Triple Click - Two Weekends With The Diablo IV Beta

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Kirk, Jason, and Maddy have spent a whole bunch of time with Diablo IV! Well, act one of it. The Triple Click gang talks about their time with the beta, the classes they played, their overall thoughts, and much much more. After all, you can't click click click click click click click click click click click without triple click!One More Thing: Kirk: The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson)Maddy: Metroid FusionJason: Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone (Benjamin Stevenson)Links: Triple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Re-adjust your mouse pads, flex your fingers. On your marks, get set, click. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we talked about the Diablo 4 beta, which includes a lot of clicking, but also hitting the space bar so you can dash. More importantly, this game kind of reminds us of Destiny 2. Uh-oh. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Shreier, and I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome. Hello. Hello. Kirk and I are back from San Francisco. We spent like half a week together. It was great.

Yeah, it was super fun. To celebrate Max Fund Drive, right? It wasn't anything else going on that. It was just to celebrate Max Fund Drive. No, we got to hang out in GDC and Maddie. I'm excited for all three of us to be able to hang out in New York when you come, when you both come for the live show. So soon.

Yeah, Kirk and I, it was really cool, despite COVID going around and hitting everybody. Yeah, it was lovely, a little bit fraught. Public stuff is always fraught these days, but it was nice to see you in real life and to just get to hang out and talk, not for content, but just, you know, because we're friends. Yes. Oh, GDC. Anyway, let's get back to the real event that's going on right now, which is Max Fun Drive. Max is a Fun Drive. So exciting.

So exciting. This is the second week. And we put out our show on Thursday. So that means that you only have one more day to become a. member of Max Fun and get the potential Max Fun drive rewards and warm fuzzy feelings, which are totally different and way more powerful than the warm fuzzy feelings than you might get the rest of the year from becoming a member. Still valuable, but the warm fuzzies are so important this time. And we will tell you more in the rest of the show and the breaks about what you can get. But for now,

just know you can go to maximum fun.org slash join. You can become a member and you get bonus episodes from us and also other things. We also have one of those bonus episodes dropping today. It is a beans cast about the Last of Us HBO show, which is actually pretty different from the games. And we're going to get into those differences. I think it's fair to say we're going to spill the beans about. I think that's a safe prediction. We have not recorded this yet, but both last of us games and the show.

So strap in, we're going to get into it. All the beans. They're all on the table getting. analyzed by us. But, hey, let's get into it. Let's talk about some video games, shall we? Yeah. Yeah, video games, video games.

All right. We did a triple play today. We all played Diablo 4. The beta. A lot of Diablo 4. I mean, I'm sure it's a very big game, but a pretty big beta. Yeah, Kirk, I hear, got all the way to that end of the story. Did you get to the 25 level cap, Kirk?

Or did any of us hit that? No. No, I did not. But yeah, I got to the final available story mission. So there's still a lot of stuff I didn't see, but I did play all the story missions. So I can really speak to the narrative of the beta, which I'm sure is what everyone is really. Yeah, everybody wants to know the story. I mean, you joke, but that was actually the thing that impressed me most is that like a Diablo game has a cool story that has interesting cinematics and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I will say, I thought the Cinematics in Diablo 3 were very cool as well. I don't know that the story had much going on, but I remember thinking the cinematic looked really cool in Diablo 3. They have like some new storytelling forums in this, like the whole, even at the very beginning of the game, when you get knocked out and they're like carrying you on a cart that I've never seen that in a Diablo game before. Yeah. It was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. And also the story is nonlinear apparently. You can play it in whatever order you want. and I think it's pretty short. I guess Kirk can speak to that.

But let's get into it. So I played as a barbarian. I only played for one of the two weekends that it was available just for, you know, several hours of my time. I didn't try any of the other classes, but I did play with a couple friends who played as necromancers. And that was really cool to see. The necromancer has like a million skeletons that can follow after it

is one of its powers. so you have to be very cognizant of which skeletons are skeletons you need to hit Diablo style and which skeletons are merely the Necromancer's minions. That's my note on playing with the Necromancer in Friendly Fire. There's no friendly fire in Diablo. Can you imagine? And I also played Barbarian and Single Player. But you two played together, and I want to hear about that, right?

Or no, you didn't. Jason, you're shaking your head. Jason, what were the circumstances of your play-through of the Diablo 4-Beta? Yeah, I played all by myself because, yeah, I guess we just didn't sync up at any point. I was also only able to play at specific times. Jason, you should have told us this. Is this the bonus content for Max Fun Drive if you become a number? I think we should release a singing free episode to Max Fun members where they don't have to listen to that.

And for the for non-members, you just erupted in the song every once in a while. For people who only want to listen on that. Exactly. Something for everybody. Sort of a content filter. That's called accessibility. It's options. Yeah.

So I was playing by myself mostly. Diablo, it's interesting. It's a good multiplayer game, but it's also a good, like, podcast or TV show game, right? Oh, yeah. It's one of those fun, mindless type things. And I'm very curious about it. I actually really enjoyed. it more than I was expecting to because as you guys may remember as listeners may remember,

well, as you guys definitely remember, as listeners may remember, we talked a lot a little while ago about like whether the Diablo formula is still relevant today, what it looks like, and the solution that Blizzard has come up with for this game is to make it destiny. And I think that actually works. I enjoyed walking around this big open world and running into other players and finding public events that like I could stand on a pressure panel and fight off enemies. It was like essentially like playing destiny. And then I could go into instant dungeons, instant dungeons and do those by myself.

I was really interested in the skill tree and like what that has to offer. Really enjoyed playing it on PC with the controller. I actually tried all of the classes except for, uh, except for Rogue, which I know which Kirk can talk about. But I tried all the other four. and was just, yeah, really enjoying, really enjoyed sorceress in particular. That'll probably be my main. And, yeah, just really enjoyed soloing it and playing through a bit of the story and doing a couple of cool bosses.

And yeah, just really enjoy the experience. I think it's really cool and I'm just really impressed by it, especially the music. Music is really impressive. Oh, the music is, I really enjoyed the music. It's just a shame because I'll probably never listen to it because aforementioned podcast slash video watching game. but I appreciate it. Maybe I can listen to it while I do other things. Well, you can play the music as well as having a podcast layered on top of it.

