f13.net

10M Sold first week!   :awesome_for_real:

My brother knows a guy who use to play Diablo 1, and he thinks it'll be 3MM first week.

Over 9000...thousand! (9.000.001)

6.66 million

Based on my inside industry knowledge gained from playing Diablo AND World of Warcraft I'd predict something like:

2 million launch week and 5m lifetime

With people who subbed for a year of WoW (even those who don't care about Diablo 3)?

8 million, easy. But that's conservative. Let's go with 15M and shoot the fucking moon.

Not sure if the Korean players got the same Annual-sub-Blizzard-deal as us Westerners though. Gots to remember those numbers also count the huge Asian markets.

Based on my experience of one time staying at a Holiday Inn express...I'll go with 12m

SC2 had what, 11 mil? That was without the bonus of annual passes (which surely most would have bought D3 anyways, but still helps boost numbers).

ok, this got me interested, here are some past numbers:

Starcraft: 11m total

Starcraft II: 3m first month, 4.5m total

Diablo: 2.5m total

Diablo II: 4 m total (not counting LoD)


Well, maybe 5m lifetime sales was a bit too cautious, I still stand by my 2m first week though.

Edit: correction

7 mil

I'm wondering if the internet required will lose more sales than the can't pirate it will make.....

really, really doubt that. Maybe with other games, but not in this case.

2 1/2 mil 1st week.

4 mil 1st month.

3.5mil first week.

8mil first month.

I'll bid 3.51 first week.

8.1mil first month.

5mil first week

10mil first month

Yeah, don't think so in this case.  I believe 99% of people who would have pirated it really want to play it, so will shell out money.  So in this particular case, its going to win blizzard a ton of extra money.

But you can only really do that with decade long hyped games.  See how valve used Half Life 2 to effectively launch steam to the masses and force it down publishers screaming throats.

7.5 million Why? Because I have no idea what I'm talking about.

10M first month

A friend of mine did the WoW for one year thing. He did not even have to enter a code for D3. Today it auto showed in his account. So they already claimed 1.2 million signed up for the WoW for one year and they will claim all these people in sales numbers.  On top of that it was the best pre-order ever for both Blizzard and Amazon. 2 million is first week is way low. It is too low for even first day. With world wide rollout at same time I think 3 million in first week easily and maybe 4 million.

3.5M units first month

11M units 2012

I think it does at least 5 million first month, and that might be quite low. People I know who haven't played video games in years are playing this.

7 mill first month 12 mill overall

Word of mouth campaign is underway I see. =p
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/diablo-iii/user-reviews

I played the Starter edition last night. I can't say I am impressed with a game 10 years in the making. Personally, I feel torchlight and Path of exile are better games, especially in terms of moving thing forward and innovation. I found most of my time extremely restrictive, perhaps because Path of exile is so open level layout wise, and you can make your own class. Torchlight has more character than this, and even simple things like the pets are a big step forward for this style of game. I did not even really feel like i was playing a Diablo game, it feels more, on most levels, like it was built for Wow converts, rather than fans of the previous games. From the Skill system to the crafting. In terms of graphics, this is more akin to Warcraft then Diablo in stylization, and atmosphere. Also, at its current camera distance, I felt like I was squinting most of the time to see what was going on, and when I press Z, I feel its to close to see anything ahead.

Having said that, the name Diablo and some of the reoccurring things from the previous titles will likely carry this title. Its not a bad title, but its certainly lacking in terms of using the Diablo name, and taking ten years to produce. Especially compared to more forward moving games in the same genre.

Also, the invention of lag/disconnect in a single player mode is indeed innovative. So is the Cue to log into battle.net to play alone, last night Battle.net was "Full".  :ye_gods:

/flamesuit on

All I know is I click a magical button called "Join Public Group" and am magically paired up with some random players.  We then go blow shit up and pick up shiny stuff.

Fun so far- we will see how it goes from here.

The idea that graphically & atmosphere wise this is like WoW always staggers me.

This is one of the most bloody, gore filled violent games I've played. I recently came across the giant carcass of a demon skinned alive and eviscerated, with its entrails hanging out onto the floor and it's insides stapled against the wall.

It's one of the few games I'd actually think twice about letting a kid play - some areas really are just that unpleasant and violent. Its far more grotesque that Diablo 2 in that regards.

