Is Blizzard still quality games maker?

[BenBos]

Im loosing connections on a weekly basis. Most of times its just a brief DC. But it happens. Add to that that I have anger management issues. DC + D3 hardcore = disaster recipe. People might get hurt.

so you play wireless: a good advice: do not play wireless.

And I said it above: EVE space ship losses can be equally attributed to a lost connection. Curious people accept it as such when it would happen.

And as I said: never happened to me in 15 months playing D3 hardcore... So I take the risk.

[Naposim1337]

Show me a game dev that's been in the business for several years, released several products, and hasn't stumbled once or twice.

D3 was Blizzard's stumble. Everything else they've released was fantastic. You might be able to count Cataclysm, but then that's what happens when Blizzard listens to all the community whines and tries to change the game to fit them. The quality of their games is still fantastic, it's just that some of their ideas about their target audience are a little off at the moment. They'll get it eventually.

diablo 3 is not really as bad as people say it is. It is just not as good as everyone wanted it to be. It was a big let down for me but still, provided me with over 150 hours of fun. Not many games i can say that about out there...

[Awe]

so you play wireless: a good advice: do not play wireless.

And I said it above: EVE space ship losses can be equally attributed to a lost connection. Curious people accept it as such when it would happen.

And as I said: never happened to me in 15 months playing D3 hardcore... So I take the risk.

I have a cable 100Mbit connection. In fact I also have a secondary backup ADSL connection in case my main one fails. I dont know in what world do you live in, but 99.999% fail-free Internet is a rare luxory.

I am also an EVE player since years and connection loss in EVE most of the time will be safe. You will only die if you happened to be engaged in PvP combat at the exact moment of DC which, if you ever played EVE, you should know is rather rare (EVE is a game of waiting for the most part). In PvE rats (mobs) will not harm you due to active tank. In Diablo you are engaged in action almost non-stop. DC = high chance of saying goodbye to your character.

TLDR: D3 hardcore, yes please. But offline mode. No offline? Not going to play it.

[BenBos]

I was already aware of the limits and as I said I have no idea although the fact that there have been no updates from Blizzard regarding the amount of D3 sales since they told us that it had sold 12 million copies as of the end of 2012 yet they have said that as May 2013 14.5 million have played D3 suggests that many of those 2.5 million extra players have not actually bought the game.

As I said in my first post I do not wish to get into whether D3 is a quality or not I was simply pointing out that using the amount of daily players is not a good yardstick to measure it by when many of them might not have bought the game nor intend to do so.

Well actually in the last conference they said they sold MORE than 12 million copies at the end of the second quarter of 2013, so that is 13 months after launch.

And it was 1 million per day and 3 million unique players per month according to the report back in late March.

For a non mmorpg with no need to do dailies or rep grinds that's a very good retention rate .... in view of the fact (!)
these millions are not even normal for first year PC games, ... hence many casual players and masses of them who just play a few hours in normal to down Diablo.

I am not even interested if Mr Average plays D3. I simply know that D3 brought in and will bring in on consoles enough money to go around for the next decade, just like every other Blizzard game.

That's a huge plus for a game with very challenging play in hardcore and I like that.

[Orange Joe]

I was already aware of the limits and as I said I have no idea although the fact that there have been no updates from Blizzard regarding the amount of D3 sales since they told us that it had sold 12 million copies as of the end of 2012 yet they have said that as May 2013 14.5 million have played D3 suggests that many of those 2.5 million extra players have not actually bought the game.

As I said in my first post I do not wish to get into whether D3 is a quality or not I was simply pointing out that using the amount of daily players is not a good yardstick to measure it by when many of them might not have bought the game nor intend to do so.

I misread your post. Also we aren't in a discussion about quality, As least you are the only one bringing it up.

I was simply pointing out that using the amount of daily players is not a good yardstick to measure it by when many of them might not have bought the game nor intend to do so.

So what is? People complaining on a forum?

[Pann]

so you play wireless: a good advice: do not play wireless.

And I said it above: EVE space ship losses can be equally attributed to a lost connection. Curious people accept it as such when it would happen.

And as I said: never happened to me in 15 months playing D3 hardcore... So I take the risk.

It clear that despite your constant comments about Eve you have never played it. A disconnect and losing your ship is not the same as completely losing a character, you might lose some training if you do not have an up to date clone but this is a minimal loss, two of the first things you learn in Eve is that you are not the ship you fly and never fly anything you cannot afford to lose. Even if the risk is small being at the mercy of an internet connection is bad design when potentially a player could lose several months game play through no fault of their own.

