DiabloFans

Quote from Businesstime

I think I'll start building 'like minded strangers' lists in advance.

Add me, my Battletag is Bootes#1787

That goes for anyone here who enjoys being able to hang out, chat it up, floss your new gear, and generally be SOCIAL in-game, on top of playing hard and grinding out loot.

If that sounds like the kind of player you'd like in your friends list, add me as a friend. D3 is amazingly fun, even in beta. Until Blizzard gets us the social platform we need, I'm gonna do like Businesstime and pre-populate my friends list.

I'm in the beta, and I can tell you right now, the social dimension of D3 is non-existent. It feels exatly like bot runs. Nobody talks, and that is because there is no viable chat platform.. it's not simply because of the calibre of player. You get about 5 lines of text, which is constantly flooded with gameplay related information, so you very often miss people's chat.

Even more importantly, you can only be so far away from the action before you won't see any exp or loot. That means, the person who runs the fastest thru content FORCES everyone to follow closely or they miss out. That means, 1 person can ruin the social experience for the other 3, and there's almost always 1 that does.

I have played over 50 games. 48 of those experiences have been carbon copies of this: Join, 1 person grabs SK quest, takes the waypoint and starts killing. You hardly have time to say "Hello." A few people are always left behind. From there it's rush rush rush, everyone splits up going down different hallways, one person will find the stairs and NOT tell you, suddenly you'll be notified that the encounter with SK is starting, and you get ported there.

You are automatically put into games (there is no option to create, OR manually search for games, so you can't give your games titles like "slow casual run for exp and fun" etc). I mean, I don't care if people wanna blaze through content. That's fine for them. But right now, the ONLY way I can find people who play like I do is enduring countless awful rush games that aren't fun, OR meeting people on battle.net forums.

It's not just that there isn't a chat interface. There is NO SOCIAL COMMUNICATION PLATFORM WHATSOEVER. Just one tiny button in the lower right hand corner that, when you click it, shows you have 0 friends.

I've played with over 200 people, and I have 2 friends, one of which I met on the battle.net forums.

This needs to be fixed, or D3 will not be a game that lasts. You think the reason D2 lasted so long was because of how much people LOVED baal runs? No, they loved getting gear and sharing their experiences after earning it through the mind-numbing baal grind.

I'm in the beta, and I can tell you right now, the social aspect of D3 is non-existent. Feels exatly like bot runs. Nobody talks, and you can only be so far away from the action before you won't see any exp or loot. That means, the person who runs the fastest thru content FORCES everyone to follow closely.

I have played over 30 games. 28 of those experiences have been utterly horrible. You are automatically put into games (there is no option to search games, give your games titles like "slow casual run for exp and fun" etc). I mean, people don't even say things like "found stairs, come to me". They just blaze through the content to farm SK.

It's not just that there isn't a chat interface. There is NO SOCIAL COMMUNICATION PLATFORM WHATSOEVER. Just one tiny button in the lower right hand corner that, when you click it, shows you have 0 friends.

I can't exaggerate just how bad the co-op experience is right now.

Vote here about it if you feel compelled:
http://www.pollpub.com/should-diablo-3-have-public-chat-channels.aspx

Yeah if I'm honest, the impact that items have on caster dps is really poorly defined.

If my wizard finds a 12.2 dps short sword, and I'm using an 11.2 dps wand, do I switch to the short sword, only to find that my physical damage is increased, but not my spell damage? How does +weapon speed on a javelin affect +casting speed on a witch doctor?

The tooltips for skills are so incredibly brief, they don't even begin to mention quantity of +damage, +speed, etc.

I find the current incarnation of how items impact damage output to be un-necessarily obtuse and confusing, and this is coming from a gaming veteran. In trying to make the system simpler, they've made it extremely complex.

Edit: I tried to explain damage modifications to my girlfriend yesterday, who has never gone beyond king's quest in the gaming department, and I realized in completely failing to explain it clearly, that I did not understand it well myself.

(I made her a char, and she proceeded to play 4 hours straight. I'm so proud of her.)

I GOT MAH INVIIIIIITTTEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/jizz /jizz /jizz /jizz /jizz

IMHO, no senior producer in their right mind would leave this close to release, when they would likely be receiving a share of the royalties, and definitely receive a lot of the praise, unless either he, his bosses, or (most likely) both, were unhappy for some reason.

Everyone knows what "moving on to bigger and better things" means.. People always try to keep things amicable on the surface, but you don't even need to read between the lines to see that either this guy, or Blizzard, was not satisfied with his job.

You're walking down the street, minding your own business, when BAM you see this blonde BOMBSHELL walking towards you, in a scandalous bikini. Your stomach flips, your heart starts going ape shit, Dreamweaver by Gary Wright starts playing in the background. Now, you'll probably just stand there like an idiot because, let's face it, you're reading a fan forum about computer games, but here's the point:

The point is, the hottie is hot because she's unusual and rare. She's unusual and rare because you have to sift through a lot of frumpy, middle-aged, overweight women.

