**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

[smackababy]

http://www.techspot.com/news/47142-...es-blizzard-amid-sweeping-system-changes.html

Um what?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/7592242994#1

Hey everyone,

I wanted all of you to be some of the first to know that I've made an important decision about my future, and how that decision will affect the future of Diablo.

I recently celebrated my seven-year anniversary working on Diablo III, and while it's been one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of my life, I've reached a point creatively where I'm looking forward to working on something new. The powers that be at Blizzard have been gracious enough to give me that opportunity. Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be moving off of the Diablo III project and transitioning elsewhere within Blizzard. This decision was not an easy one for me, and not one I made quickly, but ultimately it's what I feel is right.

The first thing I want to assure you all is that this will not negatively impact our ongoing support of Diablo III. The game was not made by one person, far from it, and the team that poured their passion and considerable talent into it isn't going anywhere. We have lots of things planned for the future, and those plans will carry forward as normal. I also won't be abandoning the team, and will remain available to them during the transition period while we determine who will take over duties as game director.

To that point, you shouldn't be surprised if you see a job posting for a game director on Diablo III, as we want to make sure we explore every opportunity to find the best possible leadership for the project. We're looking forward to finding this person and hearing what kind of fresh ideas they can bring to the table.

I'm proud of Diablo III, and despite our differences at times I will miss the community that has formed around it. I feel I have made many mistakes in managing that relationship, but my intent was always to provide a great gaming experience, and be as open and receptive as possible, while still sticking true to the vision the Diablo team has for the game.

I know some of you feel we fell short of our promise to release the game "when it's ready." While we're not perfect, we try to make the best decisions we can with the information and knowledge we have at the time. That doesn't mean we always make the right decisions, but if we made a mistake then I feel we've made an exceptional effort to correct it.

This is what you can always count on from Blizzard: that we will stand by our games and make every effort to continually improve them over time. We heard the feedback and suggestions from the community. For example, we agreed that Diablo III's itemization at launch was not good enough, so the team made numerous changes, including changing drop rates, re-tuning legendaries, and adding scores of new items to the game. We also agreed that the end game needed more depth, so the team added new events, and new systems like Monster Power and Paragon levels.

Our commitment to making our games as good as they can be is what has always defined Blizzard as a game studio, and that commitment never ends for us at a ship date. With your help, we'll continue to play, debate, and improve Diablo III, as we've done with every Blizzard game.

To that end, patch 1.0.7 is underway, the PTR is live, and there are many other great things brewing for Diablo in 2013. I'm leaving Diablo III in good hands, and my departure will not jeopardize the progress of the game as we continue to do what we do: listen, play, and improve.

You are the most passionate, dedicated group of gamers a designer could hope to have. I wish you all the best, and want to thank you for making this an amazing experience for me. Keep your axes sharp, your spell books handy, and that crafty devil in check.

--Jay

 

[lupi]

interesting to see how this all effects the next expansion.

 

[Wyndru]

Man a lot of rough comments in there. People really disliked Jay.

Then again, it's the bnet forums, everyone on there is miserable about the game (you see the same thing in the WoW and SC forums). I've never understood why you see so many bitching over and over, yet you look at their profiles and they have hundreds of hours on their chars.

 

[smackababy]

Man a lot of rough comments in there. People really disliked Jay.

Then again, it's the bnet forums, everyone on there is miserable about the game (you see the same thing in the WoW and SC forums). I've never understood why you see so many bitching over and over, yet you look at their profiles and they have hundreds of hours on their chars.

Because people like to whine and most of them are morons. A lot of people have been saying Jay got fired because D3 was a failure. I know right... 10 million copies sold? Sounds like the game failed to me. Also, 99% of the community doesn't understand the development process of any kind of software, let alone a game. And most of their ideas to improve D3 are terrible. Not to mention people don't understand you don't have to use the gold AH or the RMAH if you don't want to. You can find all the gear you want. Chances are it won't be great, but you can still do that.

I hardly see this effecting the expansion because the actual input Jay had wasn't as far reaching as people think.

 

[Adrenaline]

Man a lot of rough comments in there. People really disliked Jay.

Then again, it's the bnet forums, everyone on there is miserable about the game (you see the same thing in the WoW and SC forums). I've never understood why you see so many bitching over and over, yet you look at their profiles and they have hundreds of hours on their chars.

