anti-cynic Noah's writing style is; he's able to square up his fundamental love of the Diablo games with an unflinchingly frank dressing-down of all the shady economics and predatory crook-psychology that has come to underpin the series, in a way that doesn't make either element of his essay feel insincere or invalidated. He doesn't shrug his shoulders and go "well, what ya gonna do!" But neither does he in good conscience let stuff like this slide. It's just, SO refreshing to see a writer able to articulate these kinds of complex moral contradictions in a culture that I feel increasingly buffets between toxically manic positivity and gun-in-mouth pessimist declinism.
"buffets between" that imagery you created in our heads with your words is why UA-cam exists. It's not just Noah who is a great writer but his fans too.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned the absolutely incredible name Noah gave his Diablo 2 character: "Sir_Clicksalot"
his character's names always crack me up
Followed up by AperolSpritz in D4 😅
Hannah_Nomana in D2R cracked me up :))
And true to form, he used Normal Attack all the way to Throne of Destruction. Madlad.
There was also someone called Cheek Clappers at2:49:00
Brilliant analysis. As a former game developer (Skyrim/Fallout), I really appreciated the in-depth review here. What you ultimately exposed - the soulless loop of gameplay - is the reason I've largely stopped buying Diablo-esque games. I found the art in D4 to be absolutely, bar-none, top-notch. The gameplay felt soulless and uncaring and unrewarding. My character actually felt weaker with ever rising level, and the emptiness I feel at clearing a dungeon - knowing that dungeon will just pop back next time I load up the game - really made me feel terribly alone. What I mean by that is, with a game like Baldur's Gate, it feels like the developers have thought and cared about every aspect of the experience... it felt handcrafted, with love. Playing Diablo just makes me feel lifeless, machine-like -- as if the developers left halfway through Act 2 and just left me alone with their soulless slot machine.
Holy shit. I just had a baby and I'm staying with him in nicu. This couldn't have come at a better time to help lift my spirits. Thank you
Hope you guys are doing alright, and congrats brother.
congratulations!!!
I hope your spirits have been lifted, brother.
I get it; it's terrifying in a weirdly mundane way. You are made to feel like a pointless aperture, connected to the miracle of womanhood by virtue of her affection, and nothing else.
But believe me, being a father is so much more than duty.
Wait for the moment, it will come.
There is a moment when your child will do something that only you can understand.
This moment will not be in opposition to anything else. It will just be a moment no-one else will ever comprehend.
From now on, your comprehension of yourself will override anyone else's. From now on, you will see the everyday lies and hypocrisy with a diamond clarity.
As a man, you are aware of the towering lists of demands that you must meet.
Spend 30 minutes alone with your child.
None of these mean a thing. There is a truth and beauty to your existence which is purely your own.
Look at your child, and realise how much of your previous life is due for destruction. And then, smash into it.
The moment you feel the reality of being a father is the moment you realise you have everything it takes to be a hero.
This may read like weird bullshit written by a freak stranger.
If so, fine.
I just remembered how I felt, three years ago, when I was in your position.
Today, my son says I'm his best friend, and he clings to me when he's tired.
When he was born, he was born in a woman's world. This is fine. I'm no misogynist.
But 12/13 days later....how heavy the demand feels. Be the perfect father, the perfect lover, the perfect man (pragmatic, energetic, sensible, kind, patient).
People ignore you, and yet expect you to be a perfect person, perfect servant, perfect leader etc.
Anyway....if you need anything, a person to talk to, advice, to feel less alone on your freshly sprouted tree branch... Give me a shout. Or don't, and let this be a cringeworthy graffiti of gauche public embarrassment for me.
Jus sayin'
Congratulations!!! ❤️
Synergistic Software was my first full time gig in the industry. I started right after they shipped Hellfire. Sierra was such a mess, they had the Hellfire team (which I had joined) working on a LOTR game using the Diablo engine. I was in heaven, building a Mines of Moria tile set for about half a year. Then they shut us down. Turns out they had never actually secured the LOTR license!
up at 4am procrastinating on a project and Mr gervais blesses me, thank you sir!
Literally just woke up at the same time against my own will. I guess my spirit knew Noah uploaded
There’s dozens of us! Dozens!
good to know im not the only one that some times just wakes up at 4 in the morning, always makes me a little anxious when that happens.
