.... But they dont want to pay overtime for the coders.
Maybe they don't want to burn out their coders and maintain a jovial work enviroment where people actually look forward to coming into. I know making video games would seem like a dream job but working 12 hour shifts, is still working 12 hour shifts.
There seems to be some still moving parts in the game and coupled with some of the isssues of bnet 2.0 and the rmah and a brief look at blizz history, not making the 2011 target window really isn't too much of a shock.
I think D3 is delayed because there is still serious iteration and revision being done. As evidenced by DH skill/resources, skill dmg scaling re-mapped to weapons, bnet fails, rune re-writes, etc etc.
Blizzard knows better than anyone that WoW is in serious trouble. They've known that for a long time. Blizz high-ups have been quoted saying that they'd LOVE to cannibalize their own player base. As long as people stay loyal to the brand, they're fine. WoW players ---> D3 ---> Titan. Even if D3 is just a buffer to keep people on bnet until Titan drops and can properly replace the monthly revenue lost in the WoW > D3 move, Blizz is still on top of the world.
Fair questions: What the hell has Blizzard been doing these last 5 months? Why are they still doing re-writes? How are they not feature code complete?
They've been making games the Blizzard way. Blizz purposefully keeps their process open to change and chaos.. they think you should never sacrifice doing it the right way for the sake of doing something on time. Their method is proven to work.
My only gripe is with their PR. Blizzard is HORRIBLE at managing their community, there's not enough time in the universe to say enough bad things about it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, I mean there definately haven't been any issues recently regarding certain character classes who are getting overhauls of resource systems and changes to most of their skills. And it also isn't like when the item database was revealed it was apparent (even to Blizzard) that almost none of it was even close to being finished and made everyone realize there was a lot of work to still be done in regards to items and item systems (runes, gems, crafting, etc).
I am honestly shocked that people are still complaining "its all about the money! Those bastards!" Guess what guys, Blizzard is a FOR PROFIT company. If they didn't make money then you wouldn't have a game to play. They aren't going to release something that won't make money, would you? You're running a very large company that makes a lot of money, do you release something because, eh It's ok if we lose money on this, we are making a ton. No. That isn't how the world works.
Be happy at the very least that Blizzard seems to work under the pretense that if they make a great game, they will make money on the fact that people will buy something they like. At least they arn't making a sequel that is the exact same fucking game with new maps. (Call of Duty has no new features from game to game. Reworking interfaces doesn't count as a new feature.)
Yeah, I mean there definately haven't been any issues recently regarding certain character classes who are getting overhauls of resource systems and changes to most of their skills. And it also isn't like when the item database was revealed it was apparent (even to Blizzard) that almost none of it was even close to being finished and made everyone realize there was a lot of work to still be done in regards to items and item systems (runes, gems, crafting, etc).
The game still has a lot of work to do.
Not only that, but there are 0 bug reports in the beta feedback forums.
Son you are right on the money. This is solely wow based. I even bought into it LOL... I opened my account, was logged in, did a random heroic, re-realized how lame that shit is... I've hit gladiator on a warrior s1 and rogue s5 and that game went to utter shit. If they reverted it back to vanilla I'd think about playing again.
I don't think anyone will deny the fact blizzard would potentionally pull crap like that, and I agree with the DH remark(I bet you they were already planning to change the way the DH worked before this fake beta started, It's such a poorly designed resource, you could tell right away it wouldn't work just by looking at it on paper, and I am 100% sure the developers play tested every class/skill a millions times over already during the actual development of D3).
However I don't think the delay is because of WoW(well not this delay anyway, the reason D3 took an insane 10 ******* years is a different story though), anyone who knows anything about Blizzard, shouls've known Blizzard wasn't gonna release D3 during the XMAS season.
Blizzard doesn't like to have to deal with competition at all, hell they are so arrogant, that they think they are too good for E3 for crying out loud, that they have to hold their own event each year(lol for a whopping 3 games tops, really Blizzard, if you're gonna hold your own event, you should make either a lot more games or atleast have multiple expansions for each game every year).
Lol need I say more, there are much bigger/more powerful companies that don't pull these kinds of antics.
Just to make things clear, I don't hate blizzerd specifically(and they are no where even close to being a "bad" company), since when they aren't fooling around with crappy WoW, they actually make great games(damn I love the Diablo series so much), but I hate this BS they constantly pull.