Maybe because D3 is the biggest disappointment of all time to a large majority of gamers. Many gamers glad Jay Wilson is gone.

 

[Adrenaline]

Because people like to whine and most of them are morons. A lot of people have been saying Jay got fired because D3 was a failure. I know right... 10 million copies sold? Sounds like the game failed to me. Also, 99% of the community doesn't understand the development process of any kind of software, let alone a game. And most of their ideas to improve D3 are terrible. Not to mention people don't understand you don't have to use the gold AH or the RMAH if you don't want to. You can find all the gear you want. Chances are it won't be great, but you can still do that.

I hardly see this effecting the expansion because the actual input Jay had wasn't as far reaching as people think.

Sales are there because Diablo 2: LoD was amazing. It is one of the top PC ARPGs ever. The game did not fail on sales, it fails because of the numerous features it lacks compared to the previous game.

You have to use the AH to get gear upgrades. Sure you could find stuff but who has all that time to find one upgrade for endgame every 100 hours or so played.

I really enjoy how most , if not all, of their "improvements" since launch were mostly in D2 or in other ARPGs that have been out for years.

 

[smackababy]

Sales are there because Diablo 2: LoD was amazing. It is one of the top PC ARPGs ever. The game did not fail on sales, it fails because of the numerous features it lacks compared to the previous game.

You have to use the AH to get gear upgrades. Sure you could find stuff but who has all that time to find one upgrade for endgame every 100 hours or so played.

I really enjoy how most , if not all, of their "improvements" since launch were mostly in D2 or in other ARPGs that have been out for years.

That is exactly how it was in D2. Unless you traded, you had to find your own gear. And it took longer. The only bad thing D3 did was the itemization was bad. The online only aspect was announced long before the game came out. Everyone who purchased it knew this. Sales were not just because of D2. How long ago was that again? Yeah. A lot of players that bought D3 never played D2. It is the best ARPG released in the past 10 years.

The AH servers only to satisfy the people who want instant gratification and the RHAM serves that even more. You don't have to use it at all.

 

[Adrenaline]

That is exactly how it was in D2. Unless you traded, you had to find your own gear. And it took longer. The only bad thing D3 did was the itemization was bad. The online only aspect was announced long before the game came out. Everyone who purchased it knew this. Sales were not just because of D2. How long ago was that again? Yeah. A lot of players that bought D3 never played D2. It is the best ARPG released in the past 10 years.

The AH servers only to satisfy the people who want instant gratification and the RHAM serves that even more. You don't have to use it at all.

It did not take longer to find your gear in D2:LoD. You could find end game gear in D2 more frequently than the awful itemization of D3. Unless you farmed only NM in LoD, you could find something.

I don't care about online only. That has not affected me.

A large part of sales were due to D2. All my real life friends that bought D3 quit before finishing hell because how awful the story was or how much the game lacked. D2 was 10 years ago and it is better than D3. I feel Titan's Quest is better than D3, especially their skill trees, and I think it was released in the last 10 years.

You're right about not "having" to use either AH, but if you want to progress at a steady pace and get more powerful, it is the way to go 99% of the time.

I found all my gear in D2 except the WF my Amazon used. I only found one thing my Barb uses and I rarely use it as I have bought something better overall from the AH. So really, all my gear for my Barb is from the AH. Also, all my DH gear is from the AH.

We will see how truly successful D3 is when their expansions hits and see the sales numbers. It will not be close to 10 million though. I know I will not be buying that nor will anyone I know. Then again it is a Blizzard game, so it will sell nicely to botters.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I don't know if it's really Jay Wilson's fault that the game was released the way it was. You can easily tell that the game was rushed out. The game should have had another year of development and play testing. The itemization would be the same though. If you want a serious economy through the AH there is no way you can have players constantly finding upgrades themselves. Personally, I never thought the game needed a real economy. I think the lure of the RMAH was too much for Blizzard to pass up.

 

[Grooveriding]

This bodes well for the expansion possibly resurrecting this failure of a game. Let's face it, the game sold so well on the capital established by the prior games and the overly long wait for the third instalment.

Blizzard blew their capital with Diablo 3's release, releasing one of the worst games of 2012 and their first resounding failure of a game. With the state of the game and the vast disappointment in this crap pile, chances are an expansion would fall well short of the 10 million copies sold. Sure it would sell well, but to investors 5 or 6 million is a failure in the face of the 10 million initial sales of the base game.

