This was my most anticipated game of the year. I am no longer going to buy this game or support Blizzard in any future endeavors. That's how much I hate the real money auction house.
The decisions Blizzard is making for this game are really baffling me. Diablo 2 allowed 8 players, each with their own mercenary, and some even with multiple pets. A typical party (before people only played hammerdins and sorcs) could see anywhere from 16 to 30 teammates (and potentially hundreds if they were all necros). This time they limit parties to 4 players. When we first saw the followers I thought "oh that's why they wanted 4, because these followers are really detailed and will be like another player so that makes 8." Then of course we found out they are solo only.
Of course I was disappointed at first. But I started to realize this wouldn't be that bad. Lots of people like to play solo sometimes. The follower would be there to help out with your hell difficulty item finding runs. You could make a character built to work with his/her follower to farm items solo when you didn't feel like playing with anyone. So that, in my eyes, almost justified their decision to make followers solo only. I scratched my head a bit but then I accepted it.
THEN they told us followers were designed to only be useful on normal difficulty and they intentionally made them too weak to handle any higher difficulty. Coupled with the statement that normal difficulty is so easy you can mindlessly click your way to the end without using a follower made me realize that followers are, as other people have been saying, nothing but a tutorial. A very well made, very detailed, very awesome tutorial. But still a tutorial. So now I'm sitting here scratching my head at this decision again.
If followers were only there to help the story out a bit and not really intended to be used much except for the first few hours of the game why did they spend so much time and effort? They could have easily just made them NPCs that follow you around and have their own items and their own AI. It would have achieved the exact same goal and they could have saved themselves hundreds if not thousands of man hours. I think followers are cool but I don't understand why they wasted so much time working on them when they are pretty pointless in the long run. Maybe someone could explain why they did this because I'm baffled.
So now that I've had time to think this over I think I kind of understand the followers now. They are mostly there to help out newer characters. Let's say you're doing a build that focuses primarily on higher level skills. You'll be really weak early on and kill really slowly. You don't want to be a burden in multiplayer because you'll just make it harder for everyone (assuming monster scaling is done well). So you have your follower there to help you out. You level up, you get your end game skills, you reach nightmare difficulty, and now you're ready for multiplayer. You don't need your follower anymore.
This is how I think they are intended to be used. But it still begs the question: Why did they devote so much time and so many resources into this when it becomes obsolete so quickly? I think that's my biggest complaint. If the followers weren't so well done and developed I wouldn't care as much. If they were like Diablo 2 classic mercenaries that followed you around until they died and you couldn't customize them then fine. You knew their purpose was only to help you out in the early stages when you weren't strong enough yet. Plus as we all know Blizzard takes a very long time to develop games. They want to make everything perfect. So you know this follower system had to have taken them quite a few months to do. The game actually may have been out by now if they didn't bother with this follower system. Just some food for thought.
To those saying they prefer playing alone: This isn't Diablo 2. In Diablo 2 there are advantages to playing solo and advantages to playing in a party. The biggest advantage to playing solo is you get all the loot to yourself. In Diablo 3 you get your own loot even with other players around. In fact more loot drops if there are more players because everyone gets their own loot that they can then trade. So you're at a DISADVANTAGE if you play solo in Diablo 3. They are encouraging you to play with others. The matchmaking will no doubt be very quick and easy so you can jump in a game and do whatever area you want with other players. So even if you liked soloing in Diablo 2 remember that this isn't Diablo 2.
So Jay Wilson says he wants the followers to feel important and not just be nameless mercenaries. You're supposed to get attached to them and want them to help you out. Until someone joins your game then they don't exist anymore. Why bother with them in the first place if I can't use them all the time? I'm not going to put all this time and effort into gearing my mercenary up and setting up my skills and his/her skills to work with mine and develop strategies to killing when I can't even use it half the time.
Single player only... Why???? What the hell Blizzard? First of all who is actually going to play the single player? I'd rather start right away with my multiplayer character playing and trading items with people from the beginning.
I believe Bashiok's quote just means people need to stop making assumptions because tomorrow they will officially release the video and some information to go along with it. The video was obviously leaked a day early and with no accompanying text to go with it people can only make guesses and assumptions.
Well, if the 6 month beta testing is still somewhat accurate and their internal testing is included in this, then Starting at the beginning of May would put the game out early Nov. 2011
Isn't that reaching just a bit? I mean the internal testing is testing but it's usually referred to as the alpha test.
I'm going to bet that you can trade with people without even going in a game. They wanted to do that on Diablo 2 but couldn't so I don't see why they can't do it for Diablo 3 with Battle.net 2.0.
Is 2011 possible? Yes of course. Is it likely? No. Before the conference call people were all betting the beta would start this month or June 1st. Then when they said Q3 people were all saying they meant fiscal Q3 until it was confirmed to be calendar Q3. People are grasping at anything at all to convince themselves the game will come out sooner. It's better to expect the worst and then be pleasantly surprised than to expect the best and be disappointed.
They were aiming for a 1998 release of Diablo 2. Then a 1999 release of Diablo 2. All I'm saying is don't be too disappointed when the game doesn't come out this year. Especially since the beta won't start until after July and possibly not until September (or even later). (pictures taken from my starcraft and brood war CDs)
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Of course I was disappointed at first. But I started to realize this wouldn't be that bad. Lots of people like to play solo sometimes. The follower would be there to help out with your hell difficulty item finding runs. You could make a character built to work with his/her follower to farm items solo when you didn't feel like playing with anyone. So that, in my eyes, almost justified their decision to make followers solo only. I scratched my head a bit but then I accepted it.
THEN they told us followers were designed to only be useful on normal difficulty and they intentionally made them too weak to handle any higher difficulty. Coupled with the statement that normal difficulty is so easy you can mindlessly click your way to the end without using a follower made me realize that followers are, as other people have been saying, nothing but a tutorial. A very well made, very detailed, very awesome tutorial. But still a tutorial. So now I'm sitting here scratching my head at this decision again.
If followers were only there to help the story out a bit and not really intended to be used much except for the first few hours of the game why did they spend so much time and effort? They could have easily just made them NPCs that follow you around and have their own items and their own AI. It would have achieved the exact same goal and they could have saved themselves hundreds if not thousands of man hours. I think followers are cool but I don't understand why they wasted so much time working on them when they are pretty pointless in the long run. Maybe someone could explain why they did this because I'm baffled.
This is how I think they are intended to be used. But it still begs the question: Why did they devote so much time and so many resources into this when it becomes obsolete so quickly? I think that's my biggest complaint. If the followers weren't so well done and developed I wouldn't care as much. If they were like Diablo 2 classic mercenaries that followed you around until they died and you couldn't customize them then fine. You knew their purpose was only to help you out in the early stages when you weren't strong enough yet. Plus as we all know Blizzard takes a very long time to develop games. They want to make everything perfect. So you know this follower system had to have taken them quite a few months to do. The game actually may have been out by now if they didn't bother with this follower system. Just some food for thought.
To those saying they prefer playing alone: This isn't Diablo 2. In Diablo 2 there are advantages to playing solo and advantages to playing in a party. The biggest advantage to playing solo is you get all the loot to yourself. In Diablo 3 you get your own loot even with other players around. In fact more loot drops if there are more players because everyone gets their own loot that they can then trade. So you're at a DISADVANTAGE if you play solo in Diablo 3. They are encouraging you to play with others. The matchmaking will no doubt be very quick and easy so you can jump in a game and do whatever area you want with other players. So even if you liked soloing in Diablo 2 remember that this isn't Diablo 2.
This is such a terrible decision on their part.
I really doubt the video is old.
The Burning Crusade came out in January.