And then it's just like you have a soundtrack to the podcast. One thing I'll say is that I think one of the kind of cruxes of our conversation, or at least the takeaway that I came to it with, of a conversation about like is there room for a Diablo game today, is like where do you put the interesting decision making as opposed to the just kind of like mindless Ra-rah-rah blowing up enemies, blowing up demons and stuff. And I think that in this case, like in Diablo 2, there's going to be some interesting skill tree decision-making.

And so I'm curious about that. Curious to see what kind of combinations you can play around with, especially in conjunction with some of the unique items. I already was finding items that play around with the skill tree in interesting ways. And then also the new aspect system where you can customize things even more. So, yeah, very curious to see what the final game is and see what the end game's like, but definitely has to be hooked. I'm definitely excited about it.

Mm-hmm. So, Kirk, what was your experience? Did you play alone? I did. I only played alone. I mean, there were other people there. I should have gotten you guys in my group. I feel horrible now.

But go on. Well, it would have been fun. I played the first weekend, the closed beta, because I got a code from PR. They'll let me play that. And then I was expecting not to be here for the second weekend. But then there was a whole COVID exposure scare. though I currently don't have it, but I had to fly home early. But that meant that I could play a little bit of Diablo.

I actually realized it was still on. I was playing some Resident Evil 4. And then I was like, hey, wait a minute. I can load my rogue back up and I can finish the story to this thing. So that's what I did over a couple more hours. Love that moment when you realize you have a game. So I played as a rogue, which was the most similar to the Demon Hunter, which was my main in Diablo 3.

I've played as the other classes, but that was the one for whatever reason that I played the most. and it was the one that I played the most in the Reaper of Souls version of Diablo 3, which was the version that they released for consoles, which added controller support and sort of just like added a whole bunch of stuff to the game. But for me, the controller support was really eye-opening for me and a lot of other people where it became clear, oh, hey, Diablo works really well as a sort of bullet hell, you know, isometric action RPG. And the Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 was very much a, you know,

know, shooty, shooty kind of character. You had full auto crossbows and, you know, also all kinds of long-range attacks. So it becomes very much like a bullet-held game where there's, you know, fireballs flying all around and you're rolling and dodging and shooting and kind of keeping out of range of enemies, which is a very different way of playing than, say, the barbarian that you played as Maddie. So it is a kind of fun mode of the game. So I started playing the rogue that way as well and then respect my character, which is a nice thing in the beta and hopefully in the game, too.

is it makes it very easy to just totally respect all of your abilities, which is cool because the rogue at least has a much denser skill set and a more varied skill set than I remember from Diablo 3. And that means the road can actually be a melee character or a range character or a hybrid and works really well as a hybrid because their main melee attack causes the vulnerable state, which is then what you kind of build the whole character around

as it makes an enemy vulnerable, which makes them take 20% more damage. which is super useful, both solo and I'm assuming in multiplayer as well, where you make a boss vulnerable, somebody else who does a lot of damage just starts hitting it, and you can kind of combine your abilities in that way. And that was mainly tied to a melee attack. So once I changed that, that was actually something I did after I got back and played during the open beta weekend.

It really changed the way I was playing, and I was struck by how very different the road can be depending on how you build the character, which is pretty cool, because I I know there are different builds in Diablo 3, but this felt really remarkably different. So I guess taking into account the fact that the rogue is a very hybrid class, maybe more so than some of the other characters, like it's designed to be melee ranged however much you want. That was really fun, and I think I probably will main that character in the game itself. So I have a lot of other thoughts about other things, but I'll say I played a rogue and had a good time. So what you're describing right there, Kirk, is actually kind of taken, brought back from Diablo 2.

And I think the re-specking question, that's an interesting dilemma. I actually think, at least in the beta, it's like free to level 15 and then you have to pay to respect. It gets more expensive, yeah. A little bit of history here. Diablo 1 didn't have skill trees. Diablo 2 added skill trees, but it was totally permanent. So you really had to pick a build and like know what you were doing and you could make mistakes that just like totally fucked up your character made it so you can get like past a certain point.

But Diablo 2, those skill trees were divided into like kind of categories based on the type of build you wanted to do. So for the Amazon, which was that game's version of the rogue, it was there was like Javelin Amazon and then you could do a range type Amazon, which I think was Bose at the time. So that's how it was. And then Diablo 3 changed all that by making a skill system where like you could just change your skills at any time. And I actually think that was one of the reasons that the game.

game isn't quite as, look back quite as fondly as its, as its predecessor is because those skills felt kind of like, I don't know, it didn't feel like you were making interesting decisions to the point I made before. This feels like a good hybrid of the two where it's not totally permanent, but like maybe you'll have to really think about it because otherwise you'll have to spend a bunch of gold to like revert your decisions. And also it feels like you're making really like decisions that have a lot of impact, really meaningful decisions to your point Kirk where like you can really decide how you want to build out your character. And I think once we have time to really like dig into the game and get to the higher level decision making

when it comes to that stuff, I think it could get really cool and interesting. And so I'm excited about that. Yeah, just to throw it out there as a sort of zoomed out idea, I really like the idea of giving. Oh, he's zooming out now. I know. I'm trying it out. I'm trying out your move. I really like the idea of giving players who are starting out in the first 10, whenever 15 levels of a very easy way to totally respect their character. I think that's just a really cool decision and wouldn't be surprised to see it turning up more, especially actually I think in games like Eldonring

and From Soft Games, that's such a thing where it is true that in that game you kind of have to stick with a build until you get to the point where you can respec and then respecking actually gets easier and easier the farther you are in. But actually, this makes you think maybe they have that backwards

where it should be really easy at first because that's when you don't really know what you're doing. And if you play through the first major dungeon and you're like, man, I kind of wish that I'd gone with decks instead of strength, you know, or whatever. Like, you could just very easily try that out. And then maybe like, oh, never mind. Actually, like strength. You can go back without having to get to a certain point. So, yeah, I think that's a really neat idea. I'd love to see it in more games. Yeah, there's an argument to be made either way because you could also say, like, hey,

if I have the builded to respect from the get-go, I might suffer from choice paralysis and be like trying 20 different builds, like thinking, oh, my God. which is the best one as opposed to just sticking one to one and then oh okay figuring out you can get through the first chunk of the game up until reaspex maybe i mean i i certainly didn't feel that way in the diablo beta so i at least thought that this worked great well diablo yeah diablo is a little different because it's built in a way where i don't think at least until you're in the higher difficulty levels it doesn't really matter you're just going to plow through things for the most part um i don't think there was a ton of strategy or decision making to be had there at the very beginning.

