So i dont get why Diablo 3 "failed"

[Dyminator]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, their opinion doesn't represent the facts...
Anyway, it's not the length of the game that is most important IMO, and the story telling in D3 is awesome.

D3 was too short? too few ACTS that is? say that to the players who cleared Diablo II in 5 hours (ALL ACTS)

And people play it because they love hack'n'slash and smashing through waves of demons etc.
I love playing throught the same content, i'm having a great time smashing through everything with my barb.

And ofc there's the fact that we don't have any offline mode, but with an offline mode there wouldn't be any Auction House, and if you think about it, it could take many months to aquire the appropriate gear to clear the game on Inferno mode.(for the people whining about gear is too quick/easy to aquire)

The game haven't been out for very long.
And there are yet more content to come, like PvP and future expansions and fixes.

The game haven't failed at all, not by a long shot.

[Deleted]

simple comparison with Wow:

Why didn't I get tired farming dungeons in Wow for hundreeds of hours? cause at the end of each week I know I'm able to buy an upgrade, and theres always a goal to achive: raiding.

Why do I get bored farming diablo 3 after ~30 hours farming inferno? cause I Have no guarantee getting anything at all, even if I played hundreeds of hours. Also when you kill diablo inferno the game is pretty much finished.

D3 needs some kind of reward guarantee for playing long enough and an endgame goal.

As it is diablo is "just" an ordinary game that you're done with after completing it. I don't know about you but when I buy a Blizzard game, I expect more than an ordinary game.
Now I just hope blizz won't become an ordinary developper

[Dyminator]

madonna has sold more than 300 million records so far but that doesnt mean shes a good singer right? GET THAT?

That might be your opinion about madonna, but obviously there's 300,000,000 people who like her music?.
SO! So what you are saying is Diablo 3 is bad and has failed because YOU (and a few others) doesn't like the game? great man, just great thinking.

[Ihnasir]

The reason I see it failed is that most gamers now expect to run through things and beat them as quickly as possible. They complain about how easy it is, they complain about how hard it is. There's been games out nowadays that have corrupted the mind of the average gamer, like the FPS games that require little time, effort, or skill. The other side is that many people who had never played anything in the Diablo series and were expecting an MMO. Many features that are much more WoW than Diablo, did make it to the final game. I think the reason most people see it "failed" is because it wasn't what they wanted, either not their cup of tea because they were expecting another WoW, or, many hardcore fans had waited 12 years and were dissatisifed with it not being what they remembered. People grow a lot in 12 years.

[Repefe]

That might be your opinion about madonna, but obviously there's 300,000,000 people who like her music?.
SO! So what you are saying is Diablo 3 is bad and has failed because YOU (and a few others) doesn't like the game? great man, just great thinking.

The sales don't prove quality of the game in either way; good or bad. Ppl bought the game based on hype, not quality.

[Azerox]

All those sold copys i dont call a failure at all .. even if alot of people stopped.

Even they might even buy a expansion or more.

[Deleted]

"No endgame"? This is why I predicted people would hate Diablo 3. They think it's going to be like WoW.

[quras]

All those sold copys i dont call a failure at all .. even if alot of people stopped.

Even they might even buy a expansion or more.

D3 - Very successful business venture due to hype and playing off the franchise.

D3 - Failure as a quality video game with limited longevity due to to much business involvement and not good game creation.


A successful business venture and a game of good quality are two very different things.

[Faroth]

My friend says he felt Diablo 2 had more longevity because it was easy to farm rare items and you would barter them in trade chat rather than using an auction house. He feels it's more frustrating trying to farm rare items in D3 and using the AH is less enjoyable. He's seeing items that he'd be interested in for 400 million gold at the cheapest and it just basically is too much of a dull grind to try and get them.

In his opinion, Diablo 2 made gold near useless and items more valuable for trade and barter and that continued hunt was more fun. Diablo 3, he feels the rare items are less accessible and even when found yield pretty lousy items.

Just his opinion. I like Diablo 3 as it's held up to what I was expecting from it.

[Axxy]

I've not played previous Diablo titles so D3 was the first one I played.. The thing that really pisses me off is the totally unrealistic gear progression throughout the game.

