134 replies to this topic

[shaggy]

Xenocow, on 17 January 2013 - 09:49 AM, said:

It took GGG almost 6 years to create Path of Exile, and it took Blizzard what...8 years.... 10 years to create D3 ?

Compair the two.

The original Blizzard North team, which left and made for Jay Wilson and his team to be hired, spent about 3 years developing D3 as an MMO.

Jay Wilson and his team only had about 6 years of time on the project and they sure as hell didn't reuse a hell of a lot from the MMO the other guys were designing, meaning they basically were starting from square one.  So that's part of the problem here.  Some people are expecting D3 to "feel" like it was in development for 10 years, but it really was in development only for 6 years.

What this did was create a business nightmare because investors and fans alike didn't want to wait 10 years for a product, but the Blizzard North product was going in a really bad direction for the series (I wouldn't have bought a Diablo MMO, honestly, I still play WoW and it's too much overlap - I want a different game from WoW, not WoW with the devil).  So what we have today is 6 years of development with the expectations of 10 years.

That's a losing formula and has precious little to do with the people who actually designed D3.  They sure didn't get certain things right, but they're still operating under the expectations of 4 additional years of development time which they didn't have.

[Gheed2010]

shaggy, on 17 January 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

The original Blizzard North team, which left and made for Jay Wilson and his team to be hired, spent about 3 years developing D3 as an MMO.

Your entire narrative is more than a little off.  Some facts:

- Blizzard clearly stated in their commemorative video from a year ago that development started in 2000.

- Only about a dozen Blizzard North people went to Flagship, from a team of about 60 when it shipped.

- That crew left in summer '03, over two years before the studio was shut down.

- You - and no one outside of people at Blizzard circa 2004/2005 - know absolutely nothing about the nature of the project, its design, or its relative quality, aside from a few screenshots which were obviously part of a background artists portfolio instead of being a real demo of the game (one background art style, fully lit, character art totally deemphasized)

- Vik Lee has clearly dated concept art, released online, from before the studio shutdown, which obviously informed the final look of the game

Of course, the essence of your argument, that they "only had six years" instead of the full dozen, and that this serves as some kind of an excuse, is ridiculous enough even without the assumptions and speculations you stack on top of it.  WoW alone had about ten billion dollars in revenue over those six years.

[Litheum]

Xenocow, on 17 January 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

Gheed2010, on 17 January 2013 - 07:54 AM, said:

Folks used to that quantity of content may not be terribly satisfied with a game that weighs in at a third of that size.

Ehm?
* You got 3 complete Act's (third comes with the Open Beta).
* Also you got Maps : Path of Exile's end-game areas are items called Maps. They grant limited access to a new world area that can contain great challenges and greater rewards. Like other items, Maps can have random mods that affect their difficulty. For more information, please read this development diary entry about the system.

And i am pretty sure they have way more Stuff on the Road to come. Dont forget, its still beta.

Also, their plan is to release a new act and parallel content every 9 months after launch indefinately.
Their database right now does not include what they are adding on the 23rd with the Open Beta release, they intentionally held releasing Act 3 for open beta, and it will also include more commodity items/packages, items, maps etc. So their will continue to be content and depth added over time.

[Gheed2010]

Xenocow, on 17 January 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

Gheed2010, on 17 January 2013 - 07:54 AM, said:

Folks used to that quantity of content may not be terribly satisfied with a game that weighs in at a third of that size.

Ehm?
* You got 3 complete Act's (third comes with the Open Beta).
* Also you got Maps : Path of Exile's end-game areas are items called Maps. They grant limited access to a new world area that can contain great challenges and greater rewards. Like other items, Maps can have random mods that affect their difficulty. For more information, please read this development diary entry about the system.

And i am pretty sure they have way more Stuff on the Road to come. Dont forget, its still beta.

Gheed2010, on 17 January 2013 - 07:54 AM, said:

"Savior" is a lot of pressure for a team with that level of resources.

For a team of 18 people they done a incredible job to be honest.
Mainly because they listened to the people who actually play the game.

Thats the major flaw in D3... they dont listen.

Right, the maps structure isn't terribly different from TL2's endgame (which uses as a maproom), and, of course, we've heard the "great game for the size of the team" line with that game, too.

