Are you done? Why?

[Malakili]

This is kind of a tangent/pet peeve, but it's really sad to see D3 -- and possibly future ARPGs -- take this route, which to me is much closer to gated/gear-checked/high-level MMO content, where the primary question is always 'can you do it?' and never 'how awesomely can you do it?' D2 was firmly a 'how awesomely can you do it?' sort of game, and there are just so many potentially great games and premises that have been ruined by this inability to let games revolve around level-of- and variety-of-achievement, instead of just whether the achievement is possible at all. (See for example most 'superhero' games, where gameplay should so clearly be about just how stylishly you can beat up the eighty-thousand mooks, but instead ends up being watching your superhero get beat up by five faceless goons because you over-pulled or whatever.)

Well said.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that even though I loved Diablo 2 and I've been vocal that I've been loving Diablo 3, I think I love them for different reasons.  I like that Inferno kicks my ass.  But I liked that D2 didn't...

*shrugs* 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Yeah, I like that Inferno kicks my ass too -- I just wish it didn't do it in a way that makes farming for upgrades so frustrating. But maybe that's not really possible -- or maybe if I was playing a ranged class I would be laughing all the way to the bank, which is really neither here nor there.

[Arinon]

The more I think about it, the more I realize that even though I loved Diablo 2 and I've been vocal that I've been loving Diablo 3, I think I love them for different reasons.  I like that Inferno kicks my ass.  But I liked that D2 didn't...
*shrugs* 

Much as I hate to pull out such well-worn terms, it sounds like a sandbox vs. theme park situation.  I like both of them as well but D3 won't have the lasting appeal D2 did.  Not done yet but will be soon I expect.

[Malakili]

The more I think about it, the more I realize that even though I loved Diablo 2 and I've been vocal that I've been loving Diablo 3, I think I love them for different reasons.  I like that Inferno kicks my ass.  But I liked that D2 didn't...
*shrugs* 

Much as I hate to pull out such well-worn terms, it sounds like a sandbox vs. theme park situation.  I like both of them as well but D3 won't have the lasting appeal D2 did.  Not done yet but will be soon I expect.

It is more the difference between WoW: Vanilla and WoW: Cataclysm than Ultima Online and WOW: Vanilla.

[Mosesandstick]

It's not really an either/or thing -- D2 could both have had a larger variety of skills and also been easy.

But I agree that the easy thing is pretty key -- because when you are talking about variety of builds for a game like this, longevity-wise, you mean 'variety of viable, end-game builds'. If your end-game is really difficult -- or difficult in particular ways -- that is obviously going to reduce the number of viable builds. It's true that in D2 some builds were better than others, but often that just meant 'can kill Mephisto in 12 seconds' vs. 'can kill Mephisto in 30 seconds and sometimes you might die'. For most players who are interested in farming but not spreadsheet-optimizers, the latter is totally adequate and feels like success. You still get to farm Mephisto, and the fact that some other dude is doing it twice as fast really isn't a big deal.

I don't disagree with how you feel about D3's gating but I think your view on D2's skills is still a case of tinted goggles. Before 1.10 and especially before LoD there were so many skills that were practically useless as anything more than 1 point filler. With some skills its more of a case of Mephisto in 12 seconds vs 12 minutes.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Well, I would point out that it's entirely possible that D2 both had more useless skills AND more viable end-game builds. I agree there were lots of both, and I feel pretty strongly there were more of the latter than there are in D3.

But also I am pretty firmly in the 'stop talking about pre-LoD D2 as though that is a valid point of comparison to D3' camp. I really don't understand why people keep bringing this up. Intelligent designers learn from previous designs, right? Like this is kind of one of those basic human competencies that I think it is fair to expect from people who take this seriously -- and anyone doing it for a living should be in that category.

If you are building a bridge I expect you to look at some recent bridges that other people have built -- or in this case, bridges that your own company has built over the exact same river. If the game you are designing a sequel to included useful, interesting systems then they should be part of your considerations for your new design, regardless of whether they were introduced in a patch or not. Any new design should be compared to the best recent design of its type.

[Mosesandstick]

I don't disagree with you regarding that D3 should be a lot better than D2 and that D3's gated difficulty and lack of effective builds is something a lot of people don't find fun. I'm just pointing out that a lot of people remember D2 to have qualities it didn't actually have.

[waffel]

I'm just pointing out that a lot of people remember D2 to have qualities it didn't actually have.

