They just trying to keep us quiet by saying they are still aiming for 2011 release. common guys... lets face it. Blizz already knows and they dont wanna kick up a sh** storm from the fans! Dissapointed has become their motto i believe.
Anndd QFT2
I know I said I was going to go to bed in the conference call thread, but I couldn't sleep, and read a few threads lol. Now I'll try again, just felt these two posts reflected what i would have said in different words.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
I was so bummed when I first heard them say that they don't anticipate any other release for 2011.. but I understand why. They are making an ungodly amount of money on WoW and that still appears to be their main focus.
I agree that "pushing for 2011" is just to keep up the morale of the true fans who follow this game every day. With no beta announcement until.. maybe Blizzcon.. I don't see this game coming out in 2011 at all. It will come out April / May 2012 IMO.. after most wow players have either killed Deathwing or given up.
At least there are tons of games coming out soon. witcher 2, dungeon siege 3, elder scrolls skyrim. That should easily last me until diablo 3
If Diablo 3 does release this year I think it's safe to say it will be mid to late december and no sooner. Honestly I do not see the Diablo 3 lasting 6 months in beta. My guess is 4 months.
...With no beta announcement until.. maybe Blizzcon.. I don't see this game coming out in 2011 at all.
I don't think its coming out in 2011 either but by Blizzcon in Oct the beta will be running for sure and we should be looking to Blizzcon for a release date announcement.
...With no beta announcement until.. maybe Blizzcon.. I don't see this game coming out in 2011 at all.
I don't think its coming out in 2011 either but by Blizzcon in Oct the beta will be running for sure and we should be looking to Blizzcon for a release date announcement.
I agree. Release date at blizzcon. If we don't hear one there its for sure 2012.
At least I can do lots of outdoor activities in the summer, without worrying about the latest beta news
I'm assuming it'll be at least Aug for beta start. (I hope I'm wrong).
DIII hitting store shelves just before Christmas would give it a nice boost for sales numbers.
Think about it - WoW is declining a bit, 2011 will be a solid year because those margins are still godly and the CoD map packs are also $$$, but not super-duper spectacular.
But if they release d3 next year WITH a wow Xpac and WITH SC2 and WITH the sledgehammer CoD plus a couple of treyarch maps...
That's a ginormous jolt of cash for a calendar/fiscal year, and if wall street doesn't pump the stock up to $15, they can buy back a &%$load of stock and get there the hard way, OR do a huge one or two buck dividend.
Athletes have something called a "contract year", where they are incentivized to really perform in the last season before contracts are renegotiated. Those guys want to look VERY good when they announce the 2012 EOY #s 21 months from now.
It's not a moral boost. It's a conference call to investors so it's as accurate as they can possibly predict.
Quarterly earnings calls are not about saying everything accurately.. quite the opposite in fact. Earnings calls are about only saying what went well, and avoiding anything that might be construed as negative by the people who own stock in your company, and will sell if the news is bad.
You can have record revenue and margins, but even a guidance for the upcoming quarter that is below analyst expectations can (and usually does) trigger a massive sell-off.
One thing I was thinking about though.. WoW is losing customers at an alarming rate. That pressure may be a flag to Blizzard, and might force them to do whatever it takes to get D3 out by Christmas.. They have lost 600,000 subscribers since cataclysm, and in the near-term they're gonna be desperate to boost earnings before the end of the fiscal year. All of that bodes well for a big push to get the thing out by chizmas.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
All of that bodes well for a big push to get the thing out by chizmas.
As I state above, I think the opposite is true - they'll take a solid but unspectacular year now (which means stock buybacks at a reasonable price anyhow) for a BLOWOUT year in '12.
Why? Because it disguises what is really a fading company (from an extremely high peak) on both sides of the A/B marriage. A six billion USD revenue year covers a LOT of flaws.
This isn't your average stock - no debt, tons of cash, and execs heavily motivated by options that don't really care if they report a pro forma loss, because it just means they can shovel that cash into buybacks.
That's why Kotick sold out with a big smile on his face. He knew he could redirect all those WoW billions into supporting his options packages, even if Guitar Hero etc faded and his military shooter studios faded or blew up.
In the big picture, D3 is a sideshow with a max revenue of 300 mil, and, as I've said before, one that could be really damaging to a WoW sub base which is already weakening. The more interesting question is whether or not sledgehammer can step up, and whether or not IW can be returned to something resembling its former glory. Down the road, watch for tension as console D3 goes nowhere due to Bliz's control freak nature that can't handle working with SNE or MSFT.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
Early December is the ONLY chance I see them making the 2011 window. Again though, I think between their quality standards, and the paper pushing I see a later Q1 release.. I have an official date I'm betting on somewhere around here.. Gotta find that thread again..
