All the patches in the world wont actually change the fundamentals of D3, which IMO are not even vaqually comparable to D2 and LBH, D2 is the reason we all bought D3 in the first place.
After all, (hyperthetcially), unless Blizzaard say somthing like "..We totally fucked things up and are going back to what worked in D2"... how sales will D4 see? Not near as much as D3 did from the success of D2 I would guess.
Dont get me wrong, I've hade plenty of fun with it and figure I've got my $70 worth, but I'm slowly but surely getting very bored with it and sure as hell wont be playing it for years like I did with D2.
I wont go into the reasons why as they've all been said before, but in a nutshell D3 is a 6-12 month quick hack and slash game. Nothing more or less. Expecting it to become something it isnt (Diablo 2.5?) will only lead to disapointment.
Not sure about anybody else, but I feel completely let down by the new patch.
Dueling:
They added dueling, cool. Only issue I have with this is you can't just turn it on in a public game. They could have easily just made a hostile flag for your character, so when your waiting for your friends, or at the end of the run you just turn it on and fight each other. If you don't turn your flag on, you dont die, so not sure why we need a whole new zone to keep characters safe. New zone does look pretty fun though......
Craft Recipes:
Again they added a very short-sighted answer to adding new content. Farming recipes is a reason to farm bosses, great! But once you get that recipe, that content dies. And you will never return, just like the A4 recipe, it was easy to get, you got it, and never returned to A4. This will give a month or 2 of farming bosses, then everyone will be back in A3.
Crafting mats: More incentive to farm A3 at max efficiency.
New Gems: More incentive to farm A3, 20 million gold plus the gold you spent on your 3 RS gems.
New gear effects: The high price and time investment means this only increases the need for only 1 high-powered character to run A3 with to further improve that character. It gives no incentive at all to have more then 1 character. Especially since they gave no reason to make gear with vitality (it's still all about super-farming with high-dps mains). So this amounts to running A3 endlessly and along the way having a chance for a new item. If its anything like Hellfires, they will just end up sitting in your bank unused. Especially for high-end characters with good items in those slots already.
Things that the developers made no attempt to change:
99% of rare drops are vendor trash (actually made this worse w/ the crafted recipes in the few slots rares still had potential)
Way too many rares overall, meaning only legendaries and recipes are worth picking up for high-tier players
AH is still the best way to gear alts and even your main until you get lucky with a recipe.
No incentive whatsoever for more than 1 charcter.
No reason to farm anything but A3. (Other than to get your recipes, once you get it, no reason to do it again)
Still favors MP0-2 farming meaning less diversity in gear choices, we will continue to just increase DPS stats.
No end-game content, End-game = A3.
No items are leaving the economy.
At the end of the day, the only change they made (outside of duels) is along your perpetual A3 runs, you will get some mats you can use to forge a new item. Most of these will end up in your bank rotting.
So far, I see no reason for me to come back at this time.
Well said! This game has so much potential...and we see Blizzard doing some changes....but very slowly. Would be nice if they focused on some main issues at hand like "loot" for the next patches to come.
All the patches in the world wont actually change the fundamentals of D3, which IMO are not even vaqually comparable to D2 and LBH, D2 is the reason we all bought D3 in the first place.
After all, (hyperthetcially), unless Blizzaard say somthing like "..We totally fucked things up and are going back to what worked in D2"... how sales will D4 see? Not near as much as D3 did from the success of D2 I would guess.
Dont get me wrong, I've hade plenty of fun with it and figure I've got my $70 worth, but I'm slowly but surely getting very bored with it and sure as hell wont be playing it for years like I did with D2.
I wont go into the reasons why as they've all been said before, but in a nutshell D3 is a 6-12 month quick hack and slash game. Nothing more or less. Expecting it to become something it isnt (Diablo 2.5?) will only lead to disapointment.
Another great post! Lovers and haters of Diablo 3 will truly find out what direction this game has gone when they release the xpac. Sales predictions.......much much much...........much lower then Diablo 3 original. Blizzard fail.