Just woke up, still shitfaced from last night, to see this blessing on my home page
You gonna fail
This bears no direct relation to the video, but I want to comment here what I've thought about your videos for some time, and what some may relate to: you are the best anti-brain rot creator on UA-cam. Between your writing, your narration, and your minimal editing style, there is not a single thing about your videos that reminds me that the online experience is an attention economy.
When I feel distractible and foggy, I can just throw on one of these videos and immediately feel sharper and more attentive. I don't know if it's priming or what, but I deeply appreciate it.
It's not even just being asked to think; it's being shown how thinking can lead to such cool places. I love it too.
His videos have made watching a lot of UA-cam feel boring and manipulative and feel as meaningless as it often is.
I'm much more discerning with what I watch on UA-cam now and much less patience for shallow crap.
He need to do a little more editing imo, when he mentions other games that he’s comparing, or goes over the iconic sounds, he just continues with the same background gameplay…
@@bizzzzzzle I have ADHD, I'm not watching the video anyway unless Noah says something about what's on screen. It may as well be the pipe screensaver; I'm here to hear him talk.
You're so right about the sound scape. I can still hear Deckard Cain, clear as day, saying "Stay a while and listen", a town portal opening, the "twip" of a bow, the swinging of a sword or club and the moan of a ghoul. Ofcourse the obligatory cows going "moo ma moo moo moo" 😅
see the end
Not to forget the oh so satisfying sound of slaying the hidden ones... 🙂
“Rakanishu!”
For me, THE sound from the series which stuck with me is fire enchanted enemies going SPLAT. Immensely gratifying.
I've toyed with the thought of reinstalling D2 LOD forever and Noah finally pushed me over the edge lol. Goodbye next month of my life.
Never seen this guy's videos before. He's articulate af. Subscribed.
As a former high-school baalrun grinder myself I feel I need to point out that two games in one deal has been there since diablo2. The vast majority of people in the endgame were farming gear or leveling for their highly specific PvP builds, there were even 3v3 tournaments going on with teams based on synergies of different classes and builds. There is a surprising level of depth to character and gear minmaxing, and an immense amount of satisfaction in coming up with and perfecting new builds tied to specific gear choices, perfectly juggling entire spreadsheets of breakpoints for casting and hit recovery frames, resistance stacking, etc. and later on, in mastering the mechanical aspect of actually fighting other players with the character you engineered. I guess it's just a shame a lot of casual players are gatekept from experiencing it.
3 hours for a level in Diablo 4? *laughs in Diablo 2 level 99*
You are quite literally the best essayist on UA-cam
He is
Real
Wow, I just randomly thought of the channel after like a year in jail and dropped in to see what’s up and only an hour ago you released this masterpiece on Diablo, truly I am blessed. I have to work tomorrow so you’re going to talk to me sleep again Noah, just like old times
One thing I'll add about the switch from turn-based to real time: if I recall the story correctly, Brevik was partly opposed to switching to real-time in part because he assumed that it would take a ton of work to get it working, and that they couldn't afford to take such a risk if it didn't work out. But then he decided to sit down and see if he could do it, and found out that because of how the game was architected, getting the game to run in real time was actually almost trivial! He was able to get a build working in a few hours and so the staff, after weeks of arguing about it, actually got a chance to play the game in real-time and once they did most opposition to switching to real-time disappeared. It's interesting to think that it's due to that accident of how they decided to design the engine that allowed them to take the risk of making the game real time, otherwise we might never have gotten Diablo as it exists
The transition from games to money generators is most clear in the case of Angry Birds. The first game was a set of interesting challenges. The second game was a set of boring challenges made to frustrate players into spending money.
Angry Birds really does say a lot about our society
Sorry, I know you won't read this but I just want to get this out there.
Been going through a bit of a rough patch lately, so seeing you had a new video made me happy. Seeing it was about a game series that I grew up with as well (I'm 36) made it even better. Then, the little opening rant about "back in my day" just made me burst out laughing. Thank you for releasing your videos, you come across as an old friend that I like to hear from time to time.
Have I ever played Diablo? No. Am I gonna watch this video? SOUNDS LIKE A HELL OF A TIME!
😂agreed. Noah!
@@englishwithmrkbhillPick up and play Diablo 2, your dopamine will appreciate it.
Cringe
Yeah, Diablo missed me, although a lot of my high school friends were into it. The only "click on monsters" ARPG to really grab me was the first Torchlight. And only the first one! Somehow the second didn't grab me the same way.