Looks like they are letting him leave with grace as well as saving some face for Blizzard as well. He'll probably leave the company in another year or so. Hopefully they can salvage this disaster of a game and deliver a real Diablo game with the expansion.

I most certainly will not touch the xpac this time though, not until all game systems are revealed and there is evidence it is actually a game worth buying. Not getting burned twice by the Activision/Blizzard scam.

 

[badb0y]

Doesn't surprise me one bit. Out of like the 20 people I started the game with only like 2 still log on from time to time.

 

[smackababy]

Well I am never playing the PTR again... Found a 9IAS 6 Crit Dex Mempo... Why wouldn't this be on real servers Blizzard? Why must you troll me?!?

 

[CottonRabbit]

Now that Jay's gone, maybe they'll be able to make faster progress on TDM PvP and other fixes to the game. PvP is what I was waiting for since release, I'm glad I didn't hold my breath for it or expect them to keep their promises.

 

[digiram]

Well I am never playing the PTR again... Found a 9IAS 6 Crit Dex Mempo... Why wouldn't this be on real servers Blizzard? Why must you troll me?!?

Oh my.. trolled big time.

 

[darkewaffle]

It did not take longer to find your gear in D2:LoD. You could find end game gear in D2 more frequently than the awful itemization of D3. Unless you farmed only NM in LoD, you could find something.

I don't care about online only. That has not affected me.

A large part of sales were due to D2. All my real life friends that bought D3 quit before finishing hell because how awful the story was or how much the game lacked. D2 was 10 years ago and it is better than D3. I feel Titan's Quest is better than D3, especially their skill trees, and I think it was released in the last 10 years.

You're right about not "having" to use either AH, but if you want to progress at a steady pace and get more powerful, it is the way to go 99% of the time.

I found all my gear in D2 except the WF my Amazon used. I only found one thing my Barb uses and I rarely use it as I have bought something better overall from the AH. So really, all my gear for my Barb is from the AH. Also, all my DH gear is from the AH.

We will see how truly successful D3 is when their expansions hits and see the sales numbers. It will not be close to 10 million though. I know I will not be buying that nor will anyone I know. Then again it is a Blizzard game, so it will sell nicely to botters.

That's because "end game" D2 was still blind retarded monkey easy, you could beat the game with crap gear, without spending stat points, and with singular skills. That doesn't mean you found better stuff, that just means standards were even lower.

D2 was an okay game. For the time it was relatively good because of the atmosphere and genre development and lack of alternatives, but ultimately I found it to be a really bland game. I didn't buy D3 because of D2, I bought it because my friends were playing it; if they hadn't, I would never have tried D3 because of D2. Ultimately it played out about the same for me, beat the game, push a little bit further, get bored (imo the endgame in every "lootgame" blows). But it at least lasted longer in D3 and provided substantially more of a challenge along the way.

If you found items in D2, great. Like you said, you played a lot and for a long time I'd imagine. But the numbers are there and have been there for ages. Drop rates in D2 sucked just as hard, probably harder in some cases. The best items still have horrendously low chances of dropping, even more so because so many of them are in crowded Treasure Classes and because a lot of high TCs can't be dropped by many enemies.

 

[Wyndru]

Out of curiosity, does the 10 million copies sold also count all of the free copies given to WoW subscribers?

I have 5 copies, and I didn't pay a cent for the game.

 

[Grooveriding]

Out of curiosity, does the 10 million copies sold also count all of the free copies given to WoW subscribers?

I have 5 copies, and I didn't pay a cent for the game.

It does, the annual pass copies of D3 were counted as sales. I believe there were 1.4 million annual pass copies 'sold'.

 

[waterjug]

Sales are there because Diablo 2: LoD was amazing. It is one of the top PC ARPGs ever. The game did not fail on sales, it fails because of the numerous features it lacks compared to the previous game.

You have to use the AH to get gear upgrades. Sure you could find stuff but who has all that time to find one upgrade for endgame every 100 hours or so played.

I really enjoy how most , if not all, of their "improvements" since launch were mostly in D2 or in other ARPGs that have been out for years.

A million times this. Jay Wilson didn't sell 10M copies of D3. D2: LoD sold 10M copies of D3. Want to see how many copies of a Diablo game Jay Wilson can sell? Put out Diablo 4 tomorrow and watch it crash & burn.