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
Well, if the 6 month beta testing is still somewhat accurate and their internal testing is included in this, then Starting at the beginning of May would put the game out early Nov. 2011
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Well, if the 6 month beta testing is still somewhat accurate and their internal testing is included in this, then Starting at the beginning of May would put the game out early Nov. 2011
While some things we can compare and contrast to SC2, I don't think development schedules is one of them. They're different genres of game, which need 2 different amount of refining and bug squashing. Sc2 comparatively needed much less work done in any aspect of the game, including content, balancing, and graphical polishing.
Also understand when I say balancing, I don't mean D3 needs to be more balanced than Sc2, I mean there is MUCH more to balance in D3. Every skill, times 5 for runes, than between monsters and immunities, i can't even get into that topic without a very lengthy post.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
As I just stated in the other thread, it bears remembering that the '6 month' comment was very off-the-cuff, and only said that the beta would appear '6 months before release'-- NOT that it would be a 6-month beta, figuring some gap between end of the beta and release, a la SC2. 4 months of beta for what will be a relatively small slice of the actual game seems more than ample, and then a month or so for final logistics and release. SC2's end of beta --> release gap was maybe a month, maybe less if my memory serves; seems D3 is on a tight but almost exactly similar schedule, taking into consideration D3's beta has far fewer / less thorough beta goals (i.e., no intensive balancing tweaks, etc.)
Edit: To Winged's post, taking into consideration the complexity of builds and matchups I'm not sure I would concede that D3 has far more complexity to balance, and I'd absolutely argue that the balance is far less important in D3, though crucial it certainly is. It only takes one obscure but totally unbeatable build to make SC2 broken, whereas it'd be much harder I think for D3 to become broken in PvE because, say, X skill for Y class with Z rune is overpowered; it's something they can very, very easily and quickly change at any point post-release, and issues of balance are more forgiving in D3 considering that SC2 is, at its core, nothing BUT balance. PvP balance is ostensibly a non-issue, at the 2010 panels Jay Wilson was fairly explicit that PvP is mostly gravy for the game, and they literally don't want PvP balance.
While as you made clear last night, without inside data on how Blizz is doing on the game, this whole topic of Sc2 Beta / D3 Beta is very much opinion. Going off of pure facts, between their 3 month *Target gap they gave for beta release, X length of the beta (This will be important for predictions), and Blizzard history..
2012.
Damn your edits Kiserai!!
I stand by my statement that as a whole D3 has more to polish for release. Weapons, Armor, Jewels, Gems, Charms, Skills, Runes, Buffs, De-Buffs, Immunities, Weaknesses, Difference between Normal, Nightmare, and Hell in respect to PvE, Quests, Experience, Shrines, Drop rates.. I'm sure there's more but I'm just making a point.
Where are Sc is very much a Rock, Paper, Scissor atmosphere D3 is far more complex. I don't argue your point on Sc2 being more fragile, but I do not see it as a reason it would in anyway need more over all de-bugging than D3 seeing as Sc2 has no customization what so ever.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
While as you made clear last night, without inside data on how Blizz is doing on the game, this whole topic of Sc2 Beta / D3 Beta is very much opinion. Going off of pure facts, between their 3 month *Target gap they gave for beta release, X length of the beta (This will be important for predictions), and Blizzard history..
2012.
Damn your edits Kiserai!!
I stand by my statement that as a whole D3 has more to polish for release. Weapons, Armor, Jewels, Gems, Charms, Skills, Runes, Buffs, De-Buffs, Immunities, Weaknesses, Difference between Normal, Nightmare, and Hell in respect to PvE, Quests, Experience, Shrines, Drop rates.. I'm sure there's more but I'm just making a point.
Where are Sc is very much a Rock, Paper, Scissor atmosphere D3 is far more complex. I don't argue your point on Sc2 being more fragile, but I do not see it as a reason it would in anyway need more over all de-bugging than D3 seeing as Sc2 has no customization what so ever.
Winged - not to try to change your opinion on this, but its gotta be reiterated - Diablo 3 is not that difficult of a game to balance - on a specific timeline.
SC2 had to be balanced during beta, to the best of their abilities, because the player's experience is affected immediately upon release and live play. People create build strategies, play styles, etc - because everything that a class has to offer is immediately at their finger tips. It takes a week and people get used to that build strategy enough to freak on the forums - anywhere they can be heard - when Blizz changes a class's abilities. And some of the major changes to SC2 happened this year in patch - after many months of live testing.
Diablo 3 has several layers of customization. Runes, Gems, Charms, etc. Those items are not going to be completely viable for several months, after live play begins. You have to factor in the time to level, to gather items, to start to find those great combinations of items, spells, runes, gems that approaches a "cookie cutter" build (which is supposedly difficult to do, due to the level of customization) before a major patch change would affect your play style. Think about it - you don't have everything at your finger tips once the game is live - you have I'd say a few good months before you even get near being locked into a great play style (based on runes, gems, etc.)