Same
Noah I am very sick right now. I think im on the recovering side but I get very fatigued even when leaving my bed for short time. Your calm, inquisitive voice has kept me company in the bursts that I can handle listening to something without getting a splitting headache. Thank you.
Diablo always felt like the best manifestation of the wall between blizzard gamers and other gamers that used to exist in my mind. Diablo people weren't necessarily players of other games, they were store managers, bosses, a parent's coworker, mechanics, dads, people who in my experience weren't really "nerds" and didn't have the more 'gamer' vibe. Of course the idea of only gamers playing games is very narrow and in fact there's nothing weird about people being fans of just one series, but it was a combination of that with this "blizzard games aren't like other games" PC game prestige the company used to have that really coloured my impression of them. I remember being shocked how many "normies" came out to buy Diablo 3, many of them ending up horribly burned when it wasn't like Diablo 2 the game they had casually broken over their knees in hundreds of sessions inbetween their tax returns and watching the football.
It was just an illusion I had but then it kinda burst like a bubble after Diablo 3, Overwatch, WoW, etc failed to win people over. Still saw the same people turn out for Diablo 4 all these years later. There were way few of them this time tho.
Makes sense seeing as how Diablo 1 is apparently very hard and requires attention to detail as well as resource management and planning. Is it no coincidence that the types of people you listed would be very adept at Diablo since they have jobs that require a keen sense of management, planning and detail?
@@4T3hM4kr0n I've played through all of Diablo 1 a couple years ago and honestly I wouldn't say it requires much resource management or planning. It is hard yes, but mostly on a mechanical level. I was playing the warrior/whatever its called class, and basically my entire playthrough was "grab the biggest stick, wear the heaviest armour, and run at people." The resource management wasn't anything deeper than "try not to get hit so you can save on potions" and the planning was "that room has 5 enemies, try to fight as few at once as possible." Maybe the experience is different for the other classes, idk.
They're the kinds of games I remembered my mom playing when I was young, alongside ironically Darkstone and the "Tycoon" type games.
I watched this on release and just 6 months later, in October of 2024, I'm already rewatching it. God bless you Noah!
i dont even play diablo games, but a 4 hour long video essay from a quality essaymaker at a time where i am DESPERATE for something to watch? how heck to the yeh
For those interested in the systems of economy in Diablo Immortal, I would like to reccommend Josh Strife Hayes' video essay on the topic.
As always, a phenomenal essay Noah, and probably a healthier run time than the last one 🤣
i loved the original diablo as a kid, i rented it on the PS1 and played through co-op with my little brother, very good memory - i played wizard and "not enough mana" continues to be a phrase i repeat every once and a while
I may steal that. "Hey! Can you pull an extra shift this week?" they'll ask. "Not enough mana," I'll reply.
Something that I think has helped me settle with your channel being my favorite, in addition to the quality writing and interesting videos, is that it feels like you have about the same tolerance for game length as I do. I have a friend who's probably put over a thousand hours into fallout 4, friends who are perfectly co tent grinding away for hours on seasona of fortnite, but I've always felt so exhausted by games that aren't meant to end, and it feels nice finding such a good essayist who feels similarly about that
Right, I'm only four minutes in, and I'm already compelled to pause the video and remark that eight-year-old me once sat down and steadfastly counted how many licks it took me to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Now thirty-one-year-old me is delighted beyond all measure to learn that not one, but *four* universities somehow not only ran actual studies on the same question, but arrived at no different an answer than I did sitting in my childhood bedroom one random spring afternoon.
In a four-hour video essay about fucking _Diablo._
This, right here, is why Noah is inimitable.
Bru I read that whole paragraph and you didn't even say how many licks it took, 1/10
@@-Monad-exactly.
@-Monad- Like I said, the same figure the university studies found: about two hundred! (Well, actually, my exact number was two hundred eighty-one - I remember because I made a big production out of emblazoning a piece of printer paper with my discovery and didn't get rid of it for an embarrassingly long time - but it didn't occur to me until midway through my experiment that turning the Tootsie Pop every now and then to lick a different spot undermined the whole logic of the test, and by that point eight-year-old me couldn't be fucked to go back and correct my methodological error by way of a fresh Tootsie Pop. 😂 So if I hadn't done that, yeah, I'd've been left sitting at right around two hundred.)