 

[OCNewbie]

A million times this. Jay Wilson didn't sell 10M copies of D3. D2: LoD sold 10M copies of D3. Want to see how many copies of a Diablo game Jay Wilson can sell? Put out Diablo 4 tomorrow and watch it crash & burn.

Ditto. D3 is not a success because it's a great game, it's a success because people assumed it would be great based on D2:LoD.

Excellent point about D4.

 

[Adrenaline]

That's because "end game" D2 was still blind retarded monkey easy, you could beat the game with crap gear, without spending stat points, and with singular skills. That doesn't mean you found better stuff, that just means standards were even lower.

D2 was an okay game. For the time it was relatively good because of the atmosphere and genre development and lack of alternatives, but ultimately I found it to be a really bland game. I didn't buy D3 because of D2, I bought it because my friends were playing it; if they hadn't, I would never have tried D3 because of D2. Ultimately it played out about the same for me, beat the game, push a little bit further, get bored (imo the endgame in every "lootgame" blows). But it at least lasted longer in D3 and provided substantially more of a challenge along the way.

If you found items in D2, great. Like you said, you played a lot and for a long time I'd imagine. But the numbers are there and have been there for ages. Drop rates in D2 sucked just as hard, probably harder in some cases. The best items still have horrendously low chances of dropping, even more so because so many of them are in crowded Treasure Classes and because a lot of high TCs can't be dropped by many enemies.

My standards for items was not mediocre, but in fact very high. Farming Meph and the Council on Hell you could find almost everything.

Hell Meph and Council dropped:

Skulder's Ire
Stormshield
Perfect Shako
249/7 Doombringer
49% War Travelers
A dual leech ring

And more which I can't recall off the top of my head. If I found runes, great, and if I could not, oh well.

My Barb was could solo Baal runs in 8 player games. It was nice.

 

[silverpig]

I've played a bit over the past few days after not playing for a few weeks due to the holidays. I've found quite a few legendaries, but they've all been crap. Hellracks and Ageless Mights seem to drop all over the place for me

I've also now found 3 Andy's helms and never a Mempo. 5 Firewalkers and no Ice Climbers. Never found a Manticore either.

 

[fstime]

I've played a bit over the past few days after not playing for a few weeks due to the holidays. I've found quite a few legendaries, but they've all been crap. Hellracks and Ageless Mights seem to drop all over the place for me

I've also now found 3 Andy's helms and never a Mempo. 5 Firewalkers and no Ice Climbers. Never found a Manticore either.

Don't worry, play the game enough and you will.

Just expect them to be non-cc mempos, int-single socket manticores, and non-movement speed ice climbers

tldr: drops are shit in this game.

 

[Imp]

If you found items in D2, great. Like you said, you played a lot and for a long time I'd imagine. But the numbers are there and have been there for ages. Drop rates in D2 sucked just as hard, probably harder in some cases. The best items still have horrendously low chances of dropping, even more so because so many of them are in crowded Treasure Classes and because a lot of high TCs can't be dropped by many enemies.

Drops sucked in D2 and it was worse in parties because it was shared loot. If you didn't clear fast enough, you wouldn't get jackshit, no matter how well the drop was. It didn't really matter though because D2 was relatively easy. Even with mediocre items and non-existant resists, I could solo everything at Hell difficulty. Never found any SOJs and trading was stupidly hard because it became a duped-SOJ economy.

 

[pandemonium]

Comparing D3 to D2 is pretty pointless unless you regurgitate a point already discussed in this thread a while back: without the AH, you would have little-no idea what the best is and how you long for those items; aside from stalking players equipment you're interacting with directly. The AH is a direct and constant reminder that you're not as awesome as you hoped you were. Take it in stride.

Personally, I enjoy D3. I like the challenge of hitting the lottery and not everyone being able to easily have all the leet gear just handed to them. Granted, there's quite a few things I would change, but each patch has been providing necessary updates and systems to make the game more enjoyable and balanced for each class and each person's playstyle.

With anything in life, time put in will be the ultimate reward deciding factor. Why should this [game] be any different? Without a challenge, there's little purpose to continue to play.

 

[Generator]

Who was the guy that got fired from Blizzard around this time last year? Was working with D3. If Jay Wilson took his job then he might even deserve credit for getting the game out at all.