Blizzard's Community Relations

[Abelian75]

What exactly does that do if Bashiok says that? For one thing, it vindicates the detractors to a degree, and admits that they made mistakes with the projects. Honestly, there is almost nobody in the D3 community that didn't already believe this game has been mismanaged and seems rudderless. Telling them what they already know does nothing except make the customers feel more involved in your commitment to fix the issues. Trying to pretend there are no issues or saying nothing gets you into the boat of Bioware with the ME3 ending.

Heh, I was going to make the ME3 comparison myself, but was beaten to it.  It may be the case that this causes problems or something with lots of other people, but for me, this is exactly the kind of communication that makes me trust a company.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'd love to see the numbers on how many people stopped playing after a couple weeks/month.  It was probably one of those "oh shit, this is gonna be bad for PR" moments.  Diablo3 sold a lot but it's not D3 or even RMAH I think they are worried about, it's the brand.

[Phred]

Also, I think most late adopters come in due to word of mouth so I'd guess that they won't get the same kind of sales that they might get from most of their other games, cause really, the vocal word of mouth on this is pretty bad. I can't imagine Blizzard denying there is a problem is gonna help much with that. The two most casual gamers I know are long gone, and not overly impressed with the game, though they both liked D2 well enough.

[LK]

Some of my friends are still playing this game, really enjoy it. They're not taking it so seriously, I guess. They haven't reached Inferno yet, stayed away from AH, and are taking their time with it. I don't foresee this game joining the pantheon of amazing Blizzard titles near and dear to the heart of gamers everywhere, but they have a solid game underneath it all. It is unfortunate it took so long to get there and it is mired with so much baggage.

[Malakili]

It is unfortunate it took so long to get there and it is mired with so much baggage.

The real trouble is the first part.  Blizzard has a history of releasing good patches to fix iffy games (or even good expansion packs to fix iffy games).  But they don't have that luxury anymore.  Diablo 2 was nowhere NEAR what Lord of Destruction became - but at the time it was all anyone knew, more or less, and there was just a lot less shared bitching about things.  Hell, I didn't talk about games online when Diablo 2 was new, let alone read what other people were saying about it online.  I just bought it and played it.

[Ironwood]

Oh Just STOP.

Diablo 2 at release, bare ass bones, no patches, was fucking fifteen THOUSAND times the game this is.

There was fuck all iffy about it.

[Paelos]

Oh Just STOP.

Diablo 2 at release, bare ass bones, no patches, was fucking fifteen THOUSAND times the game this is.

There was fuck all iffy about it.

Yes, it was. So much of the games that year were so much better than the stuff we get now. Diablo 2, Shogun: TW, Deus Ex, Thief 2, The Sims, Icewind Dale, Escape from Monkey Island, and Baldur's Gate 2 all came out that year.

[01101010]

But that is not how it goes now. Everything is ONLINE ONLY now so they can release half-assed games that they can continue to work on but collect the box sales while they do it. There is no reason to release a complete game anymore... just release the demo and DLC the rest, for a fee of course.

[Abelian75]

Man, I dunno guys, I think D3's core gameplay is pretty damn good.  I never got through all of D2, and that was back when I didn't have tons of games to play cuz I was poor.  I'm not saying that's true for everyone, or even most people, but I do think the actual "game" part of D3 is goddamn great.  I don't usually play games for 200 hours, after all.

I don't disagree that there are severely fucked up aspects of the game though.  And while I don't have much D2 experience, it's entirely possible it didn't have the same kind of severe flaws.  And yeah, it may be that D3 isn't really up to Blizzard's standards.  But it's still a great game.

[Malakili]

Man, I dunno guys, I think D3's core gameplay is pretty damn good.  I never got through all of D2, and that was back when I didn't have tons of games to play cuz I was poor.  I'm not saying that's true for everyone, or even most people, but I do think the actual "game" part of D3 is goddamn great.  I don't usually play games for 200 hours, after all.

I don't disagree that there are severely fucked up aspects of the game though.  And while I don't have much D2 experience, it's entirely possible it didn't have the same kind of severe flaws.  And yeah, it may be that D3 isn't really up to Blizzard's standards.  But it's still a great game.

People are also remembering the height of D2 v. the launch of D3.  Diablo 3 is vastly superior on release than Diablo 2 was on release.  Obviously they should have more experience and not make some of the mistakes they did.  But in the end I agree with you - the core gameplay is damn good, and that is why I keep playing - and also why I think it'll be fine once they get their end game figured out.  I mean, if a bunch of you out there just get no enjoyment from the actual *playing* of the game, then I'm not really sure what you did expect in the first place.

