Official Blizzard Quote:
As some of you may have seen over on the Diablo III home page, we’re currently exploring a Diablo-related concept for consoles. As we’ve said in the past, with proper care the gameplay could suit the console platform, and we’re interested in seeing what talent out there might be interested in contributing to such a project.
To further reiterate what’s posted on the home page: this is not an announcement of a console title. We are first and foremost developing Diablo III for Windows and Mac PCs, and we have no intention of allowing a console interpretation to delay or otherwise affect the release of the game. As always feel free to discuss this topic here, but please note that we don’t have any further details to share at this time.
If you or someone you know would be interested in joining the Diablo team, then head over to the job posts to check out the requirements and submit an application.
Since the game itself will be coming out Soon(TM) as Don has explained, I do not believe that it will be out in time to make a big impact on the Xbox360, Wii, and/or PS3 lives. If the game were to come out, it would need to be on a next-generation console otherwise, D3 will just end up like SC:Ghost.
If you guys noticed, at the end of one of the Job Opportunity pages, "Battle.net" was listed as a plus. How exactly these console games will work with Battle.net is something I would be very interested in learning about... Theoretically then, we PC users could potentially play in the same game with Console users.
Yeah, Zelda is a fun game. D2 would have to be changed from a point-click movement style to a joystick movement for it to be doable on the wii. It would be great if they incorporated the wii motion sensing for attacks, but I can see how that would get tiring after your 50,000 kill of the day. If there is a way to make it work, I'm sure Blizzard will find it.
The crowd of people it gets on console is the crowd that has a low change of buying D3 at all in the first place.
Also, there are what, 12 million WoW subscribers? Thats only 6 million less than 360s sold in the US, and thats one game. Yes, more games are released on consoles than for the PC, but that doesn't mean that people won't buy a good PC game. People at least have computers to play it on.
Still, the point I was trying to make is that when most people think of video games they probably think of a console as opposed to a PC.
However, I see the following quote as their attempt to blow smoke up our *****. Notice the portion of 'no intention', rather than 'we will not allow' or something similar. The phrasing of words is important, and this statement, in no way, takes a definitive stance against a single product on multiple platforms. The people sitting in comfy chairs at the top of the building could could very easily step in and force a single product on multiple platforms.
As I said above, it's about pushing product with minimal costs, and that means producing one product on multiple platforms. I also think that it's important to point out that Blizzard is not totally in control of their ship, and because of that, the internal policies regarding development may not be as definitive as they once were.
Also as I pointed out in the other thread dealing with this topic, if Blizzard takes this route, they may generate revenue from console sales, but it will also hurt revenue due to disgruntled PC Users.
Just when I had myself convinced they couldn't possible screw up the franchise anymore, they go and prove me wrong again!
The best thing about Diablo 3 is its not gonna be one of those free to play designs where you get to play a portion of the game to check it out before you pay to unlock the rest of the game. If it were I'd probably actually waste some time giving it the benefit of the doubt and checking it out. Since they'd expect my money up front and the games revving up to be a giant turd sandwich, not only will I not waste money on it, but I won't even have to waste any time!
They managed to include a bunch of crap I admired D2 for not using, like binding gear, a gold based economy rather then barter based, and complete lack of console crossover that always leaves computer users feeling like the game got dumbed down to suit console players.
They also managed to neuter some of my favorite D2 features with crap like auto statting, respecs, and lack of PK.
Good job blizzard, I can't wait til you announce the rainbow dancer class. You know, the class that's gonna run around healing everyone with bursts of rainbow light and never doing any damage, because harming things is wrong. They're also going to be able to grow pretty flowers, bake delicious cakes and pies, and cast spells that do nothing but say random cute, funny things.
Well alright, maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but D2 was an epic game. For comparisons sake, lets compare it to Dungeons and Dragons Online. That was an extremely mediocre game. It pains me to see Diablo 3 adopting many of the core elements of a mediocre game like DDO and making it a mainstream lamestream game rather then building on the things that made D2 stand out.
