- announcement of the next "big" patch with a new set for each class (which means that you are crap right until you unlock the third bonus, at which point you begin to utterly destroy everything. like it was the last few years in d3.), a few new enemies and a scrapped zone
- minor revamps to quell the loudest negative voices
- cross promotions with the other games because of 20 years diablo
- general ignorance of the fact that the franchise turns 20
most realistic i could think of:
- announcement and talk about the immediate future in patches and maybe a hint at an expansion
- d2 touch-up to natively support bigger resolutions and modern operating systems
- some celebrations for the franchise, a long look at the history of the games and lots of artwork and anecdotes
we have to face one thing. yes, diablo as a franchise turns 20. and diablo 3 is still a moneymaker in the eyes of blizzard. do you kill your cash cow for another successor after the last eagerly awaited successor wasn't met with as much joy as you'd like? no. they will "maintain" the game with a new season every three months, where they up the playey power again and add a few cosmetics. that will go on for this year and maybe 2017 and after that we can hope for something fresh.
It's likely they've been working on an expansion the last two years.
Think of it this way. Even looking at the updates we've had there's no way that's enough work to fill all the hours of a 9 to 5 job for a group of five or so designers. Why would you keep that many people on the payroll, paying their salary and healthcare, if they're just going to dink around with balance? If that were the case, then Wyatt et. al has the easiest job in the world. In other words, if you're paying people, you better be planning a return on that investment. I know Blizzard has more money than god, but I don't see them as a charity.
sure, they aren't a charity. but you can't tell me, that the whole workforce is working on an expansion / successor while only a handful of 2d artists and some programmers resemble a skeleton crew for the new "content" we got.
and yeah, i may sound like a spoiled brat demanding content. but blizzard killed the only source of income with the RMAH and didn't come up with another revenue stream, therefore nobody will be paid to generate content. reintroducing scrapped areas / enemies is not enough content.
We don't even know how many people are still left there, working on something "Diablo". All we see is Wyatt here, Wyatt there. It looks like he's the only one left at all. Most news we saw for last year were about people leaving blizzard again and again. And then new job offerings.
There's still a lot of people working on D3. Travis Day, Wyatt, Andrew Chambers, Don Vu, these are important guys on the team. John Yang mostly designed items and did balance for classes, so he'll be missed, but doesn't mean production grinds to a halt. Boyarsky was in charge of setting, so I'd imagine his work is mostly in early parts of development, (he left in April) and Mosqueira left only three months ago. I'm thinking they had wrapped up the biggest parts of development, which made it a good time to move on. At this stage it could mostly be graphics and art that needs to get done.
I assume if we haven't heard of them leaving, then they're probably still there.
I'm mostly basing this on how I hear other companies work. You finish a project, take a few months off, then get back to work on the next big thing. I don't see how Blizz would be any different. You don't finish something then spend 2 years twiddling your thumbs. That just seems absurd.
There's still a lot of people working on D3. Travis Day, Wyatt, Andrew Chambers, Don Vu, these are important guys on the team.
Don Vu moved to the World of Warcraft team in December 2015 already. We haven't heard anything from Travis and Andrew in a long time (I think since Blizzcon, so for about a year?) which means we don't know (oftentimes we just heard of someone moving to a different team way later).
Not saying the team is Wyatt only, but I think it's safe to say that not "a lot of people" are working on D3. There might be people working on something Diablo-related, though. I'm really surprised that so many people voted for the 2nd expansion in this poll - of all things it's the most unlikely option based on everything we know.
I know they have a secret Diablo project going on that Travis Day and others are working on
I'd say the above relates to either some mobile stuff or D2 HD.
I am also 99% sure they will announce D3 2nd expansion at Blizzcon. Reasons are marketing related.
I know they have a secret Diablo project going on that Travis Day and others are working on
I'd say the above relates to either some mobile stuff or D2 HD.
I am also 99% sure they will announce D3 2nd expansion at Blizzcon. Reasons are marketing related.
