PvP "Blog" is here.

[Frozen Death Knight]

My beef is mainly the moving of the goalpost as far as gear perfection goes and there doesn't seem to be an end to it either, a lot of those hours where motivated by RL cash earnings while playing a game at the same time, got me a 47" 3D smart TV in the end. If they had developed it horizontally instead of vertically at every corner I might have played it still.

Understandable, since there was never much of a need to add new items to keep hunting for more items in Diablo 2. Maybe for some people who had farmed most of it may have wanted more, but that was not a vast majority, at least.

While I do think some of the problems I had with the itemization in Diablo 2 was improved upon in Diablo 3 (the technical stuff in regards to stats, since I felt Diablo 2 had a somewhat confusing way of explaining how the stats worked and so on), the fact that they did not make the system self-contained and frankly, making a ton of items mostly useless simply because some of the stats not being useful enough (primary stats vs. other primary stats) unless you chose another class, is not good for the longevity of the game.

If they had designed the primary stats to make them work for all classes by making the stats competitive with each other depending on how you would like to play, as well as adding a ton of affixes to counter the problem of the items having too little flavour, we would have probably avoided this problem of making the AH so much superior in regards to getting items.

I mean, I could understand if they did not make sets for the first difficulty just to make it less confusing for new players, but more affixes would have made it much more fun to hunt items. Not to mention that better primary stats would have made the issue of dropping multiple primary stat items not be such a thorn to the side while adding that aspect of experimentation that Diablo 2 did.

Despite my issues with Diablo 2, the game did know how to make items mean something outside of them having a higher ilvl/stat of something. That is what needs to change, as I see it.

[Redblade]

I think they itemization could have been done differently to some extent, balance of secondary stat value mostly and more sensible affix ranges but overall it's not horrible, the problem I see is the constant changes to drop rates/MF boosts that only saturates the item pool thus moving the game vertically. On top of this they keep adding new items that again move the game vertically, for example the new craft-ables coming next patch.

What they really should have done was create an item range and drops rate that fit their design and stuck with it, expansions on that could easily have been done through content additions like dungeons, similar to WoW raids with bosses and trash that dropped crafting materials, much like there will be in 1.07. Those materials could then be used for enchanting, adding sockets and improving the gear you had already with the drawback of it being bound once improved upon. Further improvements could come through runes and rune words for added set bonuses and similar functions, there are so many ways and individual steps they could develop the game horizontally without changing the base gear pool and as such keep the gear perfection game intact. the same goes for gems, they could make gems do more things dependent on where you place them, add combination of gems to create other colors that had secondary stats or effect, the possibilities are almost endless what they could have done while keeping the integrity of the basic game.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Well, I do think the idea of making items account bound do help out, considering how everything works currently, so at least then they will not be as saturated, but as you said, the increasing MF and drop rates changing are a problem. Instead of a solid system that does not need any changes to sustain the item values, they now need to add more and more items, just to make sure there is still something to keep chasing. While this may work in World of WarCraft because of its very nature, it does not work as well in a non-MMO, especially when people played Diablo 2 a lot because of its strength in keeping items valuable long-term.

What is a bit frustrating, considering the things you mentioned in the last paragraph, is that Diablo 3 should be able to do most of those changes without needing to program the whole system from scratch. The basics are there, but they did not execute it well enough to make it work.

[Redblade]

What is a bit frustrating, considering the things you mentioned in the last paragraph, is that Diablo 3 should be able to do most of those changes without needing to program the whole system from scratch. The basics are there, but they did not execute it well enough to make it work.

The cynic within me regarding Blizzard's greed says we will see things like I mentioned in an expansion and the cynic within me regarding Blizzard's ability to be innovative says the expansion will be 10 more levels with just more of the same. Quite sure one of them will be right, only question for me is which.

[Deleted]

This would be an awesome opportunity for games like TL2 to jump in and add a simple PvP system and snatch away some of the people that cared about this.

[Frozen Death Knight]

The cynic within me regarding Blizzard's greed says we will see things like I mentioned in an expansion and the cynic within me regarding Blizzard's ability to be innovative says the expansion will be 10 more levels with just more of the same. Quite sure one of them will be right, only question for me is which.

