The "public games" measure was never a "proof" for anything, hence the thread title is somewhat misleading.
For some reasons this hit is more severe on seasons than on non-seasons, don't know why. Competition is not dead; Gabynator just improved his solo DH rank yesterday from #10 to #3 worldwide (he got the GR44 key from a solo trial after the patch, no old GR key used). So... what is gonna happen is that some people are gonna complain about how this patch kills everything, some other people will find ways to get the high GR keys again, and then we'll see everyone going back to the old business.
What might not be possible anymore is have 3 friends help you out in "carrying" you through a trial and get you a GR45 key despite you playing a character that is absolutely useless in trials. Imho, this is fair, whether it kills competition or not. Earning the right to do the Greater Rift you want to tackle is part of the competition, otherwise there would just be a vendor in town who sells the keys. Now you actually have to have a perfect group with a new strategy or some skill to get a high GR key in single player.
Regarding you "numbers": in our clan, 103 people were online yesterday (not all at once, but 103 people have logged in at some point yesterday). On my friends list, about half the people were online yesterday (most of my offline friends are just SC2 players or other RL friends not interested in D3). That being said, as someone who is playing non-seasons I am happy to observe that many people are quitting seasons and joining us back in non-seasons, and doing so in "fixed groups". I only know one person on my clan/friends list to ever use public games. Everyone else is always playing with friends and clan members.
The reason why there are 10,000 people in public games after every patch is because when a patch comes out, lots of people come back, take a look at the game, join a public game and play for a few hours. And quit again next day. The people who stay find a clan, find friends, find communities, and stay away from public games. Therefore, it's only obvious that the number of players in public games will continue to go down - until the next big patch hits (2.1.1 was not a patch that brings players back, it was just a minor balancing fix). You'll see higher public games number when seasons 2 starts. Until then, your "proof" is no "proof" but an anecdotal evidence for the fact that clans, communities, and friends list actually work (hooray!).
As long as there is a small chance that I can be put into a group with people like the OP, there is no fucking way I go anywhere near pub games. Op and his kind brought this upon themselves. Let them rot and die without discussion, he thinks he knows shit and won't budge even if there is evidence that he is wrong.
Yeah. I haven't played a public game for as long as I can remember (beta, maybe?) and the thought of doing a greater rift in a public game is pretty repulsive. Being unable to determine if the people in your game will be asshats is enough to keep me away.
Not many people actually queue under the greater rift tag. I spent most of my early season in public games and if you wanted to find a grift group you queued under Rift tag and asked if they wanted to grift. Also at this point in the season I'd doubt many people would be playing at a T1 level.
I play almost exclusively in public games and i noticed a huge drop in open games like two days ago. Now it's like a tenth of the games that were open last week.
Dont wanna prove anythign with this, I just noticed that thread when I googled about it to see if others have this problem too.
Thanks for coming to this fansite and completely failing to prove something that is bordering on tautological anyway for the benefit of people who aren't in the slightest bit interested in how many people no longer like the game. Much appreciated.
I haven't touched Public games in a very long time. I don't think that is proof of anything.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
I'm pretty sure it's just a display bug anyways. When I was logged on last night the first time I loaded up a public game it said there were 1078 open games. The next time it said 60. Unless it got DDoS'd again and a ton of people got dropped all at once my guess is there is a bug in interface.
An online game is "dead" when the amount of players still online playing it dwindles to a point whereas the expense of keeping said game online exceeds reason. Diablo 3 will not qualify for that for at least 12 more years.
What this thread is proof of is the utter impatience of many of today's gamers. Season 1 should have been viewed by any reasonable person as a dry run, a test shot to work out the issues, bugs and exploit. We've already seen tweaks, bug fixes and major exploit fixes occur. Season 2 will have much more integrity. People should be aware of this, but for some, this game only means as much to them as the complaints they can create.
im not trying to bash diablo, im trying to bring attention to the problems they've made and show you the consequences to make the game a better game.
That's exactly what you're trying to do. It's okay though, cause either way you're wrong.