No, most people remember D2 from now until a few years ago. Talking about how D2's skill tree system sucked at release is a completely pointless, and tired, argument.

[Threash]

I'm just pointing out that a lot of people remember D2 to have qualities it didn't actually have.

No, most people remember D2 from now until a few years ago. Talking about how D2's skill tree system sucked at release is a completely pointless, and tired, argument.

This.  Comparing launch D3 to launch D2 is crazy, the people at Blizzard did not get memory wipes before starting on the new game.

[Malakili]

I'm just pointing out that a lot of people remember D2 to have qualities it didn't actually have.

No, most people remember D2 from now until a few years ago. Talking about how D2's skill tree system sucked at release is a completely pointless, and tired, argument.

This.  Comparing launch D3 to launch D2 is crazy, the people at Blizzard did not get memory wipes before starting on the new game.

My point is more that Blizzard OFTEN has less than stellar releases with their games.  That is why I am comparing it to launch of Diablo 2.  The point is, D2 got a hell of a lot better, and I expect that D3 will as well.  The issues with D3 are to do with the new features (Inferno, AH), not the core gameplay.  The itemization SHOULD be a lot better, that much is obvious and is the main thing they should have taken over from Diablo 2: LOD - so they deserve whatever grilling they get for that.

[Setanta]

Online all the time shouldn't get there arses kicked too? I still get hiccups when their end stutters and last night in Hell Act 4 (trying to find gear for alts) I pulled a mortar/Illusion/vortex/waller pack that also drops the red circles on you... well my latency went from green to red - first time I've seen that happen and the first time my game turned into a slideshow since early release.

Still playing (I'm a massochist I know) and I can almost play around anything the game throws at me but the online always system may well kill it for me, especially as it's a 6/7 night availability here.

On a plus side, I went and played some SC2 campaign and multiplayer and didn't mind having to be online to do so - the SC2 devs kept the gameplay similar to the original but enhanced the experience. I'd argue that they got the formula right (never looked into how successful it is either though).

I wonder what would happen if they made a WC4 - although I'm not sure I want to know given the turn that WoW lore took

[waffel]

I wonder what would happen if they made a WC4 - although I'm not sure I want to know given the turn that WoW lore took

Sadly, I'm pretty sure you can say goodbye to user generated maps in WC4. Which, for a lot of players, kept WC3 interesting way past its 'prime'

[Ingmar]

I wonder what would happen if they made a WC4 - although I'm not sure I want to know given the turn that WoW lore took

Sadly, I'm pretty sure you can say goodbye to user generated maps in WC4. Which, for a lot of players, kept WC3 interesting way past its 'prime'

Why would you say that? Their last RTS *expanded* mod-ability compared to prior ones.

[Phred]

This is kind of a tangent/pet peeve, but it's really sad to see D3 -- and possibly future ARPGs -- take this route, which to me is much closer to gated/gear-checked/high-level MMO content, where the primary question is always 'can you do it?' and never 'how awesomely can you do it?' D2 was firmly a 'how awesomely can you do it?' sort of game, and there are just so many potentially great games and premises that have been ruined by this inability to let games revolve around level-of- and variety-of-achievement, instead of just whether the achievement is possible at all. (See for example most 'superhero' games, where gameplay should so clearly be about just how stylishly you can beat up the eighty-thousand mooks, but instead ends up being watching your superhero get beat up by five faceless goons because you over-pulled or whatever.)

Sadly you can thank the vocal "fans" for this. The ones who bitch about how the game isn't hard enough to challenge them. Path of Exile is going in the same direction thanks to the vocal few.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Well, it's really up to the game designer to reframe the 'challenge' in a way that makes things clear to players. Timed dungeons and achievement-based rewards -- where the achievements point towards unusual, creative, or simply alarmingly-efficient ways of clearing content -- can all suggest that the challenge the game is presenting is not a simple pass/fail challenge. At which point complaining that the game is too easy to pass, or too hard to pass, becomes increasingly absurd.

Like if you show me a 100 foot wall and tell me this is a game about jumping and walls, it's obvious that the goal is realistically not to jump over the wall, and I'm going to have fun getting as high as I can on every jump, and seeing if I can improve on that, or try doing backflips off the wall, or whatever -- but if you show me a 5 foot wall and give me the same instructions, then maybe I'm going to start feeling like if I can't ever jump over it, I'm doing it wrong. The same readjustment would occur if you then made the wall 2 feet high, so that jumping over it was trivial.