For Instance, this shouldn't be called beta at all, but a soft release/stress testing phase instead(lets be real, there's next to no content to text, and the content there is, has clearly been heavily tested long before this so called beta started, so at most you're retested stuff that has a high probability of being bug free).
Another thing, why advertise that you're pushing for a XMAS release, when they never had any intentions of doing so (as I pointed out, anyone who knows this company, shouldv'e known they would never release it durring XMAS).
I don't even mind the later date, but I don't like the fact they pull people chains(10 bucks says, this is one of their tactics they use to build hype, which goes double for the contentless beta), while I wasn't fooled, I'm sure many people actually bought into Blizzard's BS, especially since they have been saying for most of the year, it will be out nov/dec).
Now what I would like to ask all of you, is why do alot of you let blizzard get away with these tactics(hell you guys wouldn't even complain to Blizzard about raising the price of their already overpriced Blizcon tickets, as if Blizzard didn't realize you guys already had to pay a fortune for plain tickets, hotel rooms, exc)?
As far as I know, Blizzard Isn't exactly corrupt yet(just greedy, and stuckup), so you guys can complain about stuff(as long as you aren't cursing them out, and stuff), without getting unjustly banned from their games.
I lol thinking about people who built new pc's for d3 already... it's a blower for them honestly. Blizzard really dropped the ball here.
sigh yea, I've heard of a bunch of people, whom built new computers just for this game, I can't help but to feel sorry for them(money is always tight this time of year afterall).
Well if what you say is true, most of these people will leave to play SWOTOR anyway. And i am sure Blizz knew this game was coming out in December.
While i don't buy the "its not ready" argument either, i think they have pushed the games release back because of it's close proximity to heavy hitters like Skyrim, Uncharted, Gears, Arkham City, MW3, BF3,etc.
Blizz knows that their fans will pick up the game no matter when they release it. It's the gamers who arn't hardcore fans that they want and that's going to be really hard to do with so many quality titles on offer. So i guess it makes sense to push it back a month or two and release it when you're the only option, than get drowned in the deluge of triple A titles coming this holiday season.
Edit:- Oh and also first post on these boards, so hey everyone!
Now what I would like to ask all of you, is why do alot of you let blizzard get away with these tactics(hell you guys wouldn't even complain to Blizzard about raising the price of their already overpriced Blizcon tickets, as if Blizzard didn't realize you guys already had to pay a fortune for plain tickets, hotel rooms, exc)?
I'm pretty sure Blizzard actually loses money on Blizzcon.
Well if what you say is true, most of these people will leave to play SWOTOR anyway. And i am sure Blizz knew this game was coming out in December.
While i don't buy the "its not ready" argument either, i think they have pushed the games release back because of it's close proximity to heavy hitters like Skyrim, Uncharted, Gears, Arkham City, MW3, BF3,etc.
Blizz knows that their fans will pick up the game no matter when they release it. It's the gamers who arn't hardcore fans that they want and that's going to be really hard to do with so many quality titles on offer. So i guess it makes sense to push it back a month or two and release it when you're the only option, than get drowned in the deluge of triple A titles coming this holiday season.
Edit:- Oh and also first post on these boards, so hey everyone!
I hope wow subs dip sub 1million in NA really soon... open their eyes a bit. Say we boycott until D3 release =)
That assumptions makes very little sense. The WoW and the Diablo crowd are independent. D3 wont steal a large amount of WoW players. It's a free ARPG game, not an MMO. Yes, some WoW players will probably play D3, but they will still be playing WoW. And many people who have been waiting for D3 aren't MMO players.
And people who think for a second that Diablo is ready are seriously deluded.
Just look at all of the issues that has popped up in the beta. Many graphical errors and stupid bugs, and this isn't even the entire first Act, just imagine all of the problems still in all the other acts. Just look at the item lists and see how many items still have placeholder icons.
I'm sorry but would any of you pay full price for half a loaf of bread? Or buy a television set that doesn't really work, or even get a DvD with some scenes missing? Then why in the infernal hells would you want a game that isn't done yet?
Come on guys, this isn't even debatable. The game isn't done yet, so let them finish it first.
