Add it up. Pushing for a quick Beta release of D3, press events, internal testing, Alpha, etc. Limited content in the Beta. So limited that it can't possibly be for testing flaws and cracks in the game - gotta be for stress testing, etc? Right? Well there's that pesky revisit to the DH resource system. As some one so aptly stated in a previous thread "they figured that out now, during Beta? What the hell have they been doing for the past five months?"
So that's my question to you forum going folk. What have they been doing? If the game is not ready - and they have determined this NOW - after such a small, limited Beta, than what is the suspected reason?
I smell WoW. I smell subscriptions being canceled right and left because of D3 anticipation or just plain bored with the same generic crap over and over (cough, cough, DAILIES, cough) and its got the Powers That Be at Blizz thinking all strategerically. Why create competition to the new WoW patch, that is supposed to make it easier to raid, do your boring daily crap and ultimately draw those lost subscriptions back in. Why challenge WoW with something that is going to be far superior (hype alone) to its already waning community - and have that something be a product from your own company.
I don't think that the extended time to release of D3 will be wasted - I think it doesn't hurt. I think the D3 folks are happy that they have a reason to continue to hone their game. However, I don't think its because the game isn't ready. I think there is something in the way of the release.....
Why does everything that's bad have to be because of wow. It would actually make more sense to get D3 out because ppl will quit anyway, Draw them in with something else and you still make money. Why would you want to hurt your company.
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Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
Nah I'm not seeing it that way. Now I will admit that they probably had some spells look better by end-game scaling rather then early game. For them testing has gone on this curve that had the game playing into Inferno. To that end I'm sure things looked great there. What changed was the hyper focus now being given to the first 13 levels.
Now people are seeing content that is just the first 13 levels. What may have looked great at the end just didn't have the oomph to compete with simpler spells. The DH grenades being the best example I can see right now. They just didn't do anything. To add to this the DH may have looked great end-game as well but at the early levels they were watching players trying to make the game fit their ideals rather then work within the DH limitations.
When I look at how the DH looked prior to the changes it was based on throwing out traps and directing mobs. In the beta videos traps were rarely thrown out because they just seemed so utilitarian. Caltrop offered no damage, just a slowing effect so it was avoided. The same thing happened with the Monk, I rarely saw anyone use the blinding ability to control mobs instead they would go and just use one attack till they got the flashing kick.
All this gave a skewed impression and I personally hated watching the DH videos because it almost always relied on just one or two abilities. This change is to try and find some middle ground but also, I think, bring sup needed reworking of all the classes to bring gear into the picture a bit more.
This all basically means they have to rebalance end-game a bit more since now abilities scale better with gear than they did before.
Coincidental that the day after Blizzard makes this announcement, SWToR gets a release date?
Seems to me one of them was waiting to make a move lol.
I noticed that.
Anyways I don't see any real evidence that WoW had an impact on this decision. People that like WoW will play WoW, even with D3 out, people who don't just won't.
Let's say this is even the case, they'd have to expect everyone to renew their WoW accounts for 4 months to make up the loss of revenue they could of had if they allowed people to just buy D3 in that time. Trust me almost no one is going to play this WoW patch for 4 months. At best most people coming back to WoW will play for 1-2 months then get tired of the daily grind/gear treadmill again.
Deviously brilliant plan from a business standpoint.
Yes let's make the same amount of money over a 4 month period that we could within a month. Bwhahahahaha.
Patch 4.3 is the last patch of Cataclysm iirc. It makes sense they don't wanna release D3 and 4.3 at the same time for the sole reason that they really want to see how successful and appealing 4.3 is going to be. They are working their ass of for Deathwing raid (among tons of other things in 4.3) and quite frankly, if it doesn't bring new players or AT LEAST keep the current playerbase, we'll see some major changes in the WoW team and general philosophy. The again, I can't say this is 100% the reason, but I can safely say I'm very close.
As for DH changes, it's kind of weird. If they did these changes based on beta testers' feedback, omg. They had months before beta started to test it internally and more importantly, beta testers' feedback is very limited. Thirteen levels and 1/3 of act 1, no runes/high tier item properties. It's really scary if they are changing the game based on limited info THEY give us. And hell knows how many things are wrong at higher character/difficulty levels, since those won't be beta-tested.