PK was a source of grief, all i can say is good riddance.
DDO is a MMORPG and not at all comparable to the Diablo III systems that have been revealed.
As for the colors? A matter of taste, really, but if you look at the latest gameplay bits and pieces we have, it seems that it starts low and builds up (as are the rules of great drama). The feeling is very dark, there actually IS some storytelling that won't slow you down. Gold makes the game have an actual economy and doesn't kill the people that just start (or start over) for not having high runes to trade with (that's not bartering, it's a made up currency since Diablo II didn't have one).
So far so good. Diablo III will be a PC game for starters and they're "exploring" the possibilities of a decent console port. Not the other way around. Blizzard are so popular for being great at making PC games and that's not about to change.
Gold economy doesn't ruin economies...dream on. You mention it'll be better then not having high runes to trade with...but guess what, you won't have any gold either. Either that or you won't have nearly as much as someone who had been playing steady...especially with no type of ladder reset or anything. I'd rather be able to farm and get a high rune, and think cool, I have a high rune, then have to farm gold, when the price for w/e people may want to buy with gold that doesn't bind is going to be constantly going up as gold is going to be constantly accumulating in the game.
PK is a source of grief? You've got to be kidding. PK is the best way to deal with a griefer. For example, I was on DDO the other night, and there's 6 of us in a quest, and we get to a part where everyone has to stand in a certain area for the quest to continue. Suddenly one guy just says HAHAHA GL NOOBS and goes afk. We stand there and wait 10 minutes, and realize the guys just screwing with us and isn't coming back anytime soon. We then have to recall and restart the quest without him. Now just imagine...had DDO had some PK in it, rather then getting griefed by that idiot, we could have just PK'd him and had some street justice. Then again I'm not really that stunned someone who thinks a learning curve in a game is awful design, also doesn't like PK, since killing other players with any sort of winning record was the most difficult accomplishment(and thus required the most learning/thought) in the game.
What are you trying to say? Of course a gold economy would be broken without enough gold in it, just like it was broken in D2 with enough gold in it. Same goes for if farming gold becomes a drawn out, boring process. And its not like you won't have to farm for runes. You'll have to do that too. You'll just also actually care about the amount of gold you have as well. All it does is add gameplay hours, and chances are the best way to get gold will also be the best way to get most other stuff anyways.
And as far as not having as much gold as people who have steadily been playing the game, that pretty much goes for everything in the game. I don't see why more dedicated players shouldn't be rewarded. You can't talk about how you want there to be a learning curve but then say that people who continuously play should be on the same playing field as people who don't.
Without PKing, the griefers wouldn't be there in the first place. And that situation could just as easily be solved by a votekick system which wouldn't also be able to be used to grief. And if you want to PvP, theres a dedicated arena for that. Complete with ranks and records. So pretty much the same as D2 minus the griefing.
Ok, so you don't consider it a learning curve if you can't get past parts of the game if you don't know what your doing. However, if you LEARN what you are doing, you can easily get past them. If this isn't a learning curve, what is it?
You do realize, a game that requires character building, but no matter what you do you can beat every part of the game without having to learn and adapt, has ZERO learning curve?
Gold economies actually damage areas of the game where learning curves are a factor. If you can only barter with your items, you have to learn what each item is worth in relation to each other. There's also an unmeasureable factor of how much each party involved in the deal wants/needs each others items. I've done plenty of trades in D2 where I didn't need any of the items involved, I just knew I was getting a good deal and could turn a profit by just trading, and trading again.
Gold economies you just say eh, I don't need this item, I'm gonna check the auction house. Oh look everyone's asking 10k gold for it, I guess I'll post mine for 10k. Yeah...that's a learning curve.