I'm going to give you one little piece of info here that's going to completely blow your mind. Chat channels hold 99 people.
Upon logging into the game I joined general chat #26305 with 96 in this channel. Right there I've already surpassed the 43 people you counted with your screen shots. One can only wonder how many channels in addition to this one also exist and have 99 unique individuals playing away!
For some reasons this hit is more severe on seasons than on non-seasons, don't know why. Competition is not dead; Gabynator just improved his solo DH rank yesterday from #10 to #3 worldwide (he got the GR44 key from a solo trial after the patch, no old GR key used). So... what is gonna happen is that some people are gonna complain about how this patch kills everything, some other people will find ways to get the high GR keys again, and then we'll see everyone going back to the old business.
What might not be possible anymore is have 3 friends help you out in "carrying" you through a trial and get you a GR45 key despite you playing a character that is absolutely useless in trials. Imho, this is fair, whether it kills competition or not. Earning the right to do the Greater Rift you want to tackle is part of the competition, otherwise there would just be a vendor in town who sells the keys. Now you actually have to have a perfect group with a new strategy or some skill to get a high GR key in single player.
Regarding you "numbers": in our clan, 103 people were online yesterday (not all at once, but 103 people have logged in at some point yesterday). On my friends list, about half the people were online yesterday (most of my offline friends are just SC2 players or other RL friends not interested in D3). That being said, as someone who is playing non-seasons I am happy to observe that many people are quitting seasons and joining us back in non-seasons, and doing so in "fixed groups". I only know one person on my clan/friends list to ever use public games. Everyone else is always playing with friends and clan members.
The reason why there are 10,000 people in public games after every patch is because when a patch comes out, lots of people come back, take a look at the game, join a public game and play for a few hours. And quit again next day. The people who stay find a clan, find friends, find communities, and stay away from public games. Therefore, it's only obvious that the number of players in public games will continue to go down - until the next big patch hits (2.1.1 was not a patch that brings players back, it was just a minor balancing fix). You'll see higher public games number when seasons 2 starts. Until then, your "proof" is no "proof" but an anecdotal evidence for the fact that clans, communities, and friends list actually work (hooray!).
Edit:I just blew my own mind.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Time2Kill-1230/hero/23330792
About public games, for me who played the older iterations of diablo alot aswell, they are a huge part of the game.
And Blizzard could promote them by only apply "group buff" in public games, which would also help balance a PuG versus a premade group.
The 75% difficulty increase for each player should only apply there, while it could be 100% for each player in premade.
Dont wanna prove anythign with this, I just noticed that thread when I googled about it to see if others have this problem too.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
/yawn
You need a life, or at least a friends list. WTH?
My friends list is fulla gamers at night, none of them are in publics.
WD Season 8 https://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/finiar-1655/Kildare/84509816
Monk season 7 http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/finiar-1655/MojoJoJo/42225505
DH season 6 http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/finiar-1655/DeadShot/75655606
Angry Chicken http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/finiar-1655/WhoDoVooDoo/68187610
What? Me worry?
There are 30+ online at all times from my clan alone, and I am sure many others can post similar results.
OP you my friend are a weirdo...
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
I am not compelled to believe d3 is dying. I'm still playing, ipso facto, its alive and fine.
Edit: Also Baabayaga, that is an awesome gif
There are Clans and Teams running the content in private Games.
Second off, Greater Rifts are not very popular in Public Games... try normal Rifts.
Thousands of People.
What this thread is proof of is the utter impatience of many of today's gamers. Season 1 should have been viewed by any reasonable person as a dry run, a test shot to work out the issues, bugs and exploit. We've already seen tweaks, bug fixes and major exploit fixes occur. Season 2 will have much more integrity. People should be aware of this, but for some, this game only means as much to them as the complaints they can create.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
I'm going to give you one little piece of info here that's going to completely blow your mind. Chat channels hold 99 people.
Upon logging into the game I joined general chat #26305 with 96 in this channel. Right there I've already surpassed the 43 people you counted with your screen shots. One can only wonder how many channels in addition to this one also exist and have 99 unique individuals playing away!
/end thread