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.)
Having worked for Activision some years ago, and being familiar with both that company and the standard practices of several others, I can say that this assessment is almost certainly true. In fact, to maximize sales in December, the game would have to be on shelves by the 20th (and probably by the 15th) of December. To do that, the game would need at *least* 30 days of physical production (that is, the gold master would have to lock on November 15th). To actually deliver a locked gold master on the 15th, the game would have to be in release candidacy for a minimum of 2 weeks prior (which is no time at all and only terrible, awful games give themselves that little time) - which would be Nov 1st. Realistically, the game would want to be in release candidacy for 6 weeks (with a planned delivery date of the gold master on Nov 1st with a two week buffer in case of major issues), so the actually RC1 date would likely be Sept 15. Which we can quite confidently say that we missed.
I think the hope was to have the closed beta start on Sept 1 and for there to be zero issues aside from network-stress related ones. However, it's quite clear by reading the official bug report forum (why isn't there an interactive in-engine database for bugs? Or at least a web-based one? Seriously - forums are the second worst way to report bugs next to snail mail. But I digress) that major gameplay design choices are still going on, never mind actual bugs with the game in a non-net-stress situation.
In light of the overwhelming publicly available evidence, the game has to be pushed. I can only imagine how bad things are behind closed doors. Re-tooling fundamental game play design at this point in the process is a terrible idea. They really couldn't tell that weapon-based spells vs. flat damage spells was going to be an obvious consideration? They couldn't have figured out prior to the closed beta that the DH could run out of both resources? No one in their internal QA bothered to mention the questionable artwork of the monk resource?
I give blizzard a lot more credit than that, and I think December was - given the state of the beta - a pipe dream all along. January still might be. My money right now is evenly split between a botched January release combined with 2 GB of patches on day 1, or a clean March release.
Let me be clear - I'm not insinuating that there isn't a lot work that can be done to polish D3 to that Blizzard standard shine, I'm insinuating that it can be done a lot sooner than "early 2012" which is totally vague to me. There are some very informative posts (See Kahdrick's) thus far that reveal a plan of action that most are not aware of before a game can ship. I get that and I believe that the delay is going to benefit that process. I also feel that the delay is in direct response to a holiday season release schedule, of not only other competitors games, but their own game as well.
For the folks that say 4 months of WoW subscriptions is not adequate reasoning to hold the game - you are correct. But I'm not suggesting that their reasoning for the delay is to get 4 more months of subscriptions - I'm suggesting they are holding off to keep people in WoW permanently. This new patch is supposed to be the answers to a lot of bored WoW's community prayers. And coupled with "Come back dear *insert name here* and try Firelands for free for 10 days" tells me they are trying to stabilize the WoW community, before they hold any new shiney stuff up in front of their fans faces.
I do not care about the argument "people will play both games, so my thread is silly." People will play both games. People will play other games as well. Why run the risk of creating conflicting interest between their two games? It is not a good idea - plain and simple. This winter is for WoW to shine and try to keep its community intact from the likes of SWToR, Torchlight 2, BF3, Skyrim and the hosts of other games out there trying to be the next king of the game mountain. There's no room for D3 in that equation. Let the holiday season slow down - people get a few months of the new games under their belts - and then slap them in the face with a gem that we have been waiting for years to play.
And again remember - its not like it will hurt the D3 team to have, yet again MORE time to work on their game. All I'm saying is that its not the issues of the game that are responsible for the delay - its more of a scheduling thing.
OK, they got me. I am inclined to play my rogue once again for another arena season and heroic deathwing raid... haven't touched this char since S5 (1st season of wrath)... 5k arena played @ 70% win ^^ glad 2's YUCK lol
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There seems to be some still moving parts in the game and coupled with some of the isssues of bnet 2.0 and the rmah and a brief look at blizz history, not making the 2011 target window really isn't too much of a shock.
Blizzard knows better than anyone that WoW is in serious trouble. They've known that for a long time. Blizz high-ups have been quoted saying that they'd LOVE to cannibalize their own player base. As long as people stay loyal to the brand, they're fine. WoW players ---> D3 ---> Titan. Even if D3 is just a buffer to keep people on bnet until Titan drops and can properly replace the monthly revenue lost in the WoW > D3 move, Blizz is still on top of the world.