[Azazel]

It's just boring.

I didn't even get to hell before I got that, "the champ packs are just going to get more annoying and less fun to fight" feeling and punched out. The loot is most of the reason to play an ARPG and the loot in D3 is hideously boring and pretty much 100% of your drops after you start getting actual level appropriate loot in nightmare are vendor or AH fodder. I sell my junk for gold, then buy whatever the most optimal item is that I can afford. That's not terribly exciting.

I like the variety of skills and being able to respec/mix and match however I wish but it kinda feels like you're slowly being pigeonholed into specific samey builds because you'll die hideously otherwise.

And since the loot is the point of the game, and there's a RMAH for loot, Blizzard will be balancing the game around that rather than fun. Not because they suck or are evil or whatever, but because they have no real choice.

This is why I quit.  I never got a piece of loot that I either got excited about or could use.  Everything came from the AH.  Yawn.

Everything above x2. (both posts)

And I never managed to even hit level 20 before getting bored.

[Hutch]

Burnt out.

120+ hours playing a non-HC wizard, up to the level cap and Act 1 Inferno. Hit the frustration wall there. But, when the game launched, I hadn't really seen myself getting farther than that anyway.

40+ hours playing HC barbarians, finally got one through normal mode before dying spectacularly to an elite trash pack in NM :)

(And 10 hours or less playing each of the other classes)

So I got a ton of play time out of it. I don't look forward to running yet another character through Acts 1 and 2, which is where I've spent the bulk of my play time in this game.

So. I'm either burnt out, in which case I might come back sometime, or I'm done altogether.

[Rendakor]

I wonder what would happen if they made a WC4 - although I'm not sure I want to know given the turn that WoW lore took

Sadly, I'm pretty sure you can say goodbye to user generated maps in WC4. Which, for a lot of players, kept WC3 interesting way past its 'prime'

Why would you say that? Their last RTS *expanded* mod-ability compared to prior ones.

Really? It was pretty hard to find good custom games in SC2 because I didn't care for the listing system they used in place of just letting people host their own games.

[Rokal]

Really? It was pretty hard to find good custom games in SC2 because I didn't care for the listing system they used in place of just letting people host their own games.

The listing system and the "Blizzard owns everything you make" changes to the TOS probably inhibited the mod community, but I don't see why this means that they wouldn't have a map maker in a theoretical WC4.

[Malakili]

There are quite a few decent SC2 "custom maps" out there, but nothing on the level of DOTA or anything like that.  They are releasing a patch called something like Battle Net Arcade to overhaul the entire UI for finding these things, so hopefully that will help.  Originally they wanted to allow people to sell their stuff too, and I heard some buzzing a while back that the feature might finally make it in for Heart of the Swarm, but I'm not holding my breath.  Neither do I think very many people are willing to pay money for custom Starcraft 2 maps.

[Pennilenko]

I want to revise why I'm done. I cant move forward in inferno past act 1, I cant manually out farm gold bots to buy upgrades, the bots are kicking me in the nuts. I saved 5 million for a nice upgrade or two, I cant even buy one piece of gear. Not one useful item has dropped that I can use or put up for sale. The RNG is not with me even a little. Total wall I cannot move past. At least 50 hours of farming act 1 inferno, and I have nothing to show for it.

[Soulflame]

I am fairly certain I am in the same dilemma that Pennilenko finds himself in, except that I have not managed to accumulate five million gold.  I have found that there are no affordable upgrades, and that act 2 Inferno is rough going.

[Xanthippe]

I will continue to play until I have each type to 60/inferno act I, which I find unfun. Getting there, I find fun. I have a monk and WD there already.

(I just started Act II in hell on my wizard - what seems key to me is having Life% on weapon and high damage, and kiting using this build
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZXYlOR!WfX!ZZZYZb which probably isn't ideal and can be tweaked. I haven't spent more than 20k on any piece of armor except latest weapon, for which I spent 50k; most of my armor is lvl44 or so, with high int, some vit, crit when I can find it. I leveled looking for int and exp%, then int/vit and exp%, now int/vit and crit. I've always ignored MF as it doesn't seem terribly helpful to leveling up or finding stuff until NV kicks in at 60).

I like exploring, but I rushed my first character to 60 only to find it not fun for me. So I still have some exploring to do. Playing with other people is another way to have fun (for me; sometimes solo is fun for me).

