(D3) Blizzcon 2018

[Remus88Romulus]

I hope for a new expansion. I still wanna rescue or give Leah peace in death. Right now she is stuck somewhere... And there is still an untold story for Imperius i feel. And Itherael. I wanna see that.

[Thimagryn]

D2 was gutted by WoW developing. They really don't have an excuse for D3.

WoW development had nothing to do with D2. Different team, different budget.

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Diablo_II:_Salvation

At the least, it is known that Blizzard North intended to work on a second expansion to Diablo II. The second expansion would have focused more on expanding Diablo II's multiplayer features. --- However, after a few brainstorming sessions, the team decided not to follow through on the expansion, and instead turn their attention to Diablo III

And this would be the Original Diablo 3 project that would be cancelled and rebooted, not the same Diablo 3 we know today

[Deleted]

Its very likely to see some sort of announcement (of announcement) at Blizzcon and a 2020 release date, but extremely unlikely for the next Diablo to not have any sort of microtransactions added.

[McFuu]

WoW development had nothing to do with D2. Different team, different budget.

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Diablo_II:_Salvation



And this would be the Original Diablo 3 project that would be cancelled and rebooted, not the same Diablo 3 we know today

No not the development, the community and attention being placed on wow. Why make an expansion for a 5 year old game when all you will get is the expansion sales VS Wow becoming a monthly cash cow.

[Thimagryn]

No not the development, the community and attention being placed on wow. Why make an expansion for a 5 year old game when all you will get is the expansion sales VS Wow becoming a monthly cash cow.

I still don't know about that. While I agree that attention on a new game would be better overall, there was no guarantee the monthly sub MMO was going to be successful at all. It just happened to be successful because they had a strong product. I mean look at Diablo 3 with the RMAH; a prime example of a business change that didn't work out. Monthly subs had that same level of risk, but people accepted the cost since the experience outweighed the cost; where as Diablo 3's end game itemization was terrible and the RMAH was designed around that.

Expansion sales for a successful game are always warranted, but unfortunately it was an era when new games came out constantly and multiple expansions were uncommon. It was better to market a sequel that acted as an expansion rather than a second expansion, and that's why their focus went to Diablo 3. It just sucked that it ended up in development hell and the team split up to go elsewhere.

I don't think it matters that the community jumps to other games. WoW was still so far away that it would have never impacted a Diablo 2 sequel. Considering the timeline of development and releases, the 2nd expansion would have come out around 2002 and World of Warcraft didn't really take off until 2004-5. If anything, Warcraft 3 would have been a bigger concern in terms of internal competition.

[Djuntas]

Diablo 4....I mean, we all want to have Diablo 3 as that epic great ARPG, but it wont happen...Game was dead on release with its core issues still prevalent today.

I always hoped D3 would have been epic, and I did play in just about all patches, but last...well 2-3 years I barely played it, as did many.

Also fuck people who are anti-trading...You dont know what makes a good ARPG. Yes AH was to good, but removing it 100% is dumb.

[McFuu]

Diablo 4....I mean, we all want to have Diablo 3 as that epic great ARPG, but it wont happen...Game was dead on release with its core issues still prevalent today.

I always hoped D3 would have been epic, and I did play in just about all patches, but last...well 2-3 years I barely played it, as did many.

Also fuck people who are anti-trading...You dont know what makes a good ARPG. Yes AH was to good, but removing it 100% is dumb.

I'd argue that D3 was already one of the best ARPGs at release, and it's issues, namely end game and item/build optimization are the exact same issues carried over from D2. D2 had no real end game past kill things and loot. D2 itemization was only slightly better than D3 because leggos dropped in certain areas so if you wanted something specific you could farm specific acts. End game builds for D2 were definitely less diverse. While in D3 you can get decently far playing however you want to play, only requiring min-maxing to go +40-+50. D2, if you weren't using one of the builds which every class only had 2-4, usually just versions of 1, then you couldn't even clear a Cows level on your own.
D2 did have trading, real trading, not the AH. I didn't mind the AH, but the money aspect of it should have never been introduced.

D2's biggest advantage in the nostalgia department is it had zero competitors. NWN was crap compared to D2 and it wasn't until the post D2 drought that we saw the plethora of ARPGs rise up, probably starting with Titan Quest. D3 unfortunately has tons of competition, from all different styles of ARPGs as well. Every year adds 2 to 3 really decent ARPGs to play. D3 was really good at release, and it is really really good now, it's also stale though.

[Djuntas]

I'd argue that D3 was already one of the best ARPGs at release, and it's issues, namely end game and item/build optimization are the exact same issues carried over from D2. D2 had no real end game past kill things and loot. D2 itemization was only slightly better than D3 because leggos dropped in certain areas so if you wanted something specific you could farm specific acts. End game builds for D2 were definitely less diverse. While in D3 you can get decently far playing however you want to play, only requiring min-maxing to go +40-+50. D2, if you weren't using one of the builds which every class only had 2-4, usually just versions of 1, then you couldn't even clear a Cows level on your own.
D2 did have trading, real trading, not the AH. I didn't mind the AH, but the money aspect of it should have never been introduced.

