Its not like they cant afford to keep developing it, thats not the point of having to pay at all. Its all the services they provide to you after you pay. Hack free environment, technical support 24/7, protection against harassment too.
It doesn't take billions of dollars to do that, mate. You use billions of dollars to build mansions, not develop code and higher 20 or so people for live help.
In fact the people getting their CD Keys banned left and right for being idiots as you mentionedbanned just for what you said. They ruin the game experience for the rest of us that pay just to have fun. And personally that i'd like implemented in Diablo III too. not the pay to play aspect, but the permanent ban of the cd-key (and the accounts created with it if we make the accounts like in Diablo II) of people that have been reported for harassment.
Yeah, so no issues there, I'm guessing?
To keep such a support team for every continent they need thousands of people and guess what! they dont work for free! Thats where the money goes. Game Masters, Technical support and more. Development pays off with the sales of each expansion usually.
Um, no- it doesn't take thousands of people to moderate hacks and dupes. It takes efficient programming- otherwise you're just fighting a fire with a gasoline-soaked tissue. Programming is what's needed for Diablo. I'm not saying you're drawing conclusions from way by the following argument, but I think it's true: Diablo has been said repeatedly by developers that it's a fast instant action game, designed to be played hard instantly, specifically for the people who can't sit for endless hours because of jobs, family, real life, etc. (although I do this with Diablo II, anyway.) WoW, and all games like it, are designed to be real time consumers- it's how they make their profit. They're designed to be sit down and play with single characters for a long time. There's no problem with that.
The difference comes here- people playing Diablo with the instant-action mentality are not going to want to be constantly going to customer relations to deal with problems- they want the problems not to exist in the first place, or be easily fixable (which can be done with good programming, something that's very hard with 2D games like Diablo by nature because the engine doesn't automatically do a lot of things that 3D engines do.)
WoW people, on the otherhand, obviously have the time to do stuff like that. It's slower.
they do, yes. But how many are complaining about lag, hacks and dupes and stupid offensive people on battle.net? Too many, i know, i used to complain myself, but then i quit and found a "healthier" environment even though the setting isnt the most suiting for me (WoW).
See above.
Also company income gives them strength to develop games for a longer time than most other (if not all - except those making Duke Nukem Forever thats been like 15 years now? :P) companies to make sure the game ends up to be as awesome and bug free as it can be on release.
And that's how crappy games are made- when you're basing development on money. Diablo I came out when, 1997 or something? Diablo II in 1999/2000? LoD came out in 2001, I know. That was back when the developers were really dedicated- they didn't have millions or billions yet. Given, Diablo III needed an entirely new engine, which takes a long time to build, even with a lot of people working on it. More programmers does not mean faster programming, either, since all programmers use different mark-up, which would make a large number of programmers actually work slower.
answered to "because its more expensive its better" on the previous post. It could work the opposite way, though: "because something's cheaper, its not necessarily worth it".
Um, that would be the same thing.
If something is expensive, it's worth it.
If something is cheap, it's not.
They're obvious ends of the same spectrum. They go hand in hand.
Speaking of the multiplayer aspect of Diablo 2 that kept it alive all these years and the lack of patches that everyone kept complaining about, it could be much better if it was funded much. But apparently for some reason that couldnt be done.
Once again, the problems weren't easily fixable, least of all by patches. If you know some awesome super patch that can fix everything, then make it and send it to them. If not, you have no right to say that. The errors are in the game itself, its infrastructure and engine, which cannot be fixed by patches. It would require a ton more data, for finding the problem areas, creating entirely new data (for engines and base-coding for games, this is nearly impossible without threatening the integrity of the program(s) feeding off it) to suplement the erased data.
All previous patches did what patches are intended to do- fix small things, like stats, skills, items (new item data is not hard- it's just a series of strings and occasionally a new image- most images are just pre-loaded images with color strings applied to them so no new image is necessary), monster data (see the previous paranthesized sentence), and so on.
Changing things like lag duping- where an immense amount of lag is created to duplicate things- are engine problems. Things like MH are along the same line, although they have released a series of minor patches that fix up the protection system on the servers (Warden) which keeps a careful eye out for certain types of manipulations that are readable by it, but it has limits, since it doesn't have access, nor can safely get access to without infringing on privacy policy of Blizzard, your computers direct running data (because by definition it would be a third party program accessing your files and observing them, instead of just loading in new data, it's invading privacy.)
ahem, World of Warcraft was announced right before Warcraft III was released. They did what you say it would be bad financially. And it paid off. Warcraft III is still very popular and WoW... well you know about WoW.
Lol, they're as different as black and white- story, characters, playability- the fact one is an RTS and one is an RPG (MMO-style.) There's a big difference there.
That makes more sense to me than anything else you said. I always liked to think how he'd manage to come back but you cant have him do that forever. The novels created quite a few more evils and i have the feeling we'll get to see more of those, if not only on this game, certainly on the next one.
Um, NPC's are going to be helping you in DIII- I'm assuming as a fan you've actually read about the game. Depressing.
No game deserves more than initial payment. It's not that I can't afford it, it's that games are becoming an economy, not a past time, which is the definition of a game. That is wrong. I don't care if "blah blah blah then they can afford to improve it blah blah blah". If you say that, you know nothing about Diablo II's sales to this day. It's sold out a week, at most, after a new shipment. It topped the charts after Diablo III was announced. Now it's digital, sure, but I'm willing to bet my soul that it still sells wonderfully. Not to mention people getting their CD Keys banned left and right for being idiots, and then having to buy another.
They've earned millions from the sales alone of Diablo II- more than enough for server upkeep and anythign else they'd need. Sure, it doesn't rake in billions- billions is excessive, they have all they need in the millions.
