184 replies to this topic

[overneathe]

Azidonis, on 29 December 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

I'm an "actual D2 player" - played D1 and D2 for many since their releases, and am in my 30s...

...and I think that D3 is technologically a step up from both games. But gameplay, no. It might beat D1 but doesn't come close to D2, in my opinion. D2 wasn't boring to me either, even before LoD.

And the story of D3 is just total shit. I could have written a better story putting a marker in-between my toes and spinning around on a large roll of wax paper completely drunk off my ass... and that's if you read it with the vomit still on the pages. The story is absolute trash.

And Diablo's voiceover is just completely terrible. People may say, "Oh, it' just a voiceover," but when you spent over a decade opening the seals of Chaos Sanctuary to hear the chilling, "Not even death can save you from me," the Diablo voiceover from D3 just doesn't cut it.

Let me not fail to at least mention the disaster that is itemization in D3.

I agree with your story assessment, but in terms of mechanics let's wait 3 years and see how well Diablo 3 evolves and then measure it against what the developers managed to do with Diablo 2 and its expansion. One reason for that: what most of us remember is _after_ all the glorious changes to Diablo 2 and we've mostly played the almost finished game for many, many years.

[whippingstar]

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Azidonis, on 29 December 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

I'm an "actual D2 player" - played D1 and D2 for many since their releases, and am in my 30s...

...and I think that D3 is technologically a step up from both games. But gameplay, no. It might beat D1 but doesn't come close to D2, in my opinion. D2 wasn't boring to me either, even before LoD.

And the story of D3 is just total shit. I could have written a better story putting a marker in-between my toes and spinning around on a large roll of wax paper completely drunk off my ass... and that's if you read it with the vomit still on the pages. The story is absolute trash.

And Diablo's voiceover is just completely terrible. People may say, "Oh, it' just a voiceover," but when you spent over a decade opening the seals of Chaos Sanctuary to hear the chilling, "Not even death can save you from me," the Diablo voiceover from D3 just doesn't cut it.

Let me not fail to at least mention the disaster that is itemization in D3.

I agree with your story assessment, but in terms of mechanics let's wait 3 years and see how well Diablo 3 evolves and then measure it against what the developers managed to do with Diablo 2 and its expansion. One reason for that: what most of us remember is _after_ all the glorious changes to Diablo 2 and we've mostly played the almost finished game for many, many years.

This would be great, except that Diablo I or II didn't ship with such fundamental itemization flaws and a resulting lack of gameplay depth. D3 is over-simplified to the extreme. Waiting three years for PvP is fine, but waiting for changes that make a game about item farming about item farming and not farming for gold is too long.

I'm glad to see them step back from PvP in the hopes that they start working on the underlying issues that are currently plaguing the game.

[Nymrael]

Azidonis, on 29 December 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

TheDemokin, on 28 December 2012 - 03:47 AM, said:

There will always be 2 types of gamers:

The actual D2 players:
The gamers from that era are no longer 18 or 19 years old, we're more like late 20s even 30s - we know how the world works, we've lived with absolute rubbish games back in the day and we appreciate the up and downsides of D3. We also know that Blizzard generally still provides the best quality and content when compared to any other game developer out there.
I think to this layer of gamers the game is ok. It's not brilliant yet, but it's definitely not something to cry about every day before sleep. 40-50 bucks is not something to cry about either, hell - beer for one night could cost way more than that. D3 is a potentially fantastic platform, give it some time and it will possibly develop into superb game, just like D2 did with LOD release - because lets face it original D2 was pretty damn boring.

I'm an "actual D2 player" - played D1 and D2 for many since their releases, and am in my 30s...

...and I think that D3 is technologically a step up from both games. But gameplay, no. It might beat D1 but doesn't come close to D2, in my opinion. D2 wasn't boring to me either, even before LoD.

And the story of D3 is just total shit. I could have written a better story putting a marker in-between my toes and spinning around on a large roll of wax paper completely drunk off my ass... and that's if you read it with the vomit still on the pages. The story is absolute trash.

And Diablo's voiceover is just completely terrible. People may say, "Oh, it' just a voiceover," but when you spent over a decade opening the seals of Chaos Sanctuary to hear the chilling, "Not even death can save you from me," the Diablo voiceover from D3 just doesn't cut it.

Let me not fail to at least mention the disaster that is itemization in D3.

I will agree that voiceover / story were pretty bad (for me at least) but gameplay is miles away from d2 and d1. They kept the Diablo feeling while improving A LOT the gameplay.
Btw with "gameplay" we mean the actual way the game is played. D3 is fast paced, has good learning curve, has action, the way skills work is really nice etc.
Why would u don't like the gameplay of d3?

On the other hand, story and voiceover are bad. Esp. story. So mainstream, so childish, so hollywood-ish, and I still do not understand why Diablo and the rest are talking SO f...ing MUCH?! Really annoying. Although the atmosphere was pretty good in d3 (A LOT BETTER THAN D2, really) the story ruined it all. It could have been so much better w/o making the game too long or feeling "non-diablo", because let's face it, diablo couldn't have a story of 200 hours playtime to finish cause then it wouldn't be diablo.