I honestly don't understand your original comment. How is it profound that Noah reminded you of licking a lollipop when you were a child? I fail to see any correllation.@@JustAndre92
@KajiCarson Oh, I don't mean to say the actual personal anecdote is profound in the slightest. 😅 What I was trying to demonstrate was, what other video essayist would even think to draw a parallel between the deteriorating design ethos of the _Diablo_ franchise and a long-bygone ad campaign for suckers - let alone pull it off so evocatively that a childhood memory I haven't thought about in close to half my lifetime hit me with that much clarity and force? So yes, the memory itself may not be at all profound, but the difference between how everyone else on this platform approaches gaming analysis and how Noah does can't rightly be described as anything _but_ profound.
Hearing about actual creative vision buried under Diablo immortal is heartbreaking and a good reminder. A lot of these games have genuinely great game designers trying desperately to make something good and compelling but fundamentally compromised by the greed from above. It's sad really, think of the game we could have gotten.
Support artists, fuck capitalism. The dualism of modern media.
You drop a game about demons and hell on easter. Noah, you are a gem.
AND of heaven's rampant hostility against mortals and it's utter hypocricy.
That's a major element in Diablo too.
And coincidentally the day Diablo 4 got added to Xbox/PC Game Pass
Based Noah always talking about the most interesting aspects of a work and glossing over bs where many other games writers get bogged down (i.e. squabbling about precise numbers and other unimportant specificities, or spending too long on rote explanation aka reading wikipedia into the microphone)
never played Diablo, but a Noah Essay is always worth it to watch
I think many are in the same boat 😅
@@rizon98I played the first two games A LOT, so this one is a big deal for me - but yes I have been watching every one of Noah’s videos, and even the ones on games I’m unfamiliar with are fascinating.
@@hideshiseyes2804 Yes same! Except I've only played Diablo 3 (can't say I liked it that much sadly)
Great great video, thank you! Love how you manage to talk 4 hours about monster clicker make numbers go up, and it's 4 hours filled with interesting, funny, and genuinely deep thoughts and factoids.
Been holding out for this since the Warcraft retrospective! Already hooked from the intro music.
can I just say... that new mic or recording setup you got was absolutely worth it. you sound like a midnight radio host, your voice is so like, crunchy. it sounds great, and I think it enhances the experience of wathching a lot.
Oh you are a cruel man, Mr. Gervais. It is 1am and I need very badly to go to sleep and you are making that a very hard thing to do.
You can sleep any day of the week. But you only get a Noah video every few months.
@@armedwombat6816 Noah is how I get to sleep on any given night. Checkmate Atheists.
gay
@@timyo6288fellas, is enjoying a man’s UA-cam videos gay
@@lucasgibson2131 Depends I guess, but I'd say no in most cases.
Noah, I can't tell you how much I smile when you post a new video.
It doesn't matter if I've ever played a game or even like a game but I'll listen to you talk about it for hours.
Had a wave of relief seeing your video right as I was about to go on break at work. Absolute treat to listen to. 3 hours in and going to finish it tonight. Love all of your videos Noah, keep up the amazing work.
absolutely fantastic as always Noah! you always hit it out of the park ;p
as a side note, i just LOVE that the patreon supporters are so numerous, that it's no longer feasible to read out all the names at the end of the video. im so glad the channel has caught so many peoples attention. ill miss the supporter name reads, but i love the reason why they stopped
I love how excited I get to see a new video from you. With how long passes between videos, it's always a big event with my friends! Looking forward to finishing this one!
Same! I woke up this morning and was like "hell yeah its gonna be a good day", not because it's easter, but because I saw Noah in my notifications lmao
At first I was dubious about starting a 4hr video, but figured I would give it a shot - after all it's nothing compared to the hours I sank into D1 and D2. A few minutes in I was hooked, and not once was I disappointed. In fact I'm so impressed that much like an amazing new restaurant, I will have to return again in a day or two and digest again.
Blizzard haven't earned any money from me for MTX or skins or season passes or whatever from D3/DI/D4, but I may very well buy D4 based on this video, which is somewhat ironic. But it sounds like, for the story, it's worth it.
My man coming back to save my ass, on Easter Sunday no less, can I get an amen.
Christ is Risen!
Another fantastic deep dive. Well done, Noah. I'm certainly going to check out those books mentioned. Stay healthy.