You're implying that so much has to be balanced during the Beta - that the systems are so complex that they simply demand a long Beta - so we should expect a 2012 release. I think you underestimate how much the timeline of live play factors into those changes. And realistically - how much can they test during a Beta that is so restricted from the overall content of the game itself? There simply can't be the level of balance you describe, in a game that features less than half of its substance, during a Beta.
They have time, once the game is live, to make tweaks to the systems. And again, as others have mentioned (another round on my tab for Kiserai please) if a class is overpowered in D3, by a few sets of customization in a list of thousands - then who is affected? No one - in a PVE game. And they have clearly stated they don't care about balance in PVP.
I hear you; "be cautious", "better to not get your hopes up" - but I have to believe that the game is on target for a 2011 release. Holiday sales.....
And its been said by others in this thread - but, when Blizz takes the time to state that they are pushing for a release this year - to their investors - then you can believe that they are pushing for a release this year. This has, absolutely, nothing to do with appeasing the players.
And for those speculating on whether Blizz is going to let a lack luster year (2011) go on the books, so they can buy their stock and then dominate 2012 - think about one concept....over saturation of the market. Diablo 3, a game anticipated for 10 years, comes out, in the same year as an expac for SC2 and more content for WoW?. No way. We only have so much time in the day folks and it can't be truly dedicated to three very attractive Blizzard games. I don't play the Activison games that much. Sue me.
Here ends the long windedness......for now............
QFT1
Anndd QFT2
I know I said I was going to go to bed in the conference call thread, but I couldn't sleep, and read a few threads lol. Now I'll try again, just felt these two posts reflected what i would have said in different words.
BF3, Guild Wars 2, TERA Online and Brink are just a few I am interested in. I already played Crysis 2, Bulletstorm and Deadspace 2.
Too many. I must resist O.o
So did the original "Diablo".
I agree that "pushing for 2011" is just to keep up the morale of the true fans who follow this game every day. With no beta announcement until.. maybe Blizzcon.. I don't see this game coming out in 2011 at all. It will come out April / May 2012 IMO.. after most wow players have either killed Deathwing or given up.
At least there are tons of games coming out soon. witcher 2, dungeon siege 3, elder scrolls skyrim. That should easily last me until diablo 3
http://www.cipherwire.net/eternal_life.html
I don't think its coming out in 2011 either but by Blizzcon in Oct the beta will be running for sure and we should be looking to Blizzcon for a release date announcement.
Everything from the world of Sanctuary
I agree. Release date at blizzcon. If we don't hear one there its for sure 2012.
At least I can do lots of outdoor activities in the summer, without worrying about the latest beta news
I'm assuming it'll be at least Aug for beta start. (I hope I'm wrong).
Think about it - WoW is declining a bit, 2011 will be a solid year because those margins are still godly and the CoD map packs are also $$$, but not super-duper spectacular.
But if they release d3 next year WITH a wow Xpac and WITH SC2 and WITH the sledgehammer CoD plus a couple of treyarch maps...
That's a ginormous jolt of cash for a calendar/fiscal year, and if wall street doesn't pump the stock up to $15, they can buy back a &%$load of stock and get there the hard way, OR do a huge one or two buck dividend.
Athletes have something called a "contract year", where they are incentivized to really perform in the last season before contracts are renegotiated. Those guys want to look VERY good when they announce the 2012 EOY #s 21 months from now.
Quarterly earnings calls are not about saying everything accurately.. quite the opposite in fact. Earnings calls are about only saying what went well, and avoiding anything that might be construed as negative by the people who own stock in your company, and will sell if the news is bad.
You can have record revenue and margins, but even a guidance for the upcoming quarter that is below analyst expectations can (and usually does) trigger a massive sell-off.
One thing I was thinking about though.. WoW is losing customers at an alarming rate. That pressure may be a flag to Blizzard, and might force them to do whatever it takes to get D3 out by Christmas.. They have lost 600,000 subscribers since cataclysm, and in the near-term they're gonna be desperate to boost earnings before the end of the fiscal year. All of that bodes well for a big push to get the thing out by chizmas.
-Thomas Jefferson
As I state above, I think the opposite is true - they'll take a solid but unspectacular year now (which means stock buybacks at a reasonable price anyhow) for a BLOWOUT year in '12.
Why? Because it disguises what is really a fading company (from an extremely high peak) on both sides of the A/B marriage. A six billion USD revenue year covers a LOT of flaws.
That's why Kotick sold out with a big smile on his face. He knew he could redirect all those WoW billions into supporting his options packages, even if Guitar Hero etc faded and his military shooter studios faded or blew up.