I'm just noting that, in this genre, an act feels pretty empty when you only have ten or so monster types populating it, and the PoE experience may seem a little thin for those expecting a significant amount of SP content.

Hopefully, they overcome their weaker spots with the resources they have, and I wish them the best.

Edited by Gheed2010, 17 January 2013 - 06:43 PM.

[Irrational]

Diablo 3 is a perfectly fine game, yet I refuse to play it anymore. It's no longer a Diablo game, it's a WoW fanfic.

[shaggy]

Gheed2010, on 17 January 2013 - 05:47 PM, said:

shaggy, on 17 January 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

The original Blizzard North team, which left and made for Jay Wilson and his team to be hired, spent about 3 years developing D3 as an MMO.

Your entire narrative is more than a little off.  Some facts:

- Blizzard clearly stated in their commemorative video from a year ago that development started in 2000.

- Only about a dozen Blizzard North people went to Flagship, from a team of about 60 when it shipped.

- That crew left in summer '03, over two years before the studio was shut down.

- You - and no one outside of people at Blizzard circa 2004/2005 - know absolutely nothing about the nature of the project, its design, or its relative quality, aside from a few screenshots which were obviously part of a background artists portfolio instead of being a real demo of the game (one background art style, fully lit, character art totally deemphasized)

- Vik Lee has clearly dated concept art, released online, from before the studio shutdown, which obviously informed the final look of the game

Of course, the essence of your argument, that they "only had six years" instead of the full dozen, and that this serves as some kind of an excuse, is ridiculous enough even without the assumptions and speculations you stack on top of it.  WoW alone had about ten billion dollars in revenue over those six years.

That's pretty funny because most of your "facts" fly in the face of some brutally-accessible information on Wikipedia (check out the pages for Blizzard, Vivendi, Blizzard North, and Diablo 3 for reference).

D3 development, by Blizzard North, started in 2001, not 2000.  Nice attempt to squeeze out another year on the timeline to attempt to make them look even worse.

In June of 2003 8 people left Blizzard North for Flagship and 9 left for Castaway.  By the end of the "exodus" around 30 people had left the company.  Where you get a "dozen" is beyond me.  The exodus was very much more than 12 people.

Quote

On August 1, 2005, Blizzard Entertainment announced the closure of Blizzard North. A key reason for the closure was Blizzard North's poor development of what was to be Diablo III which did not meet the expectations of Vivendi.

That's pretty solid proof that the INITIAL D3 from Blizzard North had to be SEVERELY redesigned to meet with what the company expected of the project.  It's also proof that even after the "exodus" they invested almost 2 more years in attempting to make the old team's project work.  It's completely illogical to claim that development, in earnest, on the D3 we know started at any time prior to Q3/4 of 2005.

http://www.bit-tech..../diablo_3_mmo/1

That also supports my claim that the Blizzard North team was developing an MMO.  So while none of us know it for fact, people were reporting that it was likely an MMO right around the time that the original project was scrapped.  That would also lend credence as to WHY the original project was scrapped.  I understand that common sense is hard, but it makes perfect sense that Vivendi saw that WoW was becoming quite popular and that developing D3 as an MMO, which undoubtedly would cause direct competition with WoW was a very poor business decision.

Oddly enough 2005 was when Vivendi outright closed Blizzard North.  It isn't a stretch to think that D3 didn't begin to be redesigned until sometime in late 2005.  2005 to 2012 is 7 years, maximum, and more like 6.5 years.  Bear in mind that I *never* claimed that they weren't able to re-use things from the original version of D3 (in fact I'm sure a lot of the concept art was reused, as an example), but you cannot just claim that they were able to re-use huge portions of the game when that is very obviously unlikely.  Developing an MMO is an entirely different client-server architecture from what D2 (online) and D3 is.  An MMO involves a persistent world which is just totally different and involves a whole host of different things.  If you really think they just took an MMO and altered a couple thousand lines of code and came up with D3 then you're severely mistaken.

