We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now.

We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it's a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out.

Thank you very much for this informative and honest answer. Though to be honest what this answer really reveals is "we didn't have a real end game ready or in mind and aren't sure how to retain customers, the game was released before it was quite ready, possibly because of the giant outcry from the fans"
Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose, but we believed pre-release that the item hunt would be far more sustainable, and would work to be a proper end-game for quite a while. That didn't turn out to be true, and we recognize that.

Can you quantify 'tons' of people playing? I mean if you are counting the US player base that might mean 7 players if we are using weight ratios here ...
Haha... oh wait, that's mean! I don't know that I'm allowed to release specific concurrency numbers, but we have hundreds upon hundreds of thousands playing every night. Comparing to just normal drop-off post release of a WoW expansion, Diablo III has been very solid, and it's not even out in China yet.

Why, if you have no philosophical problem with MF gear swapping, did you not include an option to have a gear swap button/alternative gear set?
Parting the veils a little bit here...

There was some debate about Magic Find gear swapping before the game shipped. Some of our developers and testers thought it was fun way to game the system, while others felt it was too much of a hassle. In the end, we decided to allow gear swapping, thinking that the players who wanted to do it would, and the players who don't enjoy the practice wouldn't. Of course, what actually happened is that some players got caught in the crossfire -- players who didn't really enjoy gear swapping or want to carry around an extra set of MF gear all the time, but felt like they had to in order to be as efficient as possible.

So, when Wyatt says we "didn't have a problem with it philosophically," it means we were aware of the practice of gear swapping and understood that the player base had differing opinions on it, but didn't want to make any changes to it unless the community asked for it outright (since we knew it was fun for a select group of players). It did not mean it was deliberately a practice we wanted to encourage everybody to do. Supporting and promoting gear swapping by adding a button could only complicate the current problem of players feeling like the they need to gear swap in order to be really efficient, even if they don't enjoy it; it also increases the need for storage space (both server-side and in a player's inventory) and adds complexity to a UI that's otherwise designed to be very simple and straightforward.

So, more or less this:

because it is the same issue we having right now? the idea is TO FIX PLAYERS SWAPPING TO MF GEAR BEFORE SOMETHING DIES. NOT MAINSTREAM IT.
Right now, we're opening discussion to the community on how best to move forward. We're considering a lot of different solutions (some of which were pulled from ideas posted in these forums) and would like your feedback. We realize that there are pros and cons to every solution we listed, and want to get your take on them as well. If you have alternative ideas, please feel free to share them!

(By the way, saying that you'd prefer a button over the other options is totally valid feedback, as is saying that you'd prefer to see no change at all. Just keep in mind that our goal, if possible, is to come up with a viable solution to the problem of players feeling like they need to gear swap even if they don't actually feel like it's fun gameplay.)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that allowed players to earn additional stacks of Nephalem Valor or guaranteed item drops by killing multiple monsters simultaneously from the same Champion or Rare pack
• Fixed even more game and service crashes

Blizzard Will Compensate For Magic Find Change
I understand I'm breaking some rules by making a new thread about an existing topic, but the "next Blue" BLIZZ button is broken and I don't expect people to see my reply on... what is it... holy crap page 251!? Ok, so, as the blog said:

It's worth keeping in mind that if we do implement a method to alleviate gear-swapping in combat, we'll simultaneously be looking at ways for players to get an added MF bonus to compensate.

 

For example we implement one of the options and could... maybe buff up NV stacks with additional magic find, which could/would compensate for MF lost due to any solutions. We don't want anyone thinking we're trying to take their magic find away. We're trying to help alleviate some of the complaints about tedium and loss of inventory space while helping you keep the benefits. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Listening to Players
Well, I think you make a lot of sense, although you didn't have to be so mean about it... :*(

Also, just to clarify, we're not asking for majority opinion. We're asking people to offer their thoughts and feedback on what they feel would work best for them. By reading that, understanding why people enjoy the game, and what they think about various solutions, we can take an informed approach. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We’ve extensively tested for false positive situations, including replicating system setups for those who have posted claiming they were banned unfairly. We’ve not found any situations that could produce a false positive, have found that the circumstances for which they were banned were clear and accurate, and we are extremely confident in our findings.

Playing the game on Linux, although not officially supported, will not get you banned – cheating will.

I don't see why 90% of the comments in the Wine's website community would lie about their banning?
To include the original cited source:
Maybe I'm missing a larger thread, but I only see 3 people posting in the "Banned?" thread saying they were banned. Or is that accurately 90%?

No disrespect intended, but it has happened, and been denied before. Since there are a near infinite number of Wine configurations I suspect your testing may not have been extensive enough.

A quote from the reddit thread about this issue: (Click to view quote)
Oh we remember. I was CM'ing the WoW forums when it happened. It's not a similar situation, but it's sure to be something to fuel the fire of doubt.

What's even stranger is that name of the one of the posters in the WINE thread is the same person that originated bothof the threads you linked......
Oh, well that's helpful. So probably a more isolated situation than it may appear.

Your ban cycle is 30th of every month, yes? I'll just switch over to wine to add 1 more to the testing.
No, no, we're banning people all the time.

I thought you guys acted similarly to how Valve bans players? (Flags accounts that are cheating and then actually activates the bans on a specific interval)
Nope! Gotta keep em' on their toes.

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Don’t delay; this offer ends on July 9.