Blizzard's hubris screwed over Diablo 3

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm in act 2 nightmare and am bored out of my mind. Loved the first two games, though, so I don't think it's that I don't like dungeon crawlers... it's just that D3 doesn't have the oomph that the first two games, and many other dungeon crawlers, seem to have. Maybe it's because I don't feel like being bored to tears until late Hell/Inferno before the game is challenging enough for me to pay attention.

I don't think "hubris," matters here. Blizzard is entirely too big to fail, which means they can essentially do whatever the hell they want. What's ten people not buying their game gonna do? They probably spend more on A/C for the company gym in a day than they'd lose from potential lost sales. It's frustrating, but it's just the way of things - once you're rich enough, you can pretty much do whatever you want.

[stgeorge78]

OP, you need sources for your claimed quotes else your going to end up reported for hate-mongering and trolling.


I will go ahead and assure you that there are no quotes from Bashiok stating anything like what you stated.If anything, he specifically has been a champion of "easy to understand, deep mechanics" which flies in the face of your magic quote.

The full quote (if you even bothered to spend a second looking it up) is as such:

It would be foolish to say we'll be able to squash every bug, but we have a QA department that is large enough to test a massive online game like World of Warcraft, and so we feel very confident that we'll be able to test and release an extremely high quality four player co-op game like Diablo III without having to open it up to public testing.
-Bashiok

Of course, he deleted it just like he deletes all of his dumb remarks, but thankfully someone recorded it at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3196392236 and http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/2690871224 and http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...olish-the-game.

And oh hey, even on http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...342532/?page=1

So tired of lazy people who refuse to do even basic research and then resort to calling people trolls.

[Porimlys]

*shrugs*

I think Diablo 3 is great. Can't please everyone I suppose.

[artem123]

TLDR version:

OP is too much of a baddie to clear past inferno act 2, complains about how blizzard did not test the game enough.

Op is also full of shit, saying that Blizzard did not test Inferno mode, when there are several statements saying that NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE OFFICE HAS MANAGED TO BEAT INFERNO MODE AS OF YET. (this was before launch ofcourse)

i would also like to add the OP probably never played D2 / D1

[noralya]

The stress test was a marketing stunt and not initiated by their technical team as evidenced by the failure to launch successfully

Considering that within a week, Diablo 3 had 6M players, I'd say it was a pretty succesful launch, nobody, NOBODY, could ever had imagined the magnitude of the launch.

[IxilaFA]

The full quote (if you even bothered to spend a second looking it up) is as such:

It would be foolish to say we'll be able to squash every bug, but we have a QA department that is large enough to test a massive online game like World of Warcraft, and so we feel very confident that we'll be able to test and release an extremely high quality four player co-op game like Diablo III without having to open it up to public testing.
-Bashiok

Of course, he deleted it just like he deletes all of his dumb remarks, but thankfully someone recorded it at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3196392236 and http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/2690871224 and http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...olish-the-game.

And oh hey, even on http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...342532/?page=1

So tired of lazy people who refuse to do even basic research and then resort to calling people trolls.

I fail to see how that quote supports your argument. Bash is correct, Blizzard is able to successfully test WoW, why shouldn't they be able to test Diablo internally? I bet you didn't know that a big majority of single player games are tested internally, and do not have open betas such as WoW and most MMOs, did you?

[stgeorge78]

i think the game is awesome, i have had no issues with it outside of day one connectivity and even that wasn't that big of a surprise since i remember day 1 wow and expansions, and if anything it went better than wow in that once i was online it wasn't a lag fest. soo. i don't really understand what everyone is complaining about.

whats broken about inferno? the mobs killing you? they are supposed to do that, man up and think harder how to kill them, or get better gear.

There is no better gear available for Barbarians. Act 1 gear is numerically limited so that the perfect max you can get is 500 dps 1H, 200 resist all and about 6000 armor. Even with twice that, you will still rocked in Act 2 (anyone claiming otherwise either is flat out lying or a YouTube celebrity with perfectly farmed and gifted gear from his hundreds of fans like Athene or Kripp or Psycraft) Anyone claiming they have "better" gear, bought it from the AH and is in fact using Act 4 gear (you can tell because Act 4 gear has 6 affixes for Rare gear). So man up and show us your gear or post a video of you "clearing" Act 2 as a Barbarian wearing only Act 1 gear - when in fact, the truth is either you never played a Barbarian in Inferno or you are probably running like a girl from checkpoint to checkpoint corpse grinding your way to the end of the Act.