Also, bear in mind that concept art is not final art and they almost assuredly did not use the final art from an MMO for a ARPG.  They work on different engines with different sprites.  So while the concept art may have still provided inspiration for the final work, they still had to adapt it to all the changes.  Just look at the visual differences between D3 and WoW and you'll understand.  You can't just go into WoW and copy/paste some artwork into D3 and expect that it's going to work.  If they didn't re-render, minimum, the artwork, it would have looked horrible.  A few hours in WoW versus a few hours in D3 should easily explain why they weren't reusing shit left and right.

[Bagstone]

Didn't read the whole thread, just the last few posts, but why are you saying there's a "rumor" that D3 was initially designed as an MMO? It has been mentioned several times, e.g., Max Schaefer admitted this in an interview and it's more or less common knowledge that D3 was designed from scratch after they hit the reset button in 2005/2006.

http://eat-games.tum...iew-torchlight2

This is by the way what makes Blizzard unique: hitting the reset button on a project and not pursuing an idea that is (in their opinion) wrong. Just look up the development of Starcraft; its first version was essentially Warcraft 2.01. Diablo 3 development had similar drastic changes, even though the result of these changes was not as spectacular as going from WC2 to SC. But D3 was never intended to be Diablo 2.01, as much as many of us would've liked to see it this way.

[Gheed2010]

I stated documented facts, you respond with unsourced, undocumented wiki quotes.

"Only about a dozen Blizzard North people went to Flagship"

"Where you get a "dozen" is beyond me..."  uhhh.  You're right?  It was less?  Of course other folks moved on.

"So while none of us know it for fact" Can't argue there.

"Also, bear in mind that concept art is not final art and they almost assuredly did not use the final art from an MMO for a ARPG."  Right, concept art for an MMO is totally different from... no... wait...

"D3 development, by Blizzard North, started in 2001, not 2000.  Nice attempt to squeeze out another year on the timeline to attempt to make them look even worse."

I'll humor you, even though I've posted this one more than once here.



Go to 8:53.

Seriously, wait for the Craddock book, read it, no apology necessary once you have.

[overneathe]

I'll weigh in with some facts of my own without trying to support any of the posters above.

Diablo 3 was originally indeed planned as an MMO, but didn't have the "feel of an MMO". This was actually also the original idea for Diablo 2. From an interview with Brevik: http://www.forbes.co...ion-rpg-throne/

Development for the game started in 2000, but with a very small core team of developers. Most of the staff was still working on LoD and jumped on D3 in 2001. It's a technicality really. You're both right to a degree.

Development of the "new" Diablo 3 started after 2005. Jay Wilson was brought in in 2006 to lead the design of the new version. Some work on the engine and some art has likely been done previously. That we know for a fact. Did development on the old version end in 2003 and there were 2 years of wasted space, or was there playing around with the old version and it was ultimately shut down in 2005 is unknown.

[Litheum]

overneathe, on 18 January 2013 - 02:44 AM, said:

I'll weigh in with some facts of my own without trying to support any of the posters above.

Diablo 3 was originally indeed planned as an MMO, but didn't have the "feel of an MMO". This was actually also the original idea for Diablo 2. From an interview with Brevik: http://www.forbes.co...ion-rpg-throne/

Development for the game started in 2000, but with a very small core team of developers. Most of the staff was still working on LoD and jumped on D3 in 2001. It's a technicality really. You're both right to a degree.

Development of the "new" Diablo 3 started after 2005. Jay Wilson was brought in in 2006 to lead the design of the new version. Some work on the engine and some art has likely been done previously. That we know for a fact. Did development on the old version end in 2003 and there were 2 years of wasted space, or was there playing around with the old version and it was ultimately shut down in 2005 is unknown.

Just curios, how do you know so much about the business side of Blizzard? Just that much of a fan, or is their more to it than that? (in game development yourself or something)?

[overneathe]

Litheum, on 18 January 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

Just curios, how do you know so much about the business side of Blizzard? Just that much of a fan, or is their more to it than that? (in game development yourself or something)?

I've been a game journalist for about 5 years now. Can't really escape knowing these things when sometimes (not really on this site) you have to write huge materials on them. But I've indeed worked for a few companies now. Nothing big. But it brings lots of perspective.

[shaggy]

Gheed2010, on 18 January 2013 - 01:44 AM, said:

Go to 8:53.

Seriously, wait for the Craddock book, read it, no apology necessary once you have.