The other thing I don't like about a gold based economy is it becomes a game of hours spent grinding rather then quality of grind. If gold was actually a useful economy in D2 everyone would spend their time blasting through nm chaos as fast as possible and selling everything. How rich you are would depend upon how fast you could sell the most crap.
However with a barter system it is based upon quality over quantity. Running nm runs just to sell mass amounts of item would make you gold, but, running on hell would be the only chance for high runes, a potential godly rare, or some of the high end unique/set items. Knowing what items were worth picking up and not bothering selling every piece of trash that drops would net you far more profit, which is where a learning curve comes into play.
What do you mean, its impossible for me to grief you without pk? Believe me, I could come up with hundreds of ways to troll people and grief them without pk. As far as from the viewpoint of purely wanting to play the game to troll and grief people, I'd actually prefer no pk, because then you are completely defenseless against me. Any anti-trolling/griefing measures they put into the game can just as easily be used against you.
Let's examine a votekick system. I'm just gonna pretend max party is set in stone at 5, not really sure if that's true but just saying that to make a point. If I want to grief using this, I'm just going to make sure I'm in a party with 2 buddies. What would prevent us from votekicking the other 2 right before we approach an end chest or boss of a quest or some other point of significance? Sure you might not do it...but there's plenty of people who'd do it for a chuckle. You'd be completely defenseless against it. Actually now that I think about it, if any blizz reps read this...please include a votekick system for my enjoyment.
On the current mmo I've been playing, me and one of my friends actually sometimes actively set out to get people banned. Its simple. While grouped with people you say some cocky noobish crap that could easily be passed off as you just being an overall stupid person. When they defend themself you try to antagonize them into swearing, at which point you report them and they get banned. Bet they wish they could have just pk'd me after my initial comment instead. The point is, your not going to stop people from griefing and trolling, so why are you so against the option to just kill them?
As far as pvp goes, sure its fun and has its place, but its NOT pk. PVP doesn't give you the thrill of pwning some random unsuspecting people. PVP doesn't ever give you the thrill of having to defend yourself from a pk attempt. I always thought the best thing about baal runs in d2 was when some random pk'er joined your game and made an attempt to wipe your run. And really...what did you lose if you got pk'd, 30 seconds of time, some worthless gold, and a kick to your ego, big deal. For me, the enjoyment factor out of succesfully wiping out a baal run, or the randomness factor of people making pk attempts at you, added enough randomness and fun to the game to more then compensate for the almost non-existant penalties of getting pk'd.(unless you were hardcore)
I'm not really psyched at all about a ranking/record system. Its just a meaningless feature. When I played basketball when I was younger, I played it because I liked basketball, not so at the end of the season I could tell everyone I had 10 wins and 2 losses. Much the same way I play a game, I'd rather get some good laughs out of pk'ing a bunch of people, pwning a pk attempt that comes my way, or by having some fun arena matches. As long as all that fun is present, I'd be far more thrilled about the game then just having the designers say well, we stripped out pk, but to compensate we're going to keep your record for you now. Seems like a pretty crappy trade off, remove something that for many people was a large part of their d2 experience, and replace it with something utterly meaningless.
Yea, having it so people can just scam to get high quality items for low quality ones, because theres no good way to find out how much an item is worth, is clearly a better system. You shouldn't have to learn the economy by trial and error. You should just get what you deserve for having a good item. There doesn't have to be a learning curve for everything you know.
Again, how do you know that the best way to get gold in D3 won't be the best way to get other stuff? That would obviously be the best way to go about it, and would eliminate the problem you present. And like I said before, there doesn't have to be a learning curve for everything.
And how would that problem be solved if I could PK? If theres 5 people and theres 3 of you, that means it would be a 3v2 in your favor, and considering its actually a limit of 4 people in a game, it would be a 3v1. So yea, how is me getting killed along with not getting that chest/boss kill better than just not getting that chest/boss kill?