Trust me, no one will take up that challenge because it's simply not possible.

One person on the official forums made a claim that Barbarians are viable in Act 2 and when challenged on it, he turned out to have 65k dps, 1200 resist all and 15000 armor from about 50 million gold worth of gear... and he was still dying in Act 2 if he took on elites.

It's broken. Blizzard knows it broken, but since they aren't collecting a monthly fee, it won't be fixed until the expansion.

---------- Post added 2012-06-03 at 03:29 AM ----------

I fail to see how that quote supports your argument. Bash is correct, Blizzard is able to successfully test WoW, why shouldn't they be able to test Diablo internally? I bet you didn't know that a big majority of single player games are tested internally, and do not have open betas such as WoW and most MMOs, did you?

Diablo 3 is just as complex as WoW - in fact, overwhelmingly complex when you consider the builds, combinations of scaling to players and difficulty levels. Blizzard successfully tests WoW by putting the entire game out for beta (like MoP is right now to over one million people).

They failed to successfully test Diablo 3. No one is claiming Normal through Hell wasn't well tested, they did a fine job on that. But Inferno, they admit themselves they could not beat it, which means they did not test it end-to-end. There is no one at Blizzard who tested a Barbarian using Act 1 gear.

Whatever testing they did was completely invalidated when at the last minute, they doubled all the damage and health numbers in Inferno. Anyone who works professionally as a QA person would quit if they cared about their integrity if they were forced to OK a game that got changed like that right before launch without any testing.

[Fuzzykins]

There is no better gear available for Barbarians. Act 1 gear is numerically limited so that the perfect max you can get is 500 dps 1H, 200 resist all and about 6000 armor. Even with twice that, you will still rocked in Act 2 (anyone claiming otherwise either is flat out lying or a YouTube celebrity with perfectly farmed and gifted gear from his hundreds of fans like Athene or Kripp or Psycraft) Anyone claiming they have "better" gear, bought it from the AH and is in fact using Act 4 gear (you can tell because Act 4 gear has 6 affixes for Rare gear). So man up and show us your gear or post a video of you "clearing" Act 2 as a Barbarian wearing only Act 1 gear - when in fact, the truth is either you never played a Barbarian in Inferno or you are probably running like a girl from checkpoint to checkpoint corpse grinding your way to the end of the Act.

Trust me, no one will take up that challenge because it's simply not possible.

One person on the official forums made a claim that Barbarians are viable in Act 2 and when challenged on it, he turned out to have 65k dps, 1200 resist all and 15000 armor from about 50 million gold worth of gear... and he was still dying in Act 2 if he took on elites.

It's broken. Blizzard knows it broken, but since they aren't collecting a monthly fee, it won't be fixed until the expansion.

---------- Post added 2012-06-03 at 03:29 AM ----------



Diablo 3 is just as complex as WoW - in fact, overwhelmingly complex when you consider the builds, combinations of scaling to players and difficulty levels. Blizzard successfully tests WoW by putting the entire game out for beta (like MoP is right now to over one million people).

They failed to successfully test Diablo 3. No one is claiming Normal through Hell wasn't well tested, they did a fine job on that. But Inferno, they admit themselves they could not beat it, which means they did not test it end-to-end. There is no one at Blizzard who tested a Barbarian using Act 1 gear.

Whatever testing they did was completely invalidated when at the last minute, they doubled all the damage and health numbers in Inferno. Anyone who works professionally as a QA person would quit if they cared about their integrity if they were forced to OK a game that got changed like that right before launch without any testing.

Wait, what? 500dps? I've gotten a 900 dps staff in Act I. ~.o No clue what you're doing wrong.

