Diablo® III

So, reading through this thread I kept cycling from frustrated, to angry, to amused, and back again. As of posting this I'm in an amused oscillation. And so, with a wry grin on my face I say to all the posters acting like they're entitled to something, you need to understand this one simple thing:

Diablo 3 is not yours.

You are not owed anything. You do not deserve anything. Nothing has been taken from you. The ceaseless drone of your whining and complaining serves absolutely no purpose, save to annoy and frustrate readers and blues alike.

Diablo 3 is a product that will be sold when it is complete. You may purchase it then. Until it's release I strongly urge everyone to stop littering the forums with this bootless moaning, and enhance everyone's experience here by posting thoughtfully, and with a point.

Thank you.

09/23/2011 08:48 AMPosted by Nethaera

Now I have nothing to look forward to, I know I won't get into beta no game that has a set release date interests me. I also have no games to play they all sucks, by the time diablo is released the graphics are gonna be outdated even more :/ I just don't know what to do I'm sick to my stomach now

You don't know that you won't get into beta. We have time and we'll be adding more people over time.

As you read in the post by Mike Morhaime, we are working very hard to get Diablo III ready and out as soon as possible. We're shooting for early 2012 right now. I know some doomsayers are calling that it will be later, (and I'm not making promises), but it's very rare that we even try to give a time frame and call it out like this. So that, at the least, should count for something or at the very least show that we have nothing but the best intent for the game and the community.

In the end though, we want to make sure that when we release it, that it's something we can be proud of and that you can enjoy as much as possible.

if this is the case i demand a exponential amount of beta keys to be handed out to ensure an EARLY 2012 release!, hint hint.

09/23/2011 12:33 PMPosted by Veldora

when I read the "early 2012" release ....my heart just dropped :( sigh........

well at least it just dropped. mine burned and my mind blew up.

Go Spend Time With Your Family if you're SO lucky to have ANY!!!... I don't, and I'm not complaining about a game posting a few months. Go meet someone and hangout and actually do something fun.. Hit a homerun in your life if you have only ever been to first base... There should be a friend challenge for all socially closeted gamers! GO OUTSIDE! Put on your fav "epic" shirt and quest with your shoes on... Then come back in a few months with tons of feed on why one should never "guest with your shoes on.." :P

09/23/2011 08:48 AMPosted by Nethaera

In the end though, we want to make sure that when we release it, that it's something we can be proud of and that you can enjoy as much as possible.

I can't see this happening. I've watched 20+ hours of beta and without a doubt this looks set to be the first fail Blizzard has produced (or at least marketed). The game looks incredibly slow paced, boring and completely anti-social.

The core issue, in my opinion is the 4 player cap. Honestly even in D2 + LOD, how often did you have 8 players playing with each other? It barely occurs except on specific runs (Baal). I understand Blizzard's reasoning: "If there's hardly 8 players around why balance for 8?". Answer: Well if you're going to balance for 4 and there is constantly 1 or 2 AFKERs or scrubs or in town/off on their own, etc, the balance is just as bad or worse and you've also lost the social aspect of the game as well.

Its entertaining bumping into other players randomly, its great hearing other players in chat while you're grinding. Its more social and more fun.

While watching Diablo 3 streams, I've hardly seen 4 players playing co-operatively, its just plain dumb. As much as you think 4 is the magic number for games, its not. Its the perfect number for a console game with friends/siblings physically present. Its the perfect number for Left 4 Dead, its not the perfect number for Diablo 3. I would love to see the cap raised to an absolute minimum of 6.

Other than social aspects, the Diablo 3 world looks smaller than Diablo 2. In Diablo 2 you have huge areas you can explore at your leisure, Diablo 3's open areas don't seem to compare in size at all. The enemy count on screen looks smaller and less impressive as well, this might be because its so early in the game, I hope so.

New Tristram's design (and name) looks just about as poorly designed as Kurast in Diablo 2. "New Tristram" looks like a dirty trail, not a town, there doesn't seem to be any sort of homely area, not even the "town square".

The dungeons themselves look too narrow and the walls obstructing your already dim view is horrible, merely making them translucent is not enough, waiting for them to become translucent as you approach these areas is very annoying.

That low health warning which covers a person's screen with a red tinge is ugly, distracting and annoying, its about as fun to experience as copping multiple flashbangs by your team mates in counter-strike.