I mean, there can be. I feel like playing as barbarian is definitely harder because you don't really have long range attacks, especially at the outset. And it got a lot easier once I got REND, which is like sort of a more area of effect attack. It's like a really big long ax swing that can affect a lot of enemies in front of you, but you still need to be pretty close. And I think that's part of why I'm not alone. I saw a lot of people talking about how the barbarians are a pretty hard class to play by yourself in those early stages. But over time, you've unlocked enough area of effect attacks that you can kind of muscle your way through it. But it was definitely tricky, although I enjoyed playing alone in the sense that I enjoyed using the Dodge button.

So, Kirk, you noted before the show that there was the role, the Dodge Roll on consoles. I didn't play that a lot. So for me, this was my first time having sort of the equivalent of a dodge button. It's a dash in this game. And it's on a cooldown, which is really weird. But since the barbarian's such a slow character, I felt like it worked for me. And combat was super methodical. And it made me think a lot more about what buttons I was hitting as opposed to just mindlessly clicking, although it was still just mindless enough that I could listen to a podcast and have a great time with my brain only slightly on for Diablo. So yeah, I really really. enjoyed like the slight increased challenge of playing Barbarian solo, although I'm not sure how long

that will continue in the full game. Yeah, I think that they've taken the increased emphasis on mobility that Diablo 3 had and really multiplied that, especially I guess with the rogue with the character that I played, but I'm guessing with a lot of the classes just based on some of the encounters that I did. And I really like that. That was why I loved playing Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 is that it's really fun to play Diablo as a game where you're constantly moving. And the rogue at least has, you know, a dash ability where she'll, like, fly into combat and do an attack through a bunch of people. I worked out a whole thing where she has caltrops that she throws down. So those are, like, a big spread of, you know, spikes on the ground that do damage and slow enemies down.

And she jumps backwards from that. So I would jump in with my blades, then drop a poison trap. Then caltrops bounce out, get shooting. Like, it was this really fun, very, very mobile way of playing the game. And I was having a blast with that. And then the final boss, at least I think the final boss that I fought at this aspect of Lilith boss is a pretty cool boss fight. It was the most involved by far. There's this NPC who turns up this guy who you're talking to throughout the story who then kind of sacrifices himself and in this kind of noble way.

Is that his name? He's the guy who betrays you or he takes the bribe to let what's her name's mom through. And that's okay. It's like the very beginning. I don't think that's Lorath. I think that's a different guy. Loretth is the guy who you see in shadow in the doorway and you're like, oh no, is that a bad guy? And then he walks into the cabin and he's like, hey, I'm your buddy.

Oh, no, no, no, not that guy. And that's played by that one actor, that great with the amazing voice, the deepest voice. No, this guy is like a sort of NPC that you first run across when you go to rescue the lady. Right. And he's sort of, well, he's flawed and he's sinned. And that winds up being a theme. Like you said, Jason. I mean, actually, yeah, narratively, it's pretty cool.

Like there is a story, even in the beta that you can kind of follow with characters that do stuff and also clearly are going to do stuff in the future. But this is his great moan of like, you know, whatever, like saving his soul. So he comes back and he turns up, so you've got this friendly NPC in the fight who is like dropping a force field that protects you sometimes. So you have to get over to him. The boss is blowing up the whole arena. There are these waves of blood shooting through. It actually reminded me a little bit of the Mog fight, Moog fight in Eldon Ring. where it's just blood everywhere and you're trying to stay alive.

And then you kind of realize there's rhyme and reason to it. So I'm moving around, dodging, keeping an eye on my role. You can shoot the orbs, right? Like the blood orbs? Yeah, he sends out these orbs. So then there's these waves. Then you have to be hitting him. That I'm trying to make him vulnerable because I'm starting to get into that mechanic.

So that means I have to keep my energy below half, which makes me apply vulnerable with my nail-y attacks. So it's a lot of fast decision-making and positional strategy that I just found really fun. There was some of that in Diablo 3. so I don't want to discount Diablo 3. It's been a while since I played that game. But this felt on a different level in terms of specifically the mobility. And at least with the rogue, it was really fun.

I was having a great time. It just felt like I was playing a game to a kind of in a more elaborate way than sometimes Diablo feels where you're just sort of like, okay, whatever, I'm just standing here, mashing things. So if that's like a sign of boss fights to come, that's pretty cool. That means that there will be a lot of really cool encounters in this game. Yeah, and I found the same with the public events, the Destiny. style public events. Yeah, I didn't do any of those.

Can you tell me how those work or what those are like? I mean, so imagine that you're on Venus and you see a public event and you go up to it. Okay, so like a war sat falls. It is identical. Like, literally, it's the exact same thing. There's like a circle on the map. A glowing ring. In the circle, you will see objectives appear and it'll say objective, protect the warsat.

Objective. Right. Stand on these panels. realizing I did one of those. I was thinking of the world bosses. Did either of you do a world boss? No, that was a very specific thing. Okay.

That was like specific times that I wasn't able to do. No, that's a different thing. But I imagine that's more like a bigger scale public event. Like one of those big boss public events. Yeah, like more people can participate maybe. Yeah. But yeah, I thought those were just interesting mechanically. And yeah, this game does seem to have a lot that's interesting mechanically.