May I ask where you take this "99% sure" from? Marketing is no reason to announce something. Development is. And all we see from development (i.e., assets with the name _x2 in datamined stuff being published in various patches) hints at the expansion being scrapped. To be honest, most of the complaints about Diablo 3 at this point make it unlikely to impossible to satisfy the fanbase (both casuals and die hards) with any expansion. What people want is a new game ground up. New lore, new itemization, different skill system, trading but no AH, PvP - there's essentially no aspect of Diablo 3 that is not being criticized. Well, maybe except for the very neat looking combat animation which outclasses every other ARPG, but that's it. Anyways: A second expansion is super highly unlikely.
Same for mobile. I have no idea why people are so persistent on this, maybe it's because of Rhykker's video. I've tried to tell him in various comments including on his video post - he completely misinterpreted the post which he used as his "main evidence" for D3 mobile. In that very post they stated that the job required Direct X development experience, which is a Windows (desktop) only feature. It's like looking at a Baseball bat and saying "oh, you're going Swimming, cool!". Direct X in that job posting was the 100% evidence that whatever the unannounced project may be: it's not mobile. So basically: Mobile D3 is highly unlikely, and if so there's something else, because the job postings were all pointing in the opposite direction.
D2HD may be likely, but only because of the SC HD leak. But people need to understand that scaling up a sprite-based game such as Diablo 2 is essentially the same as developing an entirely new game. They can re-use the numbers and names from the items, but everything you see on screen - all graphics - need to be "remade" almost from scratch. Still: D2HD is more likely than D3X2 and D3mobile. But here as well - D2HD is also not the "unannounced Diablo project". Why? Because they hired concept artists and very basic positions which you need for a game in its very first stage, not something which is basically just a "game engine port". There's no need to have a concept artist pitch out concepts of the D2 story or the D2 monsters, because in a remake you want to stay as close as possible to the original. Takeaway: D2HD is possible and the most likely out of the D3, but not the unannounced project either.
MissCheetah's post sounds to me like something bigger. My assumption is that the "new Diablo project" is a slight deviation from the initial ARPG genre; much like World of Warcraft took the franchise to a new level. And that could mean any part of the Diablo universe. It's highly unlikely that the story is just continuing after D3 - I also remember somewhere in an interview some developer saying that Diablo was more or less a trilogy and it's finished. To be fair, with Cain dead I probably wouldn't care for another sequel. I could imagine an "origins" story which dives deeper into the magic of the Horadrim or that kind of stuff (I don't know too much about the lore but I think there could be interesting stuff there). Or it could be a world of constant battlefield in which Evil has won, providing a never-ending stream of enemies. It would be boring lore-wise to have no achievable "goal" (i.e., you'll never cleanse everything) but to be fair, 99% of successful games on the market these days have zero story either. In terms of gameplay/genre it could be anything; something they've got already (RTS, FPS, MMO, MOBA, ...) or something they don't have yet (a pure adventure or a sandbox game would make me super super excited but probably not be too popular) or even make a crossover and "invent" something new. The older ones among us might remember Blizzard for being the company that could take a small genre to a new level (which is what Diablo did, some even say they invented a new genre with Diablo).
We'll see. But putting your money on D3X2 or D3mobile... makes me wonder if it's just what people want, or if people have stopped following the news altogether. Just do some research and you'll see it's very unlikely.
i can respect every opinion as long as they are not allready proven wrong.
"Nothing important announced (minor patch)25% of Users - 2 votes"
who the f**k votes this? why is there even an option like this to vote in the first place?
its very clear that SOMETHING will be there related to Diablo. thats a FACT. diablo twitter account allready confirmed that. what are you smoking on?
and hah, this guy again, saiyng "D4 IMPOSSIBLEEE" in his 19+min long video. no word to say to you at this point dude.
...IMPOSIBRUUU.. lol
We've been let down so often, it's the most practical answer. You're most likely overhyping the 'something' that they're going to announce. Watch it be those 3d printed statutes of your diablo characters. "something"
It's this time again guys.