Now to the class spells/talents/abilities. I'm specifically concerned with the amount of light/magic effects displayed on screen, they're all over top. Each spell completely overpowers anything else on the screen, and then players spam them. It's an eye sore. It becomes incredibly hard to see anything at all on the screen. Now multiply this by 4-8 and it just becomes a circus. You can't keep track of where your character is, where monsters are and you can't focus on anything but the attack effects. It really needs to be toned down.

Examples of over the top graphics;

Witch Doctor;
Horrify - Why does this need to be so large?

Barbarian:
Leap Attack: Although it looks great, the puffy white circle takes up a large area, I presume this is to illustrate it hitting out around 8 yards? Still looks excessive on screen, its not the only 1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRM2UJ0PYFE

Monk: In my opinion the worst offender by far (so far)
Every second and third combo hits.
Just about every ability. Watch this video and tell me how you're supposed to know where your character is on screen after launching some of these abilities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y9Mtb8YJeo

Demon Hunter:
The fact that every time she fires a bolt the character itself explodes in a flash of colour depending on the skill. The 3 bombs thrown/exploding animation is too much on the eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sn3SmYfdLw

You might be thinking this is a non-issue or something but you need to understand that if there are 4 or more characters on screen, all with intense animations being cast simultaneously, along with monster animations/death etc, it really becomes excessive very quickly.

Graphics that I think work well include:
Witch Doctor: Poison Dart, dead poison guy-skill that evaporates as it walks
Wizard: Shiver armor, red laser
Demon Hunter: That skill where she hop-skip-jumps through the air very quickly


The quest system where you're constantly accepting quests needs to be removed. The mini-cut scene when entering the Skeleton King's lair is annoying and stops game play. I'd encourage you to remove this and any other mini-cut scenes which currently exist in the game. But I suppose they would be fine if you only had to experience it once per character.

Quests should include all players automatically considering all players are now in the same "party". Although I haven't seen the full game, I assume there won't be 10,000+ quests. If there isn't parties, and there aren't endless quests, why are we required to accept quests? This isn't WoW.

Selecting a quest you want to do in the game before you join or create it. Why? After watching this painful method many times I have to say, this is one thing that Diablo 2 did perfectly. Please reconsider adding the Diablo 2 list-option, I believe a Blue has already posted about it.

Will there be chat channels that we can join, either channels such as WoW's General/Global chat, country specific chat channels Diablo 2 style? I immensely enjoy reading the chat while I game, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Lastly, does anyone know if Diablo 3 characters using stupid hidden 3 digit code thing that Starcraft 2 uses? I just cannot tolerate this method of communication. Being unable to message someone by typing their name into chat is mind numbing and unbelievably infuriating. Its the reason I uninstalled Starcraft 2 and its the reason I will not be buying the Starcraft 2 expansions.

Dude are you serious you have nothing to do? I am in the US Army still serving for another 6 years as Reserve, maybe you should do the same it knocked out 5 months pretty quick while doing training. Now im back at home working at a fitness gym and I spent a good 1500$ for my PC tower ONLY so blizzard could notice my specifications for the BETA so I could just hopefully be picked, I love RPG's and this game is going to be my #1 without a doubt. But I didnt write this to give you my background just more to the point of even I have the same lust as everyone else for this game to come but yet I still do other things to keep me busy and honestly Skyrim, Dark Souls and all those other games will never compare to Diablo 3 its just not possible in my opinion.

I have been waiting for 10 years lol so a few more month is nothing.

Now I have nothing to look forward to, I know I won't get into beta no game that has a set release date interests me. I also have no games to play they all sucks, by the time diablo is released the graphics are gonna be outdated even more :/ I just don't know what to do I'm sick to my stomach now

You don't know that you won't get into beta. We have time and we'll be adding more people over time.

As you read in the post by Mike Morhaime, we are working very hard to get Diablo III ready and out as soon as possible. We're shooting for early 2012 right now. I know some doomsayers are calling that it will be later, (and I'm not making promises), but it's very rare that we even try to give a time frame and call it out like this. So that, at the least, should count for something or at the very least show that we have nothing but the best intent for the game and the community.