And I actually think I'm actually okay with the Dodge button cool down. decision. I think it makes you have to think a little bit more instead of just spamming Dodge. I also think that, yeah, I mean, I just think it adds an interesting layer of kind of decision making or at least kind of keeping track of things that otherwise you wouldn't be thinking of. Like in Diablo 3, it was pretty spammy to just be like dodgeralling everywhere. I do think it is interesting. And also, the kind of cynic in me is thinking, well, they have mounts in this game. And so they don't want you to be able to dodge to, like, constantly do a string of dodges to get around the world because then you wouldn't use your mount. And then taking that all, like, to the ultimate cynical level,

they want you to use your mount as much as possible. So you'll buy cool skins for it and show it off to people. That's definitely why they've made it on cool. I would say honestly that that's overly cynical. I think that it is, I am with you that I think that they have balanced comment around it and they don't want people to be spamming it. And that is probably the primary reason for, of course, we can never know. And yeah, I think you're kind of addressing the fact that, There's some controversy. There are people complaining about it. And it's just interesting to me because anytime game developers have to take something away

in order to make a game better, that's just always an interesting moment because it's very hard to take things away. It's, you know, Destiny, those developers run into it all the time where they're like, well, Faith Bringer is too good. Everyone's using it. We just have to do something. It's essentially a nerve, right? It's easier to take things away for a sequel, to be fair. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, yeah, no.

And it's not like it doesn't work. It's just interesting to see them have to make that decision and then hope that over time people get used to it. And then if you're playing a character like a really mobile character like the rogue, there is, I mean there's rogue gear that gives you an extra dodge roll. I didn't actually get it, but it's out there. And then like I was saying, there's these multiple moves that you get as a rogue where you jump and dash around.

Like you can really, if you're starting to think and, you know, I put them on the shoulder buttons and then I've like got my mobility buttons, basically. And the cool downs, if you kind of stagger them and play intelligently, you can constantly be moving around. And then that does lead to a just more engaged play style, like you were saying, Jason, which I think was a lot of fun for me. And already the game is so responsive to you. Like having, okay, so I don't know about the other classes, but for Barbaran, you have an attack on the left and right click, and you can constantly use them. You can just never stop attacking at any point. It will not stop you.

Like the cool down on them is essentially non-existent. You can just keep clicking endlessly, and it will always respond, which is what's so satisfying and also ultimately boring in playing a game like this, is that you can just click endlessly. And so having the dodge almost immediately, along with those two attacks, you have the second one almost immediately, to have something that doesn't perform instantaneously was just automatic friction that I also liked because I was like, the game isn't automatically rewarding me for,

pressing a button. Like, that's interesting, and it's forcing me to think, which means I have to actually use my brain more to play this video game, and I'm not just clicking and having an enemy die immediately. There's another point of friction that they've added that I think is interesting that Jason and I were talking about a little bit offline when we were playing. I was complaining initially that when you pick up loot, it doesn't show you the little green, like markers on it, that it used to, like, when you see the loot in the world in Diablo through, you imagine. immediately know, oh, this has higher stats, where in Diablo 4, you pick it up, then you have to kind of go through your inventory and spend a little more time looking at it. But actually, Jason, you convinced me, or you kind of pointed out, well, okay, at the very beginning of the game, yes, a higher number is just always better.

But pretty quickly, and I was even finding this toward the end, okay, maybe it does a little bit more DPS, but this legendary thing that I've got is still incredible and gives me all these other stats. So there's more friction in the gear selection process already. And then that's more interesting because I'm spending a little more time engaging with what I presume will expand out to be a really varied and kind of deep loot and gear system. And so actually it's like another point where if I'm just constantly like no brain, you know, smooth brain pressing buttons to select things like that's cool. But Diablo runs into a problem when it has too little friction, I think, is kind of something that we're getting at here and something that I've found. That was the biggest problem with D3. And it really, this game is really just kind of like trying to straddle that line between taking everything that worked well in D3 and also taking back a lot of stuff from Diablo 2. So for example, the gear is a good example.

Another example of that is the healing system, right? So Diablo 2, you had potions and you always had a limited number of potions because you kept them in your inventory and every time you consumed one, they disappeared. Diablo 3 had health orbs, which would just land on the. ground and you could pick them up and I believe you also had potions in that game. So really it felt very arcady. You weren't losing you. Health was wasn't a super big concern. And when you did run into difficulty, it was usually because they just killed you so quickly. You couldn't even heal or you couldn't even file, find the health orbs. But there were so many health orbs popping so often that it didn't really like matter. Diablo four takes a really interesting kind of combination of the two where

you have healing potions, but you only have a limited number. of healing potions. You start off with four max, and you do find is kind of like what look like healing herbs, what are actually new potions that you can pick up as you go. But again, you can't go over that max. So you can only have up to four potions at a time, which I think is a really cool solution to that problem in that you still feel like you have to kind of use them strategically, but you also don't have to hoard and conserve them and worry about them taking up inventory space because you find them pretty often throughout the world. and even in the middle of bosses, like during different phases,

the boss will drop a couple for you. So I think it's a really good balance, at least from what I've seen so far. And again, I mean, with the Diablo game, you never really know until you've, like, gotten to the end game and you're, like, really in the thick of it. Because Diablo 3, like, a lot of the problems with that game didn't emerge until later on. But, yeah, with Diablo 4, it feels like they've really hit a good balance

between, like, what really worked in the past and also some of the newer stuff. new our ideas. I think it works pretty well from what I've seen so far. We've been pretty high on this, so I want to bring up something that's been more controversial and that I already saw as an issue, which is the fact that dungeons are no longer random

or procedurally generated, they're all essentially the same design over and over, which means that people can plan ahead as to which dungeon they would want to run. Like some dungeons in the beta, people are like, oh, this one's really good for leveling up fast or like this one is good for farming certain kinds of loot or whatever, which is a lot more like an MMO or like a destiny with which we're all familiar where we're like, okay, let's run this

certain strike or oh, this has like it favors this certain ability or class. It's like really fun to play this one. And that is definitely more how Diablo 4 is going to feel, which is wildly different. I mean, it's just a completely different way to think about Diablo than any previous one. And I'll admit And it's been an adjustment for me to even imagine that. And I'm worried I'll get tired of these same dungeons. So, okay, wait, why would you run the dungeons? I assume you would do a dungeon if a quest let you there or if you wanted the aspect. But why would you keep running the same dungeon?