[Paelos]

I enjoy D3 just fine, but they fucked up the skill + itemization interdependencies. That's something D2 did right at release, then tweaked later for balance.

I mean really, when you get down to nuts and bolts, the ARPG is about using skills and finding new gear that works with those skills.

[amiable]

People are also remembering the height of D2 v. the launch of D3.  Diablo 3 is vastly superior on release than Diablo 2 was on release.  Obviously they should have more experience and not make some of the mistakes they did.  But in the end I agree with you - the core gameplay is damn good, and that is why I keep playing - and also why I think it'll be fine once they get their end game figured out.  I mean, if a bunch of you out there just get no enjoyment from the actual *playing* of the game, then I'm not really sure what you did expect in the first place.

I respectfully disagree.  I played the heck out of D2 vanilla, but had to quit before the expansion because it was literally ruining my life.  D2 vanilla even with many of it's annoying characteristics is leaps and bounds better than this game (at least for me), why:

1.  Build diversity.  Each class had a series of choices that made subtype classes play vastly different than other subtypes.  Due to the difficulty curve of this game, at higher levels certain skills/talents are obligatory, leading to a "sameness" problem (eg poison dart, revenge, the demon hunter shield thingee I can't remember right now, etc...)

2.  Gear diversity.  In vanilla you could solve most of your resistance problems by getting a triple diamond shield.  In general it took only a few dedicated pieces of gear to be defensively powerful enough to explore end game content.  In this game EVERY SINGLE piece of your gear save maybe your weapon must have resist all +vitality and +main stat or it is completely useless.  Which would be find if they had lots of sets/uniques that provided this and dropped at a reaonable rate.  But the drop rate for these items is literally microscopic and most of the time they are worse than blues you can farm from the merchants. 

3.  Too many design decisions seem to have been made based on the AH and RMAH.

[Ironwood]

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

Diablo 3 is vastly superior on release than Diablo 2 was on release. 

No.  It isn't.

I think the stuff the developers themselves are coming out with versus what I'm hearing from almost every source also tells much more of a realistic story than some fanboi with a hardon.

[Ingmar]

For me at least, D2 builds weren't interesting at all until they added synergies. Until then it was just an exercise in not spending your points, which was beyond stupid. The rune system blows the initial D2 skill system away IMO.

[Ironwood]

I'd actually agree with that to an extent.  But I don't really think that was more than window dressing.  The whole point of Diablo was smacking things until they popped nice stuff out the corpse.  Everything else was just window dressing.

Take books in the original Diablo - God, you spurted pure joy when you found a bookshelf.  Same in D2 when something genuinely nice dropped and you had a chance of a unique even right at the start.

Swing and a miss with this one.

[koro]

I really wish my original D2 1.0 CDs still worked (or if someone had a 1.0 patch_d2.mpq on hand). I'd be super interested in going back and showing off the differences between 1.0, 1.09 (the last patch before synergies and the Hell revamp) and 1.13d, which is the current patch.

Ah, the days of 20-hit Zeal that could take upwards of a minute to execute with a slow enough weapon.

[Malakili]

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

Sorry you are so butthurt over it.  Get over it maybe?

[Ingmar]

I really wish my original D2 1.0 CDs still worked (or if someone had a 1.0 patch_d2.mpq on hand). I'd be super interested in going back and showing off the differences between 1.0, 1.09 (the last patch before synergies and the Hell revamp) and 1.13d, which is the current patch.

Ah, the days of 20-hit Zeal that could take upwards of a minute to execute with a slow enough weapon.

Yeah Zeal is the first thing I think of when people talk about D2 at release. Put too many points in that? Sorry, character ruined, start over. Read the forums first next time!

[Paelos]

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

Sorry you are so butthurt over it.  Get over it maybe?

To be fair, your viewpoint on what's fun in games is pretty narrow and ridiculous. I believe at one point or another you questioned even playing stuff anymore.

[Ingmar]

Meh, we all have our little quirks.

[koro]

I really wish my original D2 1.0 CDs still worked (or if someone had a 1.0 patch_d2.mpq on hand). I'd be super interested in going back and showing off the differences between 1.0, 1.09 (the last patch before synergies and the Hell revamp) and 1.13d, which is the current patch.

Ah, the days of 20-hit Zeal that could take upwards of a minute to execute with a slow enough weapon.

Yeah Zeal is the first thing I think of when people talk about D2 at release. Put too many points in that? Sorry, character ruined, start over. Read the forums first next time!