The itemization is a serious issue because the itemization was made with the RMAH on mind and the idea of "instead of having X drinks this week, I will have X-1 drinks so I can buy a D3 item" which didn't really work that way so far and I think that it will change as well in the near future.

[web]

PvP good or bad dosent matter.
ppl still playing cuz they have fun no matter they saying.
i love D3

[overneathe]

whippingstar, on 29 December 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

This would be great, except that Diablo I or II didn't ship with such fundamental itemization flaws and a resulting lack of gameplay depth. D3 is over-simplified to the extreme. Waiting three years for PvP is fine, but waiting for changes that make a game about item farming about item farming and not farming for gold is too long.

I'm glad to see them step back from PvP in the hopes that they start working on the underlying issues that are currently plaguing the game.

It is completely normal for a game company to casualize their game in order to bring in better profits. In fact, right now, mostly the casuals are keeping this game alive and going, while the "hardcore old school players" go around forums complaining it didn't live up to expectations after spending 500+ hours on it. It if wasn't for the huge sales that even Blizzard couldn't predict themselves the dev team would likely be even smaller with people being assigned to other projects leaving the future of Diablo to a handful of devs. Yes, RMAH brings profits but I suspect they're about as much as keeping the servers up. Yes, the servers that are running for free without needing subscriptions to play the game while keeping the "paying" RMAH usage completely optional for the players.

And Diablo 2 didn't have problems? The first several patches were only bugfixes and they were going out for months. Huge exploits and game breakers and the like. I understand you don't remember those. It's been 11 years. In fact here it is: all patches up to patch 1.07 were in their majority bug fixes, equally split between minor and major bugs. 1.07 was the first proper balance patch. And yes, that was the version that the expansion came with. Which means there wasn't a single worth mentioning balance patch up until the expansion. And don't tell me that it was because "balance was simply fine" at the start. We both know that's bullshit. Not to mention how far less theorycrafting there was in gaming in general 11 years ago.

Only 1.04 brought some quality of life things but they can't even start to compare to super major features that we've seen for D3 so far, like Monster Power (which isn't a simple /player X command), Uber bosses, Paragon leveling, huge overhaul of legendary items and so on. So far all patch notes apart from 1.0.6 have been enormous.

I understand itemization is an issue for a lot of people but I suspect Blizzard is aware of this because of the, oh, just a few million topics posted about it every week. But do you expect such a major change to be fixed in a few months WHILE developing all the other features? How many people do you think work on this game? Because in my opinion it's no more than 20-25. And would've you been happier to see no major additions to the game while the devs toil away at fixing the itemization for a few months, knowing now that the player base is not happy with them?

Sure, people now will jump up and say "well this shit could've just been released this way instead of having to fix it post-launch". Of course they have, but they didn't. They've admitted the launch could've been handled better and we'll see if they've learned their lesson with the expansion release, but now no one has connection issues apart from their own ISPs' fault. They've admitted legendary items sucked majorly at launch and they fixed those. There were exploits and dupes and they've been working hard on them if you follow the news. Botters are being banned in major waves where the entire forums of said bot communities right now are saying they've been banned and complaining that they were "guaranteed" to never be by the bot creator. The end game was not enough at start and now we have a good amount of things to do end game with MP, ubers and paragon. Can there be more? Absolutely definitely. But these were additions that could be developed in a short amount of time and they were. Larger scale things require more development and I'm sure we'll see plenty of those in the coming months.

Now. If you want to complain that D2 was better in my eyes your arguments are beyond false. If you _truly_ believe that then I suggest you go play D2 because Diablo 3 will _never_ be its predecessor and you will _never_ be happy with it. That's how video games work. If you want to complain that Torchlight 2 and/or Path of Exile are better games then what the hell are you doing here? Why cause he commotion? Why be unhappy? Go play those games, no one is stopping you. Go be happy somewhere else if you're not over here. For the money people have invested in this game they've gotten  hundreds of hours of gameplay, when the average for video games nowadays is 40, sometimes down to 20, for the same price. If the journey so far has really been that poor for you then do yourself a favor and just go be happy somewhere else.

p.s. the majority of this wasn't targeted at you Nymrael. Mainly just things plaguing me for a while. I suspect I'll have to make a few more of these posts in the near future of course but this seems like a good start.

[m4st0d0n]

For me, Diablo 3 has to improve a lot to be more than a mediocre game with lovely visuals. Blizzard needs to get down the high horse. They say now that they are not releasing stuff until it's perfect. Well, following that logic, Diablo 3 shouldn't have shipped.