To level up or get specific items. Yeah. Well, so I'm not really concerned with that because it seems like, I mean, if you guys looked at the map, the open world is humongous. Like, I don't think that you'll need to do the same dungeons over and over again to level up. when you could go and do a bazillion other things but that strikes me as just like it's hard to know if it's a problem until the full game is out

so it's hard to judge at least for me yeah it's an interesting change I mean I would be surprised if there wasn't something like the were they the Niffelhelm rifts is that what they were called where they were kind of they weren't randomly generated or procedure they were kind of different elements mixed together in different

arrangements so I guess that's procedural they were yeah they were procedurally and those are Those were cool where you don't get any loot until the very end, and then you beat the boss, and then all the loot from the whole dungeon comes out of the boss, which is just kind of pleasing. Like, I'd be surprised. Those were such a hit. Everybody seemed to really like them.

I didn't play them a lot, but I know people really enjoyed them. They seemed cool. I'd be surprised if there wasn't something like that, too. The sense I get from this game is they're just sort of adding even more. And since we don't really know what there's going to be, I'd be surprised if it wasn't sort of a mix of, you know, handmade dungeons and also procedurally generated stuff. I did like the story dungeons that I played through being sort of set in what they were

and how they were designed, only because it allowed for some storytelling stuff that I thought was cool. So there's a sequence, but basically the story of this is you're trying to stop Lilith because Lilith is just a big problem according to video games

that have come out in the last six months. It's really just all Lilith, man. Oh, you mean Lilith, daughter of Mephisto? That Lily? I see. We need to get magic in here to make some... You do kind of make portals in this game that look like magic. Yeah, where is Ileana rescue?

I just... I feel like you guys need to explain what you're talking about because, like, nobody played midnight. We're talking about Marvel's Midnight Sons in which Lilith, a very similarly sexy, horned lady design of Lilith is the central girl boss antagonist of Marvel's Midnight Sons and also Diablo 4. Shout out to those guys because they made a great game, but I think a lot more people are going to play I think that's true. Yeah.

Oh, well, yeah, I wasn't trying to make a comparison, even though Midnight Suns, the farther I get from it, the more I'm like, that was the best game that came out last year, one of my favorite games ever. But anyways, this is not a Midnight Suns episode, as much as I wish it was. This is Diablo Four, which is also good. So anyways, storytelling and dungeon design.

So, yeah, you're trying to, you're basically on the trail of Lilith. You're trying to follow her to wherever she's going. She's going to do some, you know, bad things and bring open doors to hell. Cult conversion, you know. She's picking up followers left and right. Destroy this plane that we're on. Sanctuary.

Which is usually the way that Diablo works. So you're chasing after her, and there comes a point where you reach this, like the black lake underneath the world. And you go through this dungeon, you finally unlock a door. It leads down these stairs. It's pretty cool looking.

There's this huge kind of, you know, like stone floor with all these ruins that are full of blood. This is where your friend. mother is and you have to kind of, she's been taken over by Lilith. And it's, it kind of feels like that cutscene they played where there's like blood running through the ruins on the floor. Oh, the opening cut scene. Very gory opening cut scene.

Which I think played at E3 or at some of those kinds. Anyway, so there's this huge underwater lake, which is just a cool concept, very elderish. You can't get across it. And so then you leave, you have to go do some other stuff. You go to this monastery in the north and do this trial. And then you kind of can finally get the blessing. you need to get the blessing of what's his name, one of the angels who are kind of dicks in these games, which I also enjoy. I know. It's fun.

The angels are just big weird, faceless jerks. But he has to, like, approve of you for you to get a blessing that'll allow you to cross the lake. So it's basically this extended quest where you can then go back down through that dungeon, back to the lake, and then you can finally cross it. The crossing is a little unceremonious, but maybe they'll flesh that out. But anyways, narratively, I think that's actually all kind of cool because it feels like you're just, you're returning to things, moving through things. You're meeting characters. Like I said, there's this guy you meet initially when you first meet the other woman. I'm forgetting everybody's name. Maybe her name is Narell or something like that. You meet him. He kind of, he chickens out, and it turns out he kind of betrayed you.

Then you meet him again later and talk to him. And he's this recurring character. And then he comes and sort of redeems himself at the end of the arc. Like the way they're doing stuff is just cool, not to mention all of the, the better moments in the story presentationally, where they're doing these cutscenes. They actually, you know, get out of the overhead view and go into the world and kind of show you cutscenes. They do some cool stuff where you'll go through Lilith's like blood pedals and into her view and that's how they kind of show you whatever she's up to. So there's a lot of nice perspective shift going on. And then sometimes it's a little, feels a little more like Diablo 3, where you're fighting through a dungeon and then at each doorway

you just like watch two ghosts have a conversation and it's just you're standing there I mean like, oh my God, I don't care. I just want to go. Like that I think is a little bit weaker. I guess it lets them fit more story in. But that definitely feels a little more old-fashioned and at least emphasize to me that the newer stuff does feel strong.

It feels interesting. Well, and the plot itself is really interesting just because like Diablo, I mean, the gothic horror of it all is, it's kind of weirdly unique to video games. Aren't a lot of gothic horror video games, weirdly, other than like Bloodborn. Yeah.

The vibe is cool, right? I like the one. I like the energy. Like I think it's a really downer vibe. It's cold. It's snowy. Everyone hates their lives. Everything sucks.

But it really is compelling. I really enjoy the sort of general atmosphere. Well, what's compelling about it is some of the like human rituals that they have. Like when you get to the big city and they like make you do this like weird ritual thing and like give up a sin or like talk about your big sin or something. Yeah, yeah. You have to inscribe your sin on a piece of wood and burn it. It's a lot of very specific stuff.

It doesn't level you up. It's purely ceremonial. A lot of it. A lot of that stuff is always cool in Diablo in general, like in all of the games. It's just like very specific storytelling, very specific lore. There's a lot of really cool stuff out there, like a lot of stuff about the hurrah dream and the, all of the shit that I don't remember because I... The Harrodrome come up enough. Well, I mean, stuff from like Diablo 2 and Diablo 1 and stuff.