[ZenX]

There is no better gear available for Barbarians. Act 1 gear is numerically limited so that the perfect max you can get is 500 dps 1H, 200 resist all and about 6000 armor. Even with twice that, you will still rocked in Act 2 (anyone claiming otherwise either is flat out lying or a YouTube celebrity with perfectly farmed and gifted gear from his hundreds of fans like Athene or Kripp or Psycraft) Anyone claiming they have "better" gear, bought it from the AH and is in fact using Act 4 gear (you can tell because Act 4 gear has 6 affixes for Rare gear). So man up and show us your gear or post a video of you "clearing" Act 2 as a Barbarian wearing only Act 1 gear - when in fact, the truth is either you never played a Barbarian in Inferno or you are probably running like a girl from checkpoint to checkpoint corpse grinding your way to the end of the Act.

Trust me, no one will take up that challenge because it's simply not possible.

One person on the official forums made a claim that Barbarians are viable in Act 2 and when challenged on it, he turned out to have 65k dps, 1200 resist all and 15000 armor from about 50 million gold worth of gear... and he was still dying in Act 2 if he took on elites.

It's broken. Blizzard knows it broken, but since they aren't collecting a monthly fee, it won't be fixed until the expansion.

---------- Post added 2012-06-03 at 03:29 AM ----------



Diablo 3 is just as complex as WoW - in fact, overwhelmingly complex when you consider the builds, combinations of scaling to players and difficulty levels. Blizzard successfully tests WoW by putting the entire game out for beta (like MoP is right now to over one million people).

They failed to successfully test Diablo 3. No one is claiming Normal through Hell wasn't well tested, they did a fine job on that. But Inferno, they admit themselves they could not beat it, which means they did not test it end-to-end. There is no one at Blizzard who tested a Barbarian using Act 1 gear.

Whatever testing they did was completely invalidated when at the last minute, they doubled all the damage and health numbers in Inferno. Anyone who works professionally as a QA person would quit if they cared about their integrity if they were forced to OK a game that got changed like that right before launch without any testing.

Its not broken but rather a bit undertuned compared to other classes and by the way Diablo has never been a game of balance so this is not really broken but rather works as intended as well as being an improvement over insta-dying shouting Barb of D2.

[stgeorge78]

Considering that within a week, Diablo 3 had 6M players, I'd say it was a pretty succesful launch, nobody, NOBODY, could ever had imagined the magnitude of the launch.

If you think Blizzard had no idea, when they knew exactly how many AP people were getting Diablo 3, exactly how many people ordered digital copies (only way to get it digitally was from Blizzard) and exactly how many boxes they shipped to retail. It is very naive to think that nobody, NOBODY could ever had imagined the magnitude of the launch.

What happened is that Blizzard chose not to purchase new servers and line up bandwidth providers to handle the launch. Why? Because it costs money and the bean counters know that the launch volume is a one-time event and that they could just say "screw the launch morons" and let them suffer for hours with Error 37. This was the only purpose of the open beta, to ensure that their error messages were working. They never had any intention of having a smooth launch (that's expensive). They know that the concurrency will drop a week or two later. Sorry, but that's hard business. Blizzard screws over their most ardent and devoted fans without so much as breaking a sweat nowadays. You are a means to generate revenue for their corporate welfare. When you accept that, then you can understand their motivations more clearly.

[Deleted]

The full quote (if you even bothered to spend a second looking it up) is as such:

It would be foolish to say we'll be able to squash every bug, but we have a QA department that is large enough to test a massive online game like World of Warcraft, and so we feel very confident that we'll be able to test and release an extremely high quality four player co-op game like Diablo III without having to open it up to public testing.
-Bashiok

Of course, he deleted it just like he deletes all of his dumb remarks, but thankfully someone recorded it at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3196392236 and http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/2690871224 and http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...olish-the-game.

And oh hey, even on http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...342532/?page=1

So tired of lazy people who refuse to do even basic research and then resort to calling people trolls.

Welcome to forums (and discussions in general) Here's a tip - It's not OUR job to research sources when YOU are claiming something.

[stgeorge78]

Wait, what? 500dps? I've gotten a 900 dps staff in Act I. ~.o No clue what you're doing wrong.

Wow, I'm sure you're enjoying that TWO-HANDED STAFF as a Barbarian. Oh wait, of course you're not a Barbarian or you'd have a clue what I'm talking about. Read the post again.