A follow-up to my previous Gamescom thread:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-general-forums/diablo-iii-general-discussion/209380-what-will-happen-at-gamescom-blizzcon
as we can see now, predictions were almost correct, we've got nothing in Gamescom. Zero.
Time to speculate what will Blizzard show us for 20th Diablo's Anniversary!
I also made a video with my realistic predictions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEC28qQw95s
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110
i can respect every opinion as long as they are not allready proven wrong.
"Nothing important announced (minor patch)25% of Users - 2 votes"
who the f**k votes this? why is there even an option like this to vote in the first place?
its very clear that SOMETHING will be there related to Diablo. thats a FACT. diablo twitter account allready confirmed that. what are you smoking on?
and hah, this guy again, saiyng "D4 IMPOSSIBLEEE" in his 19+min long video. no word to say to you at this point dude.
...IMPOSIBRUUU.. lol
I'd say Blizzard will poof at BLIIIIIIIIIZCON
d2> d3 ^_______^
Expansion or new content.
D4 is not going to happen. Y'all crazy.
Even in the most cynical forecast, I say the game has at least one solid patch/expansion left in it before Blizzard "moves on".
I will keep my expectations as low as possible, better that way.
As such, we will probably see cosmetics and a patch. Minor or big one, remains to be seen.
Anything other than that, such as, possible expansion, D1/2 HD Remaster, will come as a nice surprise.
most optimistic i could think of:
- announcement of the second expansion
- panels for revamped game mechanics
- d2 hd as a gimmick in the future
most pessimistic i could think of:
- announcement of the next "big" patch with a new set for each class (which means that you are crap right until you unlock the third bonus, at which point you begin to utterly destroy everything. like it was the last few years in d3.), a few new enemies and a scrapped zone
- minor revamps to quell the loudest negative voices
- cross promotions with the other games because of 20 years diablo
- general ignorance of the fact that the franchise turns 20
most realistic i could think of:
- announcement and talk about the immediate future in patches and maybe a hint at an expansion
- d2 touch-up to natively support bigger resolutions and modern operating systems
- some celebrations for the franchise, a long look at the history of the games and lots of artwork and anecdotes
we have to face one thing. yes, diablo as a franchise turns 20. and diablo 3 is still a moneymaker in the eyes of blizzard. do you kill your cash cow for another successor after the last eagerly awaited successor wasn't met with as much joy as you'd like? no. they will "maintain" the game with a new season every three months, where they up the playey power again and add a few cosmetics. that will go on for this year and maybe 2017 and after that we can hope for something fresh.
It's likely they've been working on an expansion the last two years.
Think of it this way. Even looking at the updates we've had there's no way that's enough work to fill all the hours of a 9 to 5 job for a group of five or so designers. Why would you keep that many people on the payroll, paying their salary and healthcare, if they're just going to dink around with balance? If that were the case, then Wyatt et. al has the easiest job in the world. In other words, if you're paying people, you better be planning a return on that investment. I know Blizzard has more money than god, but I don't see them as a charity.
sure, they aren't a charity. but you can't tell me, that the whole workforce is working on an expansion / successor while only a handful of 2d artists and some programmers resemble a skeleton crew for the new "content" we got.
and yeah, i may sound like a spoiled brat demanding content. but blizzard killed the only source of income with the RMAH and didn't come up with another revenue stream, therefore nobody will be paid to generate content. reintroducing scrapped areas / enemies is not enough content.
We don't even know how many people are still left there, working on something "Diablo". All we see is Wyatt here, Wyatt there. It looks like he's the only one left at all. Most news we saw for last year were about people leaving blizzard again and again. And then new job offerings.
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110
There's still a lot of people working on D3. Travis Day, Wyatt, Andrew Chambers, Don Vu, these are important guys on the team. John Yang mostly designed items and did balance for classes, so he'll be missed, but doesn't mean production grinds to a halt. Boyarsky was in charge of setting, so I'd imagine his work is mostly in early parts of development, (he left in April) and Mosqueira left only three months ago. I'm thinking they had wrapped up the biggest parts of development, which made it a good time to move on. At this stage it could mostly be graphics and art that needs to get done.