I don't think it's greed, but rather that there is a lack of insight from the developers to look at themselves and see some of the things the playerbase is seeing, which in turn makes miscommunication inevitable. Guys like Jay Wilson may have the heart in the right place, but because of inexperience, and as it seems a lack of a voice to make him realize that his leadership has lead them off course to be able to make changes the players want, it has put him and the team in a position of having to defend pretty much anything they are doing to the game.

The reason why I get this feeling is because of how they deal with communicating their changes. The amount of reasons they give for every change when announcing patches make it sound like they need to prove something rather than showing confidence in their capability to deal with issues in the game. While in theory it sounds good to explain why they make the changes they do, the fact that they need to wrap pretty much all the announcements with this is troublesome.

Heck, just by comparing the WoW forums and the Diablo 3 forums when looking at how each team deals with their playerbase show a clear contrast of this, since the WoW team does not behave the same way when making announcements. Despite what problems anyone may have with Greg "GC" Street, I can understand why he is in charge when looking at how he deals with the community. He may get facts wrong at times and make questionable statements, but at least he does not show weakness when dealing with criticism and holds his ground without giving out the feeling of needing to defend himself as a person. At least there is some form of respect for the guy, which can not quite be said with Jay Wilson, who we know has dealt with criticism of his game poorly, at times.

[Redblade]

You might be right, it might not be greed as such, it will however look like it if that kind of systems are added only in an expansion.

[Leonard McCoy]

It's greed. It's not a lack of insight. I mean that would be retarded. The problems with the loot system are really just ignoring the lessons of diablo 2:lod all over again. So either the developers are total incompetents and Blizzard KEPT NONE OF THE RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT NOTES from LoD and Blizzard North or they are simple greedy.

I happen to think that the people who work at Blizzard are actually professionals and not total inept idiots.

[Resentful]

It's greed. It's not a lack of insight. I mean that would be retarded. The problems with the loot system are really just ignoring the lessons of diablo 2:lod all over again. So either the developers are total incompetents and Blizzard KEPT NONE OF THE RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT NOTES from LoD and Blizzard North or they are simple greedy.

I happen to think that the people who work at Blizzard are actually professionals and not total inept idiots.

Professional at making people quit the game -.-

[Frozen Death Knight]

It's greed. It's not a lack of insight. I mean that would be retarded. The problems with the loot system are really just ignoring the lessons of diablo 2:lod all over again. So either the developers are total incompetents and Blizzard KEPT NONE OF THE RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT NOTES from LoD and Blizzard North or they are simple greedy.

I happen to think that the people who work at Blizzard are actually professionals and not total inept idiots.

Just because they are professionals does not mean that they're not humans, as well. By that logic, they would have no personal reasons for doing what they are doing at the moment, and are just acting like a cog in the great machine. I, however, would like to think of them as individuals who happen to be in a very uncomfortable situation, since who would honestly want to be in their position with the kind of crap getting thrown at them?

Being a professional did not stop some of Bioware's top people from leaving their company after all the hysteria that had happened, so why heck should the human factor not be accounted for when we are dealing with actual people here?

[Leonard McCoy]

Just because they are professionals does not mean that they're not humans, as well. By that logic, they would have no personal reasons for doing what they are doing at the moment, and are just acting like a cog in the great machine. I, however, would like to think of them as individuals who happen to be in a very uncomfortable situation, since who would honestly want to be in their position with the kind of crap getting thrown at them?

Being a professional did not stop some of Bioware's top people from leaving their company after all the hysteria that had happened, so why heck should the human factor not be accounted for when we are dealing with actual people here?

Greed is a pretty good personal reason. More or less they are cogs. Jay takes alot of crap but the reality is that Jay is probably just following alot of orders from on high. As for who would take all this crap? Well I'm sure Jay does well enough in his position to make it worth it. Ignoring the guys on forums is a small price to pay and having brevik call you out for your shit is also a small price to pay.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Greed is a pretty good personal reason. More or less they are cogs. Jay takes alot of crap but the reality is that Jay is probably just following alot of orders from on high. As for who would take all this crap? Well I'm sure Jay does well enough in his position to make it worth it. Ignoring the guys on forums is a small price to pay and having brevik call you out for your shit is also a small price to pay.