Just cancelled my Easter plans... here we gooooo
You can't see your family and then watch the video? Go see your family dude lol
@@lawrenceragnarok1186 these videos are the only family I need
@@Uultraaaviolettt that is very sad
@@lawrenceragnarok1186Just a wee joke my friend! Don't worry yourself, I haven't abandoned all responsibilities x
Well, this is the sixth time I've watched this video, I think it just may be my newest favourite video essay
Diablo was the game I sat on the floor watching my dad play when I was a kid. It was the game that sort of got me thinking about what games could be, what secrets there were in those digital worlds. It was what excited me, and then, later in life, it was what disappointed me the most. I'm only just starting this video, but I am tremendously excited to see what you have to say about this part of my own personal history.
This reminds me of when I would go over to my friend’s house in elementary school and his dad would often be playing diablo 2. Sometimes i would just spend hours watching him play it and talking to him about different things.
I had much the same experience, coming from a family of gamers. Watching my dad play Diablo II and my mom play, ironically, Darkstone.
This is noahs funniest video. The back half is filled with really great jokes. Love this guy
Always enjoy these.
I understand that it's an essay format, but in cases of talking about foley or the Tristram theme at such length, I felt like it might be useful to break from tradition and play us some of the sounds/songs that you're talking about.
+1, personally I've never played a Diablo, so I was frustrated that I didn't know what he was talking about
I hear ya, but it’s very easy to pause, type “Tristram Theme” into UA-cam’s search bar, and find that context for yourself. I do it all the time, looking up big vocab words like “nadir” and “turgid”.
I understand and empathize with your frustration, but this is very easy to painlessly rectify
Also he does play part of it, as the introduction song! (guess who found that out when she decided to look up a video of that song from Diablo 1 and 2)
@@AllDaySure The main purpose of a video discussing a game is to show us the game and let us hear it, otherwise a simple article would have sufficed. It costs nothing to add ost or sounds when they are mentioned in a video.
If you think about it that way, I could have written the video myself, so what's the point of watching it ?
Without the sounds effect and the ost, the viewing is impacted when he talks about the game's sounds effect and the ost. It's not dramatic, but it's still a problem.
@@BatmaneJesusyou couldn't have written this video yourself, no. you're not that thoughtful or skillful at writing.
Wait, you actually played Diablo Immortal?! Bro, there's commitment, and then there's masochism. None of us would have judged you for skipping it.
You say that, but the literal first comment on this channel was someone judging Noah for skipping the 2004 Brotherhood of Steel game.
@@timothymclean do we care what that person thinks? They sound like an idiot. Besides, even if i thought someone was an idiot, i wouldn't make them play Diablo Immortal, it's just cruel.
Addiction by Design mentioned!
Excellent and useful video, thank you so much for the tremendous work.
UA-cam, I have multiple watches on videos of this man that are longer than most workdays. How does it take the algorithm more than a workWEEK to notify me that he has a new one?
One of the few channels that keeps me on this platform. Keep up the great writing.
And Also
Channel 5
Crime Zone
Warlockracy
The Bad Movies Bible
Accursed Farm
Second Tough
Joel Haver
Shaun
Matt Orchard
Clever Dick Films
Kim Justice
Ragnarox
hbomberguy
The Morbid Zoo
The video really comes to a head at the end and is so satisfying. Makes wonder why I always gravitate towards a game like Diablo when my irl life feels chaotic or falling apart and tend to shift further away from a slower paced narrative experience like red dead 2. Anyway excellent video
'It's like a part time job' except you're paying it money instead getting paid. Hearing about all the exploitation makes me sick
These videos deserve every second spent on them. No doubt the very best video critic & analyst out there.
As someone who was gifted the 3rd game because I played Path of Exile and was gifted it "because you like those games" and never "got" Diablo I am very curious about it.
Noah's essays usually at least give me an idea for why some people enjoy something.
Diablo 2 is the correct one to play.
Gifting Diablo 3 is funny to me because PoE started as basically a fan version of Diablo 3 because it was taking so long to come out. It was made by fans of Diablo 2 making their ideal version of Diablo 3 and it ends up being widely different because of it. Definitely give Diablo 2 a look. I think you'd be surprised how much of PoE can be found rooted in there.
@@Micky96 seems to be a common thing people tell me when I tell that.
I just might.