I assume if we haven't heard of them leaving, then they're probably still there.
I'm mostly basing this on how I hear other companies work. You finish a project, take a few months off, then get back to work on the next big thing. I don't see how Blizz would be any different. You don't finish something then spend 2 years twiddling your thumbs. That just seems absurd.
Not saying the team is Wyatt only, but I think it's safe to say that not "a lot of people" are working on D3. There might be people working on something Diablo-related, though. I'm really surprised that so many people voted for the 2nd expansion in this poll - of all things it's the most unlikely option based on everything we know.
I am also 99% sure they will announce D3 2nd expansion at Blizzcon. Reasons are marketing related.
A mobile product would be the worst possible outcome.
Same for mobile. I have no idea why people are so persistent on this, maybe it's because of Rhykker's video. I've tried to tell him in various comments including on his video post - he completely misinterpreted the post which he used as his "main evidence" for D3 mobile. In that very post they stated that the job required Direct X development experience, which is a Windows (desktop) only feature. It's like looking at a Baseball bat and saying "oh, you're going Swimming, cool!". Direct X in that job posting was the 100% evidence that whatever the unannounced project may be: it's not mobile. So basically: Mobile D3 is highly unlikely, and if so there's something else, because the job postings were all pointing in the opposite direction.
D2HD may be likely, but only because of the SC HD leak. But people need to understand that scaling up a sprite-based game such as Diablo 2 is essentially the same as developing an entirely new game. They can re-use the numbers and names from the items, but everything you see on screen - all graphics - need to be "remade" almost from scratch. Still: D2HD is more likely than D3X2 and D3mobile. But here as well - D2HD is also not the "unannounced Diablo project". Why? Because they hired concept artists and very basic positions which you need for a game in its very first stage, not something which is basically just a "game engine port". There's no need to have a concept artist pitch out concepts of the D2 story or the D2 monsters, because in a remake you want to stay as close as possible to the original. Takeaway: D2HD is possible and the most likely out of the D3, but not the unannounced project either.
MissCheetah's post sounds to me like something bigger. My assumption is that the "new Diablo project" is a slight deviation from the initial ARPG genre; much like World of Warcraft took the franchise to a new level. And that could mean any part of the Diablo universe. It's highly unlikely that the story is just continuing after D3 - I also remember somewhere in an interview some developer saying that Diablo was more or less a trilogy and it's finished. To be fair, with Cain dead I probably wouldn't care for another sequel. I could imagine an "origins" story which dives deeper into the magic of the Horadrim or that kind of stuff (I don't know too much about the lore but I think there could be interesting stuff there). Or it could be a world of constant battlefield in which Evil has won, providing a never-ending stream of enemies. It would be boring lore-wise to have no achievable "goal" (i.e., you'll never cleanse everything) but to be fair, 99% of successful games on the market these days have zero story either. In terms of gameplay/genre it could be anything; something they've got already (RTS, FPS, MMO, MOBA, ...) or something they don't have yet (a pure adventure or a sandbox game would make me super super excited but probably not be too popular) or even make a crossover and "invent" something new. The older ones among us might remember Blizzard for being the company that could take a small genre to a new level (which is what Diablo did, some even say they invented a new genre with Diablo).
We'll see. But putting your money on D3X2 or D3mobile... makes me wonder if it's just what people want, or if people have stopped following the news altogether. Just do some research and you'll see it's very unlikely.
Diablo GO will be announced and half the stadium will groan, while the other half will clap with a look of desperate confusion on their face.
hahaha Diablo GO... I'd play it for about a week and then just cry
We've been let down so often, it's the most practical answer. You're most likely overhyping the 'something' that they're going to announce. Watch it be those 3d printed statutes of your diablo characters. "something"
@Bagstone: One of us is going to be pretty surprised then (when Blizzcon comes).
Yep :-) Or both of us!
I honestly voted for everything, GO BIG OR GO HOME for a 20th anniversary slogan, because if they do not go big, I WILL GO HOME and stick to Legion!