Greed does not really explain why they act the way they do when talking about the game and the way they bring up their reasons why they make certain changes, for instance. I do not believe that greed drives this, since the kind of behaviour they are showing is not really what I would expect from people who are pretty much in it for the money. Especially when there have now been clear signs of inexperience in regards to what made Diablo 2 work, in this case, which is understandable considering that their team is not the same as the one who made those games. Team chemistry is just as important in a project as the project itself and as I see it, they have not exactly been that efficient when looking back at all the stuff they did before the game was released.

As for him taking orders from higher up, I don't really disagree. Still, his responsibility is to direct his team, and by how he has dealt with criticism of the game and such, I really am not convinced that it is pure greed that makes him act like this. Not to mention how cartoony the whole idea of greed is when discussing Diablo 3.

[Leonard McCoy]

Greed does not really explain why they act the way they do when talking about the game and the way they bring up their reasons why they make certain changes, for instance. I do not believe that greed drives this, since the kind of behaviour they are showing is not really what I would expect from people who are pretty much in it for the money. Especially when there have now been clear signs of inexperience in regards to what made Diablo 2 work, in this case, which is understandable considering that their team is not the same as the one who made those games. Team chemistry is just as important in a project as the project itself and as I see it, they have not exactly been that efficient when looking back at all the stuff they did before the game was released.

As for him taking orders from higher up, I don't really disagree. Still, his responsibility is to direct his team, and by how he has dealt with criticism of the game and such, I really am not convinced that it is pure greed that makes him act like this. Not to mention how cartoony the whole idea of greed is when discussing Diablo 3.

It absolutely does explain it, and many of the changes made to the game. It goes back to what I said before about d3 being a game not really true to d2 but also not really ground breaking otherwise. In their quest to make money they tried to make the game have more appeal. They did this by tinkering around with alot of the stats and talents and things like that. Stuff that "worked" for the people who grew up on diablo 2 and stuck with it but maybe not so much for joe six pack and mary sue. It's like the star trek reboot, except the star trek reboot was done well. D3 kinda felt like a Diablo reboot but poorly done.They didn't really care what worked in diablo 2 because they wanted to appeal to a much bigger crowd and make more dollar bills. Now in Jays defence I don't think this was his or the design teams goals. My suspicion is they were given directives that said make a game with a much broader appeal and with a market place they can suck back for cash (RMAH).

[BenBos]

It absolutely does explain it, and many of the changes made to the game. It goes back to what I said before about d3 being a game not really true to d2 but also not really ground breaking otherwise. In their quest to make money they tried to make the game have more appeal. They did this by tinkering around with alot of the stats and talents and things like that. Stuff that "worked" for the people who grew up on diablo 2 and stuck with it but maybe not so much for joe six pack and mary sue. It's like the star trek reboot, except the star trek reboot was done well. D3 kinda felt like a Diablo reboot but poorly done.They didn't really care what worked in diablo 2 because they wanted to appeal to a much bigger crowd and make more dollar bills. Now in Jays defence I don't think this was his or the design teams goals. My suspicion is they were given directives that said make a game with a much broader appeal and with a market place they can suck back for cash (RMAH).

Suck back for cash ?

Explain...

If 1 million people spend 10 dollars each month ... blizzard gains ... A whopping 1.5 million dollars ... Per month.

That's peanuts for a company that makes 1.200 million dollars each ... Year in video games...

So ... Explain.

Also the latest patch 1.07 introduces 6 out of the 13 gear slots as .... Craftable Bind on Account gear, so not even a AH in sight ...

Explain...

And dude, I LOVE the RMAH where players can SELL stuff instead of always buying things. The RMAH BEATS ANY passive cash shop or content sales from developpers BIG TIME.

So tell me, where this huge profit lies for Blizzard ...?

Diablo 3 is getting better and better these days and I simply l o v e the trading mechanics. Patch 1.07 adds great BoA crafting too !

The BoA items are in complete contradictions with your reasoning...since these new crafted (hint grinded mats items) can not even be traded on the AH.