Yes, the online and random group part of this game is the killer app. The gameplay and design is far far better suited to the "LFD Tool" style gameplay that has taken over MMOs. It's not what I'd describe as the gameplay being similar, more the "game lifestyle" is similar.

It's a strange mix of comical looking monsters (balloon-zombies!) and gore/blood. Diablo 1 was "darker" (not colors - setting, atmosphere, overall feel), though. Partially due to music and atmospheric sound-effects, which were more "prominent" in the first game, while in the current one they blend more into the background.

Diablo 1 & 2 were "Darker" because your imagination filled out the holes in the shitty 600x800 res 32-bit graphics & 4-color palette.  High-res 1950x1080 with 32 million colors causes quite a different look.

Folks who don't like it can bitch all they want about it, it's foolish. I'm not sorry they decided there's more to a color palette than black brown white and red.

Not really about color, color was fine. But for a series heralded for its fidelity of the time ( Do to rendered assets ), D3 does not really do justice to the look and feel expected when transitioned to full 3d assets.  I feel Poe has advanced in that category, is is more of the evolution expected. IMO. Especially with the resources available to them.

D3 uses small undetailed textures, little modern rendering, and woefully small polygon counts. Its not a bad looking game taken for what it is. The lack of the ability to set a comfortable zoom level is a result of those choices however. I can also play with 15 of my friends in POE.. There is just so much about this title that does not seem forward thinking or features for a title with the Diablo name and blizzard as its maker.

Man, you are so hard to figure out. Were you grown in a tank or something? This is either blatant trolling, or your nervous system is hooked up differently than everyone else.

I've only /played for maybe 6 hours so far, but when I'm out in a dank, death-encrusted field, or a creepy underground lair, shooting skeletons, zombies, and horrible exploding demons in the face, it *feels* more like the old Diablo, than Torchlight or any of the other Diablo-alikes that I've tried in the intervening ten years. (disclaimer: I haven't tried PoE)

I agree that the skill system and the crafting are different, but those are the sorts of advancements that you are quick to praise in other games.

Those are just the logistical support systems though. The tip of the spear is your toon, with a handful of skills on the hotkeys, blowing monsters up like loot pinatas.

I think you may have misinterpreted what I wrote. I did not say atmosphere wise Torchlight is more like the original Diablo, I said it has more character. As to the skills, there is a line where streamline becomes simplification for no real reason for me. Also, I will always, ALWAYS vote in favor of less linear progression. In this regards POE has spoiled me greatly. I don't think I can ever play a game like this and not be able to have such flexibility. Roll your own class has to great a pull for me.

This skill system seems like I have been given a pair of safety scissors, in the same way there are no longer any bad picks in Wow.

I did not, in my original post, bring up that my toon seems to target what he wants to target, no matter what I have targeted ( red outline ), also the sloppiness of the target selection ( can't just hover, must re-click ) In this regard, its another point in both Torchlight and POEs column for me. I do not need the game picking my targets, I do not care if they are closer.

Anyway, I should let time pass for the nostalgia haze to pass, and also to spend a bit more time with it, before trying to discuss this game.

I suppose this was more accurate than just comparing a crypt from all 4 games, huh?  :oh_i_see:

Look at the system reqs. Blizzard has the "playable on even old systems" mantra. Does PoE?  Considering there's people out there that will be trying on POS systems built in 2004/5 I'll wager that's part of the lack for modern rendering and low polys.

I'll never expect innovation from Blizzard.  Never. If it happens, be happy but in the end they've always used polish and wide access as their key selling points.

D3 Min:

POE Min:

Note: NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800 is Pixel Shader 3.0.

Speaking of polish, in D3 one of the first things I noticed was that there were two mayors standing in town. polish is another area that D3 gets lower than expected marks for a ten years development title. Also, unlike D3, POE IS an MMO.

No, but less time consuming.

I really hate how zoomed-in POE is.

It has Variable Zoom. Scroll in to what you like, it holds up at all levels. Little things like this are forward thinking.

Could you please explain to me how you think D3's screenshot is "wrong" for ... whatever it is you want? Because I seriously am not really seeing it ... possibly because I don't even know what I'm looking for. "It doesn't look right  :heartbreak:" is not the most useful of art critiques.

I thought we weren't shitting here.