[RoKPaNda]

Pretty sure Blizzard stated that earlier on they got Inferno to a point that they thought was good enough difficulty wise and then they doubled it. Then they tested it extensively. Pretty sure the OP is full of made up statements. :/

[Fuzzykins]

Wow, I'm sure you're enjoying that TWO-HANDED STAFF as a Barbarian. Oh wait, of course you're not a Barbarian or you'd have a clue what I'm talking about. Read the post again.

I'm just saying, I don't think the disparity between damage on one handed and two handed is that different. In fact, if you want a 1 handed sword with over 500 dps. I'll toss one over, I've got a few lying around. Heh.

[Deleted]

I'm in act 2 nightmare and am bored out of my mind. Loved the first two games, though, so I don't think it's that I don't like dungeon crawlers... it's just that D3 doesn't have the oomph that the first two games, and many other dungeon crawlers, seem to have. Maybe it's because I don't feel like being bored to tears until late Hell/Inferno before the game is challenging enough for me to pay attention.

I don't think "hubris," matters here. Blizzard is entirely too big to fail, which means they can essentially do whatever the hell they want. What's ten people not buying their game gonna do? They probably spend more on A/C for the company gym in a day than they'd lose from potential lost sales. It's frustrating, but it's just the way of things - once you're rich enough, you can pretty much do whatever you want.

1. Your memory of D1 + D2 betrays you! Would there be more "oomph" if D3 means walking through 16 random levels of the same cave? Diablo was always a simple game, don't try to make it more than it was.

2. From Wikipedia since I'm too lazy now to write a rant myself:
"Too big to fail" is an American English colloquial term in regulation and public policy describing certain U.S. financial institutions as so large and so interconnected that their failure will be disastrous to the economy, and therefore the federal government has a responsibility to support them when they face difficulty."

I hate when people have no idea what they are talkin about!

Blizzard is not to big to fail. If their products were as bad as some (forum) users try to make them they would be already dead. Since they seem to do quiet well, I guess their products might be not so bad.

[stgeorge78]

Welcome to forums (and discussions in general) Here's a tip - It's not OUR job to research sources when YOU are claiming something.

It is your job to think for yourself - people who need to be spoon fed information are a drain on society. The attitude that everyone is a lying troll is pathetic. Of course, not one person will admit they were wrong and that Bashiok would never make a fool statement.

[Deleted]

It is your job to think for yourself - people who need to be spoon fed information are a drain on society. The attitude that everyone is a lying troll is pathetic. Of course, not one person will admit they were wrong and that Bashiok would never make a fool statement.

Is it better to assume everyone is telling the truth, and we're to find out for ourselves if it's not the case? Kinda goes agains't critical thinking, doesn't it?

I could sit here and say "Hey guys, Ghostcrawler once said that all Warlocks will be removed in 2013. I don't have the sources for that quote, so you'll to take my word for it. If you want to find out, find the information yourself."

Using your logic here, as long as no one finds said material (because I claim it exists), I'm not actually in the wrong. I could potentially never be in the wrong. Which is a fallacy in every respect.

If you claim something, you need something concrete to back it up with - it's not up to me to "verify" what you're saying here.

EDIT: That said, you have provided the source material NOW, but you really should've opened with it.

[Duskmourne]

I love the game, but I do agree with the idea that inferno was not properly tested. Even if you love the game, open your mind and think about how progression has played out in it.

[Fuzzykins]

I love the game, but I do agree with the idea that inferno was not properly tested. Even if you love the game, open your mind and think about how progression has played out in it.

I have to say, I'd be really disappointed if I had beaten inferno at this point. Nearly 140 gameplay hours in; I've gotten more playtime out of this than Skyrim, which makes it a major win in my book.

[Nekrus]

It is your job to think for yourself - people who need to be spoon fed information are a drain on society. The attitude that everyone is a lying troll is pathetic. Of course, not one person will admit they were wrong and that Bashiok would never make a fool statement.

Wrong op if you are going to make claims you need proof or anyone could just claim blizz said anything to suit their purpose. Second what you initially claimed bashiok said compared to what he actually said was different.