In the end though, we want to make sure that when we release it, that it's something we can be proud of and that you can enjoy as much as possible.

I believe in blizzard that an early 2012 release. A game of this magnitude can take the extra time to debug, it has been in the making forever and has a legacy to protect and hype to live up to. Can you imagine the uproar if you bought Diablo 3 and the AH crashed your quests? Can you imagine what it would be like if you had to download a patch everyday to fix simple things that were not found because of lack of testing? Blizzard will produce a fine game, as they always have, and it will kick just as much butt with a delayed release. Take this time to carefully examine the re envisioned uniques of the past. I personally laughed at the new Goldwrap, definitely one of my favorite items, because of ease of obtaining.

09/23/2011 12:31 PMPosted by Siekobilly

You are just another dude thinking they know more about this that others, but it seems to me you know just as much as anyone else, in the end its all speculation on our end, so calm down. Also i never, ever, claimed i wanted into the beta, it would be nice but i dont stress about it. And also why would it be rediculous of me to expect that thier internal testers should catch more than 80-90% of issues? Cause they did in the SC2 beta, that beta was polished as hell. With two different diablo games and decades of seeing how players played those games you would think blizzard would have just a bit of experience with how their player base will use the game, just a thought.

You're right, I do think I know more about the QA/Dev process than someone who does not work in that field. Just like I'm sure you know more about whatever it is you do for a living. Now, the 80-90% that I gave was what my company usually looks for prior to going Beta due to a lot of other factors that I will not/can not get into here.

Also, I'm not sure at what point you got into the SC2 Beta, but when I got in there were a lot of issues. None of them were show stoppers, but there were issues that needed to be addressed. I also never said that Blizzard had now experience with how their playerbase would use the game, I said "This may not be exactly how the QA and/or Dev team thought about it being used...".

Finally, I never meant for my post to sound like an attack against you, so I apologize if you took it that way.

I'm glad someone with wisdom entered this thread. I am also sorry on your behalf for being someone with wisdom who... well entered this thread. XD There are a ton of crybabies in here who think that Blizzard Entertainment owes them specific details on their developing process. It's laughable.

Blizzard is not going to explain to you why they are pushing the game back to 2012 because they shouldn't... and don't have to... and owe you nothing. Even if you feel they do, they don't. They will get the game to you when they are ready with it. You can count on that. Beta testing is not for you, it is for them. People keep complaining that Blizzard is hyping their game while at the same time they say that Blizzard is not giving them enough information. They are not hyping their game. Their game is hyping itself and their fanbase is hyping it because they are excited. They are not telling you much information because they don't want to make promises. I am personally very happy with that approach, even if it does feel bad not to know.

As for the 2012 release... Stop saying 5 months... They just overshot a bit I'm sure. Expect it in January latest. If this prediction is wrong you can yell at me and take a bit of your anger out on someone other than your favorite Game Developer.

Skyrim looks like it will hold me over but that is still 2 months away. Yes, the gaming industry has sucked over the last couple of years.

While there has been some block busters and decent games, nothing with that long term grip. Even Skyrim... being that their games are almost the same over and over again will last maybe 2-3 months of casual gaming.

Torchlight II will last for a maybe a month. Only cause its $20.

Even FPS games, while there are good ones out there, don't have that hook that Counter-Strike did when it was still a free mod of Half Life 1.

Hell, I haven't fired up really any games over the last 6 months for more than an hour a week. Nothing has that new and fun appeal.

I will sit tight and hope that this is the only delay for D2.

09/23/2011 07:47 AMPosted by Nitro

The problem is I was looking forward to this game quite a bit and now it doesn't even matter i was on these forums all the time during work the past couple months now problly hardly at all because the gams still so far away

You sound like a whiny kid. just saying lol.

Go play Skyrim you ninny...

Expect it in January latest. If this prediction is wrong you can yell at me and take a bit of your anger out on someone other than your favorite Game Developer.

:P ill keep that in mind, if its not out by then i know im gonna need to vent :P

Lol I knew this going to happen just to get that dang RMAH protected with so called server


We never wanted real money auction house and its holding everthing up.

Well I hope they start inviting some opt-ins soon. Sounds like they could use some outside involvment. Not a whole lot or it will get crowded and everyone will be screaming. But a few for sure.

Well I hope alot of people get invited to the beta now.