My Barb was finishing off Hell and was struggling. Having not used the GAH, I checked out my gear, lvl27 neck, 2x lvl34 items, several lvl40+ and a couple of lvl50 stuff. In all that time, doing 3 modes I hadn't hardly got an upgrade to the stuff I was wearing. How sad I felt when I had to buy stuff off the AH to carry on playing in Inferno. There really was no need for this.

I checked out my alts, I had one of each class at various levels (20-30), all were undergeared, the lvl30 one particularly, still had a few <lvl10 items on. All I've done with them is kill Diablo on Normal and won't be playing them again, no point thanks to the AH.
Which brings me to Inferno on my Barb. I've been farming Act I for a couple of weeks now and I'm still in the same lvl56-60 gear I bought off AH to farm Act I in the first place. Granted, I don't have much MF, but you would expect with all the 100s/1000s of rares that have dropped that at least one of these would be useful? but no! I can't think of one item that has dropped that was even of use to a Barb, let alone something that was an upgrade.

It never ceases to amaze me that all the followers relics ALWAYS have the wrong stats on them, every time. Socketed rings with just a socket on them, ridiculously low dps lvl61-63 weapons, and the gear with the wrong stats on it for the classes. There is nothing random about the loot drops in D3, to me its the biggest single fail in the game, the feeling that you are playing for absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, I see more weaknesses in D3 than strengths, but despite all of that, I quite liked the game in the beginning. I played it through on my Barb and not too bothered about story after that, graphics are ok, character stats are a bit meh, but don't all games nowadays get released like that. What is surprising to me is, that I didn't think D3 had a shorter life expectancy than SWTOR. I'm getting to the point now, where even I'm getting bored farming Act I for nothing. Even panda's sound more fun than D3. wtf?

[shise]

If you ask me, it has failed because it's a consumerism and capitalism training tool at it's best.

Grind > sell >Real life money > again


A RP game should ONLY be about fun, RP and world immersion, not about freaking grinding to make real life money.

[Grogo]

The failure prob cannot be measured in terms of over-all sales, It can I suppose but in the now. I still play, I still like it...but it is the future that matters as well to deem success or failure.

Will people think twice about buying Blizz products in the future?

Will they unsub from wow due to their bitterness of their own D3 experience? Will they not buy it if unsubbed?

I do not know but did this release of D3 hurt Blizz in the long run? Not the short term.

[Geekissexy]

I doubt it "failed". I sold 6 million copies

This right here means absolutely nothing. It sold 6 million copies because of the reputation of the previous Diablo games and all the hype surrounding the fact that it had so many years to be in development. Everyone was expecting a complete jewel of a game.

To some people, they may be satisfied. Me on the other hand, I'm not. I beat the game on inferno (after the exploits were fixed, thank you) on my Wizard at about 150 hours played and I haven't touched the game since. I have no desire to level up another character or do the achievements because the game bores me half to death. I get tired of the fact that drop rates are fixed to help support the RMAH, and most upgrades I need are in the 20mil + gold range. No thank you.

The graphics are beautiful, I'll give it that.

[Deleted]

I followed the discussion with interest. I must say that i agree with those ones who think that Diablo 3 is a failure.
Diablo 3 tried in general so hard to be perfect for everyone and counter every "bad aspects" of his predecessor : exploits, lack of intuitivity, balance etc... That it finally especially succeeded to destroy all its personality, the potential of addiction which it got , its atmosphere, its freedom of movement and the sensation it got to the player who tried by all means to farm: for example the exploits to make runs +infinity to find better objects (not gameplay-wise in objectivity but a lot of addiction because find by the players and used by them), or to manage to find strange build maybe not that efficient as the others but who you feel like it's yours. It tried so hard to think at your place to kill the mistakes you can do (sometimes theses one make you want to play more to exceed them = more replay value), you have no more the sensations of fulfillment as before, it homogenizes the experience of the game for all the players at an objectively better level but at the cost of what makes a good Hack and Slash: addiction, the pleasure to abuse the game to get better gears faster that the others players, to be different, to feel stronger than the others (you can't denie it). It lost all the magic of Diablo 2. Plus a bad soundtrack, and a bad story frame with a worse atmosphere and you get a deceiving game for all the old players like me.