I find useful items just often enough to keep playing (although 60 isn't too fun).

After posting this, I think I played one more day, and not since.

I don't miss it. I might go back if they ever do a fun patch. I did get my money's worth but unless they significantly change what's broken, don't see myself buying any expansions.

What happened to the company that learned from and fixed its mistakes? Activision.

[Lantyssa]

How many ex-Blizzard employees are there now?  Every game seems to boast having them.  Although I'm sure the acquisition hasn't helped, it's tough for any large company to keep everyone around that made the magic work before.

[Paelos]

I've now occupied my time goofing around with achievement whoring on the weekends when I'm bored, and checking to see if the AH is any more ridiculous.

Other than that, it's basically LOTRO and waiting to unload several dollars on Steam Sales.

[Abelian75]

How many ex-Blizzard employees are there now?  Every game seems to boast having them.  Although I'm sure the acquisition hasn't helped, it's tough for any large company to keep everyone around that made the magic work before.

To be fair, I think they retain a lot more people than most game companies.  That's definitely the way it seemed when I worked in the industry, at least.

[Lantyssa]

When the industry standard is a couple of years, and Blizzard has been popular for over 20, turn-over will still happen.

[TheWalrus]

I'm with Penni, Soul, and Xan. I haven't logged on in a couple weeks. I don't really feel I got my moneys worth, moreover, it was a very forgettable game. I fired up D2 and had more fun with that than I did at any point in D3. Kinda makes me sad. I really enjoyed D2 and had high hopes for 3.

[Brolan]

I still play occasionally but the game never grabbed me like D1 and D2.   It just doesn't "feel" like Diablo to me; and aside from the lame soundtrack I don't know why.

[Rokal]

Dear Diablo Players,

Now that Diablo III has been out for two months, I would like to take a step back and discuss the launch, the feedback from the community, and talk about what the future holds for the game.

We’ve had an enormous amount of feedback since the launch. I speak for everyone at Blizzard when I say that we appreciate the passion and affection many of you have for the Diablo series. We truly believe “Every Voice Matters,” so I want to thank you for sharing your experiences in an effort to help us improve the game. Your support makes it possible for us to continue doing what we do, and we never take that for granted.

The launch week of Diablo III was memorable for many reasons -- some positive, and some not so positive. We were thrilled that Diablo III had the biggest PC-game launch ever, surpassing the lifetime sales of Cataclysm (the previous record holder for biggest PC-game launch) in a matter of weeks. We’ve been floored by the response.

However, the launch had many challenges as well. It has always been difficult to forecast how many players we will have. With World of Warcraft, it was a challenge to handle the immediate demand when we launched back in 2004, and that was just in North America. We eventually expanded to other regions and reached nearly 5 million players by the end of the first year, and there were a lot of growing pains with that. However, we’ve never gone from 0 to more than 6 million players across multiple continents within a few days with a brand-new game. For Diablo III, we looked at historical sales for Blizzard games and other top-selling PC games and watched preorder numbers. We even upped our estimates to ensure we had additional capacity, or so we thought. In the end, it just wasn’t enough, and that is something we will work hard to conquer for future releases.

In response to the immediate and overwhelming demand for the game, the team worked around the clock to support all regions, increase capacity, ship additional hardware to our datacenters, and troubleshoot and fix bugs as they sprang up. While things have by and large been running smoothly for several weeks now, various game-related issues have come up that we have either already responded to or are continuing to investigate (such as the latency issue some of you are experiencing) and make adjustments for. Rather than address every subject individually, I’ll just say that even as we work to address or resolve current issues, it’s always possible that further issues will crop up. We hope that our actions in the past have demonstrated that above all else, we’re committed to delivering an awesome game experience, and we hope you’ll have faith that we will continue to keep that commitment and respond to any new or outstanding issues quickly.

We are not satisfied with breaking launch records; we want people to continue playing and enjoying Blizzard games for a very long time. The Diablo III team has made an epic, entertaining, and beautiful gaming experience. That being said, we know that it isn’t perfect. Our teams are working hard to improve the game balance, build on our design, and listen to what players are saying to make it the best game it can be.

You’ve seen some of that work already in patch 1.0.3, and you’ll see additional improvements with patch 1.0.4. On the game balance front, this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team’s goal of promoting “build diversity,” with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities. Another topic we’ve seen actively discussed is the fact that better, more distinct Legendary items are needed. We agree. Patch 1.0.4 will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won’t be expecting.