I would describe the patch as underwhelming, but my expectations were not that high. Allot of people including me would like to the fundamental issues addressed. Items, skills and multi-player. Basically i would like to see what was done well in D2 be done at least as well or better in D3. but maybe its for the best. At least this way Diablo 3 wont consume a large portion of my life the way that D2 did..
I hate complainers... The OP is definitely one. IMO, the patch is a very good step in the right direction and its content is amazing. They basically listened to the community and implemented alot of things we wanted. I specially like the new crafting recipes GJ
I agree with you sir:)
OP, Move on, find another game if you're not happy.. The D3 community is flooded with complainers like you and I think this is hurting the game more than the game itself.
I'd like to be able to use waypoints to teleport to other acts instead of logging in and out... Why hasn't this been done yet?
I'm not sure but I think they said that they would like to implement that in the futur. Can't find the official link tought. If I find it, will post it.
Satisfied with the changes. Blizzard continues to impress me with their constant improving of d3. The launch was terrible and full of incompetence but the recovery operation since has exceeded my expectations. I doubt any other game would have redesigned their endgame paradigm after launch like d3 did for inferno.
This is why i still respect Blizzard - they are the only game creator out there that actively listens to the community and actually makes improvements, albeit not the fastest and not everything at once, but they do.
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
This is why i still respect Blizzard - they are the only game creator out there that actively listens to the community and actually makes improvements, albeit not the fastest and not everything at once, but they do.
Well, I strongly disagree.I think Blizzard is quite out-of-tune with what the community wants. They continually show this by some of the remarks they make in their forum posts, and social outlets. The notorious "some people like to get items from killing monsters" Just seemed really strange coming from a company who is supposedly listening to the community.
Then the recent dueling change, Only beig able to access it from Act 1. This is such an obvious design flaw, the community has voiced loudly that they want to duel from anywhere.....they also said they want to duel while grouped with friends, to give them somethig to do while they wait for friends etc. This has been a request of much of the community since before the game even launched......
The response? Saying they realize this is a good idea and want to implement it......eventually. The fact they needed us to tell them an act 1 portal is a bad idea to begin with, then to say they may fix it......eventually?
I'm sorry, but that is a perfect example of why I think Jay and his team have vey different views on the game than I do.....and much of the community. I'm not jut saying it is so, I have given examples here, and in multiple threads on this and the official forum. I understand they have made changes, and they did help o improve the game, but each time (other than paragon levels) it was so poorly designed, and so far off of what the community asked for, it seems like they are almost making changes to be orignal, intentionally avoiding using any ideas the community suggests. Stubborn, or not willing to take ideas from other people/games, or maybe they just don't agree with the community.......but something doesnt feel right, when each time they make a change it is so far removed from anything the community is suggesting, and it does not address core issues stated all over the forums.
I dont know any company that listens to their fans as much as blizzard and uses their fans ideas to make the game better. So I would like to know do you know any company that does that better than blizzard?
Oh, there are many companies that communicate often and well with their fanbase. Unknown Worlds comes to my mind now with their game Natural Selection 2. They're quite symbiotic with their community, some parts of the game were literally made by fans.
Now, who is doing better? Not possible to answer. Blizzard CMs have a hard job with tens of millions of gamers, but despite that I still feel they could do much better. Many times I feel they're disconnected, even when they're answering specific questions. That should not happen. They should know that basic stuff they often miss about the games they represent. So I think Blizzard CM is overrated, and especially with Diablo 3, they make mistakes too often.
If you're strictly talking about giant companies, you might be correct. But if you're talking about all game developers, then you are very much mistaken.
This. One of the biggest promises for a nice launch for smaller companies is listening to their fans. The semi-downside to this is that development tends to prolong a lot, but at the end of the day the loyal playerbase guarantees you some sales and the less people the less different opinions about features, which helps developers tremendously.