Fair questions: What the hell has Blizzard been doing these last 5 months? Why are they still doing re-writes? How are they not feature code complete?
They've been making games the Blizzard way. Blizz purposefully keeps their process open to change and chaos.. they think you should never sacrifice doing it the right way for the sake of doing something on time. Their method is proven to work.
My only gripe is with their PR. Blizzard is HORRIBLE at managing their community, there's not enough time in the universe to say enough bad things about it.
-Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, I mean there definately haven't been any issues recently regarding certain character classes who are getting overhauls of resource systems and changes to most of their skills. And it also isn't like when the item database was revealed it was apparent (even to Blizzard) that almost none of it was even close to being finished and made everyone realize there was a lot of work to still be done in regards to items and item systems (runes, gems, crafting, etc).
The game still has a lot of work to do.
Be happy at the very least that Blizzard seems to work under the pretense that if they make a great game, they will make money on the fact that people will buy something they like. At least they arn't making a sequel that is the exact same fucking game with new maps. (Call of Duty has no new features from game to game. Reworking interfaces doesn't count as a new feature.)
2 cents.
However, the amount of bugs, crashes, glitches, and overall changes they've made during these couple weeks in the beta does make me say "WTF"
WTF have they been doing all this time in their internal beta/alpha testing?
Fixing other bugs ;p
However I don't think the delay is because of WoW(well not this delay anyway, the reason D3 took an insane 10 ******* years is a different story though), anyone who knows anything about Blizzard, shouls've known Blizzard wasn't gonna release D3 during the XMAS season.
Blizzard doesn't like to have to deal with competition at all, hell they are so arrogant, that they think they are too good for E3 for crying out loud, that they have to hold their own event each year(lol for a whopping 3 games tops, really Blizzard, if you're gonna hold your own event, you should make either a lot more games or atleast have multiple expansions for each game every year).
Lol need I say more, there are much bigger/more powerful companies that don't pull these kinds of antics.
Just to make things clear, I don't hate blizzerd specifically(and they are no where even close to being a "bad" company), since when they aren't fooling around with crappy WoW, they actually make great games(damn I love the Diablo series so much), but I hate this BS they constantly pull.
For Instance, this shouldn't be called beta at all, but a soft release/stress testing phase instead(lets be real, there's next to no content to text, and the content there is, has clearly been heavily tested long before this so called beta started, so at most you're retested stuff that has a high probability of being bug free).
Another thing, why advertise that you're pushing for a XMAS release, when they never had any intentions of doing so (as I pointed out, anyone who knows this company, shouldv'e known they would never release it durring XMAS).
I don't even mind the later date, but I don't like the fact they pull people chains(10 bucks says, this is one of their tactics they use to build hype, which goes double for the contentless beta), while I wasn't fooled, I'm sure many people actually bought into Blizzard's BS, especially since they have been saying for most of the year, it will be out nov/dec).
Now what I would like to ask all of you, is why do alot of you let blizzard get away with these tactics(hell you guys wouldn't even complain to Blizzard about raising the price of their already overpriced Blizcon tickets, as if Blizzard didn't realize you guys already had to pay a fortune for plain tickets, hotel rooms, exc)?
As far as I know, Blizzard Isn't exactly corrupt yet(just greedy, and stuckup), so you guys can complain about stuff(as long as you aren't cursing them out, and stuff), without getting unjustly banned from their games.
sigh yea, I've heard of a bunch of people, whom built new computers just for this game, I can't help but to feel sorry for them(money is always tight this time of year afterall).
Well if what you say is true, most of these people will leave to play SWOTOR anyway. And i am sure Blizz knew this game was coming out in December.
While i don't buy the "its not ready" argument either, i think they have pushed the games release back because of it's close proximity to heavy hitters like Skyrim, Uncharted, Gears, Arkham City, MW3, BF3,etc.
Blizz knows that their fans will pick up the game no matter when they release it. It's the gamers who arn't hardcore fans that they want and that's going to be really hard to do with so many quality titles on offer. So i guess it makes sense to push it back a month or two and release it when you're the only option, than get drowned in the deluge of triple A titles coming this holiday season.
Edit:- Oh and also first post on these boards, so hey everyone!