We’re also working on a number of interface updates, including social improvements that will allow players to more easily view their friends’ achievements, more quickly join games, and more efficiently communicate with each other. In addition, we’ll be making updates to the auction house in the future to provide players with better information through tooltips and notices, offer improved search functionality, and more.

Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Black market trading sites can put accounts at risk and create many customer service challenges. We felt that the players themselves also deserved the opportunity to benefit from the extra loot they found, as opposed to having all of the benefit go to the black market/illegal trading organizations. We know the auction house isn’t perfect, but with your help and feedback, we’ll be able to continue making it a better experience for those who choose to use it. On the flipside, we are also committed to ensuring you have a great experience with Diablo III without feeling like the auction house is mandatory, which was never our intention. Thank you for all the feedback about that.

One other common topic we’ve seen in the forums is the always-connected experience, and the perception that the online requirement is nothing but an ineffective form of copy protection that has already been cracked. While we’ve never said that this requirement guarantees that there will be no cheating or game cracks, it does help us battle those problems (we have not found any fully functional cracks). More important to us is that the online requirement is critical for the long-term integrity of the game experience. I fully understand the desire to play Diablo III offline; however, Diablo III was designed from the beginning to be an online game that can be enjoyed with friends, and the always-online requirement is the best way for us to support that design. The effectiveness of the online elements -- including the friends list and cross-game communication; co-op matchmaking; persistent characters that you can use by yourself, with others, and in PvP; and some of our customer support, service, and security components -- is tied directly to the online nature of the game. These and other online-enabled features are essential to our design for Diablo III. That said, there are still improvements we believe we can make to expand the online experience and make co-op play even more rewarding, and this will remain one of our priorities moving forward. Overall, while there are some downsides to the online-only approach, I still believe this was the best long-term decision for the game.

I know many of you are also looking forward to patch 1.1, our PvP update, which will provide new experiences and give you a whole new way to apply the skills you’ve picked up while battling demons. This patch will also build on the social and auction house changes I mentioned above, and the team will continue to fix bugs and further tune game balance as well.

We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.

As always, we appreciate your candor and passion. Your constructive feedback and thoughts are valuable -- they will continue to help us be a better company. I just want to reiterate that while we can’t claim to have ever shipped a perfect game, we are committed to supporting our games relentlessly and making improvements where we can. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

TD;DR: "Thanks for buying our game. We're sorry that the game sucks and the AH feels mandatory. The same people that made all of the design mistakes you gave us feedback about are going to try to fix them now through minor incremental improvements with the 'Blizzard time' measurement you've grown familiar with. "

[Paelos]

I believe him about the RMAH and the intent behind it's inclusion. We've been saying that for a while, even when people argue that the game is designed to get people to move money around. I still don't believe they truly see it as a bottom line money maker. Even if they moved 100,000 items a day, which I don't think they do, that's still only $36,000,000 in revenue. While that seems like a lot for some companies, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the $360M they made on the game at launch, or the $120M they take in a month on WoW subs. It's nice, but it's never going to be their revenue driver. That is going to be expansions.

[ghost]

I believe him about the RMAH and the intent behind it's inclusion. We've been saying that for a while, even when people argue that the game is designed to get people to move money around. I still don't believe they truly see it as a bottom line money maker. Even if they moved 100,000 items a day, which I don't think they do, that's still only $36,000,000 in revenue. While that seems like a lot for some companies, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the $360M they made on the game at launch, or the $120M they take in a month on WoW subs. It's nice, but it's never going to be their revenue driver. That is going to be expansions.

I don't think 10% would be considered chicken feed, even for a company like Blizzard. 

[Paelos]

It's chicken feed if they believe it's keeping people from buying expansions en masse, where the real money lives.

Also, ATVI does $1.2B a quarter in revenues. $36M isn't worth fucking up their brands, and that's $36M a year, not a quarter.

[Shatter]

Wow, I couldnt type that much nothing if I tried

[Merusk]

Wow, I couldnt type that much nothing if I tried

Yeah I was amazed at the hurf blurf but I was more amazed that it took two months for that much nothing to materialize in the first place.  He should have posted about the server issues and "oh shit, it was even more than our biggest expectations" within the first week, not waited until players dropped 50%.

Too little too late for this day and age.