... so your argument fails to hold : one by the simple fact Blizzard only has a small profit of player trades AND since patch 1.05 BoA items are the new hot stuff !

[Frozen Death Knight]

It absolutely does explain it, and many of the changes made to the game. It goes back to what I said before about d3 being a game not really true to d2 but also not really ground breaking otherwise. In their quest to make money they tried to make the game have more appeal. They did this by tinkering around with alot of the stats and talents and things like that. Stuff that "worked" for the people who grew up on diablo 2 and stuck with it but maybe not so much for joe six pack and mary sue. It's like the star trek reboot, except the star trek reboot was done well. D3 kinda felt like a Diablo reboot but poorly done.They didn't really care what worked in diablo 2 because they wanted to appeal to a much bigger crowd and make more dollar bills. Now in Jays defence I don't think this was his or the design teams goals. My suspicion is they were given directives that said make a game with a much broader appeal and with a market place they can suck back for cash (RMAH).

Yet they still did not manage to make it appealing enough for a lot of people to keep playing. Blizzard games have always striven for a wider appeal, but at least with all their other games they succeeded with keeping people interested enough in their games for a long time. Diablo 3 may have sold the most of all their games, but in the end, it has lost more players than any of their games in such a short time span, despite the game being less than a year old. The Diablo 3 team failed at what their other games always shined the most, which was the longevity of the gameplay. That has never happened before and it is frankly disturbing.

While I do not really disagree with you that Jay may have got instructions from higher up when designing the game, the problem that they did not know how to implement something like the AH and still make sure that the gameplay around the itemization (the most vital part of any Diablo game) worked, it is a sign of incompetence, to be very blunt. Personally, I do not believe that the AH is all to be blamed, when good item design could have solved the main issues surrounding the system. Instead, they made a very WoW styled itemization based on very random drops along with adding a non-random system like the AH. Lack of insight and experience made this a total mess, in the end, and I stand by it.

[Leonard McCoy]

Yet they still did not manage to make it appealing enough for a lot of people to keep playing. Blizzard games have always striven for a wider appeal, but at least with all their other games they succeeded with keeping people interested enough in their games for a long time. Diablo 3 may have sold the most of all their games, but in the end, it has lost more players than any of their games in such a short time span, despite the game being less than a year old. The Diablo 3 team failed at what their other games always shined the most, which was the longevity of the gameplay. That has never happened before and it is frankly disturbing.

While I do not really disagree with you that Jay may have got instructions from higher up when designing the game, the problem that they did not know how to implement something like the AH and still make sure that the gameplay around the itemization (the most vital part of any Diablo game) worked, it is a sign of incompetence, to be very blunt. Personally, I do not believe that the AH is all to be blamed, when good item design could have solved the main issues surrounding the system. Instead, they made a very WoW styled itemization based on very random drops along with adding a non-random system like the AH. Lack of insight and experience made this a total mess, in the end, and I stand by it.

Well yea that's the point. They tried to make a game that appealed to EVERYONE and make the most money. That includes people who played diablo 2. See Blizzard games didn't strive for a wide appeal, Blizzard just made games that were fun and weren't terrible concerned about demographics or populations.

[BenBos]

Yet they still did not manage to make it appealing enough for a lot of people to keep playing. Blizzard games have always striven for a wider appeal, but at least with all their other games they succeeded with keeping people interested enough in their games for a long time. Diablo 3 may have sold the most of all their games, but in the end, it has lost more players than any of their games in such a short time span, despite the game being less than a year old. The Diablo 3 team failed at what their other games always shined the most, which was the longevity of the gameplay. That has never happened before and it is frankly disturbing.

.

Another hear say.

So everyone keeps telling me they lost all those massive player numbers ? Based on WHAT ?

Xfire ? Xfire shows simple activity : a 7.000.000 player game is being played at 6 hours a day in its first 2 weeks and then people play LESS (like 2 hours every other day ...). If a hardcore guy plays for 10 hours at launch and then drops at 2 hours after 2 weeks: you'll have a 80% activity drop. Big deal.