Imagine the alternative. Every woman was at least a 9/10, so you'd never be blown away by contrast, and you'd hardly ever find one. And her fiance would definitely be a quarterback. Or a senior VP of something very important.

Quote from Benegesserit

Haha Steve Parker said he's moving on to "bigger and better things". That's a slam to the company you are leaving. If I was part of a project that would never end because someone had a differing philosophy and wanted to recreate half the project's design, I'd be gone too. It would look bad on my resume to be that much of a knucklehead to stick with a team who can't figure things out right the first time.

He was probably let go, was "managed out," or was absolutely miserable in that work evironment and had to leave for his sanity. This happens all the time in software engineering, and it doesn't necessarily mean he or Blizzard did anything inherently wrong. Gaming is a volatile work environment.

However, IMHO, no senior producer in their right mind would leave this close to release, when they would likely be receiving a share of the royalties, unless either he, his bosses, or (most likely) both, were very unhappy.

Oh, and everyone knows what "moving on to bigger and better things" means.

Quote from F8L_Fool

"Delay" and "Diablo" are now synonymous with one another.

Delayblo 3.

I was verrrrrry interested about the senior producer leaving the company.. usually means there was a pretty big issue, especially since he's probably not going to see ANY royalties from D3, since he exited Blizzard.

I WANT DRAMA.

Something is only as good as something else is bad. If the only thing that ever dropped was blue or better, that sets an expectation of "if it drops, it's at least good. therefore, whenever something drops, it better be good. look there's a drop. it's not good. WTF. this sucks."

Anyone who has raided in WoW knows that feeling. You know what the boss loot tables are, you are expecting "your" gear to drop. When it does, you're more relieved and satisfied than stoked. When it doesn't, you're pissed.

Now take a situation where mainly crappy whites drop. You get SO used to whites dropping, that after a while, you don't even notice gear is spraying out all over the place. Then, all of a sudden, BAM, a blue drops. It will POP out into your face, and you'll get super-stoked, just because something dropped. ID it. Ah man, not the right stats, oh well, at least I found a blue amid all this crap. Can't wait to hit the next rare drop! Anyone who's played Diablo 2 probably knows that feeling (at least in early D2).

I think they made the right choice.

Quote from DDodds

Quote from Dolaiim

In my opinion, if these iterations are yielding such major changes, something is broken at the core of the game.

They are changing:
Skills
Runes
Attributes

That's the core of how charaters behave and relate to the game engine. These are MAJOR changes, and I am justifiably concerned.

Dont forget items, which blizz has stated itself is the heart of what diablo is all about... Pretty shitty that there are so many huge changes that are going down now in the beta... After blizz keeps stating it is nearly complete and being polished etc.

That's really the only part I have an issue with. When I read Jay's post I was thinking two things:

The first was, "damn, these are big changes. But I understand every one.."
The second thought was: "Damn, this game isn't getting released any time soon."

I have to applaud Blizzard for such dedication to quality. Jay and Bash are spot on: you HAVE to go all-in with an idea.. poke it, bend it, stretch it, and stress it, to see if it will actually hold up and work as you expected.

One of my favorite quotes is: "You never know the next time you're gonna be wrong." Think about it.. every terrible idea didn't seem terrible at inception.. it ended up being terrible once everyone could see the outcome. Literally almost every great human invention has started as a mistake or failed idea. So we shouldn't over-estimate the abilities of human foresight.

I really believe Blizzard when they make changes like this. What constantly surprises me is how poorly they control customer expectations. They pump us up with hype until we're defcon 5 full overstoke, then do a 180 flip, and THEN have the audacity to blame their PR problems on the loyalty and excitement of their customers.

If you tell me something's almost done, then a month later tell me you're nowhere near done, you now have a credibility problem. PERIOD. This is something Blizzard can really improve on, and I hope they do.

I think you're right, good post OP. I also truly believe Blizzard when they admit the attribute types were causing unbalanceable itemization problems.

What surprises me is that it took Blizzard this long to figure out the core mechanics of character attributes. Doesn't give me much confidence in their ability to envision and design a game.

In my opinion, if these iterations are yielding such major changes, something is broken at the core of the game.

They are changing:
Skills
Runes
Attributes

That's the core of how charaters behave and relate to the game engine. These are MAJOR changes, and I am justifiably concerned.

If you find yourself continually disappointed, change your premises.

Quote from oodie10

To make a 2D environmental game..

All the 3D artists working on D3 will be surprised when it comes out missing a dimension.... wait.. hold on guys, wait that's what's causing the delay. The lazy understaffed 3D artists LOST A DIMENSION! I mean, it's an entire fucking dimension, who DOES that???

Obviously nobody knows how many people are working on D3, your post is a thinly veiled whine. So I will dispense of this conversation with one final thought, because after all, it's the primaries: BYAAAAHHHH!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiVsgfm2h5g