[Glorious Leader]

Anyway, it's not the length of the game that is most important IMO, and the story telling in D3 is awesome.

I almost spit coffee at my screen as I read this. The less said about D3's story the better. Frankly it was a phenomenal let down.

OT

The problems with diablo are many and varied but in summation the game IMO lacks any soul. In many ways it has some excellent systems and features but it's like a fancy car without an engine. So yes I do think it failed to deliver the experience gamers wanted. It sold well though if that's any consolation to you.

[Repefe]

I almost spit coffee at my screen as I read this. The less said about D3's story the better. Frankly it was a phenomenal let down.

Well maybe the story telling is good. Just that since the story is very bad, it does not show

[Dragonshardz]

It failed in my eyes due to several, very distinctive reasons:

1. It followed the same formula of development like Starcraft 2 - the same old game with a new engine. Nothing substantially new has been added... you'd think after a decade they would figure something out in order to innovate, but why fix what ain't broke right? Which lead to...

2. Less content - shorter maps (Act's) with fixated pats and abysmal rate of randomness (I could count all the available versions of any map on one hand), shorter and dumbed down story (not to say the original story was long and intricate, but after such a long time and hype running amok, you'd think they would put more work into it), no new gameplay elements (spells / abilities cut down and made "more accessible)...

3. RMAH dependency - crappy chance to get ANY type of actual upgrade... I can understand playing for a long time without getting something worthwhile but this is just laughable. The thing is, in Diablo 2 we had an easy time making money, the cost of repair wasn't so high, and we didn't need gold in order to buy items IN ORDER TO PASS FROM ONE ACT TO ANOTHER.

4. The most important reason - difficulty. In my own humble opinion, I believe the game is too easy. Don't laugh, bear with me. Diablo 2 had 3 difficulty settings: Normal, Nightmare and Hell. Now, arguably, Normal was OK in terms of progression... some might call it easy, even. Nightmare started the true test - it was difficult enough so you could die on a pack or two, but not that difficult to make you rage - quit. Hell difficulty was the pinnacle and it showed for it - even after I hit level 95 on my Zerker Paladin I could die from 1 blow on Act 1 elite packs. See it wasn't all about the gear - it had a decent amount of skill involved. Now, fast forward 10 years and you get 4 difficulty settings, 3 of which are a total JOKE with random gear. I managed to kill Diablo on Hell difficulty with a mix of ilevel 40 and 50 items of rare and blue quality, and I died once. Wow... Then I got STOMPED over by the first zombie in Inferno. Difficulty curve, an illusive paradigm that Diablo 3's creators had difficulty wrapping their minds around. Consistency? Hah, go fuck off and buy your items on AH. This is what ruined my gameplay experience the most.

All in all, when you sum all these things together (and not count the all the missed opportunities like the companions' back story, dialogue, etc) you get an above average hack and slash dungeon crawler with only it's name to tie in to the great game that was Diablo 2.

[Ravenblade]

Well maybe the story telling is good. Just that since the story is very bad, it does not show

Storytelling isn't good either and I am usually not really looking at storytelling in ARPGs anyway but Diablo 3 tried too hard here. The way which Diablo 2 did was okay.

The problem with Diablo 3's storytelling is that it tries to super-impose an epic storyline with all its jingles and bells but can't do this because the relation between storytelling and story is like that of a foot too small for a shoe. The storytelling is done through overuse of stylistic means for the sake of having made use of it all.

Your own character is simply detached from the world he is in. If it were not for those dark brown-greyish interludes your character if alone would be almost mute. He would not comment on anything. Your character is also just a condottiero. For a super-human he obviously is unable to take the initiative or lead the way.
The main characters you are supposed to interact with end up being the ones you care little about. Leah leading that list because you cannot really feel anything for her or not much more than you do say for your actual followers and she is supposed to be that central character the story is about. She's simply not in the centre enough. Mainly because they decided to lock Cain away into the realm of the dead.
Lastly they went the whole opposite way of conveying the evil intents of the minions of hell. Teasing you is one thing, constantly holo'ing in like Admiral Hackett after a mission report gets annoying fast and the linear "Just one more evil purple guy then you may fight me in person!"-style gets grating, predictable and annoying as well. Instead of building up tension they choose the means of expending the tension and gradually lowering it to the point where in the end the final boss - Diablo - does not feel more threatening than the first major boss you were fighting, the Butcher - the last boss to come as real surprise for the player as he didn't show up his face before or giving hints about his existence.

