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Posted By Gabriel B. about 10 months, 2 weeks ago
Hey! Where did everybody go?
Blizzard has received quite a bit of flack over Diablo 3 since its release two months ago. First there were problems with players even being able to log-in and play the game (which only made people who were against the always online policy for the game even agrier), then the South Korean government forced Blizzard to give full refunds to players, now Blizzard is agreeing with gamers who have been dissatisfied with the endgame content. Yesterday, Micah “Bashiok,” a representative of Blizzard, posted on the battle.net forums saying:
“We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they’re going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven’t already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren’t going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it’s not there right now.”
In addition, while Bashiok hoped that the 1.0.4 patch would give fans of the games more to do, he stated that he realized that the real fix for the end game won’t be coming until after version 1.1 (which will incorporate PvP Arenas into the game) is released, which is still quite a ways off. as stated by Bashiok:
“I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they’re not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it’s a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out.”
So, what are your thoughts? Has too much emphasis been put on the end game of Diablo 3 instead of the entire dungeon-crawling experience? Will the upcoming patches be enough to sustain players or is the community going to dry up before long? Be sure to write your thoughts in the comments section below and keep following Blistered thumbs for all the latest gaming news.
Source: Forums Post
I do not mind the grinding and loot-searching at late levels in any of the Diablo series, never have and never will, however, I must say that Diablo 3′s beating of the higher difficulties is revolving more around finding better equipment just to flaunt with it rather than to use that better equipment to beat higher difficulties. Here’s hoping that PvP is not the only thing coming to Patch 1.1
Blizzard..kinda always had this problem. Heck these were the dudes of DLC back when they were just expansions you had to purchase in a store so leaving off the ending so they can sell more game later..isn’t really surprising. Its sad especially with the long development cycles of their games and not talking about this beforehand. If its gonna be another Starcraft 2 part 1 of 3..then I’m just gonna stick with Torchlight II.
I honestly couldn’t get myself to play past normal difficulty in Diablo 3. D3′s story is just so lack luster, anything beyond my 1st playthrough was just a total bore. The gameplay was fun, but not enough to make me want to play more than I did.
Nothing gave me a reason to care about getting the best loot. I had no intrest in the Diablo franchise until I found a great youtube video explaining the happenings from pre-diablo up to the end of 2, after that I was crazy hyped to play Diablo 3 and see how the story played out after the destruction of the world stone.
I had hoped for a battle to end all battles, I hoped to be in the middle of a heaven vs hell war, with both sides seeking my head, I hoped for a climax where I faught pure Evil incarnate and clensed the universe of the evils of hell forever, and stood as a god. What I got was a rehashed King Leoric, a good second act with the truely villainous Belial, a dredge though Azmodan’s pathetic ego trip, and an out-of-nowhere Dibalo who apparently had all the evils in him that somehow did not feel the least bit imposing and ended up feeling like just another domino to knock down.
I tried Hardcore mode, but after 3 hours, I disconnected to find my character dead upon login.
I purchased Diablo 3 on release. I wasted $60. VENTING FEELS GOOD.
I completely share that disappointment with multiple play-throughs. I was so excited for Demon Hunters but they go from feeling like a killing machine in normal mode to feeling so lackluster and neutered as the difficulty goes up, while in contrast my wizard felt like it turned into a total weapon of mass destruction around Act 3 in normal mode and never looked back.
You have to know that the best story telling was in the books not the games themselfs. You allowes to get yourself hyped on somebody else’s excitement over the series. People heard just Diablo 3 + Blizzard had instantly wet panties.
It was obvious it was going to be more of the same. More sub-par story telling, more hack and slash (this kind of games have hardly any replay value) and sub-par graphics (and that’s comming for a guy that doesen’t put stock in graphics). Good for a quick relaxation, but nothing praise worthy. Story of Diablo series.
1. Maxlevel is a given, no levelrace, no ladders
2. No need to reroll any char, since you get everything with one of every class (except gender…..yet)
3. No PKing, haven’t read anything about that being enabled when 1.1 hits
4. Diminiutive party size
5. The AH, RM or not, is beyond stupid in a game where 90% of the motivation is the hunt for better items
So..yeah.
Also, I don’t really have any sort of beef with Blizzard’s CMs on their forums, most I’ve seen posting seem honest enough though I have seen one or two here and there with seemingly very bad attitudes. I don’t watch the forums 24/7 so someone who does can probably paint a different picture of that than I can. That being said I don’t envy them being put into positions like this to be the mouthpiece when the company is having problems and gamers are working up into a frenzy. Their position is like having Godzilla running loose and you’re the guy telling Tokyo not to panic.
They left a few loose ends **cough**Adria**cough** to cash in on for future expansion pack but that’s about it. PVP Arenas and all this talk of expanding end-game content feels like they really ARE trying to turn this in any other MMO instead of a dungeon crawler. Just without the open-world elements, sandbox gameplay, deciding where you go, what you do, when you go there, raids, and in-depth customization.