[BenBos]

It clear that despite your constant comments about Eve you have never played it. A disconnect and losing your ship is not the same as completely losing a character, you might lose some training if you do not have an up to date clone but this is a minimal loss, two of the first things you learn in Eve is that you are not the ship you fly and never fly anything you cannot afford to lose. Even if the risk is small being at the mercy of an internet connection is bad design when potentially a player could lose several months game play through no fault of their own.

If you didn't back up your ship, you lost it.

The same for D3 hardcore play: I always play with a back up a few levels behind or on equal Acts in Inferno.

Having 2 identical classes, you only loose your current gear, not the stocked gear, nor the gold, nor the crafting plans, nor the back up follower.

It is why D3 hardcore is such a great resource management game.

But you have no clue really.

[Orange Joe]

It clear that despite your constant comments about Eve you have never played it. A disconnect and losing your ship is not the same as completely losing a character, you might lose some training if you do not have an up to date clone but this is a minimal loss, two of the first things you learn in Eve is that you are not the ship you fly and never fly anything you cannot afford to lose. Even if the risk is small being at the mercy of an internet connection is bad design when potentially a player could lose several months game play through no fault of their own.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthi...ximately-9000/




http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10...th-over-6-000/


I would much rather just lose the character.

[Awe]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthi...ximately-9000/




http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10...th-over-6-000/


I would much rather just lose the character.

It was not a loss due to DC. It was a loss due to elaborate scheme of the hostile group of players. All in accordance to game rules.

[Huehuecoyotl]

btw I never lost a connection in 15 months of play and almost 800 hours, so I take the risks TY.

talk me through your hardware, and your ISP. because that statement makes you either a liar, or the luckiest person in the world, as far as i can see.

bearing in mind that 99% of the communication between you and the D3 server is entirely out of your hands, i dont see what you can be doing at your end to somehow magically ensure you never lose connection, ever. if you could educate the rest of the D3 population, you could ensure that nobody ever gets a DC again. hardcore would be purely down to player skill.

i wait with baited breath.

[Pann]

Well actually in the last conference they said they sold MORE than 12 million copies at the end of the second quarter of 2013, so that is 13 months after launch.

And it was 1 million per day and 3 million unique players per month according to the report back in late March.

For a non mmorpg with no need to do dailies or rep grinds that's a very good retention rate .... in view of the fact (!)
these millions are not even normal for first year PC games, ... hence many casual players and masses of them who just play a few hours.

I am not even interested if Mr Average plays D3. I simply know that D3 brought in and will bring in on consoles enough money to go around for the next decade, just like every other Blizzard game.

That's a huge plus for a game with very challenging play in hardcore and I like that.

They made no mention of D3 sales in the Q2 report it was in 2012 Q4 report they mentioned they had sold more than 12 million copies since then the only news we have heard from Blizzard is that 14.5 million people have played it.

I have no idea what you are trying to prove with the rest of your post but you seem very happy for Blizzard so I am happy for you.

So what is? People complaining on a forum?

Quality is entirely subjective why not relay your own experiences rather than relying on the amount of daily players as an indication of quality when it is possible that some of those players might have downloaded the game, played for an hour and decided they do not like it.

[Bizerk]

Sales figures skew everything because there's a lot more people who play games compared to 10years ago.

[Orange Joe]

I have a cable 100Mbit connection. In fact I also have a secondary backup ADSL connection in case my main one fails. I dont know in what world do you live in, but 99.999% fail-free Internet is a rare luxory.

I am also an EVE player since years and connection loss in EVE most of the time will be safe. You will only die if you happened to be engaged in PvP combat at the exact moment of DC which, if you ever played EVE, you should know is rather rare (EVE is a game of waiting for the most part). In PvE rats (mobs) will not harm you due to active tank. In Diablo you are engaged in action almost non-stop. DC = high chance of saying goodbye to your character.

TLDR: D3 hardcore, yes please. But offline mode. No offline? Not going to play it.

I don't know where you live, But I live in a backwater town. In the past 5-6 years I can't think of a time when my internet has gone out.

[Awe]

I don't know where you live, But I live in a backwater town. In the past 5-6 years I can't think of a time when my internet has gone out.

Then you are lucky. The size of your town doesnt matter. You can have outages in 10k town and in 10m city. Also a DC does not always mean a long outage. Sometimes there might be a brief disruption on packet routing and you get a DC and then manage to login back 20sec later. Thats more than enough to loose a character in Diablo.

