Quote from Shadroz
To the OP:
I have never read such drivel in my life. Take your conspiracy theories elsewhere. WoW subscriptions have ALWAYS fluctuated during periods of lack of content. ie. at the end of an expansion. Diablo 3 is a great starting point for a game. Is it the best it could be? Not even close. Is it still one of the best made games in terms of gameplay (not including loot drops, because we all know how crap they are 99.99% of the time)? Probably. It can only get better. The annual pass was merely a way to get players to get Diablo 3 for free if they knew they were still going to be playing WoW for a year. It wasn't forced on you. You had a choice.
Mists of Pandaria will more than likely increase WoW subscriptions by a huge amount, if not bypassing the highest amount of subscriptions WoW has ever had. Blizzard is a great gaming company and they know what they are doing. Did they milk the cash cow with Diablo 3? Yes. Is it biting them in the ass? Yes. Are they going to fix it and make it what it was supposed to be? More than likely.
Troll #1: Bypassing the most they've ever had? LOL nice. WoW subscriptions flucuating? Flucuation is up and down, WoW subscriptions just go downward.
http://news.yahoo.com/world-warcraft-loses-millions-subscribers-3-months-4-122800463.html
This is Yahoo! News we're talking about.
Quote from Kisho
Thank you, OP, for one of the most baseless and frankly hilarious conspiracy theories I've ever seen. Good laugh.
1. D3 (and SC2) were not in development for the entire time between their release and their prequel's release. It was actually more like 3-4 years each or so.
2. a game that lasts a month is a really good game. How many other games actually last that long? The people that managed to play D2 for years are the minority, and even they didn't play every day: they will have taken breaks. Also, you can't say a non-sub game is 'dead': it's something that can just be picked up again at a later date.
3. SC2 poorly accepted? So all those esports and competitions mean nothing, do they?
4. most of those subscribers that WoW lost were from 1 of 2 places: either they went to D3, or they were in the east which uses an entirely different subscription model. Western subs, for the most part, didn't change.
Honestly it's just funny. So many assumptions, no evidence, no logic. Just emotional garbage because you can't handle the fact that your tastes in gaming have changed. You can't take responsibility for yourself: it's always someone else's fault, never yours. Grow up.
Troll #2:
1) The reason they weren't in development for the whole area of time since LoD's release is that, like the OP said, Blizzard used to move from game to game in their development. And it's obvious that from the time WoW was conceived, it was going to be Blizzard's focus. Honestly I still think Blizzard functions like this in a sense. You get the feeling that the people developing SC2, MoP and D3 are second class to whatever they're doing with TITAN.
2) A game that lasts for a month is NOT a really good game lol... You've been conditioned to think that games are meant to be disposable. In terms of $$$ per hour of entertainment it's great, but in terms of quality, 1 month is terrible.
A non-sub game can't be dead? Dead just means that people aren't playing it... pretty simple. I guarantee there are far less people playing D3 today than a month ago. Funny how you say non-sub too, since in a few years subscriptions won't even exist in video games. So I guess no game will ever be considered dead... especially FTP ones.
3) SC2 is a far better game than D3. But it's barely played in South Korea for example. "All those esports and competitions" The same ones that Blizzard explicitly doesn't support lol? Esports = Other people making money off of Blizzard's game, that's the truth. It's difficult for Blizzard to actually make money from supporting esports apparently.
4) Yeah, this is just wrong. WoW has been losing subscribers for a long time, D3 was released 3 months ago. Ask anyone at Blizzard and they'll tell you that FTP games are the biggest problem in losing subscribers (while others outside Blizzard would also point to the reduced quality of WoW).
Blizzard was undeniably the best game developer at the time when Vanilla WoW were at it's highest.
I really thought WoW was a great game up until WotLK. Particularly Vanilla was really enjoyable. It's gotten progressively worse though as they've put in more and more of the elements that cater too much to a casual audience. Everything has just been made way too linear. It's all about doing what Blizzard lays out for you in order to get a reward, without any uniqueness to it.
But then, for every 1 person who feels the game is too casual, there are apparently 900 who would prefer the game hand everything to them. Which is why video game audiences are getting more and more splintered today. Back in the day there were a lot fewer titles that a person would likely be playing, but today it's more about games that fill a particular niche.
So you end up with modern day Blizzard, creating games that appeal as best they can to the largest possible audience, but critically are a disaster. Unfortunately, this is why a lot of people don't think TITAN will be as great as it could be. It seems unlikely they would deviate from the current WoW model... but I really hope they do.