Now people are seeing content that is just the first 13 levels. What may have looked great at the end just didn't have the oomph to compete with simpler spells. The DH grenades being the best example I can see right now. They just didn't do anything. To add to this the DH may have looked great end-game as well but at the early levels they were watching players trying to make the game fit their ideals rather then work within the DH limitations.
IIRC they changed the DH because they specifically stated they didn't want any class to be "moveless" and the old DH mechanics would allow you to be out of both resources with nothing to do.
We really need less peddling of this acute brand of nonsense. We don't have anything better to discuss?
Perhaps we would if they'd actually let the general public into beta. Spoon feeding us information through PR and Media sites will only cause speculation.
Coincidental that the day after Blizzard makes this announcement, SWToR gets a release date?
Seems to me one of them was waiting to make a move lol.
I noticed that.
Dota 2 were also pushed up after blizz announced D3's push back!! I made a thread about this yesterday just saying that Valve decided, a couple of hours after blizz's announcement (speculated by myself lol), that they plan to release it sooner rather than having a year-long-beta and releasing it thereafter because they "decided [the] original plan was dumb." Really far fetched but anything is possible.
Add it up. Pushing for a quick Beta release of D3, press events, internal testing, Alpha, etc. Limited content in the Beta. So limited that it can't possibly be for testing flaws and cracks in the game - gotta be for stress testing, etc? Right? Well there's that pesky revisit to the DH resource system. As some one so aptly stated in a previous thread "they figured that out now, during Beta? What the hell have they been doing for the past five months?"
So that's my question to you forum going folk. What have they been doing? If the game is not ready - and they have determined this NOW - after such a small, limited Beta, than what is the suspected reason?
I smell WoW. I smell subscriptions being canceled right and left because of D3 anticipation or just plain bored with the same generic crap over and over (cough, cough, DAILIES, cough) and its got the Powers That Be at Blizz thinking all strategerically. Why create competition to the new WoW patch, that is supposed to make it easier to raid, do your boring daily crap and ultimately draw those lost subscriptions back in. Why challenge WoW with something that is going to be far superior (hype alone) to its already waning community - and have that something be a product from your own company.
I don't think that the extended time to release of D3 will be wasted - I think it doesn't hurt. I think the D3 folks are happy that they have a reason to continue to hone their game. However, I don't think its because the game isn't ready. I think there is something in the way of the release.....
I smell WoW.
So basically what your saying is that because they are afraid to lose wow players they will push back the diablo 3 release past the best sales period for a game and into 2012 and then they will try to release wow content that will go head to head with the release date of diablo 3 so they will hurt their own sales? I'm sorry but I'm speechless now.
The beta is indeed for marketing - just as BlizzCon is not for the fans, but uses the fans as backdrops for the cameras - One giant commercial. Look at everyone enjoying our products. That's why every BlizzCon is put on at a FEE to the company, because it's a marketing cost. It's a giant advertisement you pay to go to.
Wake up and smell the coffee, guys. Diablo 3 is another money making ploy that rests happily under the Blizzard guise that "when its done" is how they approach things rather than, "when it makes the most money".
When its done may have been true in the 90's, but hell, it's not the 90's anymore. It's not even the 00's anymore.
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"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities"
Having spent the past weeks digging through the data files and looking at the changes that have come since the original beta client build up through the current build 7338 (Patch 3), I can tell you the game most certainly is *not* done.
A few examples:
* An extra salvage treasure class was added to the item tables (ie internal data structures are still in flux)
* Many Legendary/Set items have associated affixes that aren't being applied due to affix level restrictions
* Many Legendary/set items are in the data files, but don't actually have any stats yet
* Some icons are still missing for items
* etc
Activision was most likely pushing for a holiday release for financial reasons, but at their latest status meeting the D3 team decided that they just weren't going to be able to make that deadline so they pushed the release date. (If they wanted to meet that date they really only have a little over a month left before the game would have to go Gold Master and be packaged and shipped to retailers. They could still have a patch on release, but testing release builds takes considerably longer than developer/beta builds so even that doesn't buy them all that much time.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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So that's my question to you forum going folk. What have they been doing? If the game is not ready - and they have determined this NOW - after such a small, limited Beta, than what is the suspected reason?
I smell WoW. I smell subscriptions being canceled right and left because of D3 anticipation or just plain bored with the same generic crap over and over (cough, cough, DAILIES, cough) and its got the Powers That Be at Blizz thinking all strategerically. Why create competition to the new WoW patch, that is supposed to make it easier to raid, do your boring daily crap and ultimately draw those lost subscriptions back in. Why challenge WoW with something that is going to be far superior (hype alone) to its already waning community - and have that something be a product from your own company.
