I would like to invite Playstation players to join my guild, Knights of the Templar Empire. We are focused on making an ideal gaming environment for ages 18+. Already have a discord set up and can set up a Playstation guild party for everyone to use voice chat while in-game easily. Helping others is always encouraged but not required.
A little about myself, I played Diablo 2 way back in the day and racked up over 3k hours into the game, never reached 99 as I couldn't be fussed honestly, but now it seems I have to for two trophies. I work full time but I am at my ps5 usually when I'm home.
Discord - https://discord.gg/pypN5FFdZ8
PSN - Crush834
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It could be argued that it's important to look at their products in terms of IPs and not individual installations. For instance, the Warcraft IP making money off a WoW expansion, WC3R (lol), a movie, microtransactions, swag/toys, etc., is all a win. All of it represents either an increase or a continuation of maintaining capital for them as a company.
Investors may or may not see it that way. They might want an individual thing to excel as well as it possibly can. But in the long term, I think this is also something that is considered at quarterly calls because it's more indicative of longterm success. Box sales are just a blip on the radar--if you base all your success on them, you'll just be chasing temporary highs.
This is why I argue BlizzCon and maintaining Blizzard IPs as a lifetime fan/family identity is more important than just selling the next big thing.
Another thing could be argued--I don't think a D2 remaster would ever have the staying power to upset the multi-million dollar box sales of a major new installment. If Blizzard did it, much like the SC remaster, it would probably be either a labor of love or just for existing fans. I don't think any of their remasters have turned huge quarterly profits on the scale of a major release.
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It's a big name game that carries with it multiple generations of gamers. The outlets will all post the press kit assets. That's pretty much how it's always been.
When I want to see more than the same confirmed facts, I usually go to a fansite or reddit. That usually solves it for me since communities around a single topic usually filter this down to unique information/takes or topical reading.
But by all means go for it!
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With regards to a remaster, you guys all hit on several different nail heads. The first is that it was definitely said that essentially all the working parts are all lost to time. There's certain things modders can and do tinker with, but it's not enough to rebuild a game from. That's in that quote above, and I remember back in 2010 or 2011 when I went to Blizzcon this was confirmed by... I can't remember his name. At the time, the legacy "team" was literally 1 full time guy (for all legacy games) and one other guy that was usually at a different campus.
Making the assets "available" like that to anyone isn't likely in their style. They very much went out of their way with WC3R to stipulate that any and all content created with their editor is their property, or at least can't be used in the way that led to a certain moba being born.
I really, really wanted a remake. I remember when I was in line in 2019 before the con doors opened some guys were passing around a blurred screenshot that we all assumed was a D2 remastered character select campfire. I was losing my mind. It turned out it was a leak of the D4 character select campfire.
But honestly, if they really pull through on D4 (and it looks like they will), I'm not sure I need a remaster, anymore. D4 feels to me like what D3 was missing. I know it's silly to rail on cosmetics, but honestly that vibe that the first games gave off are part of the reason for their campy following. D3 just felt like a high fantasy epic. I enjoyed the gameplay and so much else about it, but it didn't feel in the same universe for the most part until ROP.
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Diablo3.com actually existed as a blog for a bit before it got the vbulletin treatment. I think mockery said that once. There was an odd subtle tension between mockery's site and... god, I forget that other one. It wasn't medievaldragon's, it was that older one. I think it was founded in 2001. It's still around and dated as hell, lol.
Welcome back Jetrall! Miss those days!
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Yeah I would bet money on both classes being playable next year at the con. I can't imagine them not having a playable class and having to develop itemization, combat, etc., with only three classes. I feel like it would be like the baseline for moving forward on many fronts.
Also agree with @WishesHeHadBeta on the timeline. Makes sense on many fronts.
It's also usually the case that what we see at BlizzCon is usually a bit behind what they actually have internally. For instance, the next wow raid area they showed off in one of the panels was already datamined showing a lot more progress before the event.
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It was going to be announced last year but they delayed it at last second. It would've been announced regardless, probably.
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Yeah, the D3 models looking at them now look like paper dolls with low res paint and use the same like 5 animations for everything xD The difference is night and day. The cutscene graphics are the in-game graphics. My friends and I just kind of looked at each other when it started after the cinematic and almost shat ourselves. I think much of that detail is lost, though, when zooming out. You can zoom in with a keybind like in D3. Some effects like the dynamic weather/lighting/etc. are still obvious at that angle/distance, though.
This is just based on my play experience/my friends. Not sure what other people are seeing in videos online. I haven't really watched any.
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WishesHeHadBeta,
Because they're spread out over many dungeon instances and a huge open world, and phased according to the type of content being done. There's hundreds of dungeons, and that map is only one of, I want to say three. And we only saw a small portion of it. And it accommodated hundreds of demo players fine.
This is why they also said that the number of players you see depends on what you're doing. A huge world boss looks like a dozen or more and it zooms out to accommodate, but they also said these will be rare. Most of the content is scaled to only a couple players in your visible area.
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Microtransactions can go a long way with only a small offering of services/cosmetics. WoW makes a huge chunk of revenue off microtransactions and they basically just put two pets and a mount out per year for it. They made like $6 mil just off a store toy and those funds went to support...I want to say the arena championship winnings? Maybe MDI.
It's a big return for really limited stress on the team for WoW, at least. The mount is about a month of art work for one artist and the pets probably less. They get money, the rest of the team can focus on developing the actual game and future content. The payment gating for things like race changes and server changes also has the added benefit of slowing down knee-jerk reactions to nerfs/buffs and the like.
These are only going to be cosmetic or similar. I can't think of a current Blizzard game where someone pays for gear or some endgame-ruining benefit.
My only hope is that any cosmetics won't be too crazy, over-the-top, but honestly as it plays out in WoW most players get these things and don't use them much after the initial purchase. My assumption was just because everyone knew they were purchased, not won from gameplay, so that kind of watered down the prestige of using them.
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Makes me wonder what exactly his motives are. Rathma would be obsessed with preserving balance, I would assume. Trying to see how Lillith would play into his modus operondi. There's admiration there, for sure, but I doubt he would have waited this long to do this unless he had a particular reason to do it now. I mean, it only took three random adventurers.