Ok yea, if its simple as reporting someone and they get banned, sure. But if you've ever played WoW you know that Blizzard:
1. Doesn't just ban people for swearing.
2. Is able to look at what actually happened through chat logs, etc.
Great, so you like greifing. Most people, or at least a good amount of people, which fortunately includes the D3 team (even though Jay Wilson said that he thoroughly enjoys PKing, he recognized it as a bad feature) would disagree that the "thrill" of wiping a Baal run is worth the crappiness of having your Baal run wiped by a PKer.
So you like having arena matches, but you don't like a designated arena? I don't really know what to say. Theres still going to be plenty of PvP, but its just separated from PvM. And how is it any more meaningless than in D2? You still get ears and now you get titles and other aesthetic rewards. I really don't see the problem.
Yeah its totally excessive to have to level a new character that you can hit level 80 with in a day easily if you know what your doing. Even if your a total first timer, and actually do manage to mess up a character so badly you just can't do anything with it, you know, like putting 1 point into everything, big deal, it probably only takes a couple days of trying to play that character before you realize its a total fail.
What do you consider an acceptable learning curve? One where you just say WHOOPS I MESSED UP and get to instantly undo it? Heck I'd even agree with a 5 minute timer to reset your last skill point, just in case someone happens to have a lag click or something. Yeah I'd also agree having to remake a character that you realized at some point totally stunk if it took 3 months to get to that point was excessive, but it only takes a matter of days even if your slow to get to that point. Considering if you play online you can also transfer over your items to a new character so its not even a total loss, this learning curve is not extreme at all.
So you think a learning curve for character building that might cost you a couple days worth of play time while your dabbling with a new idea on a character is excessive, and you don't want any learning curve on the economy.
I'd just go play a first person shooter where everyone has the same character and the same items if I wanted this. Character building and economy are two of the things that set rpg's apart from first person shooters, why would you want to neuter them down rather then amplify them? I don't want the game to hold my hand and walk me through so I don't ever have a chance to mess anything up or maybe do something foolish with my character, what fun is learning the game if you always know whatever choice your making is the right one. When it gets to that point there is NOTHING left to learn.
I guess you just want to ignore whatever I say, must go hand in hand with your extreme dislike for any learning curve at all in the game. You can farm gold right from the first monster you kill in the game. Allowing this with the currency would be the same as high runes dropping from zombies in the blood moor in d2. Wealth grinding then just becomes a game of who puts the most time in, rather then having quality of how well you grind as a factor.
I'd rather know that because I took the time to learn the game and make a good character that can kill fast and has a good mf set up, know where to farm for what if I'm looking for specific items(like torches), and knowing my items well enough so I'm only keeping items with value rather then picking up every piece of junk and wasting time trying to trade and mule garbage, I am going to consistently gather a large amount of wealth in a 2 hour period then someone who's clueless does in 10 hours. A gold economy does not allow for this to happen. It becomes much easier to overcome a game knowledge deficit by simply grinding for endless hours and hording currency. I can see why someone opposed to having to learn the game though, would be opposed to this type of design.
I can tell you've never actually defeated a would be pk'er in D2, because you immediately say if would get you killed on top of still not getting your chest/boss kill. My point was, if I can vote you out with a votekick system you have no chance to do anything at all. If there is pk and I try to do it via pk, you might actually just kill me, get your stuff, and laugh in my face, or you might flee and come back when we're gone, or you might just die. I'd rather have those three potential options then the undefendable grief of a votekick system.
Which is simply why you have to make sure you come across as stupid. Being stupid isn't a bannable offense. I was just saying, no matter what type of formal anti-grief systems you can conjure up people will find ways around them. From my personal experience being able to just pk such people is far more effective then any formal anti-griefing measure I've ever seen implemented. They either just don't work, make the game less interesting in other ways, or are easy to use to your own advantage if you want to grief people.