Once again, stellar work! I am amazed how you managed to contribute something new to existing D1/2/3/4/Immortal discussion while still giving your narrative a strong theme of the gameplay loop and with such a strong beginning and ending. You also told the other side of the story behind Hellfire's development and expressed your fondness of D4's campaign (and gameplay up to lvl 50), which many people shit upon. Bravo!
People didn't like Diablo IVs campaign? That's like the one thing most critics were positively surprised about: Blizzard actually had the chops for serious dramatic writing after years of camp and WoW expansions of mixed quality storytelling. Even Yahtzee Croshaw liked it!
I can't watch it right now, but you are my "Hunter S. Thompson" x "David Simon" as far as writing for vidya goes. You are an absolute beacon of giving the artform and medium what it deserves: respect, passion, due diligence, humor, context and most of all, love for it all. Cheers from HTX.
I think the way you describe the point of killing the monsters to more efficiently kill monsters is spot on. I spent hundreds of hours in Diablo 3 tediously collecting best in slot gear for my Monk only to immediately quit playing once I had done so because there was nothing left to collect.
First time tuning in to any of your work and I'm genuinely blown away. Ive always thought of Diablo, and games in general, in terms of clicking and it's such a funny way frame the whole concept. But also by your comparative language and your ability to reduce things to its basest nature, but not in an overly cynical or shitty way. The bit about sending electricity through metal and sand to create a hallucinogenic state but having that be the audible reward of coins..jesus. This is fucking brilliant and I'm only at about the 20 minute mark. Reckon I'll stay a while and listen.
You are in for a treat going through his backlog. Start with the ones that strike you, but don’t sleep on the travel videos.
@jdf123 thanks for the suggestions. The stoke is real 🤙
This came out an hour after I was looking at your channel and I was glad to be notified at 4am and could be rest assured that you still have that same energy when I found you in my teens. Thanks Noah.
Thank you for being among the elite making videos on games. Your insight and analysis never fail to delight me.
never played these games but really enjoyed this video, especially the discussions surrounding gambling, casino soundscapes, and microtransactions. I liked the note you ended about analyzing ones own consumption. great stuff, thanks
20:53 your experience growing up with Diablo is identical to time. I was obsessed with Diablo in about 5th grade and then spent most of my freshman year playing Diablo 2
" are you ok, dude" yeah I got too drunk and lost my character again" killed me. I actually laughed out loud really loudly at that 😂
We've missed you, Noah. It's really good to see you again.
This isn't a complaint about the upload schedule. Do what you have to do, quality work takes time. I just wanted to say thanks.
Noah- just got back from a trip and stoked that you dropped a new video. I still go back to videos you made six years ago and give them a listen. They hold up, but I hope you know how insanely far you’ve come in your performance and production. You’re the best there is at what you do.
So happy that you don't put background music in your videos, it's one of the many reasons I keep returning to your channel, keep up the amazing work Gervais!
As someone who does voice over lore videos on another channel, why don't you like background music? Just curious :)
I've been watching for years and have never noticed that....damn
@@butHomeisNowhere___
There are three ways to incorporate BGM into a video essay:
1. Constant throughout
2. Very sparse
3. Often
So let's talk *pitfalls* of each approach (note: each may have a positive aspect too, but I'll focus just on the negatives the way I see them):
*1.*
You show that what you are saying is not enough to get the people engaged. Trouble is, channels that do it usually use a constant 1-minute loop, that is one "mood". So to keep up with the BGM, the essay itself needs to be constantly one mood. The music is a drone, the content becomes a drone (see Overly Sarcastic Productions as a prime example of good content being delivered as a drone with broken mood; see The Crime Reel for a similar thing, but more mediocre but also more on-point mood-wise).
*2.*
Essentially you do it either as a transition or as an emotional hook. The latter is exploitative and the former hints at you not being good enough to convey where your thoughts have come to an end and a new thought comes around OR just being crap at segue.
*3.*
So now you've learned to match the BGM with the mood OR you have decided to use the music from the medium in question. And now your video is tied down not as a whole piece to be one "mood" but instead a paragraph or two. Either that or you're still failing mood-matching. Worse than that - when the music goes quiet, it is expected to enhance the tension, but just as well you might not have had a good piece to match the mood or just ran out of music.