[Adam Jensen]

Storytelling isn't good either and I am usually not really looking at storytelling in ARPGs anyway but Diablo 3 tried too hard here. The way which Diablo 2 did was okay.

The problem with Diablo 3's storytelling is that it tries to super-impose an epic storyline with all its jingles and bells but can't do this because the relation between storytelling and story is like that of a foot too small for a shoe. The storytelling is done through overuse of stylistic means for the sake of having made use of it all.

Your own character is simply detached from the world he is in. If it were not for those dark brown-greyish interludes your character if alone would be almost mute. He would not comment on anything. Your character is also just a condottieri. For a super-human he obviously is unable to take the initiative or lead the way.
The main characters you are supposed to interact with end up being the ones you care little about. Leah leading that list because you cannot really feel anything for her or not much more than you do say for your actual followers and she is supposed to be that central character the story is about. She's simply not in the centre enough. Mainly because they decided to lock Cain away into the realm of the dead.
Lastly they went the whole opposite way of conveying the evil intents of the minions of hell. Teasing you is one thing, constantly holo'ing in like Admiral Hackett after a mission report gets annoying fast and the linear "Just one more evil purple guy then you may fight me in person!"-style gets grating, predictable and annoying fast. Instead of building up tension they choose the means of expending the tension and gradually lowering it to the point where in the end the final boss - Diablo - does not feel more threatening than the first major boss you are fighting, the Butcher - the last boss to come as real surprise for the player as he didn't show up his face before or giving hints for his existence.

I felt Leah was the protagonist for most of the story myself. Pissed me off. I'm not playing Leah, I'm playing my monk. Yet, I'm following Leah around? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

And the whole damn story was cliche and predictable. Oh ho! Zoltan betrays you . . . saw that coming a mile away. The stranger is Tyrael? Yeah, that was painfully obvious too. Adria betrays us? Yep, guessed that one. Granted, I was wrong about Leah, I thought she might be angel and didn't know it for some reason but still, for the most part, the whole story was very predictable and cliche.

Getting the crown for the skeleton king? Jesus, isn't that a quest in every old school RPG?

The cinematics were of course, very well done. Blizzard's cinematic team is beyond amazing. But that doesn't change how cheap the story was.

[Glorious Leader]

I felt Leah was the protagonist for most of the story myself. Pissed me off. I'm not playing Leah, I'm playing my monk. Yet, I'm following Leah around? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

And the whole damn story was cliche and predictable. Oh ho! Zoltan betrays you . . . saw that coming a mile away. The stranger is Tyrael? Yeah, that was painfully obvious too. Adria betrays us? Yep, guessed that one. Granted, I was wrong about Leah, I thought she might be angel and didn't know it for some reason but still, for the most part, the whole story was very predictable and cliche.

Getting the crown for the skeleton king? Jesus, isn't that a quest in every old school RPG?

The cinematics were of course, very well done. Blizzard's cinematic team is beyond amazing. But that doesn't change how cheap the story was.

Oh I knew about Leah the second she talked about having this power. I mean if that didn't do it for you the minute she shoots red beams out her hands it should be fairly obvious. Every betrayal is painfully obvious and every move made by every bad guy is told to you in the most cliched fashion. I was honestly surprised that I never found myself hanging precipitously over molten fire while some arch villain twirled his moustache and informed me of his evil deeds because he knew I was just about to die. They telegraph EVERYTHING to you in the most cliched fashion. Their worse than bond villains from the 60's. You expect me to talk Belial? No Mr.Wizard I expect you to die... mwahahahhahah

AS for the cinematics they were extremely high quality but I felt they lacked the over top action that we've gotten from previous blizzard cut scenes. I don't know Blizzard cut scenes have been sorta wishy washy as of late. I guess it's hard to make one as good as the tbc one but they all seem to lack action now.