My question is how the expansions will work when they get to them. Will they have all difficulty modes so you pick them up on any difficulty you’ve completed or are you going to obligate people to level cap and do Inferno mode who just plain don’t care to in order to play the expansion four times in a row before another expansion comes out. That’s something they need to make a decision on NOW and they need to make it VERY CLEAR so it can be thoroughly evaluated before they go too far with it.
I’m surprised they didn’t account for this seeing as they really wanted to make the real money auction-house a cash cow. Frankly I found the whole game rather lacking and I only had the motivation to play the story once, let alone two more times. If I were them I’d add a PvE arena like Smash TV as well as the PvP because not everyone is into that.
Today is a different age in gaming… The End-Game in games has to be there, or the game is simply discarded like the latest $40 console title. Right now… Diablo 3 doesn’t have that staying power. PvP Arena will be good… bu it won’t be long before it’s dominated by people who throw money at gear and follow cheesy cookie cutter builds, and then it’ll die again.
This ^^^
I’m on Inferno and I’ve gotten through pretty much everything. Not gonna lie, I’m getting bored fast and I have no interest in PVP.
The game will stick around, but it won’t be near as popular long term as they were hoping and there’s simply no feasible way around that. Diablo is not a traditional MMO – It’s a dungeon crawler/hack-n-slash… If you run out of dungeon, you run out of interest.
And yes, the story irked me too…soo many major plot holes for the sake of looking pretty.
Dafuq is this “MMO”, “tradittional MMO” and “End-Game content” talk in my Diablo thread. There is nothing waranting the MM part of MMO in any of the Diablo games. If diablo 3 had any of the sorts ppl would be up in arms like yelling clip: http://youtu.be/nF_Ca45JRFs
People went up in arms over allways online DRM as it is.
I allways find it funny how much stock people put in story in Diablo series. Sotry? What story?
Diablo 1 we never more than the Satan is bad, you go kill it.
D2 had a really bad attempt at story: a) the PC didn’t even factor in the sory being told by those beatiful cut scenes in D2
b)wtf you mean misterious traveler? he’s the guy that saved you collective asses from the diablo AND he’s apparently the retarded prince, your effin lord
c) the protagonist in D1 must be really stupid if he saw that soulstone+his own younger borother = diablo and thought showing this vile stone of evil in me will be just fine (I know he wished to contain the evil of Diablo, but doing that was just stupid, he didn’t know what exactly was that and didn’t consoult either cain or aria).
And for all the many faoults D3 has, I still enjoyed it as much ad D1 witch is waay more than D2 witch was just too long for the story it contained.
I got mostly what I expected (meaning just that apparently I didn’t expect nearly as much as most of others) – it was less customisable, but also less boring that D2.
Actually the ending of Diablo 1 eluded to the sequel baiting and I believe that they were going to continue the plot at the time of you traveling to the east to seek salvation from your actions at the end of Diablo 1, which could of been a interesting concept for D2, playing a slowly turning insane dark wanderer trying to keep Diablo’s soul contained. Or that is what I believe would of been the sequel’s intent.
However they opted for all three heroes of the last game to be corrupted by diablo’s influence and thus be killed off by the later ones. Also in D3 just now they start using the novels being made and establishing what little setting that exists even if it was poorly paced or terribly enacted.
Though in my opinion the largest travesty diablo 3 did to me wasn’t in story but it’s mostly the gameplay, a build isn’t what kind of skills you feel like “adding” to your skill slots, and why is my base magic missile damage based on weapon DPS of any weapon, why am I stuck with arbitrary limits on skill choice such as “defensive” and “offensive” skills. No really this game had potential but they gave so many omissions and at that price I really can’t recommend it, and most of the large gaming press reviewers really put the wool over my eyes saying D3 was good when I could very well state it had worst technical problems at launch then Brink.
Oh yes it was definetively sequel baiting. Even the earliest trailers were going allong the same line, they were following the PC from D1. It would have been a great stroy if it was executed well. But then in D2 whenever anyone refers to the dark wonderer it’s never mentioned that he’s the hero that save Tristram from Diablo’s terror.
The ever more moulding of classes tendency comes from D2 (in D1 you basicaly had 3 variants of the same character). Not that it it’s necesarily a good thing, but there it was. Also as a demon hunter, unless I have ranged weapons like bow, xbow or hand xbow, i ncant use half of may abillities.
But I definitively Agree, story from D3 is severely lacking, as is content at least for the full 60$ price.
Shame that a 60$ game is showing less longevity then a free to play called Path of Exile, or Torchlight 2 (20$ and you get Torchlight 1 with that) on the horizon though. I mean D3 could of benefited so much if it was willing to show the dedication Runic or Grinding Gear Games is showing right now with these two titles.
Really I think the mass disappointment is the value of the game and it not really living up to the expectations it set itself out to be.
I… really can’t understand the praise for the lack of customizing skills, or to have everything unlocked, or the on the fly respec with no real penalty. The game honestly gave me buyers remorse when I noticed they even removed transmuting and the ability to really customize weapons or make rune words.
In other news, the sky is blue.