In summary: BGM is a crutch that is used to enhance the flow of the narrative piece. If you need that crutch - your narrative is subpar. The only place it has is where you are literally discussing the very thing that is playing in the background. Notice that Noah (or rather Nate at this point) didn't play any music, even when it was the primary topic of the discussion. It is because he's having a discussion with you. You are being read an essay in its raw, true form. And it works, because Noah is a good enough writer and can get the tone to be conversational enough for you to engage in the conversation without the need for artificial enhancements.
@@SGresponse I get where you're coming from, a lot of people use background music very poorly, but that doesn't reflect on its use as a concept. Speaking as a video editor, audio is one big piece of a complex machine being interwoven into (what will hopefully be accepted as) art. Yes, it's not always needed and can detract from a piece or sections of it, but that is due to how and when it is used.
I disagree heavily with the summary as well, use of music doesn't point to narrative not having any flow or not being engaging, and I highly doubt that is the reason Noah doesn't use music. It would be like claiming that video games or film use music as an "artificial enhancement." Every aspect of a piece of art is one cog in the machine that makes the whole.
@@butHomeisNowhere___ I say never use BGM in video essays, i'm here specifically for the content, for the voice. I can go listen to music on my own time, I also don't need it to be an immersive experience, just give me the data without extra noise.
P.S. That's why I can't do 'regular' podcasts, they waste so much time with music and sponsorships.
We're brothers for being sidequest oriented players squeezed by that vise grip of wanting to take your time soaking in the map vs. blitzing through the campaign in Diablo 4. Life-changing ending. You're the best doing it.
Seeing this notification made me so happy! Thank you so much for making your essays
Noah, this is maybe my favorite video that you've done on a franchise. As you started speaking of Diablo 4 in such glowing terms at the start of that section, I decided to try it on Xbox game pass since it was added. I played a lot of 2 and 3 but a version of me that feels very different than who I am today.
I tried for what felt like hours and nothing seemed to be working for me. There were no hooks and I felt no urge to go back. So I just didn't, and I didn't miss it. I came back to your video satisfied that I wouldn't mind spoilers. I think what I realized is that maybe I've found my Rat Park where I hadn't a few years ago when I was playing Diablo 2 and 3. Anyway, thanks as always.
Looking forward to watching this. Happy Easter, Noah!
This is the best channel on youtube and it has been for 10 years
Another fantastic piece of work! Thank you for all the effort, these are easily some of my favorite videos on the entirety of the Internet!
Can't believe I missed this for a month, I didn't realize how much I missed your content till I saw it
Your essays are absolute art, man
Such a joy to see another of your videos pop up in my feed!
i really appreciate this narration through a series i never engaged with. the progression from constructing the skinner box formula into exploiting it to wring out more of the players' money and time is still a familiar story, and it feels. devastating to think about everyone who was wrung out for their labor on the way. for anyone who wants more on the machine zone and the historical progression of video games in parallel to the gambling industry, i recommend the video 'gambling and the desire machine' and its sequel by jimmy mcgee. it's one of my favorite focused discussions of the subject
Thanks for this rec, it was a really good watch! I have a really hard time finding these sorts of indepth videos, often thinking it'll be analysis and then finding out it's summary and deciding to just read another book instead.
This is probably your best one yet, Noah. Truly impressive the scope of issues in gaming you successfully frame through the analysis of Diablo.
to me, diablo 4 always felt like it was made by somebody who watched the crucible and thought "wow, i cant believe how many witches got away with it"
This is the greatest video game essay I have ever seen, a true masterpiece. I quit gaming 13 years ago for these exact reasons and it's great to hear you articulate these so clearly. My favorite moments, of course, were the research based citations in actual books. Also the conclusive parallel with the psychedelic experience felt quite appropriate and thoughtful. Thank you
Other UA-camrs on Diablo: here's why Diablo is fun!
Noah on Diablo: it turns out happy rats don't drink opiate water and games can be a wider reflection of that.
God I love this man.
You are so good at what you do! “Always receive satisfaction, never actually become satisfied” is a dark and perfect analogy.
The whole time I was playing Diablo IV, I was complaining about the "loot loop" in my best Noah Caldwell-Gervais voice.
I don't think I've heard anyone else so succinctly and completely outline exactly why I bounced off Diablo 3 when it was released, including my contempt for the direction the art style took and the implementation of the RMAH bleeding over into contempt for the story.
It's always a joy whenever you upload, but this is definitely one of your best, Noah.