No, I don't actually think that. But I do think that there were much more mistakes with the launch of Diablo 3 than it's visible. Scrapping PVP means the game didn't evolve as expected. That would not happen if Blizzard is more open. Team Deathmatch should have been released with launch and evolve with the game. "Laser focus" on balance could have been avoided without implementing a matchmaking system... But no, Blizzard obviously considers us too stupid to create our games. And that's what really bothers me. We have no (or very little) control of our experience. Implementing Monster Power means Blizzard recognized this. But it's just a little step. I don't expect to see a much more customize-able Diablo 3, because Blizzard thinks they can give us everything we need in the game. No, they can't, it's not possible.

Edited by m4st0d0n, 29 December 2012 - 01:09 PM.

[shaggy]

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

Now. If you want to complain that D2 was better in my eyes your arguments are beyond false. If you _truly_ believe that then I suggest you go play D2 because Diablo 3 will _never_ be its predecessor and you will _never_ be happy with it. That's how video games work. If you want to complain that Torchlight 2 and/or Path of Exile are better games then what the hell are you doing here? Why cause he commotion? Why be unhappy? Go play those games, no one is stopping you. Go be happy somewhere else if you're not over here. For the money people have invested in this game they've gotten  hundreds of hours of gameplay, when the average for video games nowadays is 40, sometimes down to 20, for the same price. If the journey so far has really been that poor for you then do yourself a favor and just go be happy somewhere else.

Because it's much more fun to act like a whiney little brat on the D3 forums and complain about how bad Blizzard is than it is to pick up TL2 and quickly realize that, despite its flaws, D3 really isn't as bad as anyone makes it out to be.  That little bit of perspective could crush someone's reality, you know.  Like I said, the D3 "community" is not the forums.  The forums, including these, are littered with armchair quarterbacks - you know, overweight, balding, 62-year-old guys who all claim they could have made that TD pass that Brady botched, but in reality couldn't squeeze their asses into a football uniform let alone throw the ball more than five yards downfield.  That is the D3 "community" as represented by the majority of the forums.

The title of this thread is a prime example.  Sure I can understand that people are FRUSTRATED with Blizzard's decision to push PvP back more.  It FRUSTRATES me too.  But "Blizzard is a Joke" is hardly a good expression of said FRUSTRATION.  It's an angsty, self-entitled, teenage response to "No, son, you can't have the car keys today."  And that's why it's so easy to typecast people the way that TheDemokin did because, frankly, it's pretty difficult to believe that the "feedback" we see on a daily basis is actually coming from adults.

Just look at this thread.  The people who are upset tend to communicate as if they dropped out of the 3rd grade (major trolling, calling Blizzard fags, incoherent thoughts, ranting and raving, rampant bad grammar and typos).  It's VERY difficult to take that in as anything but a temper tantrum from a child.  If you want to be taken seriously then voice your concerns in a manner which they can be taken seriously.  If you want your concerns to be ignored then act like a troll.  I am willing to bet that most people would find that there was much more serious discussion of the topic if the thread weren't one giant troll from the start.

EDIT

Azidonis, on 29 December 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

I'm an "actual D2 player" - played D1 and D2 for many since their releases, and am in my 30s...

...and I think that D3 is technologically a step up from both games. But gameplay, no. It might beat D1 but doesn't come close to D2, in my opinion. D2 wasn't boring to me either, even before LoD.

And the story of D3 is just total shit. I could have written a better story putting a marker in-between my toes and spinning around on a large roll of wax paper completely drunk off my ass... and that's if you read it with the vomit still on the pages. The story is absolute trash.

I was giving your post a chance til you went the "I COULD DO THIS BETTER THAN BLIZZARD" route.  The only thing that's "absolute trash" is the number of people who claim they could do X, Y, or Z, better than people whose salaries depend on them doing a decent job of it.  If you walked into a starving artists convention and proclaimed that you could paint better than all of them they'd welcome you to give it a whirl and back that big mouth up with some big action.  So, instead of claiming that you can write better stories, how about you go and get hired by a major game developer and write a better story for a game that sells 10+ million copies and really show us that you're not just blowing hot air around.

Edited by shaggy, 29 December 2012 - 01:51 PM.

[Nymrael]

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

whippingstar, on 29 December 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

This would be great, except that Diablo I or II didn't ship with such fundamental itemization flaws and a resulting lack of gameplay depth. D3 is over-simplified to the extreme. Waiting three years for PvP is fine, but waiting for changes that make a game about item farming about item farming and not farming for gold is too long.

I'm glad to see them step back from PvP in the hopes that they start working on the underlying issues that are currently plaguing the game.

It is completely normal for a game company to casualize their game in order to bring in better profits. ...................................

p.s. the majority of this wasn't targeted at you Nymrael. Mainly just things plaguing me for a while. I suspect I'll have to make a few more of these posts in the near future of course but this seems like a good start.

