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

[Vespian]

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.

Granted, but, and you might see this coming, in reality Starcraft II was designed as the new "E-sports game from Blizzard". While this is not true for Diablo III (or the older Diablos) you can definitely see how Diablo favors coop play over singleplayer.

But what I don't understand is, the developer, Blizzard, says; this game is a coop game, but you can also play solo, because we offer you that feature. Then others come and argue that it isn't true, but reality dictates, that when a developer says you have to be online to play my game, hence it's an online game, you face the facts and you're stuck with an online coop game that also allows you to play solo.

That they could have easily added a local single player campaign is besides the point. Technically they could, they decided not to.

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.

I took the Vash route, but I don't recall even a single bug.

[H3ll]

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.

In vasj there were several gamebreaking bugs in vash on launch. I got stuck in a phase and after 30 mins of trying to get out of it/completing the quest i decided to heart to org, which ended up being completely empty and the boat to vash didnt appear because i was still stuck in that phase somehow... just one of the many bugs i encountered

[Somebodyelse]

Upon hearing the news about Blizz postponing the release of the PVP arena for Diablo 3, I really got to ask myself a serious question - "does Blizzard still follow their own philosophy of "we'll release the game when we feel the game is ready"?*

Now, before I get assaulted by 123 people saying "IT's a PVE GAME!"... please hear me out as I'm actually NOT complaining about lack of PVP on a personal level. :P

I agree that it's a PVE game and on a personal level I could care less about D3 arena PVP... but just because I don't care about PVP doesn't mean everybody doesn't either - and I know many MANY people who just love dueling in D2 and in D3 that is to be one of the major elements of the game.*

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?*

When Blizz generally releases a game - they said "When we feel the GAME is perfect and ready". The GAME - as in, the entire package. Back in the RTS days, that also applied to the PVP aspects too, didn't it?*

Now, Warcraft didn't launch with BGs or the Honor system until a later patch - but that has been forgivable as, well, it's a gigantic ginormous MMORPG. It wasn't feesable to get everything they want in there as it's supsed to be a whole WORLD of things to do, and by design it was meant to be a game that slowly grew over time with new content patches and expansions.*

...Diablo III isn't designed to be an expandable world, nor has the complexity of design as WoW does.

So, why couldn't they just delay D3 for a month or three to get arena done for launch? Which (given the number of MASSIVE tweaks each D3 patch has) also gives them time to tweak the PVE content more as well.*

The bottom line is this - Blizzard always says "We'll release it when we feel the game is done" and yet, they're deliberately postponing a major feature in D3 just to get it out the door ASAP.

Why is it so important to get it out right now when before, back in the RTS days, it didn't matter to them how long it took until the game is, in their eyes, perfect?*

So... DOES Blizzard still stand behind that philosophy? Because with D3 arena postponement, it sounds like they've adopted the "get it out NOW, patch it later" philosophy that every other gaming company tends to do.*

Blizzard WANTS TO.......Activision WANTS MORE MONEY MORE MONEY MORE MONEYYYYYYYYYYY so they probably push to get the sh*t out in stores asap...

This is totally ridiculous...

Remember SC2 was supposed at first to be...ONE game....Then...Actiuvision'S geniuses came with the idea to bring 3 times the money selling 3 games.....

Remember it was supposed to be released LAST YEAR ?? And it's still NOT out...

They WANT money so they'll rush D3 out

[Flagobha]

well, they arent really motivated to do good content anymore ;/

[PandarianLeakage]

If it's Activision's influence that will allow us to play the D3 campaign a few months earlier then I say a big thankyou to them.

It's already late.

[H3ll]

Blizzard WANTS TO.......Activision WANTS MORE MONEY MORE MONEY MORE MONEYYYYYYYYYYY so they probably push to get the sh*t out in stores asap...

This is totally ridiculous...

Remember SC2 was supposed at first to be...ONE game....Then...Actiuvision'S geniuses came with the idea to bring 3 times the money selling 3 games.....

Remember it was supposed to be released LAST YEAR ?? And it's still NOT out...

They WANT money so they'll rush D3 out

This, everything activision touches goes to shit eventually.. CoD is the perfect example

[Deleted]

Money, money, money,
Must be funny*
In the rich man's world

Signed by Activision

[deaddj]

The bottom line is this - Blizzard always says "We'll release it when we feel the game is done" and yet, they're deliberately postponing a major feature in D3 just to get it out the door ASAP.

Wouldnt you want to get the game out as soon as possible so that all the fanboys stopped posting about a release date cuz you know there is that one guy that has to go through those posts and read them everyday. Also delaying the whole game just because 1 aspect that doesnt affect the completed campaign isnt worth the greif they would go through if they delayed this game any longer and from the sounds of it they are happy with how the campaign is right now they just wanna make sure the pvp is up to standards of release which could take a couple months meaning we would have to wait for it even longer.

[Wildmoon]

Blizzard WANTS TO.......Activision WANTS MORE MONEY MORE MONEY MORE MONEYYYYYYYYYYY so they probably push to get the sh*t out in stores asap...

This is totally ridiculous...

Remember SC2 was supposed at first to be...ONE game....Then...Actiuvision'S geniuses came with the idea to bring 3 times the money selling 3 games.....