The stylization is some sort of halfway between D2 and torchlight. The Fidelity of the texture, and models are more akin to Wow requirement, and have less details like Torchlight, but heavy stylization on the most important parts. It does not follow the Diablo line, or carry over from what was one a title heralded for its high fidelity ( Due to its per-renderd assets ) for its time. One would have thought, that they would continue the tradition of high quality, realistic graphical style when they converted to full 3D. This is more than simply targeting low system requirements, this is a chosen, at the design level, stylization for a fan base brought up on another title they own. There is no other reason for it. Is it a shitty looking game? No, I never said that. Does it fit inline with its predecessors, not really.

Not sure how much more I can explain it, and I said this already, no where did I say: "It doesn't look right  Heartbreak", I was rather clear the first time.

Edit: Clarification.

Tru dat. Also, the story was better because there was less of it. All this angels versus demons animu bullshit is crap compared to the intro to D1, with the crow pecking an eye from a corpse, and some demons growling in a crypt. Though the brightly colored succubi with their titties out, shooting red and blue photon torpedoes were really dark and gothic.  :drill:

I live in a world where people crapped all over D2's graphics (why is it only 640x480! why isn't it full 3D!) when it came out, so I really don't get where you're coming from, Mr.B.

I also look at those screenshots you post and think to myself 'D3 looks so much better than POE' though. Everything I've seen of Torchlight 2 looks better than POE, for that matter. POE is just straight-up ugly. It has no character.

EDIT: I guess I can kind of see that maybe it is a little more stylized than before in the actual player models themselves? I don't think 'realistic' was ever something that leapt to mind for D1/D2 graphically and I definitely don't see the environments being more stylized than before.

Well, Bloodworth, one of the things you said was the "atmosphere" was wrong, and I just ... don't see it. At all. But this may be because I don't give a shit about polygon counts when assessing an atmosphere? I don't know. When I look at those screenshots side by side, looking for what the "atmosphere" is, I am not really seeing LOL WOW in the D3 one. I am seeing a prettier version of "creepy ol' dungeon."

I never played the first Diablo and I played D2 long after it came out (and thus it was old and creaky looking by the time I got to it) though, so perhaps I just don't have the ROOTS to see the very subtle ways the art for Diablo 3 is too "WoW-y."

This thread is giving me the ultra-bad idea of installing this on my work PC.  :awesome_for_real:

I wasn't talking my personal preference, but about the over all fidelity and technique and chosen style, and I already said D3 is not an ugly game.

Anyway, clearly the Nostalgia Haze is kicking in here, anything I say will be taken just as Sjofn responded. Not reading what is being said, but taking it as a slight to the latest installment of a long loved franchise.

EDIT: Sjofn, I did say atmosphere, Because I believe its not in keeping with the title. Its more cartoon stylization than it is realistic dungeon, and I believe Xuri  had it right. Its the juxtaposition of the Toons and mobs stylization on a more, but not quite, realistic world. Does it work as a whole? Yes. Does it fit with the rest? no so much.

I think Merusk hit it on the head. Nostalgia glasses seem to be effecting people's memories of D1 and D2.

(http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/images/7/71/D1-mon-succubi.jpg)

If I say I didn't really care for D1 in general and never thought D2 was anything better than passable graphically does that help? The only nostalgia haze I have is for the gameplay of D2, I'll admit that straight-up.

Well, I could dismiss you as having nostalgia for D2's art being well received or lauded for ... stuff (I seriously do not remember such a thing, but again, I was mostly oblivious to it when it first came out). But you said "atmosphere." That is a nebulous arty thing, not a technical thing. I know fuck all about the technical shit, because I do not care about it so long as it looks good, so I am going with the more arty bullshit of "the atmosphere."

The problem with those earlier Diablo screenshots is that while they do, of course, have an art style, they're also fucking old as shit and couldn't do as much to hammer their artistic vision into your eyeballs. I also don't see what they were shooting for in D3 (we are doomed, we love giant pillars, and a gloomy haze) being that much different artistically from the previous two.

Yes, that's why its hard to get my point across, the age of the times they were created. Anyway.. We all have more time to spend with it.

I remember that being one of my issues with the game.  Despite this "pre-rendered assets" thing, when I tried playing I remember thinking it looked like ass.  Like they'd put all this work into models but didn't have the balls to pull the trigger on making it 3d and instead turned those into sprites.