And good art design too, right? I mean, like, a lot of that is just the art looks great. I mean, there are really good dirty rugs. Oh, yeah. And the big rugs that you see when you walk into a hole. Yeah, and they're covered in dirt and you're like, oh, man, this place has seen better days. Like, it really does. Well, it looks like thousands have died here on this rug.

It's nice. I mean, art design goes a long way. That's another thing where, like, a lot of people complain about the art direction for Diablo free. And this game is very much like, all right, we're going gritty. You want a gory, gritty stuff. That's what we're giving you. Yeah, these rugs don't look like a Lisa Frank room. anymore. They look like shit and we hope you like it. I do like it. No more interior decorators in this game.

Yeah, but they changed the fonts though or the typefaces. Everything's aerial now and I thought that was weird. I was like bring back the anarchy font. Bring back the pentacles. Oh yeah. Oh, that's funny. I want the pentacles back. It is probably because I recently played Diablo 2 resurrected or whatever it's called and just saw those pentacles again and I was like, ah, remember the pentacles. Well, they have that. They have that for the menu text. It's hard. It's hard to read a lot of dialogue in that. It should be an option. I should be allowed to have hard to read dumb metal band text. Yeah, I think it's all these game developers these days are very much like we want games to be accessible. We want subtitles. We want five changes. For Maddie, we want harder to read. Games text that is more different. Just the Maddie option that you can turn on in the movie. Just just more gimmicks. Like make it a little harder for me, but like in a gimmicky way. It doesn't really, it's like not a hardcore setting.

Wingings. We want Wingdings as an option. I did kind of add to the atmosphere though and like the very specific kind of, you know, satanic panic era of Diablo where it's like you're literally fighting the devil. Like in this game, I mean, it's it's fun. It's fun that now we're fighting Lilith. I like it. I like that that is the plot of the game.

It's it just feels like a throwback. yet also, you know, it's a new time, guys. The devil's a lady now. Everything's changed. I think there's something to that. There is. Yeah, well, Diablo, I feel like there was no Diablo in the last game, right? Diablo himself didn't appear in the last game.

I'm remembering that right? The Lord of Terror, I don't know. Well, he was in the second game. Because doesn't he take over? God, I can't remember her name, but she's like related. Jennifer Hale. Yeah, Decker Cain. Yeah.

Decker Cain. Rekker Kane's grandson or whatever. Doesn't she become the devil at the end? No, she becomes a different devil. There's a lot of devils. It's not Diablo is the point. Anyway, so Lois is a big bad now.

Who's to say which demon we're fighting? There's a bigger picture here thing that I think maybe would be a good final note for this conversation. And that is, Natie, you were kind of talking about like what place does Diablo have? What's it like to play a Diablo? And I think that that is actually an interesting thing about this game. and actually something that we've found with Diablo Immortal as well, the mobile game for all of that it's very exploitative design and flaws. Playing that too was that feeling of, okay, right, this is just pretty fun.

Like, Diablo can let Diablo be Diablo or whatever, right? Like, it can just sort of be a game that you walk around and shoot things a whole bunch, and it's just pretty repetitive, and the fun is in the little decisions, and then you listen to a podcast. And I think it felt a little more like when Diablo 3 came out, there was all those others, it just felt like there were more new things, things happening elsewhere in video games and maybe there was no room for Diablo and people were

worried about that. And playing this made me think, no, there's always going to be room for games like this. It doesn't need to be anything more than this. It can look a little better. It can be a little more complicated. Can have the metal band aesthetic. Ladies with horns. But the design can just be simple. It can just be this kind of game and it'll always be fun to just walk around and do this. So just make a game like that, which seems to be the way they approach the game as well. Yeah, well, I guess the question is like how long would the three of us stick with a game like this? And that's what we'll have to win and see. And also, are we a good sample?

Because I probably won't, right? Like, I'll play through it and then I'll be like, okay, I can't just do this forever. Well, maybe you'll need to. I don't know why. I don't get addicted to it. Well, I mean, that's the nice thing about a beta is you get a taste of it and we can kind of try to figure out like, hey, how hooked are you going to me on this game. Yeah, the one thing that I will, that I regret not doing is playing a multiplayer. I'm looking forward to that.

The three of us will definitely play. It was super fun. I'm sorry that we didn't make it happen because playing with a couple friends was a blast. The limited beta makes it tough, especially because Kirk and I were both in San Francisco. So yeah, so we'll we'll sort that out when the game comes out. Absolutely. Can't wait to find out what that. Lilith is up to.

All right. Nothing good. Let's take a little break and then come back with one more thing. It is almost the end of maximum fun drive. Max Fund Drive to those who know it well, Maximum Fund Drive, to anyone in its class that is teaching. Professor Maximum Fun Drive to strangers. We are so thankful to all of you who've already either increased your membership or joined as a new member. I know there are a bunch of you out there and we really, really appreciate it.

I mean, really, like, you all make this show happen. You really do make it so we can make the show we want. We can make the show we want without having to have ads on it, which is, really rare and cool and get to be a part of maximum fun. And so there was this announcement that some of you probably saw about maximum fun, the network that we are a part of. And if you didn't see it, I'm going to get to tell you that.

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All of their employees own it. They all share in the profits and the success of the business. They're similar to our former friends from Deadspin who formed DeFector, another worker-owned media outlet that we love. Not our former friends. Our friends from former friends are friends. Yeah, we're still our friends. Our former Deadspin. We're not friends with them anymore because this is a co-op versus co-op situation.

No, just kidding. It's a great trend across all media. We love it. We love them. You form a co-op. and then you fight all the other co-op. Our co-op has become competitive. Yeah.

So anyways, we think that's really cool. And look, this whole thing, everything that's happening here, this network, this show, it's all part of like a real thing. And this sounds cheesy, but it really is a part of like trying to do media differently, trying to imagine a better way of doing things. And really, like, we just want to make a, like, show about video games and make enough money to keep doing it. But also, like, it is cool to feel like we're. part of something like genuinely exciting and more sustainable and better. So if you want to support that,

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The champing at the bit, chomping at the bit, chumping at the bit, chumping at the bit, which I liked. Chumbawumbawumbawumbing at the bit. Chumbawumbabwamba. Yeah, there's so many interpretations. What letter will Vanowite turn over? Who can say? You can take a little marker and you can write it in.