I don't mind pvp matches, and I don't mind a designated arena, as long as these aren't my only options. It'd be the equivalent of joining a duel game in D2. I spent plenty of time in duel games, it was pretty fun. Aesthetic rewards however, are utterly meaningless. Its like the ears in D2, nobody cared about them. They didn't mean anything at all, you couldn't do anything with them. Stripping out pk in favor of aesthetic rewards is completely and utterly stupid as far as I'm concerned. Blizzard would be better off just stripping PK if they really want to go that route, and rather then waste time on aesthetic rewards just everyone take a day or two off, rather then implement something entirely meaningless.
Separating it from pvp however, is lame. In d2 for example, the pvm was easy. Once you got good at it, it was just outright simple. PK added more spice to pvm then any pvm feature they could ever implement would. Your not just fighting some ai trash monsters, or some uber boss that once you learn the trick to beat it you can kill it with no problem over and over again. When you have to fend off a player its a more dangerous situation then dieing once in 300 runs because you hit a lag spike, but yet again, I could see how someone who has an extreme dislike for any meaningful type of learning curve would hate the most challenging portion of the game.
Actually, leeching won't be an option in Diablo 3 so the first arguement is pretty invalid. It's not like "right i'm gonna leech to lvl 45 (since lvl 60 is the cap in Diablo 3) and i'll experiment with builds. Leveling the character will take time. Imagine leveling every single character by actually playing and think about how much time it takes. And yeah, 4 player limit and extremely hard enemies on 4/4 people games ensure there won't be rushing/leeching.
Also, the respec won't be "a little gold". It's going to take time and quests (from the little info we have so far). And lots of gold. To remove a skill point, not reset the whole skill setup. Quoting Bashiok here: "If you want to completely change your skills, you'd better start a new character".
Now on that part, think that quality won't come in masses. We don't know if there's going to be an Auction House or something like that, so we can't be sure how it's going to work out. Either way, the really cool stuff will be rare and the player will be up to decide what to charge for it. Is it 5 High Runes, or 20,000 gold? Do you really see a difference? I don't. Learning curve is not knowing what to charge for items. It's knowing what to pay for items YOU need. That's needed with any kind of economy too.
Gold sinks will exist. Gold farming might be possible, but stuff like wands, staves, armors etc that used to sell for awesome money in Diablo 2 won't give that much money. There's going to be substantially less gold from items in the game aswell, since with the new artisan feature, we'll salvage more than we vendor and we'll pay money to upgrade them and make useful items, socket them, upgrade gems etc etc.
There's many ways to cause grief, true. But PK was a very obvious one. It's one thing to PvP and another to gank people that do PvE while they're focused on something else. And let's not forget the regular exploits of PK'ing in Diablo 2, like TPPK (just a thought). Votekick could very well be used to kick someone who sucks at playing, someone who's annoying or someone who just goes AFK and lets everyone else do the killing.
They didn't remove PK to implement aesthetic rewards. They removed PK to implement Arenas, that are pretty meaningful. The rewards are just a bonus. Just like the PvP Ladder.
PK didn't add anything but grief to PvE. Sure, it was fun for the one that attacked. But for the other guys that had a PvE build? Not that much fun. Diablo 2 was flawed in many different ways (as it was well made in others). That particular part was a failed feature taken from the original Diablo. There's nothing meaningful in killing people that aren't trying to kill you. It's the exact opposite.
Who said anything at all about leeching? Trist runs til 10ish, tombs til 20, cows til 24, ancients, norm baal runs til your high enough to kill nm ancients, then guy right to nm baal runs. You could do this with friends of the same level no problem, no leeching required, and all get up to hell baal runs with no rusher in probably 5-7 hours. Only exception might be if your all playing untwinked, but if you have some leveling gear set aside on an alt you should have no problems.
If you wanted to rush/leech you could just grush to hell chaos and get a new toon to level 80 in 2-3 hours.
Yes I see a difference. Like I already said twice, you can't farm high runes throughout the entire d2 game, but will be able to farm currency everywhere in d3. This leads to an environment where mass time spent gold grinding can compensate for learning the game, and going for quality over quantity.