But I completely agree with you! And although I criticize the story / voiceover and the RMAH (which I used both for selling and buying tbh and as a feature worked flawlessly tbf ) I am still enjoying D3 on a daily basis with friends or alone! I really like the gameplay and I think it's innovating although many will disagree with that. In fact, speaking about myself, I didn't want an -up-to-date- D2 or D1. I wanted a new game and D3, despite some issues and what I mentioned above is offering me what I kinda expected from diablo game made by blizzard.

I mentioned story/voice over and RMAH and itemization because I think those parts of the game could have been better, that's all (let me go and play and get that lvl 70 paragon before family meal now )

[Polrayne]

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Azidonis, on 29 December 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

I'm an "actual D2 player" - played D1 and D2 for many since their releases, and am in my 30s...

...and I think that D3 is technologically a step up from both games. But gameplay, no. It might beat D1 but doesn't come close to D2, in my opinion. D2 wasn't boring to me either, even before LoD.

And the story of D3 is just total shit. I could have written a better story putting a marker in-between my toes and spinning around on a large roll of wax paper completely drunk off my ass... and that's if you read it with the vomit still on the pages. The story is absolute trash.

And Diablo's voiceover is just completely terrible. People may say, "Oh, it' just a voiceover," but when you spent over a decade opening the seals of Chaos Sanctuary to hear the chilling, "Not even death can save you from me," the Diablo voiceover from D3 just doesn't cut it.

Let me not fail to at least mention the disaster that is itemization in D3.

I agree with your story assessment, but in terms of mechanics let's wait 3 years and see how well Diablo 3 evolves and then measure it against what the developers managed to do with Diablo 2 and its expansion. One reason for that: what most of us remember is _after_ all the glorious changes to Diablo 2 and we've mostly played the almost finished game for many, many years.

While you suggest this for players - to be a positive position in their struggles with this game - I think this was the design philosphy from Blizzard all along.  That's not an angry statement; afterall, they are a corporation.

I just watched the Blizzcon videos that another poster put in on this page - the videos highlighted the Traits system and of course Deathmatch.  Traits, Charms, Enchanter - all scrapped because "they don't live up to the design standards for our game."  I think that excuse has happened enough to sort of pull the curtain back on the real reason: We want these for an expansion.

Its not enough to just add an act or two, a new character class or two - they need new mechanics.  They designed a good game.  Its going to take two expansions to finally see it.

Remember these posts today.  Three years from now when we look back on the entirety of this game, with all its features - we'll see the game they promised and made us wait for.  Or rather made us buy.

[Litheum]

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Azidonis, on 29 December 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

I'm an "actual D2 player" - played D1 and D2 for many since their releases, and am in my 30s...

...and I think that D3 is technologically a step up from both games. But gameplay, no. It might beat D1 but doesn't come close to D2, in my opinion. D2 wasn't boring to me either, even before LoD.

And the story of D3 is just total shit. I could have written a better story putting a marker in-between my toes and spinning around on a large roll of wax paper completely drunk off my ass... and that's if you read it with the vomit still on the pages. The story is absolute trash.

And Diablo's voiceover is just completely terrible. People may say, "Oh, it' just a voiceover," but when you spent over a decade opening the seals of Chaos Sanctuary to hear the chilling, "Not even death can save you from me," the Diablo voiceover from D3 just doesn't cut it.

Let me not fail to at least mention the disaster that is itemization in D3.

I agree with your story assessment, but in terms of mechanics let's wait 3 years and see how well Diablo 3 evolves and then measure it against what the developers managed to do with Diablo 2 and its expansion. One reason for that: what most of us remember is _after_ all the glorious changes to Diablo 2 and we've mostly played the almost finished game for many, many years.

So, you really think in 2012, with all these other games out there nailing it the 1st time.....with less development time......and a Company as experienced in RPGs and ARPGs and Diablo......it should take 3 years to get it right??
It should have been a much more polished and complete experience already. Blizzard already learned their lessons from D2, they shouldnt be making the same mistakes. And if they do, it shouldnt take 3 years to fix them.

I don't think Blizzard is the same as they used to be, they don't feel like they are putting in the same time and effort as they used to. They are judging their success based on subscription fees and the RMAH, and as long as they continue to be a billion dollar company, they are not going to implement a lot of the changes the game needs immediately, because to them the game is a huge success.

It's about quantity here, not quality. Which is not what I expect from Blizzard.

Edited by Litheum, 29 December 2012 - 02:29 PM.

[Vooodu]

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

Now. If you want to complain ................ Blah Blah Blah.

People are upset.  Let them vent.


No need to be the fan boy rubbin' salt in their wounds.

Edited by Vooodu, 29 December 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[Indimix]

Litheum, on 29 December 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Azidonis, on 29 December 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

I'm an "actual D2 player" - played D1 and D2 for many since their releases, and am in my 30s...

...and I think that D3 is technologically a step up from both games. But gameplay, no. It might beat D1 but doesn't come close to D2, in my opinion. D2 wasn't boring to me either, even before LoD.