I don't hate MMO's, no. I'm still waiting for a good one. P2P, though is stupid. It's just like saying "because something is more expensive it's better".
Lastly, it's not an MMO they're talking about. That would be bad financially, marketing 2 games for the same franchise. If they are ever going to make one for Diablo, it will be a long while down the road. No, this is most likely an expansion, just like they did for Diablo II. Just like they did for the Warcrafts, for Starcraft, and for WoW.
I'm considering it a possibility that they're only rapping up the Diablo (as in Diablo the Prime Evil) lore in Diablo III, and the expansion is going to ease in new lore without Diablo. They probably realized that having Diablo revived and powerful again in every game is rehashing the same story, which no one likes and is a sign of weakening creativity. Not to say that Diablo III will have that probablem- they'll probably have him go out in a bang.
I remember before the announcement you were flamed if you said Diablo III wasn't going to be an MMO. They aren't making an MMO- period. It's just an expansion or something.
It doesn't take billions of dollars to do that, mate. You use billions of dollars to build mansions, not develop code and higher 20 or so people for live help.
Yeah, so no issues there, I'm guessing?
Um, no- it doesn't take thousands of people to moderate hacks and dupes. It takes efficient programming- otherwise you're just fighting a fire with a gasoline-soaked tissue. Programming is what's needed for Diablo. I'm not saying you're drawing conclusions from way by the following argument, but I think it's true: Diablo has been said repeatedly by developers that it's a fast instant action game, designed to be played hard instantly, specifically for the people who can't sit for endless hours because of jobs, family, real life, etc. (although I do this with Diablo II, anyway.) WoW, and all games like it, are designed to be real time consumers- it's how they make their profit. They're designed to be sit down and play with single characters for a long time. There's no problem with that.
The difference comes here- people playing Diablo with the instant-action mentality are not going to want to be constantly going to customer relations to deal with problems- they want the problems not to exist in the first place, or be easily fixable (which can be done with good programming, something that's very hard with 2D games like Diablo by nature because the engine doesn't automatically do a lot of things that 3D engines do.)
WoW people, on the otherhand, obviously have the time to do stuff like that. It's slower.
See above.
And that's how crappy games are made- when you're basing development on money. Diablo I came out when, 1997 or something? Diablo II in 1999/2000? LoD came out in 2001, I know. That was back when the developers were really dedicated- they didn't have millions or billions yet. Given, Diablo III needed an entirely new engine, which takes a long time to build, even with a lot of people working on it. More programmers does not mean faster programming, either, since all programmers use different mark-up, which would make a large number of programmers actually work slower.
Um, that would be the same thing.
If something is expensive, it's worth it.
If something is cheap, it's not.
They're obvious ends of the same spectrum. They go hand in hand.
Once again, the problems weren't easily fixable, least of all by patches. If you know some awesome super patch that can fix everything, then make it and send it to them. If not, you have no right to say that. The errors are in the game itself, its infrastructure and engine, which cannot be fixed by patches. It would require a ton more data, for finding the problem areas, creating entirely new data (for engines and base-coding for games, this is nearly impossible without threatening the integrity of the program(s) feeding off it) to suplement the erased data.
All previous patches did what patches are intended to do- fix small things, like stats, skills, items (new item data is not hard- it's just a series of strings and occasionally a new image- most images are just pre-loaded images with color strings applied to them so no new image is necessary), monster data (see the previous paranthesized sentence), and so on.
Changing things like lag duping- where an immense amount of lag is created to duplicate things- are engine problems. Things like MH are along the same line, although they have released a series of minor patches that fix up the protection system on the servers (Warden) which keeps a careful eye out for certain types of manipulations that are readable by it, but it has limits, since it doesn't have access, nor can safely get access to without infringing on privacy policy of Blizzard, your computers direct running data (because by definition it would be a third party program accessing your files and observing them, instead of just loading in new data, it's invading privacy.)
Lol, they're as different as black and white- story, characters, playability- the fact one is an RTS and one is an RPG (MMO-style.) There's a big difference there.
Yep.
No game deserves more than initial payment. It's not that I can't afford it, it's that games are becoming an economy, not a past time, which is the definition of a game. That is wrong. I don't care if "blah blah blah then they can afford to improve it blah blah blah". If you say that, you know nothing about Diablo II's sales to this day. It's sold out a week, at most, after a new shipment. It topped the charts after Diablo III was announced. Now it's digital, sure, but I'm willing to bet my soul that it still sells wonderfully. Not to mention people getting their CD Keys banned left and right for being idiots, and then having to buy another.
They've earned millions from the sales alone of Diablo II- more than enough for server upkeep and anythign else they'd need. Sure, it doesn't rake in billions- billions is excessive, they have all they need in the millions.
I don't hate MMO's, no. I'm still waiting for a good one. P2P, though is stupid. It's just like saying "because something is more expensive it's better".
Lastly, it's not an MMO they're talking about. That would be bad financially, marketing 2 games for the same franchise. If they are ever going to make one for Diablo, it will be a long while down the road. No, this is most likely an expansion, just like they did for Diablo II. Just like they did for the Warcrafts, for Starcraft, and for WoW.
I'm considering it a possibility that they're only rapping up the Diablo (as in Diablo the Prime Evil) lore in Diablo III, and the expansion is going to ease in new lore without Diablo. They probably realized that having Diablo revived and powerful again in every game is rehashing the same story, which no one likes and is a sign of weakening creativity. Not to say that Diablo III will have that probablem- they'll probably have him go out in a bang.
Lol? Seriously? MD only knows as much as any of us on the subject, he's not working for Blizzard.
Stop being so ignorant.
I remember before the announcement you were flamed if you said Diablo III wasn't going to be an MMO. They aren't making an MMO- period. It's just an expansion or something.