I'm pretty sure Blizzard actually loses money on Blizzcon.
And people who think for a second that Diablo is ready are seriously deluded.
Just look at all of the issues that has popped up in the beta. Many graphical errors and stupid bugs, and this isn't even the entire first Act, just imagine all of the problems still in all the other acts. Just look at the item lists and see how many items still have placeholder icons.
I'm sorry but would any of you pay full price for half a loaf of bread? Or buy a television set that doesn't really work, or even get a DvD with some scenes missing? Then why in the infernal hells would you want a game that isn't done yet?
Come on guys, this isn't even debatable. The game isn't done yet, so let them finish it first.
Having worked for Activision some years ago, and being familiar with both that company and the standard practices of several others, I can say that this assessment is almost certainly true. In fact, to maximize sales in December, the game would have to be on shelves by the 20th (and probably by the 15th) of December. To do that, the game would need at *least* 30 days of physical production (that is, the gold master would have to lock on November 15th). To actually deliver a locked gold master on the 15th, the game would have to be in release candidacy for a minimum of 2 weeks prior (which is no time at all and only terrible, awful games give themselves that little time) - which would be Nov 1st. Realistically, the game would want to be in release candidacy for 6 weeks (with a planned delivery date of the gold master on Nov 1st with a two week buffer in case of major issues), so the actually RC1 date would likely be Sept 15. Which we can quite confidently say that we missed.
I think the hope was to have the closed beta start on Sept 1 and for there to be zero issues aside from network-stress related ones. However, it's quite clear by reading the official bug report forum (why isn't there an interactive in-engine database for bugs? Or at least a web-based one? Seriously - forums are the second worst way to report bugs next to snail mail. But I digress) that major gameplay design choices are still going on, never mind actual bugs with the game in a non-net-stress situation.
In light of the overwhelming publicly available evidence, the game has to be pushed. I can only imagine how bad things are behind closed doors. Re-tooling fundamental game play design at this point in the process is a terrible idea. They really couldn't tell that weapon-based spells vs. flat damage spells was going to be an obvious consideration? They couldn't have figured out prior to the closed beta that the DH could run out of both resources? No one in their internal QA bothered to mention the questionable artwork of the monk resource?
I give blizzard a lot more credit than that, and I think December was - given the state of the beta - a pipe dream all along. January still might be. My money right now is evenly split between a botched January release combined with 2 GB of patches on day 1, or a clean March release.
Let me be clear - I'm not insinuating that there isn't a lot work that can be done to polish D3 to that Blizzard standard shine, I'm insinuating that it can be done a lot sooner than "early 2012" which is totally vague to me. There are some very informative posts (See Kahdrick's) thus far that reveal a plan of action that most are not aware of before a game can ship. I get that and I believe that the delay is going to benefit that process. I also feel that the delay is in direct response to a holiday season release schedule, of not only other competitors games, but their own game as well.
For the folks that say 4 months of WoW subscriptions is not adequate reasoning to hold the game - you are correct. But I'm not suggesting that their reasoning for the delay is to get 4 more months of subscriptions - I'm suggesting they are holding off to keep people in WoW permanently. This new patch is supposed to be the answers to a lot of bored WoW's community prayers. And coupled with "Come back dear *insert name here* and try Firelands for free for 10 days" tells me they are trying to stabilize the WoW community, before they hold any new shiney stuff up in front of their fans faces.
I do not care about the argument "people will play both games, so my thread is silly." People will play both games. People will play other games as well. Why run the risk of creating conflicting interest between their two games? It is not a good idea - plain and simple. This winter is for WoW to shine and try to keep its community intact from the likes of SWToR, Torchlight 2, BF3, Skyrim and the hosts of other games out there trying to be the next king of the game mountain. There's no room for D3 in that equation. Let the holiday season slow down - people get a few months of the new games under their belts - and then slap them in the face with a gem that we have been waiting for years to play.
And again remember - its not like it will hurt the D3 team to have, yet again MORE time to work on their game. All I'm saying is that its not the issues of the game that are responsible for the delay - its more of a scheduling thing.
Which makes me unhappy. So there.
edit:typo
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
Their big cash cow is WoW. Yes, many people will probably quit WoW for Diablo3.
I wouldn't be surprised if they loose on potential income on developing Diablo...