D2's biggest advantage in the nostalgia department is it had zero competitors. NWN was crap compared to D2 and it wasn't until the post D2 drought that we saw the plethora of ARPGs rise up, probably starting with Titan Quest. D3 unfortunately has tons of competition, from all different styles of ARPGs as well. Every year adds 2 to 3 really decent ARPGs to play. D3 was really good at release, and it is really really good now, it's also stale though.

Yep, agree on pretty much all. I know Diablo 3 hit a good dry spot when it come out, I loved it that first 1-1½ month on release...Clearing inferno in the first 30-40ish days before the nerf hammer hit was great fun. But since then they just messed up so much, not to mention Diablo 3 is one of the must bugged games in gaming history...Many immortality bug's (World first was even done with a bug....which all wizards copied), some discovered much later like the Archon teleport wizard bug, and then ofc all the exploits for farming, and later on duping and other AH funny stuff.

Now ARPG's are definitely more plenty, but meeh..:Grim Dawn, PoE, some odd indie game, or older titles like Torchlight...Like....meeh. I want a proper ARPG for the long term.

[Trio2]

hoping for something big at blizcon for the diablo series. probably just be flooded with hearthstone and over watch though

[RobertoCarlos]

Does anyone actually have any hope for the diablo series?

They proved with 3 they cant write them well anymore.

And we ended up with tier sets and infinite GR scaling that had flat damage increasing modifiers so only certain builds/legendaries were viable

[McFuu]

Yep, agree on pretty much all. I know Diablo 3 hit a good dry spot when it come out, I loved it that first 1-1½ month on release...Clearing inferno in the first 30-40ish days before the nerf hammer hit was great fun. But since then they just messed up so much, not to mention Diablo 3 is one of the must bugged games in gaming history...Many immortality bug's (World first was even done with a bug....which all wizards copied), some discovered much later like the Archon teleport wizard bug, and then ofc all the exploits for farming, and later on duping and other AH funny stuff.

Now ARPG's are definitely more plenty, but meeh..:Grim Dawn, PoE, some odd indie game, or older titles like Torchlight...Like....meeh. I want a proper ARPG for the long term.

Actually after I mentioned it, I loaded Titan Quest again lol. I've been playing a newer game that is still beta called Wolcen that isn't too bad either. It's more along the titan quest lines than say a PoE or D3.

[Draeth]

Not a chance.

The release of the Necromancer as a class pack, and several little zones into Adventure mode before and after, pretty strongly indicates that they were working on a new D3 expansion, cancelled it, and decided to sell what they could and release the completed art assets they already had with some meaningless bounty micro-content instead of wasting it completely.

It's been a little over 7 months since the last patch with gameplay changes (2.6.1 on 10/24/17) was released. Two seasons have come and gone since any work was done on D3 other than backend performance fixes to unfuck the servers after Overwatch League launched. Development on the game is over.

[MrKnubbles]

My guess would be a new class and if so likely Druid i am afraid they will give us nothing more then that .....

Druid? Maybe. Though I would prefer a new class and not another D2 character remake. I've been personally hoping for a Beastmaster class which would take inspiration from the Shapeshifting and Summoning trees of the Druid mixed with the Javelin and Spear and Passive and Magic trees from the Amazon.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'm curious as to whether or not Blizzard will be able to win back their D1 and D2 fans whilst retaining the people who loved D3. When you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. Blizzard has shown that they are one of the best at repackaging convoluted and hardcore ideas to appeal to everyone, but they've proven time and time again that they can't please everyone, even the fans of the ideas that they repackaged in the first place. Hence, why we we have people who'd prefer to play PoE over D3, or people who'd prefer to play on illegal servers for vanilla WoW or WotLK.

Personally, I loved Diablo 3 but could not stand D2 or PoE. I've tried to get into both numerous times and simply couldn't stick with them for more than a dozen hours. On the other hand, I don't want D4 to just be D3 with a new coat of paint; I've already played D3 for several hundred hours and am pretty much done with it. D4 needs to be an evolution and continue innovating a new path for the genre.

On another note: hopefully Blizzard treats their story seriously this time and gives it the time and attention it deserves. D3's story was criminally lacking, with underdeveloped characters, themes that went nowhere, fascinating ideas that were thrown away, and a world that you didn't care for. Yet, I played through D3's campaign multiple times in spite of what little story that was there. RoS' had me HYPED to see what would happen next... and now it seems that the story of Tyrael, Kormac, and the Nephalem is never going to get a satisfactory ending. If we get anything at all, it'll be that Kormac died offscreen, the Nephalem becomes the final boss of the next game for arbitrary reasons, and Tyrael is relegated to a side character and exposition. A real shame.