Natural Selection 2 was given as example. It sold 144k copies but that wouldn't have been possible without closely communicating with their fanbase. For a company of so few people those numbers are not bad at all.
For an enormous company with around 5000 employees I doubt you'll see many like Blizzard, who write blogs for all their games, years after they've came out, and also have so many community managers discussing said games on a daily basis. Sometimes even weekends! Not to mention the shelf life of these games due to iterative development and community involvement.
I think you could also make a case that the more popular your product, the worse the signal-to-noise gets on your customer feedback channels.
Then there's the very important distinction between listening to your customers and doing what they say (which in turn is concept rendered completely devoid of meaning when you're dealing with such a diverse group of people).
On top of that, you have the even trickier problem of distinguishing between what people say they want and what they actually want. When 100 people say they want monsters to drop more gold, but it turns out that 40 of them suck and are going broke from repair bills, 40 of them think it'll make gear more affordable because they have no idea how economics works and the remaining 20 just like having a 12-figure bank balance, the 'right' thing to do might be to leave gold-drops alone, add easier difficulty levels and nudge drop-rates upward... and when that happens, you'll get 100 people saying "Blizzard doesn't listen to me".
If you're strictly talking about giant companies, you might be correct. But if you're talking about all game developers, then you are very much mistaken.
This. One of the biggest promises for a nice launch for smaller companies is listening to their fans. The semi-downside to this is that development tends to prolong a lot, but at the end of the day the loyal playerbase guarantees you some sales and the less people the less different opinions about features, which helps developers tremendously.
Natural Selection 2 was given as example. It sold 144k copies but that wouldn't have been possible without closely communicating with their fanbase. For a company of so few people those numbers are not bad at all.
For an enormous company with around 5000 employees I doubt you'll see many like Blizzard, who write blogs for all their games, years after they've came out, and also have so many community managers discussing said games on a daily basis. Sometimes even weekends! Not to mention the shelf life of these games due to iterative development and community involvement.
Really? this stuff impresses you guys?
They pay 2-3 ppl to log in once a week and make a one page blog or post and do PR stuff, and you guys are impressed..? lol?
I guess these kinds of fans will be attracted to games like this. They don't understand that the game sold 10 million copies at $60 not including RMAH, That's $600 million dollars the game made before RMAH. It's one of the most anticipated games of the decade. You actually think that a billion dollar company hiring a few PR people to keep in touch with the game is special? It's not some charity move, they want your money and they want you to buy stuff on the RMAH. They're doing 1/10th of what they could be doing lol.
They don't understand that the game sold 10 million copies at $60 not including RMAH, That's $600 million dollars the game made before RMAH.
Uh... no. Agreed with your point in regards to Bliz's general hugeness and the laughable nature of D3 relative to their resources, BUT, a big chunk of those "sales" were giveaways for WoW year subs, while the ones that weren't didn't make a straight 60 bucks in any case. Also, national TV campaigns aren't free - espn isn't known to give away half-minute slots.
The real point is that WoW has actually revenued more than D3 since release, and done it with much, much better margins. D3 is an R&D experiment/loss leader. It's the rat in the lab, not the dog in the yard (WoW) or cat in the living room (SC).
Satisfied with the changes. Blizzard continues to impress me with their constant improving of d3. The launch was terrible and full of incompetence but the recovery operation since has exceeded my expectations. I doubt any other game would have redesigned their endgame paradigm after launch like d3 did for inferno.
In order to fix and "end-game paradigm" you have to actually have an end-game.
I don't consider paragon levels, Inferno, or Ubers to be end-game content.
If you do, and you are happy with it, then I completely agree.
If you're strictly talking about giant companies, you might be correct. But if you're talking about all game developers, then you are very much mistaken.
This. One of the biggest promises for a nice launch for smaller companies is listening to their fans. The semi-downside to this is that development tends to prolong a lot, but at the end of the day the loyal playerbase guarantees you some sales and the less people the less different opinions about features, which helps developers tremendously.