I don't think that the extended time to release of D3 will be wasted - I think it doesn't hurt. I think the D3 folks are happy that they have a reason to continue to hone their game. However, I don't think its because the game isn't ready. I think there is something in the way of the release.....
I smell WoW.
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
And even if so, so what?
Seems to me one of them was waiting to make a move lol.
Now people are seeing content that is just the first 13 levels. What may have looked great at the end just didn't have the oomph to compete with simpler spells. The DH grenades being the best example I can see right now. They just didn't do anything. To add to this the DH may have looked great end-game as well but at the early levels they were watching players trying to make the game fit their ideals rather then work within the DH limitations.
When I look at how the DH looked prior to the changes it was based on throwing out traps and directing mobs. In the beta videos traps were rarely thrown out because they just seemed so utilitarian. Caltrop offered no damage, just a slowing effect so it was avoided. The same thing happened with the Monk, I rarely saw anyone use the blinding ability to control mobs instead they would go and just use one attack till they got the flashing kick.
All this gave a skewed impression and I personally hated watching the DH videos because it almost always relied on just one or two abilities. This change is to try and find some middle ground but also, I think, bring sup needed reworking of all the classes to bring gear into the picture a bit more.
This all basically means they have to rebalance end-game a bit more since now abilities scale better with gear than they did before.
I noticed that.
Anyways I don't see any real evidence that WoW had an impact on this decision. People that like WoW will play WoW, even with D3 out, people who don't just won't.
Let's say this is even the case, they'd have to expect everyone to renew their WoW accounts for 4 months to make up the loss of revenue they could of had if they allowed people to just buy D3 in that time. Trust me almost no one is going to play this WoW patch for 4 months. At best most people coming back to WoW will play for 1-2 months then get tired of the daily grind/gear treadmill again.
Deviously brilliant plan from a business standpoint.
As for DH changes, it's kind of weird. If they did these changes based on beta testers' feedback, omg. They had months before beta started to test it internally and more importantly, beta testers' feedback is very limited. Thirteen levels and 1/3 of act 1, no runes/high tier item properties. It's really scary if they are changing the game based on limited info THEY give us. And hell knows how many things are wrong at higher character/difficulty levels, since those won't be beta-tested.
Interesting point. I hope you're right!
Perhaps we would if they'd actually let the general public into beta. Spoon feeding us information through PR and Media sites will only cause speculation.
Dota 2 were also pushed up after blizz announced D3's push back!! I made a thread about this yesterday just saying that Valve decided, a couple of hours after blizz's announcement (speculated by myself lol), that they plan to release it sooner rather than having a year-long-beta and releasing it thereafter because they "decided [the] original plan was dumb." Really far fetched but anything is possible.
The beta is indeed for marketing - just as BlizzCon is not for the fans, but uses the fans as backdrops for the cameras - One giant commercial. Look at everyone enjoying our products. That's why every BlizzCon is put on at a FEE to the company, because it's a marketing cost. It's a giant advertisement you pay to go to.
Wake up and smell the coffee, guys. Diablo 3 is another money making ploy that rests happily under the Blizzard guise that "when its done" is how they approach things rather than, "when it makes the most money".
When its done may have been true in the 90's, but hell, it's not the 90's anymore. It's not even the 00's anymore.
Last time I checked this forum was for discussion.
It just may be! Take my reply as part of this discussion then.
LOL
Having spent the past weeks digging through the data files and looking at the changes that have come since the original beta client build up through the current build 7338 (Patch 3), I can tell you the game most certainly is *not* done.
A few examples:
* An extra salvage treasure class was added to the item tables (ie internal data structures are still in flux)
* Many Legendary/Set items have associated affixes that aren't being applied due to affix level restrictions
* Many Legendary/set items are in the data files, but don't actually have any stats yet
* Some icons are still missing for items
* etc
Activision was most likely pushing for a holiday release for financial reasons, but at their latest status meeting the D3 team decided that they just weren't going to be able to make that deadline so they pushed the release date. (If they wanted to meet that date they really only have a little over a month left before the game would have to go Gold Master and be packaged and shipped to retailers. They could still have a patch on release, but testing release builds takes considerably longer than developer/beta builds so even that doesn't buy them all that much time.)