There is no learning curve with currency based economies. If there is an auction house you simply search for your item, and see what the other 10 are going for. If there is no AH you simply google it, just like every other game with currency items are going to have a relatively set value that doesn't vary much from sale to sale. If you barter every trade you do also comes along with the notion of how bad do I want what he has, and how bad does he have what I want. Currency is just bleh I don't need this I'm just gonna sell it and horde more gold away, and when I get 30k saved up I can definately buy that armor I want, because there is currently 17 sets of it for sale for that much in the AH.
It doesn't matter if an item gives you 35000 gold or 3 gold when you sell it, the actually amount you get it going to be relative to the game. That aside, when you have to come up with sinks so people can't accumulate gold too fast, you already have a broken system. Gold is either going to be too hard to get to the point where the game is just an annoying grind fest, or is going to be massively accumulated over time, both of which are bad.
The only game I've ever played that came anywhere close to currency being useful without massive amounts of sinks, limited how much currency would spawn, and the more that was in game, the less you would get for things. The only real sink was you would get charged rent on your gear each day, with more expensive gear costing more to rent. The only reason it remained stable was because 10 million 1 month after the server went up, was still worth the same 10 million in terms of what you could do with it 5 years after the server was up. I've yet to see any other currency based game come anywhere close to being as stable. You'll end up thinking your rich with 500k a month after d3 starts, but 5 years down the road when people have 20billion saved up, and a noob gets on and plays for a month, he'll realize he's dirt poor and everyone else has years of currency horded away. The design is fail right from the start.
I guess if you win more then you lose on the game, and if your adult enough to just lose an accept the fact you just got pwned when you do lose, you look at pk, from both sides of the fence, as fun. If you just lose every time and can't handle losing to someone who knows the game better or just outsmarted/outplayed you in that instance, then yeah, I guess your right, it is nothing but grief.
However, there are plenty of ways around it regardless, so if you think it is nothing but grief yet do nothing to avoid it you deserve the aggravation. You want to do some Baal runs, you start a pub run, and soon as you get 8 people you start slapping a password on so no random people can join and mess things up for your run. If you make a few friends this way, or have a few friends already, its pretty easy to get 8 man runs going on a daily basis. That's why the password feature is there, for your protection, if you want to constantly pub and never private, its part of the game.
Also you always get plenty of warning when someone is going to pk you. Its not like a big message saying SAUSAGE HONKEY HAS HOSTILED YOU doesn't appear on your screen, and you have to wait for them to come find you and kill you. During this time you could just save and exit and go to a different game. Its actually the most annoying thing that can happen to a pk'er when everyone just leaves and you don't get any kills.
So you don't want to password your games, or leave your game. You could just kill the guy. Even if you want to say you can't with a pvm build and all that good stuff, that is just not true. If your running baal for example, and get pk'd, to put it bluntly, your a moron. Someone hostiles you, and your at the throne room. There is only one way in. Just send a couple guys to spam attacks on the entry point and its insta death the second the would be pk'er walks in. But there I go again, expecting people to actually learn little tips and tricks as they play the game, curse this evil learning curve thing I enjoy so much.
What's this pvp ladder you speak of?
Yeah so I'm just beating a dead horse now, but pk added enjoyment to the game, unless you were horrid at it. You keep insisting it was only fun for the attacker, but that is simply not true. I couldn't imagine going on and running 20-30 chaos/baal runs a night and never having anyone make a pk attempt at me. I could go run chaos 100 times and not die. Its just the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over. People trying to pk my runs was the only possible random event that would ever happen. Being able to get bored of it and go make a pk attempt at someone else was just an added bonus. But yeah I guess if you never wanted to learn how to get better at the game and come up with some tricks on how to pwn people, then its easier just to lump pk in the grief category and talk about how unfair it was, even though another player couldn't do anything you weren't capable of doing.