It looks like we will not be seeing the PvP Arena system at release. However this will be patched in after release. Oddly enough this seems to be tagged with Sign of Release
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(As we’re counting down the days until we’re ready to announce a release date for Diablo III, we’ve come to realize that the PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards. Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve made the difficult decision to hold back the PvP Arena system and release it in a patch following the game’s launch. After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete.
While we work on making sure PvP lives up to its full potential, we hope you’ll find some consolation in the fact that soon, you’ll be having a blast leveling characters, finding items, learning the classes, and perfecting builds…and that when the Arenas do arrive, you’ll be all the better prepared for battle.
When the PvP patch is ultimately ready, it will add multiple Arena maps with themed locations and layouts, PvP-centric achievements, and a matchmaking system that will help you and your team get into fairly matched games quickly and easily. We’ll also be adding a personal progression system that will reward you for successfully bashing in the other team’s skulls.
We know a lot of you are looking forward to PvP, and we’ll be focusing our post-launch efforts on making sure the Arenas are as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be. In the meantime, we’re in the process of putting the finishing touches on what we think is a truly epic campaign and co-op experience for launch.
We’ll have a lot more info to share on the PvP system in the future, and we look forward to the moment we can get the game into your hands.
While we work on making sure PvP lives up to its full potential, we hope you’ll find some consolation in the fact that soon, you’ll be having a blast leveling characters, finding items, learning the classes, and perfecting builds…and that when the Arenas do arrive, you’ll be all the better prepared for battle.
When the PvP patch is ultimately ready, it will add multiple Arena maps with themed locations and layouts, PvP-centric achievements, and a matchmaking system that will help you and your team get into fairly matched games quickly and easily. We’ll also be adding a personal progression system that will reward you for successfully bashing in the other team’s skulls.
We know a lot of you are looking forward to PvP, and we’ll be focusing our post-launch efforts on making sure the Arenas are as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be. In the meantime, we’re in the process of putting the finishing touches on what we think is a truly epic campaign and co-op experience for launch.
We’ll have a lot more info to share on the PvP system in the future, and we look forward to the moment we can get the game into your hands.
They spend way too long on a whole bunch of changes, then say they cant add PvP for launch? What the actual fuck?
The little fucking indie dev that could GGG is rolling out PvP for its Beta in the next couple of weeks, they dont even have 1/10th of the funds that blizzard has, but yet apparently 10x the production team. This is a fucking disgrace. Every piece of information on this game I've read in the last 3 months has been a disappointment.
ill be 60 in less than a week, so unless they plan to have a major content patch roll out in week one, this will hands down for me honestly call blizzard a FAIL piece of shit. This one, takes the cake.
Scrap more systems, scrap more itemization, scrap the fucking enchanter, hell, why dont you just scrap the game? You're clearly not ready to release it, and cutting major systems is NOT the way to go about it. That whole "we take our time to do shit right" philosophy has just been completely contradicted time, and time again.
Release it tomorrow, idgaf, because if you release this without PvP and the first batch of people hit inferno and they cant PvP, you've fucking failed.
Thank god I found Path of Exiles, thank god indeed.
Blizzard does take their time, until its clear they are out of time.
They need to get D3 out in front of MoP, their real cash cow. This is the reason for the "rush".
It sucks for the people who do want to pvp. But you cant expect people who dont want to pvp to give a crap that it wont be in release is what im saying. And the fact that you are shocked that a major system wont be in the release of a Blizzard game makes me wonder if you have ever played any of their other games...
Blah blah blah... oh wait, what is this? Let's take a closer look.
I'm just taken aback by it is all. Neither good nor bad, just very unexpected.
I'm going to echo your thoughts here..
This hurts to read.. but my reaction is split between being utterly depressed that I can't get into the PvP game right away and knowing they made a tough call to get the game out sooner.. which makes me happy.
Some one above posted "maximum of two months to get the PvP patch out".. I really hope it happens that fast.. if it does.. I can almost happily deal with it.. if it takes longer than that.. like in the 6mo - year range.. it will really really be a bad thing.
Not to mention, this is going to make the wait till D3x that much longer..
Well.. ultimately.. this means we can all but expect a release date on monday. We got a "couting the days" out of the lead game designer.. days means.. just that.. days.. and its 3 days till Monday.. they always announce release dates on mondays.
Here is hoping for a sooner than accpected date.. such as April 17th or 24th.
If their work with patching channels and shit into SC2 then expect PvP patch in about half a year. I can't believe how bad they are doing at developing this game it's comical. 10+ years to develop it and they still have no idea what they are doing. Do us a favor Blizzard, release the game...and just let it die. Diablo would of been better off dying with 2 and at least go out on a win. Get Jay out of office cause that fool is confused as hell.
this is an acceptable cut to get the game to us ASAP. this just makes me believe itll be a very short time frame between release announcement and release, because if they had 8-12 weeks they would be able to finish this
And I'll tell you what else it is - last I checked, PVP doesn't drop items that can be sold on the RMAH. Therefore, one could make the case that leaving out PVP for a while could very well end up putting more items on the RMAH if players choose to farm items until PVP arrives. Everyone will want the best gear when that day comes. Blizzard hopes you go to the RMAH for your upgrades. End result = No PVP means more profit for Blizzard.
While I'm hopeful that it will be ready for us by the time I've got a level 60, I can't say I'm too confident in Blizzard's ability to release content within a reasonable time span... I guess I'll be stalking some sort of release date even after I've got my hands on the game.
PvP patch later is still good news. I don't want to PvP without playing the characters and knowing their strengths and weaknesses first.
"Awesome job Blizzard. They are obviously only cutting those two classes so that they will be totatlly awesome when they finally release them six months from now and this will give me more time to play the other three classes!!!"