In the big picture, D3 is a sideshow with a max revenue of 300 mil, and, as I've said before, one that could be really damaging to a WoW sub base which is already weakening. The more interesting question is whether or not sledgehammer can step up, and whether or not IW can be returned to something resembling its former glory. Down the road, watch for tension as console D3 goes nowhere due to Bliz's control freak nature that can't handle working with SNE or MSFT.
Oh, we'll see who's laughing
Crossing my fingers anyway!!
xo
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
While some things we can compare and contrast to SC2, I don't think development schedules is one of them. They're different genres of game, which need 2 different amount of refining and bug squashing. Sc2 comparatively needed much less work done in any aspect of the game, including content, balancing, and graphical polishing.
Also understand when I say balancing, I don't mean D3 needs to be more balanced than Sc2, I mean there is MUCH more to balance in D3. Every skill, times 5 for runes, than between monsters and immunities, i can't even get into that topic without a very lengthy post.
Edit: To Winged's post, taking into consideration the complexity of builds and matchups I'm not sure I would concede that D3 has far more complexity to balance, and I'd absolutely argue that the balance is far less important in D3, though crucial it certainly is. It only takes one obscure but totally unbeatable build to make SC2 broken, whereas it'd be much harder I think for D3 to become broken in PvE because, say, X skill for Y class with Z rune is overpowered; it's something they can very, very easily and quickly change at any point post-release, and issues of balance are more forgiving in D3 considering that SC2 is, at its core, nothing BUT balance. PvP balance is ostensibly a non-issue, at the 2010 panels Jay Wilson was fairly explicit that PvP is mostly gravy for the game, and they literally don't want PvP balance.
2012.
Damn your edits Kiserai!!
I stand by my statement that as a whole D3 has more to polish for release. Weapons, Armor, Jewels, Gems, Charms, Skills, Runes, Buffs, De-Buffs, Immunities, Weaknesses, Difference between Normal, Nightmare, and Hell in respect to PvE, Quests, Experience, Shrines, Drop rates.. I'm sure there's more but I'm just making a point.
Where are Sc is very much a Rock, Paper, Scissor atmosphere D3 is far more complex. I don't argue your point on Sc2 being more fragile, but I do not see it as a reason it would in anyway need more over all de-bugging than D3 seeing as Sc2 has no customization what so ever.
Winged - not to try to change your opinion on this, but its gotta be reiterated - Diablo 3 is not that difficult of a game to balance - on a specific timeline.
SC2 had to be balanced during beta, to the best of their abilities, because the player's experience is affected immediately upon release and live play. People create build strategies, play styles, etc - because everything that a class has to offer is immediately at their finger tips. It takes a week and people get used to that build strategy enough to freak on the forums - anywhere they can be heard - when Blizz changes a class's abilities. And some of the major changes to SC2 happened this year in patch - after many months of live testing.
Diablo 3 has several layers of customization. Runes, Gems, Charms, etc. Those items are not going to be completely viable for several months, after live play begins. You have to factor in the time to level, to gather items, to start to find those great combinations of items, spells, runes, gems that approaches a "cookie cutter" build (which is supposedly difficult to do, due to the level of customization) before a major patch change would affect your play style. Think about it - you don't have everything at your finger tips once the game is live - you have I'd say a few good months before you even get near being locked into a great play style (based on runes, gems, etc.)
You're implying that so much has to be balanced during the Beta - that the systems are so complex that they simply demand a long Beta - so we should expect a 2012 release. I think you underestimate how much the timeline of live play factors into those changes. And realistically - how much can they test during a Beta that is so restricted from the overall content of the game itself? There simply can't be the level of balance you describe, in a game that features less than half of its substance, during a Beta.
They have time, once the game is live, to make tweaks to the systems. And again, as others have mentioned (another round on my tab for Kiserai please) if a class is overpowered in D3, by a few sets of customization in a list of thousands - then who is affected? No one - in a PVE game. And they have clearly stated they don't care about balance in PVP.
I hear you; "be cautious", "better to not get your hopes up" - but I have to believe that the game is on target for a 2011 release. Holiday sales.....
And its been said by others in this thread - but, when Blizz takes the time to state that they are pushing for a release this year - to their investors - then you can believe that they are pushing for a release this year. This has, absolutely, nothing to do with appeasing the players.
And for those speculating on whether Blizz is going to let a lack luster year (2011) go on the books, so they can buy their stock and then dominate 2012 - think about one concept....over saturation of the market. Diablo 3, a game anticipated for 10 years, comes out, in the same year as an expac for SC2 and more content for WoW?. No way. We only have so much time in the day folks and it can't be truly dedicated to three very attractive Blizzard games. I don't play the Activison games that much. Sue me.
Here ends the long windedness......for now............
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477