This was the same year that the first Sims was released.  It looked a hell of a lot better and had more options for graphic resolutions.  Icewind Dale, also the case if you want to stay in the RPG genre.

I certainly don't have any beloved D1 & d2 nostalgia I'm fighting.  I never played D1 at all and picked-up D2 because of the IT guy at that office recommending it.  I was sorely disappointed at the hype he'd sold me. 

I'm comparing the whines of D2 fans at how color 'ruined' the franchise and 'it doesn't look like Diablo' to my memory of it being a shitty aesthetic in the first place and, hey, it's 2012 that aesthetic isn't going to cut it in the first place.

Not making any comment on the aesthetics discussion since I believe it's entirely subjective. However your comments about the skill system are simply wrong and sound like the things people were saying about the skill system 6 months ago before anyone really understood it.

Diablo 3 has possibly the most flexible, varied and complex skill & character progression system I have ever seen. Each class has something like 22 skills, each of which can be modified by 5 different runes, many of which greatly change the skill. You can pick ANY of those skills in any combination you like and you can respec at any time, for free. Plus you can pick 3 out of 16 passive skills. The sheer number of viable builds dwarfs that available in Diablo 2 for instance, and this flexibility is being mistaken for "dumbing down" since it is much, much harder to pick badly. And if you do, hey, free respec.

If you want a system where you can gimp your character and the only way to know how to spec is to read external websites where people have made spreadsheets and run simulators and done maths then yeah, Diablo 3 isn't for you. I think this system is far more fun and flexible and accessible.

edit: typos.

Exactly. The real fun for me atm is discovering the synergies in the skills. The barbarian totally rocks for this, with stuns that pull all the mobs in to one spot where he can hit them with his size reduced, dmg buffed hammer strike.

You should really look at POE's skill ( Gem ) (http://www.pathofexile.com/skills/) system and passive skill (http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/) system. Your second paragraph is not what I was talking about at all.

Anyway, I picked this up last night to play with friends for the next month or so, so you guys can add a +1 to your estimates.

D3 doesn't really feel like D2 at all to me. Not even close. It's a pretty polished ARPG set in the Diablo universe. At least that's what it feels like. It's still pretty fun however, which is all that matters. There is literally no way to recapture all of our nostalgia for D1/2. It's just not doable.

As for the graphics; they're mediocre if you ask me. I actually like the brighter overall feel; but I feel like I have to squint at the game. It just looks blurry as fuck to me.

I find the opposite, to me D3 is D2 with immense amounts of polish.

I'm not buying the "needs more grimdark" opinion either.

I agree about the blur. Everything looks hazy, especially outside. I wonder if that's intentional, since I'm still in Act 1, maybe it's supposed to be mist?

Me either. My grimdark skull is staring at my on my desk with the USB soul stone.

I'll give POE a look at some point, although I actually hate the graphical style of the screenshots I've seen - it seems characterless to me, leaves me cold. Totally subjective.

The environments are really, really varied. For every slightly cheerful looking highlands I've run through there's been a horrible dark mine I can't see more than 3 feet away from myself in. This is IMO a very good change from the prior games, even D2 isn't really close on the number of different looking environments. Also as you get farther into the game the GRR GRIMDARK gets ramped up.

Also, vivisected cow altars.  :ye_gods:

Bloodworth, I can't hear your complaints over the sounds of my Barbarians fists PUNCHING A SKELETON OUT OF A FLESHY THING.

Go play your fucking indie knockoff.

More than 3.5 million first day, currently 6.3.

http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/press/pressreleases.html?id=4662221

It's basically already wiped the SC2 sales off the map in the first week.

Once again proving that the idiot who wrote the article comparing this game to SC2 was, in fact, an idiot.

THIS is the game Bloodworth picks to be critical of?  /boggle

You should turn off the shitty in-game AA and force MSAA through your vidya card, if you have that option.

Which article was that?  But yeah, this isn't surprising at all, RTS just isn't a popular genre these days. 

It was This Article (http://seekingalpha.com/article/593621-why-i-left-my-cheerleader-pom-pons-at-the-door-and-sold-activision-blizzard-part-2) from the stocks and bonds general discussion.

Paelos WINS!

 :awesome_for_real:

SIGN OF THE BEAST GUESS FTW