And the story of D3 is just total shit. I could have written a better story putting a marker in-between my toes and spinning around on a large roll of wax paper completely drunk off my ass... and that's if you read it with the vomit still on the pages. The story is absolute trash.

And Diablo's voiceover is just completely terrible. People may say, "Oh, it' just a voiceover," but when you spent over a decade opening the seals of Chaos Sanctuary to hear the chilling, "Not even death can save you from me," the Diablo voiceover from D3 just doesn't cut it.

Let me not fail to at least mention the disaster that is itemization in D3.

I agree with your story assessment, but in terms of mechanics let's wait 3 years and see how well Diablo 3 evolves and then measure it against what the developers managed to do with Diablo 2 and its expansion. One reason for that: what most of us remember is _after_ all the glorious changes to Diablo 2 and we've mostly played the almost finished game for many, many years.

So, you really think in 2012, with all these other games out there nailing it the 1st time.....with less development time......and a Company as experienced in RPGs and ARPGs and Diablo......it should take 3 years to get it right??
It should have been a much more polished and complete experience already. Blizzard already learned their lessons from D2, they shouldnt be making the same mistakes. And if they do, it shouldnt take 3 years to fix them.

I don't think Blizzard is the same as they used to be, they don't feel like they are putting in the same time and effort as they used to. They are judging their success based on subscription fees and the RMAH, and as long as they continue to be a billion dollar company, they are not going to implement a lot of the changes the game needs immediately, because to them the game is a huge success.

It's about quantity here, not quality. Which is not what I expect from Blizzard.

Why don't you guys realize that they are not THAT incompetent.. they just made a great business model, which, IMO, is working quite nicely.

Blizzard is not what it used to be, the important decisions are made by business men with a big $ in their eyes, and that's not gonna change anytime soon.

All of this: "oh, it's not perfect yet blablabla" are pure lies.

[Vooodu]

Indimix, on 29 December 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

Why don't you guys realize that they are not THAT incompetent.. they just made a great business model, which, IMO, is working quite nicely.

So its a great business model to lie, bait and switch and disapoint their loyal customers?  


Good to know.   Can't wait for all the game devs to start doing this so i can be disapointed on a constant basis.

[Xenocow]

1up_Mush, on 28 December 2012 - 02:54 AM, said:

I don't wan't them to release a half way completed game.

Breaking news... they already did.

[Popnbake]

TheDemokin, on 28 December 2012 - 03:47 AM, said:

They are the one and only mistake Blizzard ever made - listening to QQQQqqqQQQqqqQQqqqQQQ. Back in the day Blizzard never did bother with as much 'community management' or even really reading forums. They just released content and it was a simple decision - play it if you like, if you don't - there are many other games to choose from.
Today, because of all these QQs Blizzard actually made a step forward towards community and started working with the community (unlike any other game developer out there), and the only result of them trying to 'satisfy' the 'instant gratification generation' is the incessantly increasing amount of QQ. Because now...the QQers feel empowered! Blizzard did react to them a few times and that was their biggest mistake.

...I am still confused on how posters such as the above operate in logic.

For what other reason do you think made blizzard retune inferno's difficulty, address legendaries, or add paragon levels?

If Diablo 3 was left as is then you would have a much more shallow game to be content with.

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

It is completely normal for a game company to casualize their game in order to bring in better profits. In fact, right now, mostly the casuals are keeping this game alive and going, while the "hardcore old school players" go around forums complaining it didn't live up to expectations after spending 500+ hours on it.

It is because of that casualization that I've lost interest in this game a few weeks after release.

One of the major reasons was due to a lack of character customization and that used to be a focus during initial development:

Quote

Jay Wilson: We wanted more customization, and we wanted customization that really spoke to the idea that, ‘I’m going to roleplay my character and focus in one area.’ Skills are really awesome, but when players think of who they are as a character, they don’t tend to think of, “I like to Whirlwind.’ They’ll use Whirlwind with their Barbarian, but it’s not how they define themselves. They think, ‘I’m a Barbarian who’s exceptionally strong or exceptionally tough!’ And that’s what traits are. The affect the core attributes of your character to let you customize and expand them.

Later on they felt that would be too complicated for players:

Quote

One of the pieces of feedback we got during the internal alpha was that skill points as an element of our skill system didn't really suit the game," he told us. "It created a lot of conflict in terms of what the players would choose to do. So what we had is this system that has these six – it used to be seven, now six – slots, that implies that you should have six skills, but a system with skill points? Well, you really want to dump every single point into one skill.

Quote

The alternative, as he sees it, is more likely to only offer an illusion of choice. "What you probably did," he says, "was go up on a website and find out what the optimal build was, because there's just too much math involved for you to really get involved in it. A small number of players will go in and do the math… but the majority of players will go 'I don't know, I guess I'll just put it in whatever I already have'."

Back then, I agreed with that sentiment since I wanted to remain optimistic about the announced changes.

After actually playing the game at release however, that decision took out the depth I was hoping to experience and there was nothing to customize except skill selection.