You mean when he says "although this early version of the game was altered drastically over time...."  Which is exactly what both I and Bagstone, and Overneathe said....

And which is the thing you're vhemently arguing against?

The whole goddamned point is that there is no one alive who genuinely thinks that the D3 that Jay Wilson and team came up with was reusing significant portions of the D3 MMO that Blizzard North made and that saying "they started development on D3 in 2001" is HIGHLY misleading without the rest of the facts.

[Zero(pS)]

Shhh, guys; don't use facts to dismiss a hater's comment or point of view. They'll call you a fanboy and become angry about being wrong.

The sheer amount of ignorance (and drama) surrounding the Diablo franchise and the recent Jay Wilson news is astounding,

It scares the shit out of me seeing all these people behaving this way on the internet - because that's what they really are deep down (when nobody's looking and when they're protected by anonymity): full of hatred and extremely ignorant and tunnel visioned.

Dozens, if not hundreds (cause I haven't checked them all), of posts showing actual hatred towards a person and a game. First world problems, uh?

[Litheum]

overneathe, on 18 January 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

Litheum, on 18 January 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

Just curios, how do you know so much about the business side of Blizzard? Just that much of a fan, or is their more to it than that? (in game development yourself or something)?

I've been a game journalist for about 5 years now. Can't really escape knowing these things when sometimes (not really on this site) you have to write huge materials on them. But I've indeed worked for a few companies now. Nothing big. But it brings lots of perspective.

Ah, I see, makes sense.

[overneathe]

Zero(pS), on 18 January 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

It scares the shit out of me seeing all these people behaving this way on the internet - because that's what they really are deep down (when nobody's looking and when they're protected by anonymity): full of hatred and extremely ignorant and tunnel visioned.

I'm afraid that's no longer the case, sadly. Worse than fan forums, far worse than battle.net... is Facebook. Where people have the worst language, the lowest kind of argumentation and the biggest sheep-like behavior. I'm afraid the past theories of anonymity have failed now that everyone uses their real name but the behavior is x10 worse.

[Litheum]

overneathe, on 18 January 2013 - 05:32 PM, said:

Zero(pS), on 18 January 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

It scares the shit out of me seeing all these people behaving this way on the internet - because that's what they really are deep down (when nobody's looking and when they're protected by anonymity): full of hatred and extremely ignorant and tunnel visioned.

I'm afraid that's no longer the case, sadly. Worse than fan forums, far worse than battle.net... is Facebook. Where people have the worst language, the lowest kind of argumentation and the biggest sheep-like behavior. I'm afraid the past theories of anonymity have failed now that everyone uses their real name but the behavior is x10 worse.

Yah, and I'm really not sure comments made by most people really represent what they think, wether it's anonymous or not. A lot of it is attention seeking, attempts at wit/humour, or emotionally driven nonsense seeking pity or a some other reaction.

I think that bothers me more than knowing some people are really as dumb and angry as they sound on the internet.....the fact people say things they don't mean at all, have no facts, or just try for a reaction. They can't be reasoned with, and pretty much destroy any real chance of meaningful conversation on the internet.....which is a damn shame because there is no better way to gets groups of people from around the world talking about a topic.

And when you try to moderate them.....they scream freedom of speach, and further derail the topic.
With the news so full of politics and skewed views on how they deliver any story, I just want someone to invent a new form of media that isnt full of crap.

[Litheum]

Anyway, in an attempt to get things back on topic.

End-game content in D3 revolves around running A3 endlessly. There are some arguments against that fact:
You don't HAVE TO farm A3.
Ubers are another option for end-game content.
You can play hardcore, or gear alts instead.
You can play without the AH.

My counter to that is a very large part of the community wants to steadily improve their character, playing the game the way it is designed. Rigt now, it is very hard to do that when having 1 character and farming A3 is the best way to improve your characters. Once you have 1really good Hellfire for your main, theres really no point in even getting hellfires for your alts because theres not much point in farming Plvls for alts, when your main will always be the best way to get upgrades for all your characters.

Also, because upgrades for your main cost exponentially more over time, it isnt even reasonable to spend your gold to gear your alts. If your next upgrade on your main is gonna cost 80 million, and you hve 20 million, you feel the best way to improve your character is to save that 20 million because you need it for the next upgrade.