Natural Selection 2 was given as example. It sold 144k copies but that wouldn't have been possible without closely communicating with their fanbase. For a company of so few people those numbers are not bad at all.
For an enormous company with around 5000 employees I doubt you'll see many like Blizzard, who write blogs for all their games, years after they've came out, and also have so many community managers discussing said games on a daily basis. Sometimes even weekends! Not to mention the shelf life of these games due to iterative development and community involvement.
Really? this stuff impresses you guys?
They pay 2-3 ppl to log in once a week and make a one page blog or post and do PR stuff, and you guys are impressed..? lol?
Ridiculous hyperbole doesn't really do anything but make you look fanatacal and overly-critical.
They clearly have more than 2-3 people and they clearly log in more than once per week. Looking at the blue tracker there are 14 topics with a blue reply (some topics may have multiple blue replies) in the past 24 hours made by no less than 5 different blues. In the past week there are 44 topics that have blue attention from 11 different blues (well, 10 plus the account they use to post the blogs). 7 of these topics received attention on the weekend.
If you want to discuss things at least do it intelligently, not like some kind of monkey whose only reaction is to shit in his hand and throw it at the zoo patrons.
I think you could also make a case that the more popular your product, the worse the signal-to-noise gets on your customer feedback channels.
So true. Plus, the more people play your games, the more varying wants for that game, which leads to a lot more dissatisfied people insisting that Blizz doesn't care because their personal desires were ignored.
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After all, (hyperthetcially), unless Blizzaard say somthing like "..We totally fucked things up and are going back to what worked in D2"... how sales will D4 see? Not near as much as D3 did from the success of D2 I would guess.
Dont get me wrong, I've hade plenty of fun with it and figure I've got my $70 worth, but I'm slowly but surely getting very bored with it and sure as hell wont be playing it for years like I did with D2.
I wont go into the reasons why as they've all been said before, but in a nutshell D3 is a 6-12 month quick hack and slash game. Nothing more or less. Expecting it to become something it isnt (Diablo 2.5?) will only lead to disapointment.
Well said! This game has so much potential...and we see Blizzard doing some changes....but very slowly. Would be nice if they focused on some main issues at hand like "loot" for the next patches to come.
Another great post! Lovers and haters of Diablo 3 will truly find out what direction this game has gone when they release the xpac. Sales predictions.......much much much...........much lower then Diablo 3 original. Blizzard fail.
I agree with you sir:)
OP, Move on, find another game if you're not happy.. The D3 community is flooded with complainers like you and I think this is hurting the game more than the game itself.
I'm not sure but I think they said that they would like to implement that in the futur. Can't find the official link tought. If I find it, will post it.
Well, I strongly disagree.I think Blizzard is quite out-of-tune with what the community wants. They continually show this by some of the remarks they make in their forum posts, and social outlets. The notorious "some people like to get items from killing monsters" Just seemed really strange coming from a company who is supposedly listening to the community.
Then the recent dueling change, Only beig able to access it from Act 1. This is such an obvious design flaw, the community has voiced loudly that they want to duel from anywhere.....they also said they want to duel while grouped with friends, to give them somethig to do while they wait for friends etc. This has been a request of much of the community since before the game even launched......
The response? Saying they realize this is a good idea and want to implement it......eventually. The fact they needed us to tell them an act 1 portal is a bad idea to begin with, then to say they may fix it......eventually?
I'm sorry, but that is a perfect example of why I think Jay and his team have vey different views on the game than I do.....and much of the community. I'm not jut saying it is so, I have given examples here, and in multiple threads on this and the official forum. I understand they have made changes, and they did help o improve the game, but each time (other than paragon levels) it was so poorly designed, and so far off of what the community asked for, it seems like they are almost making changes to be orignal, intentionally avoiding using any ideas the community suggests. Stubborn, or not willing to take ideas from other people/games, or maybe they just don't agree with the community.......but something doesnt feel right, when each time they make a change it is so far removed from anything the community is suggesting, and it does not address core issues stated all over the forums.