Automatic stat allocation was just another reminder on what could have been.

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

I understand itemization is an issue for a lot of people but I suspect Blizzard is aware of this because of the, oh, just a few million topics posted about it every week. But do you expect such a major change to be fixed in a few months WHILE developing all the other features? How many people do you think work on this game? Because in my opinion it's no more than 20-25. And would've you been happier to see no major additions to the game while the devs toil away at fixing the itemization for a few months, knowing now that the player base is not happy with them?

I know that the itemization fix will not be an easy one but it should have taken a much higher priority.

The longer it takes for it to be addressed means a more drastic impact for the item economy.

Edited by Popnbake, 29 December 2012 - 07:45 PM.

[overneathe]

Polrayne, on 29 December 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

While you suggest this for players - to be a positive position in their struggles with this game - I think this was the design philosphy from Blizzard all along.  That's not an angry statement; afterall, they are a corporation.

I just watched the Blizzcon videos that another poster put in on this page - the videos highlighted the Traits system and of course Deathmatch.  Traits, Charms, Enchanter - all scrapped because "they don't live up to the design standards for our game."  I think that excuse has happened enough to sort of pull the curtain back on the real reason: We want these for an expansion.

Its not enough to just add an act or two, a new character class or two - they need new mechanics.  They designed a good game.  Its going to take two expansions to finally see it.

Remember these posts today.  Three years from now when we look back on the entirety of this game, with all its features - we'll see the game they promised and made us wait for.  Or rather made us buy.

You can trust me when I say that I was progressively more and more sad with each and every cancelled feature. That was before the game released I mean, because when it did I just started playing and it was fun for me. It still is, even when someone here called me a "strange person" to still have fun in this game. But I do. I would absolutely love to have more features implemented. Would someone actually not be happy about that? But the features you mentioned are not here. Instead of thinking about what could've been I'm more focused on what is. I guess I'm one of the few people that think that way seeing as the majority of people feel like they've been lied to.

Blizzard has given reasons for canceling all of the feature that you mentioned. Instead of pointing out how they were cut do every developer and gamer a favor and build constructive posts about reimplementing them with fresh ideas that could completely revive them and fix the original issues that Blizz had with them. That's what I do and it's what a few people on these and on the official forums do and I believe they're the ones that at the end will make the difference. The huge majority of vocal people on the forums that only complain bring absolutely nothing to the table and are just that - spam. An obstacle in the way of mutual progress.

Oh and as far as "scraping mechanics for an expansion", I don't believe that one bit because they could've easily just let them in while leaving currently implemented features as Ubers, Paragon and MP levels for the expansion. Why would they keep features for that long, but at the same time invent new ones that are new design ideas while already having "ready to ship" stuff. It makes absolutely no sense in my mind.. At the end of the day though Blizzard will indeed add some of these features in an expansion when they've finally found a great design for them in the game but in the hater's eyes this will just be something that was "intentionally left out of the game to milk money for it in an expansion". It's so easy to imagine just that happening. The community is super predictable. And I'm truly sad about it.

Litheum, on 29 December 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

So, you really think in 2012, with all these other games out there nailing it the 1st time.....with less development time......and a Company as experienced in RPGs and ARPGs and Diablo......it should take 3 years to get it right??
It should have been a much more polished and complete experience already. Blizzard already learned their lessons from D2, they shouldnt be making the same mistakes. And if they do, it shouldnt take 3 years to fix them.

I don't think Blizzard is the same as they used to be, they don't feel like they are putting in the same time and effort as they used to. They are judging their success based on subscription fees and the RMAH, and as long as they continue to be a billion dollar company, they are not going to implement a lot of the changes the game needs immediately, because to them the game is a huge success.

It's about quantity here, not quality. Which is not what I expect from Blizzard.

Which other games nailed it the first time? I haven't really played that much games recently, mainly because I've been a bit busy but... Mass Effect 3 had one of the worst endings in video game history. Such a huge disappointed. And I'm a major, major fan of the franchise.

SW:ToR failed immensely at launch. Now the game has gone free to play to bring in more players.

Guild Wars 2 had such bad time post-launch with all the exploits and banned players. Lots of people also complaining of no end game and feeling like they could never ever do the same grind to max level on an alt. I've not played the game though so this is just things I've read. Could be wrong on all accounts.

I could probably only say positive things about Rift since all I hear are good things about it. Kudos to the devs.

Where Blizzard has had some faults is that they wanted to make things different. Copy pasting Diablo 2 with an improved engine would've had a much bigger backlash from the community than trying out new things and trying to leave Diablo 2's recipe alone (as it's working and the game is still great today).

They tried new things with trading, introducing the AH and RMAH where otherwise people would've gone to chats and forums to trade or buy illegally. They tried a new skill system that is not as harsh as Diablo 2's. They tried introducing a difficulty that is flat during the entire experience so that people can chose where to grind... All of these things are new and that means that they cannot be guaranteed to work when released upon 10 million players. And you can't put out the whole game as a Beta and prolong it to 2 years to that all is well and done when the game finally releases in 2014.