Effectively, by gearing your alts you are directly gimping your main, meanin you are directly gimping your ability to farm A3 efficiently, and gear your alts. It's really quite a silly, and frustrating circle.

The best way to fix this is have an item sink so gear found in the environment can be used to gear up your alts.
With the best way to farm amounting to running A3 endlessly as you slowly gather gold for the next big upgrade to your super-farm main, it is going to be really hard to have any incentive to do much else besides run A3. Which IMO is the very core problem with the game, and the solutions to that problem are also the solutions to a lot of other issues:

- Add item sinks.
- Reduce the # of rares, but increase quality (10% fewer rare, 100% more useful rares....same time investment, less frustration)
- Improve mob density/elite density in A1/2/4.
- Give a reason to farm bosses
- Add incentive to farm on alts (remove bonus MF from paragon, increase chance for class-specific drops when using that class)
- Add another trade system that doesnt involve gold, to use to upgrade chars. Could be high-end, and used for mains to free up gold for alts......or low-end and free up gold for mains) In other words, a way to upgrade alts without hurting your mains resources for upgrades.
- Change Ubers rewards to have a chance for upgrades in all slots. Could be an item that improves one affix etc. Ubers are a good alternate and fun end-game machanic, but the reward needs to be worth the time and trouble of grouping.....and more importantly be worthwhile to farm even after you get a good ring. Could also make it so the ring you get always has the primary stat of the char you run with. This would add incentive to run Ubers on alts.
- Add a system to upgrade gear using crafting. Could get mats from areas of the game not normally farmed (lower density areas, or maybe whites only drop them. All areas have a chance for the mats to drop, but different routes might be better for mats, when thats what you want to farm) These items could be tradable, and if there is a place for BOA items, this would be it. You could upgrade an item using these, but then they are removed from the economy. Most likely you will want to do this on really high-end gear.....but if you do it's removed from the economy. Again addressing more then 1 issue, and also not inflating the high-end of the item economy.

I'm sure their are lots of reasons these won't work, or people won't like them......but the point is there are endless ideas out there that can address the core issues of the game, and get u out of A3 at the same time. I figure what I consider the greatest game-developer of years past can come up with something......anything.

Edited by Litheum, 18 January 2013 - 07:20 PM.

[Bagstone]

While I don't agree with most of your reasoning and some of the posts you made in recent days, I'm surprised that I'm on board with all your ideas. Really nice thoughts, enjoyed reading them. Keep in mind that some of these ideas are going to be addressed soon as Blizzard has already mentioned them (item sink, mob density, ...).

Also, regarding your uber ideas, the main problem in my opinion is that ubers are not really "uber" at all. They're way too weak to stand up to their name. People had dozens of Hellfire Rings hours after the patch went live; I thought this event would be similar to uber Tristram in D2 (which I never ever did, but it seemed to be much more difficult to achieve for the average player). If ubers would be way harder, they could give items for other slots as well, yes.

Btw, while I like your idea of upgrading gear, I got the feeling this is not gonna happen in the near future.

[Indimix]

overneathe, on 18 January 2013 - 05:32 PM, said:

Zero(pS), on 18 January 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

It scares the shit out of me seeing all these people behaving this way on the internet - because that's what they really are deep down (when nobody's looking and when they're protected by anonymity): full of hatred and extremely ignorant and tunnel visioned.

I'm afraid that's no longer the case, sadly. Worse than fan forums, far worse than battle.net... is Facebook. Where people have the worst language, the lowest kind of argumentation and the biggest sheep-like behavior. I'm afraid the past theories of anonymity have failed now that everyone uses their real name but the behavior is x10 worse.

Agree... this forum (or the official one) are nothing compared to FB and YT comments... god, sometimes I just want to kill myself with the mouse cord.

[Zero(pS)]

That's why I said "on the internet" in general. My own facebook doesn't have that sort of trashtalking and hating, but maybe that's because I only have a handful of friends there

The biggest reason why the patch isn't a letdown to me is not because of the content in it but because from the lack of news I wasn't really expecting any improvement to D3 before March/April. I thought they were going to start working on the patch on January/February.

And I also happen to personally like some of the changes.