"We'll release it when it's ready"... does blizzard still follow that philosophy?

[Fiercethirst]

i think they are still holding up to it...but honestly Diablo all the way through has NEVER been about pvp to hold back the game because of something they added for fun...like an additional addon or what ever you wanna call it....is just stupid why should i have to wait for the pvp element when ive never nor do i plan on pvping in diablo i look forward to the PVE gameplay that Diablo is and has always been...u want pvp go play wow or go play COD.....stop defending a delay on something that was never a serious part of the game aside from a fun element addon.

[malkara]

I don't call delaying a small not-significant part of a game "realising the game before it's done".

And I am truely happy that we get pve earlier because they decided to delay pvp.

[sajin0084]

well you can't compare older games like W3 because it was much harder to patch things in later. W3 could be played offline while D3 can't... When they say release when ready I think they mean the core features and it works. Also D3 released in 2 months with no pvp, but patched in 3 months later... Or D3 released 5-6 months...Same outcome for Pvp no matter what but at least you can play the game.

[Wildmoon]

well you can't compare older games like W3 because it was much harder to patch things in later. W3 could be played offline while D3 can't... When they say release when ready I think they mean the core features and it works. Also D3 released in 2 months with no pvp, but patched in 3 months later... Or D3 released 5-6 months...Same outcome for Pvp no matter what but at least you can play the game.

W3 shipped without some features too. According to OP's logic there's almost none of Blizzard's games that were complete when they shipped them.

[Lezarin]

Personnally looking forward too it myself but i think what blizzard are doing is the safe option.there will be pvp but not right away and depending on how quickly the pvp patch is released as we,ll all be leveling and gearing etc anyhows .

But i think blizzard have also learned from other games releases aswell via other companys .they state they wont release the pvp arena content till later but the game comes out and it doesnt cost them a fortune in delays etc i.e marketing preorders qq on the forums etc etc.

where other games have ignored players over release bugs and paid the price for it as we seem to be a unforgiving lot dont we lol.blizz have taken the steps of releasing 90 percent of the game polished so they can work on the pvp stuff and not have to worry about the majority of the game except for bugs etc .

[PetersenIII]

While I never was a Warcraft/Starcraft RTS fan - wasn't Warcraft I-III, Starcraft, and Starcraft II also PVE games with a PVP element? Did those PVP elements get delayed at all?*

Seriously? You think RTSes are PvE games? Are you loco in the coco?! RTS and FPSes are the pinnacle of PvP games. In them, "PvE" is the sideshow (for the most part). Even those like Halo or Starcraft with excellent back-stories, the majority of game-play development goes into PvP, because that's where the game's longevity is going to be.

[Howard Moon]

Dunno, OP, but I'm personally very happy that they are not futher delaying the game because of PvP. I imagine a LOT of people are, too.

[Deepsidedj]

Why would i want to play it if it's not ready ?? Just look what a failure ToR is..

[Cairhiin]

Blizzard has always cut out features that they didn't feel up to scratch, and patched them in later or added them in an expansion. Diablo III has been so long in development, and they've delayed it so many times that I guess they had to make a decision. Leaving out PvP for a month or two is no big deal, Diablo has never really been about PvP (though I do understand that a lot of people are looking forward to the arena). I personally think that shipping the complete PvE game and patching in a near perfect PvP arena is better than not shipping and delaying yet again or shipping with a half arsed PvP system.

At the end of the day, I guess I somewhat agree with you. I doubt, if WoW would still be at its peak, that Diablo III would've been released without PvP.

[Syfy]

The game is ready they are just hogging it cause they have nothing better to do.

[Lysah]

Why would i want to play it if it's not ready ?? Just look what a failure ToR is..

You mean how a million people log on and enjoy it every day? It still has issues, but would you prefer that the game STILL be in beta phase? I enjoyed leveling to 50, and I'm glad they didn't delay it for an extra year for absolutely no reason. I could be level 60 in D3 and enjoying Inferno right now, instead, Blizzard has to keep me sitting here reading incgamers every day because DEAR GOD there might be a bug somewhere!

[Vespian]

I think Blizzard made a good call on releasing without PvP. In Diablo, PvP is a mere afterthought. In fact, you could say it's been a feature that Blizzard has been trying to remove from their game due to the massive amounts of QQ about PKers during the entire patch cycle in Diablo II, some of which had more effect than others.