Also RMAH pays for both the developers' salaries and the server costs for handling 10 million players' accounts. Can you do the math on how much profit Blizzard is making? I'm not great with math so if anyone wants please do, as I believe Diablo 3 is currently very far from a cash cow.

Vooodu, on 29 December 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

People are upset.  Let them vent.

No need to be the fan boy rubbin' salt in their wounds.

People can absolutely vent. But not go on and on and on and on and on and just at the end of the day make a huge wall of complains that bring absolutely nothing to the table. Many people complain and _give suggestions_. How good or bad they are does not matter because when arguments are brought from both sides discussions start. At that's how things are resolved. Not with just whining and venting.

Indimix, on 29 December 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

Why don't you guys realize that they are not THAT incompetent.. they just made a great business model, which, IMO, is working quite nicely.

Blizzard is not what it used to be, the important decisions are made by business men with a big $ in their eyes, and that's not gonna change anytime soon.

All of this: "oh, it's not perfect yet blablabla" are pure lies.

Can you elaborate a bit more on the business model thing? Also the last part with "pure lies" is just bad. Like really. Was that all you could come up with?

[ratmaz313]

People are quick to defend Blizzard without taking the time to thing about what Blizzard has given them. Yes we have D3 ( short but fun..with no PVP). They gave us Starcraft 2 after many years we get a better looking Starcraft that they make in 3 different games and charge us full price for each???? Don't forget that SC2 is just a normal run of the mill RTS. D3 is just a better looking D2 with a few new things. Blizzard's bread and butter is WoW . I personally thing they are a half-ass game company that got lucky and are now milking it for everthing they can get. When Titan finally shows up ( in about 10 years) I maybe proven wrong. But until then...have fun grind for the same ole tired gear.

[Nikdik]

ratmaz313, on 29 December 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

People are quick to defend Blizzard without taking the time to thing about what Blizzard has given them. Yes we have D3 ( short but fun..with no PVP). They gave us Starcraft 2 after many years we get a better looking Starcraft that they make in 3 different games and charge us full price for each???? Don't forget that SC2 is just a normal run of the mill RTS. D3 is just a better looking D2 with a few new things. Blizzard's bread and butter is WoW . I personally thing they are a half-ass game company that got lucky and are now milking it for everthing they can get. When Titan finally shows up ( in about 10 years) I maybe proven wrong. But until then...have fun grind for the same ole tired gear.

You can thank ActiBlizzard for hiring Bobby Kotick, the antichrist of the gaming industry for lowering the quality of Blizzard's games. He is the evil bastard that enables the release of a new Call of Duty game every damn year and told Jay Wilson to scrap over half the content for D3 into an expansion. Not to mention he simplified WoW and refused to release Diablo 3 without making it pay-to-win. Don't get your hopes up with Titan either, the little details Blizz has given on it makes it sound like a shitty Planetside rip-off with a  RMAH added. When dealing with Blizzard now, always remember "Winter is coming".

Edited by Nikdik, 30 December 2012 - 03:44 AM.

[Indimix]

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 10:21 PM, said:

Polrayne, on 29 December 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

While you suggest this for players - to be a positive position in their struggles with this game - I think this was the design philosphy from Blizzard all along.  That's not an angry statement; afterall, they are a corporation.

I just watched the Blizzcon videos that another poster put in on this page - the videos highlighted the Traits system and of course Deathmatch.  Traits, Charms, Enchanter - all scrapped because "they don't live up to the design standards for our game."  I think that excuse has happened enough to sort of pull the curtain back on the real reason: We want these for an expansion.

Its not enough to just add an act or two, a new character class or two - they need new mechanics.  They designed a good game.  Its going to take two expansions to finally see it.

Remember these posts today.  Three years from now when we look back on the entirety of this game, with all its features - we'll see the game they promised and made us wait for.  Or rather made us buy.

You can trust me when I say that I was progressively more and more sad with each and every cancelled feature. That was before the game released I mean, because when it did I just started playing and it was fun for me. It still is, even when someone here called me a "strange person" to still have fun in this game. But I do. I would absolutely love to have more features implemented. Would someone actually not be happy about that? But the features you mentioned are not here. Instead of thinking about what could've been I'm more focused on what is. I guess I'm one of the few people that think that way seeing as the majority of people feel like they've been lied to.

Blizzard has given reasons for canceling all of the feature that you mentioned. Instead of pointing out how they were cut do every developer and gamer a favor and build constructive posts about reimplementing them with fresh ideas that could completely revive them and fix the original issues that Blizz had with them. That's what I do and it's what a few people on these and on the official forums do and I believe they're the ones that at the end will make the difference. The huge majority of vocal people on the forums that only complain bring absolutely nothing to the table and are just that - spam. An obstacle in the way of mutual progress.