I have three actually. Maybe I'll put a different vowel on each one. So the stickers, if you join at $10, there's a cookbook and Spock. that you get. If you join it $20, the cookbook has recipes from all of the different shows in the network, including us, some triple chip chocolate chip cookies that I'm going to make that look delicious. At 35, you get an apron, which they sent us. This year we get some of the prizes, which is pretty cool, and the apron's pretty sick. There's also, like, really nice membership cards. All of that is at maximum fund.org. You can find out about it. We really hope that you'll become a member. Do it before the 31st. You really are almost out of time. And, you know, there's no time like the present. But really just. Thank you all so much. Thanks everybody who supports our show and supports the maximum fun. We really appreciate you. And yeah, thanks so much.

Thank you. Thanks. And we are back for one more thing. I will go first because I played a video game. Yeah, you did. It was really good. The game was called Metroid Fusion. I beat it in its entirety for a second time in my life.

I have no regrets. Did I need to do this? No. Didn't cover it for work. Didn't talk about it on this show until right this stuff. game for fun. Simply did it purely for the joy of being alive. And I want to recommend it once again to everybody,

especially because I've been a little soft on Metroid Fusion in the past. The first time I played it, I wasn't that into it. It's got a lot of story in it, which is very unusual for a Metroid game. Usually Metroid games, especially like the 2D puzzle platformer type, which is the genre that Fusion is in. I came out in 2002, same time as Metroid Prime, which in the 2000s was by far my preferred,

Metroid game of 2002 Metroid games. It's got way more story than even Prime and definitely than any other 2D Metroid game. It's got a lot of text on the screen. You got conversations between Samus and other characters. There's no voice acting,

but there's a lot of dialogue. You don't pick the dialogue, but you're just reading along. And there's a lot of references to Adam, who's Sammis' former commander, who is in the game Other M. I think that game is pretty badly written and facile.

I mean, I think it's easily my least favorite Metroid game. And I had already played OtherM by the time I got around to playing Metroid Fusion. I played the games out of order, as most people do. And so then it kind of soured me on Fusion. I was like, I don't like this story. It's weird to have Samus talking so much. The game's much more linear. You really just go discreetly from one section of the game to the next,

and you're really ordered around a lot by the ship's computer. But I ended up loving it so much more this time because, first of all, Metroid Dread has become one of my top favorite Metroids. We've all talked about it and how great it is. And there's some story in that game. But also Dread is a direct sequel to Fusion. And it really builds on the expectations that you have after Samus has spent all this time talking to the ship's computer in Metroid Fusion.

and it capitalizes on that at the end of the game in a way that I really liked. So then going back and playing this one, and I will say Metroid Fusion also has some twists in it that I won't spoil, just as Dredd does. And it's really cool. I thought it was really, really good, actually, playing it after playing Dread, and I enjoyed the story way more,

and I just really recommend it. So if you play Dread and you want to check out another Metroid game that's just really freaking good, it's on the switch now. It's on the switch online service. Metroid Fusion. It builds on the story and Dredd. It's obviously set before Dread,

but it's like right before, like near days before. So that'll help you and also kind of introduce you to the X-Parasite, the Metroid's study of the Metroid's in every game. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's...

Honestly, there's... Well, that's all this stuff from Dread. Yeah. It is, but this is the most lore that's been in any game is really in Fusion. I played it. I last,

played it when it came out in 2002. Has any parts of it not aged well? Have any parts of it aged poorly? I mean, no. I certainly looked up some things in walkthroughs because it's a 2002, 2D puzzle platformer. There's some stuff that's just not signposted very well. I occasionally was just like, I don't really know where I'm supposed to go. So I had some moments like that. But honestly, it's really great just from a gameplay perspective. I didn't think it was too difficult. I mean, you're talking to the wrong person in some ways because I don't think these games are hard. So, Maddie, what didn't you like about Metroid? I played the original Metroid, which is like notoriously hard and every room looks identical and I've played that one

multiple times. So I don't know, there's something wrong with me. But take it from me, I thought Metroid Fusion was a great video game and people should check it out, especially if they liked Dread. But yeah, so that's mine. Kirk, why don't you go next? I will go next. I finished a really, really good book that I think everyone should read and that the two of you should read, called The Ministry for the Future by the great Kim Stanley Robinson. This book is about climate change. It is a science fiction book by a great science fiction author, Kim Stanley Robinson, who wrote the Mars trilogy that I talked about last year, but has been around for a long time, a really great writer. And man, I loved this book. It's a wonderful read. It's a sort of purposeful,

antidote to doomerism and without feeling totally unrealistic. It is an optimistic book about the next 40 or 50 years on the planet Earth and how we might or might not save the biosphere in all of ourselves. And it starts out pretty scary because, of course it does, it starts out right around now when things are pretty scary. But then it goes on to imagine one of the most, or the the most complex and thorough views of how the world might try to and in some ways fail to deal with the challenge of climate change of like human-created climate change in a way that really only he can. So something that Robinson did really well in the Mars trilogy is he, the guy just seems to know everything. He's like, he must be the most fun conversationalist in the world because he, in Mars, it's a trilogy of books. They're all very long, and it's about the full colonization and development of Mars.