Oh, there are many companies that communicate often and well with their fanbase. Unknown Worlds comes to my mind now with their game Natural Selection 2. They're quite symbiotic with their community, some parts of the game were literally made by fans.
Now, who is doing better? Not possible to answer. Blizzard CMs have a hard job with tens of millions of gamers, but despite that I still feel they could do much better. Many times I feel they're disconnected, even when they're answering specific questions. That should not happen. They should know that basic stuff they often miss about the games they represent. So I think Blizzard CM is overrated, and especially with Diablo 3, they make mistakes too often.
This. One of the biggest promises for a nice launch for smaller companies is listening to their fans. The semi-downside to this is that development tends to prolong a lot, but at the end of the day the loyal playerbase guarantees you some sales and the less people the less different opinions about features, which helps developers tremendously.
Natural Selection 2 was given as example. It sold 144k copies but that wouldn't have been possible without closely communicating with their fanbase. For a company of so few people those numbers are not bad at all.
For an enormous company with around 5000 employees I doubt you'll see many like Blizzard, who write blogs for all their games, years after they've came out, and also have so many community managers discussing said games on a daily basis. Sometimes even weekends! Not to mention the shelf life of these games due to iterative development and community involvement.
Ha. Bagstone.
Then there's the very important distinction between listening to your customers and doing what they say (which in turn is concept rendered completely devoid of meaning when you're dealing with such a diverse group of people).
On top of that, you have the even trickier problem of distinguishing between what people say they want and what they actually want. When 100 people say they want monsters to drop more gold, but it turns out that 40 of them suck and are going broke from repair bills, 40 of them think it'll make gear more affordable because they have no idea how economics works and the remaining 20 just like having a 12-figure bank balance, the 'right' thing to do might be to leave gold-drops alone, add easier difficulty levels and nudge drop-rates upward... and when that happens, you'll get 100 people saying "Blizzard doesn't listen to me".
Really? this stuff impresses you guys?
They pay 2-3 ppl to log in once a week and make a one page blog or post and do PR stuff, and you guys are impressed..? lol?
I guess these kinds of fans will be attracted to games like this. They don't understand that the game sold 10 million copies at $60 not including RMAH, That's $600 million dollars the game made before RMAH. It's one of the most anticipated games of the decade. You actually think that a billion dollar company hiring a few PR people to keep in touch with the game is special? It's not some charity move, they want your money and they want you to buy stuff on the RMAH. They're doing 1/10th of what they could be doing lol.
Uh... no. Agreed with your point in regards to Bliz's general hugeness and the laughable nature of D3 relative to their resources, BUT, a big chunk of those "sales" were giveaways for WoW year subs, while the ones that weren't didn't make a straight 60 bucks in any case. Also, national TV campaigns aren't free - espn isn't known to give away half-minute slots.
The real point is that WoW has actually revenued more than D3 since release, and done it with much, much better margins. D3 is an R&D experiment/loss leader. It's the rat in the lab, not the dog in the yard (WoW) or cat in the living room (SC).
There are many times, what people say they want is not actually what they need.
In order to fix and "end-game paradigm" you have to actually have an end-game.
I don't consider paragon levels, Inferno, or Ubers to be end-game content.
If you do, and you are happy with it, then I completely agree.
Ridiculous hyperbole doesn't really do anything but make you look fanatacal and overly-critical.
They clearly have more than 2-3 people and they clearly log in more than once per week. Looking at the blue tracker there are 14 topics with a blue reply (some topics may have multiple blue replies) in the past 24 hours made by no less than 5 different blues. In the past week there are 44 topics that have blue attention from 11 different blues (well, 10 plus the account they use to post the blogs). 7 of these topics received attention on the weekend.
If you want to discuss things at least do it intelligently, not like some kind of monkey whose only reaction is to shit in his hand and throw it at the zoo patrons.
So true. Plus, the more people play your games, the more varying wants for that game, which leads to a lot more dissatisfied people insisting that Blizz doesn't care because their personal desires were ignored.