So I NOW see 650 EU (newly formed on a minute per minute basis) public games again in Diablo 3... That was (with the SAME counting system) ... 1800 public games in the beginning of ... June...

That's a 60-65% drop after 8 months... I think that's pretty normal since Morhaime said even WOW has only a 30% retention rate after trials.

Also: just try to enter a public game: you'll wait ... 1 or 2 seconds and bahm you're into a full group 24/24 and 7/7.

So tell me if the IN game tools show a huge playing field, on what data is your opinion based on ?

Also: IF you still want to use XFire: Diablo 3 is being played far more than 50% of WOW player numbers ... so 5 million players still play according to that tool.

People confuse activity numbers after launch: that's simply wrong: no one plays a game for 10 hours a day during 5 months. Also the BIGGER the sales, the MORE people will buy a game without knowing what a hack&slash really is. TONS of WOW players thought it being an MMORPG, you see that in their reactions ...

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The way I swap goods on the AH shows me I can make huge sums of money in no time: buying at 25K Gold and selling at 60K within hours. Dozens of them per day if you would want.

You can sell ANY Higher end Gem in ... seconds if you simply set the price a few Gold lower (like 990 instead of the advertised 1000) That means this AH is "huge" in player numbers.

----


Meaning MASSES of players around the clock. In fact it is pretty clear far more people play Diablo 3 than SC2 at the moment (and that game sold 6 million copies too ...).

Even logical to me: as SC2 is adressing a really hardcore niche PvP crowd while D3 is far more suited for casual play: everyone can join the fray in 15 minutes sessions.

D3 is a perfect game to play on line with long term goals without ANY requirements in attunements or reputation grinds. In group or solo mode, so I don't see your "fail" comment with proven data at all really.


If D3 really had player problems you would see UNDER 50 newly formed groups every minute, not 650+ in prime time... 8 months after launch and 3 months after the latest content patch. You wouldn't sell your higher Gems not in a few minutes time either.

As a reminder here is the defintion of those newly formed public groups:
What does the number displayed in the Public Games window actually represent?
The number that displays in the Public Games window represents the total number of games currently available to your hero, based on your game region and mode (Hardcore heroes qualify for a different set of Public Games). The number does not represent private games or Public Games that already have four players. Players hanging out in the character menus or using the auction house are not considered here either

[Frozen Death Knight]

Well yea that's the point. They tried to make a game that appealed to EVERYONE and make the most money. That includes people who played diablo 2. See Blizzard games didn't strive for a wide appeal, Blizzard just made games that were fun and weren't terrible concerned about demographics or populations.

If they did not understand what consumers wanted in the first place, they would have never sold their games in the millions. Demographics have always had a place in marketing any product, so if they did not have this in mind when making their previous games, I have then simply overestimated their skills in being able to sell their own products.

---------- Post added 2013-01-15 at 01:25 PM ----------

-snip-

A lot of people are not happy with the current state of the game (me included) and I frankly do not see how Blizzard are gaining any costumers with Diablo 3 when even hardcore players are starting to drop out this early. The community is pretty much non-existent, since there is really nothing in the game that can build one as in previous Blizzard titles.

You mention StarCraft 2 having lesser games played, but at least that game has a community, and with Heart of the Swarm soon coming out that will adress some of the issues in regards to that, I do not think this is going to last.

Even if there may be a ton of casual players in Diablo 3 right as we speak, if they do not invest themselves in the community, there is simply no gameplay left for me, as I see it. Blizzard games are only as good as the community it creates and right now, I do not see anything that glues the playerbase together in a meaningful way.

[Leonard McCoy]

If they did not understand what consumers wanted in the first place, they would have never sold their games in the millions. Demographics have always had a place in marketing any product, so if they did not have this in mind when making their previous games, I have then simply overestimated their skills in being able to sell their own products.[COLOR="red"]

D3 would have sold millions based solely on the D2 franchise alone.

[Frozen Death Knight]

D3 would have sold millions based solely on the D2 franchise alone.

May be the case, but I do not see why Diablo 3 should define the rest of Blizzard's games when it is in fact breaking the trend of their previous releases. Not to mention that I was referring to all their other games except for Diablo 3, when making that statement.