And then that means that it's about like the political, scientific, ecological, social, like every economic for sure. I think I already said economic, every single possible access on which this massive thing, you know, a planet wide, really two planets, this whole thing can happen over this three books saga over the course of hundreds of years. And he does it. He just has an ability to do that, to tell storytelling, to tell a story on that scale. So he takes those same tools and he applies them to the world. And it's really a, it's very structurally different from the Mars trilogy. There's kind of just one main character. Her name is Mary Murphy and she is the head of the Ministry for the Future,

which in the fiction of the story was established under the Paris Climate Accords as a kind of UN adjacent, ultimately toothless, but maybe not toothless, diplomatic body with representatives from around the world who are tasked with, okay, I don't know, you guys fix it. and they don't really have that much power. And then it's about her. It follows her periodically, but it also changes perspectives constantly

to a variety of unnamed characters who are just a person in a refugee camp, a scientist in the Arctic, you know, I don't know, like a million other things, a terrorist cell of, you know, bioterrorists or egot terrorists in India. And the whole thing kicks off with a heat wave in India that kills millions and millions of people

and sort of begins the radicalization of some people in this direction toward something. So I can't begin to describe it because it covers so much ground. I mean, there's huge chapters about banking, finance, taxes, and tax reform. There's a lot about income equality. There's a lot about the death of capitalism or like what might replace capitalism. So there's a lot of stuff just where she's meeting with bankers and being like, you are the most powerful, like the heads of finance of like the federal reserves of these

different countries. you have more power than anyone. So how are we going to incentivize people to start capturing carbon, for example? There's all this engineering stuff, a really cool plot line about working on the glaciers in the north to try to drain the water from underneath them,

to get them back into contact with the earth layer to keep them from drifting. I don't know, man. There's so much in this book. And what's cool about it is it never feels like it's bullshitting you, even though it's clear that he is very, very optimistic about what humans are capable of. if we really work together. It does, it like, it's slow. It's frustrating. It's not just like,

yeah, everyone does it, even in the face of, like, this existential threat. I don't know. I could talk about it forever. It's really just like a hell of a book. And everyone should just read it, like, read it and think about it and, I don't know, feel the things that it'll make you feel because it's like a wonderful, wonderful book. It's the best book I've read in a really long time, and I just loved it. So, I don't know, this is my incomplete but glowing recommendation for the ministry for the future. I'd love the two of you to read it. I think you'd both really, really like it. And it'd be fun to talk to you both about it. Yeah, I think I would love it. I will definitely read it. Nice. It's good. Craig spent a lot more time selling me on it last week in San Francisco.

Yeah, so you see, I was still reading it. I'd be like, oh man, this chapter, they're talking about taxes and progressive taxation. Dude, you love it. There is the line. Oh, I should say, this is funny, but you know the joke. It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. I don't know that this book is exception because it is kind of about the end of the world, but it does imagine the end of capitalism. It isn't just like, okay, we ended it. There's a new thing. But it does, like, present this sort of compelling view of like actually worker-owned, like of a move toward like worker-owned businesses and stuff, which is sort of in line with what we were talking about with maximum fun. So anyways, there's a lot of really cool sort of socially progressive ideas that are

explored in a real feeling way. Whatever. I can go on forever. I'll shut up. It's really good. Read it. Minister for the Future. Great book. Cool. Jason, how about you? My One More Thing is also a book. It is not a life-changing book, but it's a very fun book that I read. Good title.

That I blazed through on the plane on the way home from GDC. So this is a book called Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. And this is a recommendation from a fan of the show who goes by Kill a Cow on Twitter, best known for his Bill Simmons impressions. And this book is a murder mystery, and it's an extremely meta-murder mystery. It's very reminiscent of... Meta-murder mystery.

It's very reminiscent of Knives Out or Glass Onion and how it kind of tries to deconstruct the form. And so the concept is that the protagonist, in addition to being part of a family, where everyone has killed someone, either on purpose or by accident or by bad fortune, or intentionally or whatever, In addition to that, he also writes and self-publishes books about, like, crime fiction and, like, the rules for murder mysteries.

And he also breaks the fourth wall constantly. So, in fact, within the first, like, 10 pages of the book, he says, the following pages are going to have murders in them. And he just lists every page that has the murder. And that's the kind of book this is. This is the kind of book that is kind of, like, referencing itself, referencing mysteries, referencing the fact. that it's about our murder mystery. The narrator talks about how he's going to tell you the truth, but then

at certain points he'll be like, well, I said it was going to tell you the truth, but not all the truth. And then he reveals things that he had hid from you before. It was a very fun read for those reasons and more. It can actually get a little too much. It can get a little bit too annoying when he's like,

but you haven't found out about that yet? Just wait. And he kind of does the Stephen King thing of spoiling what's going to happen in a way that can be a little bit annoying, but none of that has a negative impact on the overarching story, which is

very fun and enjoyable and twisty and really cool. There's even a moment because of course there is where the narrator and protagonist is in a library, pointing out exactly who did what and what happened when at the very end. So it is very much like

in the service of, it's very much like a kind of a tribute to Agatha Christie and and great mystery, great golden age mystery and has its own fun story attached. So the story real quick is that this family in which everyone has killed someone has a family reunion in a ski lodge and there is a storm, of course, and so nobody can escape. And then people die and got to figure out what happened. Who died and killed them?

Cool. Yeah, classic. So pretty classic stuff. and yeah, very enjoyable book. Everyone in my family has killed someone by Benjamin Stevenson. I recommend it. Very fun read. And yeah, I read it. It's good enough that I read through it all on a plane.

So very fun. Does it sound like a perfect plain read. It was a perfect plain. I just sat there and blazed through the whole thing. It took me maybe three and a half hours, four hours to get through it. So I had just did enough time to play some threes on my phone as we were starting to descend on the way home to Perfect flight, really. Wow.

Yeah, it doesn't get any better than that. And that's the end of our perfect episode, I suppose. Everyone in this podcast has killed someone. Yeah, that's true. In a video game, maybe. In Diablo 4. Yeah, we've all clicked on someone. And you know what that means.

It means we're clickers from the last of us. Lowercase C, clickers. Right. That's right. And speaking of which, maximum fun dot or slash join, just do it. Before you forget.

Like, come on, you're listening to this right now. Just take out your phone, do it. No. Just become a member. Yeah. There are some things on the internet where I'm like, you know, I should really subscribe to that. Oh, yeah.

And then I'm like, hey, I just did it. Well, no. And then I'm like, hey, I just did it. And I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I did this. So I think you might feel good if you go and do that thing you've been meaning to do. Subscribe to that show. You've been meaning to subscribe to.

Absolutely. And with that, we'll be back. next week. See you all then. Unless you are a member, which is going to brought this episode. Today. That's right.

Yes. Otherwise, see you both next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode

may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud. member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network and if you like our show we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpods

send email the triple click at maximumfund.org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience. Audience supported.