[BenBos]

talk me through your hardware, and your ISP. because that statement makes you either a liar, or the luckiest person in the world, as far as i can see.

bearing in mind that 99% of the communication between you and the D3 server is entirely out of your hands, i dont see what you can be doing at your end to somehow magically ensure you never lose connection, ever. if you could educate the rest of the D3 population, you could ensure that nobody ever gets a DC again. hardcore would be purely down to player skill.

i wait with baited breath.

Easy to answer: look at the Hardcore Diablo progress website and you will see thousands upon thousands of avatars who reached Paragon 100 in hardcore.

That would be impossible with frequent connection losses.

And yes I never suffered even one connection loss in 800 hours of play.

I had 2 monitor hic ups though, blank screens, but no lost connections in 15 months while playing D3.

I had 5 deaths: all my fault. 3 elites spawns and wallers with beamers are deadly on corners.

[Pann]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthi...ximately-9000/




http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10...th-over-6-000/


I would much rather just lose the character.

As I said one of the important lessons of Eve is you are not the ship that you fly and the eye watering amount of real money comes from the conversion of PLEX that can be bought for real money and then sold for ISK. Those ships were never purchased for actual money.

I don't know where you live, But I live in a backwater town. In the past 5-6 years I can't think of a time when my internet has gone out.

You have just not noticed when your internet has gone down there is simply no way a connection has been 100% reliable for 5 or 6 years.

[Danifilth]

Diablo 2 Starcraft and Brood war plus warcraft series was the last games i ever bought from blizzard. Only time i will buy Diablo 3 when it switches to offline mode so i don't have to deal with Ping issues or worry about working so hard on my character then get hacked or blizzard nerfing classes and bosses making changes. I grew up with games that doesn't require online forcing you to patch the game play it for the changes. The game should be as is once its released its done it should only be patched for compatibility and bugs not changes into the game. Seems so many companies release games with so many bugs and wait couple of weeks for patch after patch after patch. I made a mistake for buying Batman Arkham City and i was given a warning i can activated 4 more times i was about to take it in court so companies will start labeling games with limited installations also known as rentals for certain amount of installations. But probably someone will beat me to it if that person is rich, i like to own my games do as i will make maps edit the game as i desired for myself have the feeling of playing it anytime i want down the road. Never again will i buy DRM games ever

[BenBos]

I said there was no lost connection while playing D3 for 800 hours during a period of the last 15 months.

and that is the norm for me.

So while my monitor broke 2 times, I better stop using monitors then ...




- - - Updated - - -

Diablo 2 Starcraft and Brood war plus warcraft series was the last games i ever bought from blizzard. Only time i will buy Diablo 3 when it switches to offline mode so i don't have to deal with Ping issues or worry about working so hard on my character then get hacked or blizzard nerfing classes and bosses making changes. I grew up with games that doesn't require online forcing you to patch the game play it for the changes. The game should be as is once its released its done it should only be patched for compatibility and bugs not changes into the game. Seems so many companies release games with so many bugs and wait couple of weeks for patch after patch after patch. I made a mistake for buying Batman Arkham City and i was given a warning i can activated 4 more times i was about to take it in court so companies will start labeling games with limited installations also known as rentals for certain amount of installations. But probably someone will beat me to it if that person is rich, i like to own my games do as i will make maps edit the game as i desired for myself have the feeling of playing it anytime i want down the road. Never again will i buy DRM games ever

on line is not DRM.

on line is to better guard the player stats and compare player achievements without hacks.

Diabloprogress and Diablo databases would not even exist if people could just crack codes and stats.

It is even one of the positive sides of Blizzard: player competitions even in pve progress makes people compare and give prolonged on line interest.

Besides this is 2013, not 1996 and dial up modems.

Go with your time instead of playing with local cracked copies.

The console version will be pretty much useless in this respect. But console players are very very casual minded, so they probably won't care even.

I care, so I like the on line projection of my avatars with others.

[tangers58]

Starcraft is still perfect. But Diablo III was crap and Warcraft has been slipping for years. All started with Activision taking control. Now we just get the same garbage dailies to do every patch while waiting for LFR instead of doing the real raids.

[Rizendragon]

D3 was far from a stumble in the eyes of the industry. Something like the 6th or 7th highest selling PC game of all time now. Sure it let down a vocal minority but no one can say it wasn't an extremely successful game.

I don't think Blizzards lost it. MoP has been some of the best quality WoW we've ever had.

This is my opinion for the most part. Unfortunately for a company like Blizzard a "failure" isn't based on how many copies you've sold, but what most of the players think about the game.

The next game that I'm looking forward to that is currently being hyped is ESO, and I too have the "hope they don't mess it up" thoughts.