Yeah, D2 was by no means a perfect game at release, and the Paladin was probably the least playable character until damn near LoD. I'm pretty sure one of the only viable Paladin builds until 1.07 was an Avenger. If you had the good fortune to roll one of the other four classes though? Fun times.

But that doesn't really matter, though. It's like everyone says for MMOs and WoW clones: Diablo 3 doesn't have to stack up to the Diablo 2 of 2000, it has to stack up to the Diablo 2 of 2012.

[Malakili]

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

Sorry you are so butthurt over it.  Get over it maybe?

To be fair, your viewpoint on what's fun in games is pretty narrow and ridiculous. I believe at one point or another you questioned even playing stuff anymore.

Yeah, that is fine.  I deserve whatever jaw I get around here.  My problem with Ironwood in that post is that it seems to be that he has trouble taking it too.

[Paelos]

He's fucking Scottish. He wakes up chewing nails and telling people to fuck off.

[Ingmar]

Anyone who can endure multiple seasons of playing Skaven in Blood Bowl gets no accusations of thin skin from me.

[Slayerik]

I def played D3 more hours in the first few months than I did D2. Not saying it is better, but was worth my money regardless of future patches.

[Sjofn]

I never finished the D2 campaign. I've gotten to hell on more than one character in D3. So D3 wins for me.

[Lightstalker]

D2 Release Paladin with Zeal and inverted Auras was awesome (instead of a circlular aura radius, the quadrants of the circle were mirrored corner to corner so it was a star shape instead of a circle).  Basically, this level of finish is exactly what Blizzard has been known for for about as long as anyone can remember.  This *is* situation normal for them.  If the rest of the industry wasn't even more messed up they'd have been knocked off their perch long ago. 

Hooray lowered expectations!

[Trippy]

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

You should take a break from posting in the D3 threads.

[Job601]

I don't respectfully disagree.  I think Mala is utterly full of fucking shite and listening to him tell me what I remember is fucking offensive.

You should take a break from posting in the D3 threads.


[/quote

Like I said before, he's lost all touch with reality when it comes to this game.  These threads have had a pretty good discussion of the pros and cons of this game if you tune out his histrionic bile.

[Miasma]

I think I played through D2 once and then never played it again.  I like launch day D3 more.

The only thing I remember from D2 is really, really hating some giant jungle type set of zones.

[Hawkbit]

I'm exactly the opposite.  D3 feels like FF13 - all just a path to the end.  D2 is the same, sure, but it at least felt more epic. 

I'm cooling off a bit from my intense dislike for D3's implementation and I'm going to give it another try soon.  I might just try to play without using the AH at all.  I think that might help my frustration.

It helps that Blizzard acknowledged that they have a sustainability issue.  Maybe we'll see some change down the pike.

[waffel]

D2 is the same, sure, but it at least felt more epic. 

It helps when you don't have the bad guy at the end of each act constantly talking to you saying "Ha ha ha! You'll never find me! Ha ha ha!" every 5 minutes.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

D2 is the same, sure, but it at least felt more epic. 

It helps when you don't have the bad guy at the end of each act constantly talking to you saying "Ha ha ha! You'll never find me! Ha ha ha!" every 5 minutes.

But IT'S BECAUSE HE IS A TACTICAL GENIUS.

[Setanta]

As was pointed out earlier, D3 should be meeting then exceeding the current iteration of D2 (and I tend to agree that D2 on release was more fun than D3). The reality is that the devs took a big shit all over that, got on the blogosphere and told the word how shitty D2s mechanics are and how they were going to improve that and then got a heavy dose of karma in the arse without so much as a reach-around due to their arrogance when people pointed out that at least D2 was fun.

I find their disrespect towards the D2 team saddening, it was an ego boost of Romero-like proportions and unworthy of one of the better developed games of that era.

D3 will tide me over until TL2 - because the TL devs seem to get it.

[Abelian75]

Oh come now, the bit where you had to save your points and not spend them until you could dump them all in one skill was pretty silly.  I mean, I thought D2's skill system was pretty retarded at the time I played it.  This isn't some revisionist history thing. 

And yeah, I do see that the retarded-on-its-own skill system did allow for some interesting itemization, definitely, so I don't disagree that D3 is probably missing something that D2 had.

But I mean, come on.  Next we'll be saying that rolling for your character's attributes over and over in Baldur's Gate was a good system.  That shit was dumb, it was noticeably dumb even at the time, and it is ok to say that it was dumb (and I loved the hell out of BG).