1
That "technology" as you say isn't a wow factor anymore. No ones wowed by special effects. Entire movies are produced without actors now and on low budgets. You have to have a compelling story and a point of reference to become engaged in what's being shown to you.
Not to mention that has NOTHING to do with the first 30 or whatever seconds of that insane weird ass artstyle that looks NOTHING like Diablo and it doesn't remind me of ANY of the past Diablo games at all. I have no idea what I was watching and if it hadn't been for the hooded angels I would've been very confused. I have no idea where that art style came from as a past Diablo player. Ultimately, the intro feels nothing like Diablo.
1
The intro for Diablo 3 doesn't set us up as players in any way. We don't gain knowledge via watching the intro nor do we feel like we are learning anything. It doesn't tell us anything about the story nor does it give us a point of reference. I have no idea who Leah is and she shows me nothing about herself. I can only assume shes important because shes in the cinematic, not because of what it tells me.
Cain is there for a split second and then the church falls to pieces and it ends.
The first 30 seconds or whatever of Angels fighting Demons in some weirdly drawn artstyle tells me nothing either. It's a Diablo game. I already am fully aware of Angels and Demons fighting one another. I am the PLAYER. What am I, the player, going to be doing in this game? Fighting the Demons? Fighting the Angels? Fighting both? Who is my enemy? What is my goal? What am I being INTRODUCED to? You have not told me ANYTHING. Just made me more clueless. Not in a good "I want to know more" way either.
Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 had clear cut intro cinematics that were both highly engaging and very "introductory."
What I saw in this cinematic that was just released was nothing short of mockery of the past games introductions and it might as well have been a random cut scene from game that has nothing to do with Diablo.
Very poor job Blizzard. I'm beginning to wonder how Diablo 3 will turn out without Blizzard North as you've so clearly indicated the stark differences already.
The only people who find this introduction impressive simply haven't been playing Diablo for 17 years. Either that or they never paid attention to Diablo 2's cinematic masterpieces.
2
The cinematic was boring, uninformative, and simply unfitting to introduce us to the world of Diablo with some weird drawings of Angels and Demons fighting.
Compare this, if you will, to the cinematic intro of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w44SmMFy5Dc
And
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRhY5OXtLd0
Sorry Blizzard.
Your intro was disappointing and bland.
1
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.
1
A day after we are given the news that Diablo 3 will not ship in 2011.
Coincidence?
No. Not at all.
Blizzard has really annoyed me this time. And it's not like before. It's not like when I knew they were taking additional time to make quality games. It's a new animal entirely. It's when I know they are competing with other companies and deliberately pushing things around as to garner the largest market share of their sales and titles.
And at first, I was a little dubious. I was thinking, perhaps Blizzard sees some areas of the game not polished. Then I thought, there's no possible way with a design team as competent and as rich as Blizzard's that 2008 to 2011 wasn't enough time to fully complete Diablo 3, plus all the time before they even announced its development to us. I told myself, theres no possible way Diablo 3 could need an additional month or two of polishing. Time that will inherently go into packaging the game and producing it for sale on the market.
And then the SWTOR announcement hit. And it solidified all my doubts and totally re-established my belief that Blizzard is not in this for us and their motto that they are is delusional.
Hear me out.
They pushed back Diablo 3 to 2012 because they knew Diablo 3 would be releasing within the same month/time frame as SWTOR before we knew the release date. They even made sure to tell us before SWTOR's date was announced. This is a marketing strategy. They will sell Diablo 3 when the market has already been over-saturated by SWTOR and the initial hype is wearing down.
And because of Blizzard's ... Whatever you'd call this, we now have to wait even longer for Diablo 3. After already waiting 11 years. They want us to wait longer. To release the same exact game they would have released this year. All because they want to suck up as much money as possible and SWTOR could be a possible deterrent for releasing in the 2011 season. And of course, it's to "polish" the game. Polish a game that's been in development for 3,000 years.
1
How about spend your time DEVELOPING EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of the game anyone could ever want, rather than going...
"LOLZ WE'RE LAZY SO IF WE DEVELOP CLASSES USING EVERY WEAPON IT'D CUT INTO OTHER FEATURES."
Uhhh... WHY.
Dont you have the resources to do WHATEVER you want and take as long as you want?
All I can see is a Diablo 3 less like the previous Diablo's and more like World of Warcraft and Activision. This is complete crap.
Edit:
Bashiok's conversation translated -
"We're taking out more stuff in Diablo 3 that made Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 great."