Arena is PvP in an honorable form of dueling, because you fight with others that are aware of their situation, in contrary to the good ol' ganking game, but it's also not an integrated part of the rest of the game. Had PvP been allowed anywhere within the PvE part of Diablo III, releasing without PvP would sound more like a broken feature. Right now, it's easily something they can add or alter at any given time and once more, whether you like it or not, Diablo was never about PvP.

As long as the main meat of the game is bug free, or at least free enough so I won't lose my character due to getting stuck, or otherwise, I'm fine with this release.

[Deepsidedj]

Why would i want to play it if it's not ready ?? Just look what a failure ToR is..

You mean how a million people log on and enjoy it every day? It still has issues, but would you prefer that the game STILL be in beta phase? I enjoyed leveling to 50, and I'm glad they didn't delay it for an extra year for absolutely no reason. I could be level 60 in D3 and enjoying Inferno right now, instead, Blizzard has to keep me sitting here reading incgamers every day because DEAR GOD there might be a bug somewhere!

Yea ok, i was talking about myself and what i would prefer.

[Dura]

You mean how a million people log on and enjoy it every day? It still has issues, but would you prefer that the game STILL be in beta phase? I enjoyed leveling to 50, and I'm glad they didn't delay it for an extra year for absolutely no reason. I could be level 60 in D3 and enjoying Inferno right now, instead, Blizzard has to keep me sitting here reading incgamers every day because DEAR GOD there might be a bug somewhere!

single player games should be bug free tbh.

yes i jsut called diablo 3 a single player game. because it really is it just has a co-op option. online....

[Vespian]

Yea ok, i was talking about myself and what i would prefer.

I think Lysah responded mostly to the fact that you so bluntly state that ToR is a failure and you most definitely do not state that you find it to be a failure You explicitly claim it is a failure. period.

Which it isn't. Not as far as we can see right now.

single player games should be bug free tbh.

yes i jsut called diablo 3 a single player game. because it really is it just has a co-op option. online....

Strange how people keep saying it's a single player game, while Blizzard forces you to go online. I guess some people just can't agree with being online. That doesn't make them less wrong though.

[Deleted]

I can't wait for the release!

[Paladin0228]

Strange how people keep saying it's a single player game, while Blizzard forces you to go online. I guess some people just can't agree with being online. That doesn't make them less wrong though.

They also forced you to go online to play Starcraft II's single player campaign.......
Diablo IS a solo game... even in co-op now we will have item drops that are for each player instead of the mad clicking fights/auto-loot of D2.

[Lysah]

single player games should be bug free tbh.

yes i jsut called diablo 3 a single player game. because it really is it just has a co-op option. online....

Yes, but granted that, how long are you willing to wait? A game this complex will virtually never be bug free. It took them nearly 9 years to fix the FE bug in Diablo II, would you prefer that Diablo II only came out in 2009 since it is more bug free than in the past? I certainly much enjoyed nearly ten years of playing the game instead.

I'm just trying to understand the logic here, because quite frankly, I really, really do not. Normally I can at least see the other side's point of view, but in this topic, it really is not there. Every day you're not playing is a day you're not playing, it's as simple as that. I would LOVE to be alpha and beta testing Diablo III, to the fullest extent, all the way up to 60 with their internal teams. I can imagine it would be so much incredible amounts of fun I just want to go punch a wall thinking about it. And we're not even talking about those kinds of bugs, we're talking about people in this thread advocating a delay of MONTHS for a game that is 99.9% complete, a game that already has one of the longest development times of any game.

[H3ll]

No, they dont.

Have you played cata on launch day? The game was so buggy that playing halfway through the 1st zone (vashj'ir) i decided to take a break for a week already...

[alturic]

And we're not even talking about those kinds of bugs, we're talking about people in this thread advocating a delay of MONTHS for a game that is 99.9% complete, a game that already has one of the longest development times of any game.

This coming from a game that is almost fundamentally the same as DII. Outside of art assests, I don't see what exactly made it take so long, truly I don't think blizzard has this huge dev team for multiple games. I think they have a large dev team that just gets shifted around from game to game. There is no reason it took as long as it did, especially to now say "We won't be releasing PvP when we launch".

I'm not saying game dev doesn't take time, but shit hopefully it doesn't turn out like Duke Nukem. lol

---------- Post added 2012-03-12 at 07:38 AM ----------

No, they dont.

Have you played cata on launch day? The game was so buggy that playing halfway through the 1st zone (vashj'ir) i decided to take a break for a week already...

Eh? What bugs did you notice at cata launch? Granted I didn't take the Vash route, but I don't remember game-breaking bugs at all.