Oh and as far as "scraping mechanics for an expansion", I don't believe that one bit because they could've easily just let them in while leaving currently implemented features as Ubers, Paragon and MP levels for the expansion. Why would they keep features for that long, but at the same time invent new ones that are new design ideas while already having "ready to ship" stuff. It makes absolutely no sense in my mind.. At the end of the day though Blizzard will indeed add some of these features in an expansion when they've finally found a great design for them in the game but in the hater's eyes this will just be something that was "intentionally left out of the game to milk money for it in an expansion". It's so easy to imagine just that happening. The community is super predictable. And I'm truly sad about it.

Litheum, on 29 December 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

So, you really think in 2012, with all these other games out there nailing it the 1st time.....with less development time......and a Company as experienced in RPGs and ARPGs and Diablo......it should take 3 years to get it right??
It should have been a much more polished and complete experience already. Blizzard already learned their lessons from D2, they shouldnt be making the same mistakes. And if they do, it shouldnt take 3 years to fix them.

I don't think Blizzard is the same as they used to be, they don't feel like they are putting in the same time and effort as they used to. They are judging their success based on subscription fees and the RMAH, and as long as they continue to be a billion dollar company, they are not going to implement a lot of the changes the game needs immediately, because to them the game is a huge success.

It's about quantity here, not quality. Which is not what I expect from Blizzard.

Which other games nailed it the first time? I haven't really played that much games recently, mainly because I've been a bit busy but... Mass Effect 3 had one of the worst endings in video game history. Such a huge disappointed. And I'm a major, major fan of the franchise.

SW:ToR failed immensely at launch. Now the game has gone free to play to bring in more players.

Guild Wars 2 had such bad time post-launch with all the exploits and banned players. Lots of people also complaining of no end game and feeling like they could never ever do the same grind to max level on an alt. I've not played the game though so this is just things I've read. Could be wrong on all accounts.

I could probably only say positive things about Rift since all I hear are good things about it. Kudos to the devs.

Where Blizzard has had some faults is that they wanted to make things different. Copy pasting Diablo 2 with an improved engine would've had a much bigger backlash from the community than trying out new things and trying to leave Diablo 2's recipe alone (as it's working and the game is still great today).

They tried new things with trading, introducing the AH and RMAH where otherwise people would've gone to chats and forums to trade or buy illegally. They tried a new skill system that is not as harsh as Diablo 2's. They tried introducing a difficulty that is flat during the entire experience so that people can chose where to grind... All of these things are new and that means that they cannot be guaranteed to work when released upon 10 million players. And you can't put out the whole game as a Beta and prolong it to 2 years to that all is well and done when the game finally releases in 2014.

Also RMAH pays for both the developers' salaries and the server costs for handling 10 million players' accounts. Can you do the math on how much profit Blizzard is making? I'm not great with math so if anyone wants please do, as I believe Diablo 3 is currently very far from a cash cow.

Vooodu, on 29 December 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

People are upset.  Let them vent.

No need to be the fan boy rubbin' salt in their wounds.

People can absolutely vent. But not go on and on and on and on and on and just at the end of the day make a huge wall of complains that bring absolutely nothing to the table. Many people complain and _give suggestions_. How good or bad they are does not matter because when arguments are brought from both sides discussions start. At that's how things are resolved. Not with just whining and venting.

Indimix, on 29 December 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

Why don't you guys realize that they are not THAT incompetent.. they just made a great business model, which, IMO, is working quite nicely.

Blizzard is not what it used to be, the important decisions are made by business men with a big $ in their eyes, and that's not gonna change anytime soon.

All of this: "oh, it's not perfect yet blablabla" are pure lies.

Can you elaborate a bit more on the business model thing? Also the last part with "pure lies" is just bad. Like really. Was that all you could come up with?

Any kind of customization that could improve the depth of the game is completely against the RMAH -> money > a rich game experience.

I could enter in detail but, those are things we all know. The game is not broken, is intended to be just like it is.

[Fura]

I wanted to quote on a lot of things, but will limit myself to one

overneathe, on 29 December 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

I agree with your story assessment, but in terms of mechanics let's wait 3 years and see how well Diablo 3 evolves and then measure it against what the developers managed to do with Diablo 2 and its expansion. One reason for that: what most of us remember is _after_ all the glorious changes to Diablo 2 and we've mostly played the almost finished game for many, many years.

Great! Can i have my money back then? I'll pay them back in 3 years, you can even freeze or delete my characters
It's Blizzards fault for trying to develop a new bicicle and its really not my issue if they keep stumbling on same rocks all over again. All i wanted was Diablo 3, not an Auction House simulator with RPG elements.



In general, everything in D3 is built around monetizing. Even DRM is there to FORCE you to interact with Auction House. Each action, like nerfing and buffing, forces you to interact with AH. If you're interacting with AH, chances are, you will eventually join RMAH ranks.

Edited by Fura, 30 December 2012 - 05:14 AM.