Remember it was supposed to be released LAST YEAR ?? And it's still NOT out...

They WANT money so they'll rush D3 out

/facepalm 0/10

Blizzard didn't break SC2 into 3 games. SC2 just has 2 xpacs. That's all lol and you call the game that is in development for like almost 10 years rushed out?

[ophion1990]

They probably wanna release Diablo 3 now instead of pushing it back ... again. They've been working on it for a while and there hasn't really been alot of money coming in from their Diablo franchise recently.

[Treeskee]

it will be nice. lets people get used to the character and how they want to play it a little more

[Oneleg]

It's possible they have tweaked this philosophy a bit. I am sure they understand that people have been waiting for Diablo III for so many years and get their hopes up right before the many times Blizzard has pushed back it's release

There has never been a release date for D3, so you can not say that it has been pushed back. PvP in D2 was basicly whoever had the more OP class at the time jumping into a game and trying to PK everyone. I just don't really see the PvP aspect of the game myself.

[probert]

That philosophy died sometime about 2 years ago i'm guessing.

Cataclysm literally had its development cycle stopped part way for the world revamp, and bundled to ship. Arathi Highlands is the proof of this -- a zone with 17 quests and virtually untouched. Similarly, there had been minimal testing of Tol Barad as it was a late addition to the beta, and it took them until late patch 4.1 to get it balanced enough to be competitive. To reinforce the 'tol barad isn't fiinished' argument, there weren't even any zone achievements for Tol Barad until patch 4.1(!).

In terms of Diablo 3, there's a bunch of things to show that they're bundling & shipping before its ready -- there will be no pvp at launch now; the graphic boss kill character death animations will not be in game for launch; and many geographic zones will not have RMAH due to legal problems they did not have time to sort out.

It will get better with subsequent patches, but Diablo 3 will not have the laucnh quality that we've seen with other francises. Probably SC2 was the last blizzard minted quality product launch.

[Wildmoon]

There has never been a release date for D3, so you can not say that it has been pushed back. PvP in D2 was basicly whoever had the more OP class at the time jumping into a game and trying to PK everyone. I just don't really see the PvP aspect of the game myself.

Atleast we will have organized PvP in D3.

---------- Post added 2012-03-12 at 12:51 PM ----------

That philosophy died sometime about 2 years ago i'm guessing.

Cataclysm literally had its development cycle stopped part way for the world revamp, and bundled to ship. Arathi Highlands is the proof of this -- a zone with 17 quests and virtually untouched. Similarly, there had been minimal testing of Tol Barad as it was a late addition to the beta, and it took them until late patch 4.1 to get it balanced enough to be competitive. To reinforce the 'tol barad isn't fiinished' argument, there weren't even any zone achievements for Tol Barad until patch 4.1(!).

In terms of Diablo 3, there's a bunch of things to show that they're bundling & shipping before its ready -- there will be no pvp at launch now; the graphic boss kill character death animations will not be in game for launch; and many geographic zones will not have RMAH due to legal problems they did not have time to sort out.

It will get better with subsequent patches, but Diablo 3 will not have the laucnh quality that we've seen with other francises. Probably SC2 was the last blizzard minted quality product launch.

D3 is ready now.

[probert]

Atleast we will have organized PvP in D3.

---------- Post added 2012-03-12 at 12:51 PM ----------



D3 is ready now.

... they're going to ship it without PVP, and minus a bunch of features that made the original debut trailer 2 years ago.

Yes its ready. No its not what they promised. Yes they will patch content in later.

[Wildmoon]

... they're going to ship it without PVP, and minus a bunch of features that made the original debut trailer 2 years ago.

Yes its ready. No its not what they promised. Yes they will patch content in later.

They didn't promise anything. It's just the features that they want to have in the game but for whatever reason they cut it. Something like this happen all the time in development cycle. You have many ideas but not all of them gonna make it through. Dance studio and many more are example of this. It's Blizzard's fault too that they announced something that they are not sure that it will be cut.

[Deleted]

So, why couldn't they just delay D3 for a month or three to get arena done for launch? Which (given the number of MASSIVE tweaks each D3 patch has) also gives them time to tweak the PVE content more as well.

Because they already crossed the line and there is no way back. If there wasn't beta running, people having retail pre-orders, people signed up for annual pass and the general hype and fresh info all across the web, they could just delay the game by 6 more moths to tweak PvP arenas. But now it's too late for that, I can't even imagine the massive whining on the forums that would follow.

[Wildmoon]

Because they already crossed the line and there is no way back. If there wasn't beta running, people having retail pre-orders, people signed up for annual pass and the general hype and fresh info all across the web, they could just delay the game by 6 more moths to tweak PvP arenas. But now it's too late for that, I can't even imagine the massive whining on the forums that would follow.

I can't imagine waiting for Diablo 3 for 1 year longer. -_-"

[Mangelius]

Blizzard hasn't followed this philosophy for a long time.
How many buggy encounters are released in WOW every patch.

[Garnok-]

that died with Wrath.

Oh yeah, you know that amazing raid we talked about called Ulduar we said would be in at launch? Ye, its 6 months off, enjoy the terrible raids we made instead