Interestingly, the Diablo Anniversary Panel started with a video of the Diablo team (including former members like Brevik, so that's why he was at Blizzard recently) stating what Diablo is to them. Here's what they said:
Action, constant action
Atmosphere/stories
Loot, magic loot, phat loot
Epic, dark, gothic, scary fight between heaven and hell
When they went on to elaborate on the roots of the game, they elaborated that you don't need to play this game for "millions of hours" to get into the story, but "you play it for millions of hours because it's fun". And what is fun? "What makes Diablo fun is getting that awesome piece of gear" - "the first time you saw that amazing item" - "with the stats you're looking for" - "you know, it completely changed how you thought about your character". They then go on and elaborate on the fun of PvP, in particularly PKs (I don't like it, but apparently some of the developers).
Brevik: "I think that there were a lot of things that took a while for people to discover and find".
What I find interesting is that most of those things don't exist in the game anymore. There is nothing that keeps you playing for more than 100+ hours besides paragon/augments. You have every item at that time (the way how I play this I have everything after 30 hours on the season opening weekend). But most importantly and most disappointingly, the loot hunt is entirely gone, and nothing I've seen so far indicates that this comes back at all. Necro, armory, challenge rifts, new zones, anniversary dungeon - all of those are interesting tidbits and QoL changes, but none of them address the core aspects of Diablo that the developers themselves highlight as being the favorite things to do in this game.
I hope that someone at the panel asks them about if (and if yes, how) they plan to bring back the loot hunt. A more direct question that wouldn't go by the bouncer would be: How come that D3's proposed changes are so far away from the Diablo developers' own perceptions of what this game should be?
As the rumors about Blizzcon go through the roof, we've heard everything - from patch 2.5, over an expansion, D4, Diablo as a mobile game, Diablo as an MMO, Diablo in an Overwatch engine. What I found interesting about this is that everyone seems to have a different opinion on this and there isn't one thing that would please everyone. For example, people always asked for seasons, but now that seasons are there it's not enough; it also needs to have tons of new content in every season and even a new stash tab, wings, and a portrait frame is not enough. (In the super awesome D2 that everyone praises there's absolutely nothing new after a ladder reset, not even a cosmetic thing.)
Similarly, a lot of people ask for more balance, more sets, more classes, just more more more. We have 6 classes with 4 sets and LoN, so about 30 different builds, of which 20+ are viable for GR80+ or higher. Yet people act as if the game was as badly balanced as Diablo 2 (while in reality it's miles ahead of any "balance" that D2 has ever seen). Also, people don't seem to *want* to play more than one class/cookie cutter build, as I realized after posting the guide for the two conquests that are meant to showcase D3's diversity. Only a handful of people have done either of those conquests in one week after the season, despite both of them being relatively easy.
Therefore, I'm curious what people want. Let's see if this poll works out, where you can rate a few metrics that I came up with on the fly. I just realized I can't edit the poll, so I can't edit something - if you think something's missing just add it in your reply to this thread. I'm really interested to see the results of this (though I know, obviously, that this will be not at all representative).
Interestingly, the Diablo Anniversary Panel started with a video of the Diablo team (including former members like Brevik, so that's why he was at Blizzard recently) stating what Diablo is to them. Here's what they said:
When they went on to elaborate on the roots of the game, they elaborated that you don't need to play this game for "millions of hours" to get into the story, but "you play it for millions of hours because it's fun". And what is fun? "What makes Diablo fun is getting that awesome piece of gear" - "the first time you saw that amazing item" - "with the stats you're looking for" - "you know, it completely changed how you thought about your character". They then go on and elaborate on the fun of PvP, in particularly PKs (I don't like it, but apparently some of the developers).
Brevik: "I think that there were a lot of things that took a while for people to discover and find".
What I find interesting is that most of those things don't exist in the game anymore. There is nothing that keeps you playing for more than 100+ hours besides paragon/augments. You have every item at that time (the way how I play this I have everything after 30 hours on the season opening weekend). But most importantly and most disappointingly, the loot hunt is entirely gone, and nothing I've seen so far indicates that this comes back at all. Necro, armory, challenge rifts, new zones, anniversary dungeon - all of those are interesting tidbits and QoL changes, but none of them address the core aspects of Diablo that the developers themselves highlight as being the favorite things to do in this game.
I hope that someone at the panel asks them about if (and if yes, how) they plan to bring back the loot hunt. A more direct question that wouldn't go by the bouncer would be: How come that D3's proposed changes are so far away from the Diablo developers' own perceptions of what this game should be?
As the rumors about Blizzcon go through the roof, we've heard everything - from patch 2.5, over an expansion, D4, Diablo as a mobile game, Diablo as an MMO, Diablo in an Overwatch engine. What I found interesting about this is that everyone seems to have a different opinion on this and there isn't one thing that would please everyone. For example, people always asked for seasons, but now that seasons are there it's not enough; it also needs to have tons of new content in every season and even a new stash tab, wings, and a portrait frame is not enough. (In the super awesome D2 that everyone praises there's absolutely nothing new after a ladder reset, not even a cosmetic thing.)
Similarly, a lot of people ask for more balance, more sets, more classes, just more more more. We have 6 classes with 4 sets and LoN, so about 30 different builds, of which 20+ are viable for GR80+ or higher. Yet people act as if the game was as badly balanced as Diablo 2 (while in reality it's miles ahead of any "balance" that D2 has ever seen). Also, people don't seem to *want* to play more than one class/cookie cutter build, as I realized after posting the guide for the two conquests that are meant to showcase D3's diversity. Only a handful of people have done either of those conquests in one week after the season, despite both of them being relatively easy.
Therefore, I'm curious what people want. Let's see if this poll works out, where you can rate a few metrics that I came up with on the fly. I just realized I can't edit the poll, so I can't edit something - if you think something's missing just add it in your reply to this thread. I'm really interested to see the results of this (though I know, obviously, that this will be not at all representative).