Diablo® III

Quoted from

thecount54:

"Well I have to applaud Blizzard in all reality. From a business stand point it would seem like you're on the perfect track to make the shareholders at Activision very, very pleased.

You've taken a game with so much hype built around it, a game with a rabid and wildly large fan base, a game vaulting off of the massive success of the previous generation - and you've turned it into your sacrificial lamb.

I understand that WoW is dying. The cash cow that you have been able to depend on to fill your coffers is finally drying up. It had a great run. MoP is not likely to defibrillate the failing heart of what was once the WoW empire, and you know this. Starcraft 2, while an amazing game, cannot replace this cash cow - then again it wasn't meant to. How could it? Your business foresight is very, very attuned. Because of this you carefully planned your next chess move: Diablo 3.

What better way to birth another golden goose than to bank an entire game off of the most addictive part of what Diablo 2 was: the item grind. Pure brilliance. And so, from the ground up, you formed this game to be solely about item exchange - this would be the titan built to replace WoW's subscription based bankroll in the form of micro transactions.

Except one thing: you're boring.

On May 15th 2012, after nearly a decade of anticipation, we were given Diablo 3! Except, it's not quite Diablo 3. It's a slimmed down, cut up version of the Diablo 3 everyone was taught to expect. Except, it wasn't given to us, we still had to pay you full price for it: $60.

My how the mighty hath fallen. Why is it not Diablo 3, you say? Well let's see. Anyone remember all those teaser videos spoon fed to the community over the past 3 years? Videos slowly leaking to us glimpses of the content we could expect to experience? I do.

From nearly FOUR years ago:

@2:10 "These current weapons just won't do!":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K0YkUH6r6c&list=UUCGf0PicJgNp6yb7xsdZAwA&index=1&feature=plcp

I guess scrapping this idea all together was more developmentally cost effective.

@6:30 "Let's see what a real fight looks like."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT4K6e2q10g&list=UUCGf0PicJgNp6yb7xsdZAwA&index=10&feature=plcp

Indeed, lets. I'm still waiting, actually. Is it just me or does that environment look entirely more engaging than the atmosphere we've purchased at release?

@2:00 Did he say randomized, dungeons, quests and encounters?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAyxY7mjzI&list=UUCGf0PicJgNp6yb7xsdZAwA&index=7&feature=plcp

If their idea of newly generated fights, quests and environments is a continuous cycle of the same things from a pre-conceived list, he's spot on!

So where's the beef? - some might say. The beef is that this is not Diablo 3, this is an imposter. A hologram. An artificial replacement. A lame duck substitute for what hype built it up to be. A cut up and slimmed down version of what should have been. In essence: a slaughtered, sacrificial lamb.

That leaves myself and thousands of others saying indeed, where is the beef? Blizzard's answer: there is no cow level. But hey, we got rainbows and unicorns!

Is anyone still in complete denial about how truly boring this game is or have people started to shake off the honey moon dust?

You eliminated enchanting, PvP, pet companions and other things from the release version so that you could market it as part of a later expansion for more money. (This is a trend in gaming that several developers have been following; withhold content you've been advertising for the past two years and charge a premium for it at a later date. I shouldn't have expected Activision-Blizzard to be any different, and that is my fault. I wrongly assumed this group was made of trend setters and leaders, not followers - so shame on me.)

You didn't include a single player mode because you can't make money off of people if they aren't using the AH in a multiplayer format. Less work for you in the development stages, and forces people to engage in the micro-economy that your bankroll is based on. Again, brilliance. Which leads me to my final point:

There is so LITTLE dynamic to this game I cannot believe it took this many years to create it. In fact, I don't. So why the long wait? I'll tell you: economic law.

More specifically, the legality and complications that stemmed from the idea of a multinational game built around a Real Money Auction House. This process, I imagine, took years to iron out - while the game itself probably took no more than a few actual working years to complete (and it truly shows).

It doesn't take an overly intelligent mind to figure WHY they would want to use a RMAH and get a cut of (a lot of) the transactions. That's fine. Here's the problem: you built the entire game around a pure gear grind, and then force that gear grind to revolve around the AH, specifically the RMAH. There is literally no other dynamic. When you build a game from a purely business stand point, you're not building a great game - and a great game this is not.

In conclusion, gamers, do you really want to spend your time on yet another slave-like gear grind? If so, eat your heart out. You'll find no better place to do it! If not, there are a plethora of other games out there much more deserving of your $60, I promise.

Diablo 3 was built around Activision's greed. Participate at your own will.

Gamers hold grudges and people aren't going to forget this disaster. If you obliterate your true fan base, the pillars of your success come falling soon after.

I give this post less than a few hours before it is deleted by Blizzard moderators. Can't have that bad flavor out there, can we? Truth hurts.

Regards, a long time fan."

^

Agreed as i'm a fanof diablo i couldnt wait for this game to be released
first day servers are down. ok that cool i understand
error msgs. thats ok im sure they're flat out.
But wait. no its not ok.
I have been trying to convince myself this game is totally awesome but i find myself thinking was that it? all that wait for this something i can't even play.
its been issue after issue now having the issue where the patch file isnt working.
i understand people and going to have their opinion about people QQ on the boards.
but really was it worth the money for something that should have been epic so much hype for nothing but a profit for something people can hardly get good game time out of and is very rough.
I know i'm sure dissapointed with blizz and will defiantly reconsider buying another of their games after this..

Totally agreed. I think their fan base (once i was a fanatic member of this base) have lost faith from this buggy game they made. Although, I believe that they shouldn't named it Diablo 3. No dark atmosphere, childish graphics, not enough blood effects, your "helpers" in your journey just trying to say something funny... I mean come on! Is this Diablo? I think not. 100% unworthy your 60$. If it was for 20$... Well nothing good lasts forever... and it was time for Blizzard to make a huge mistake with the Diablo's release. It hurts though that you even now hardly believe they did such a tragic mistake. I wonder if they have a backup plan to restore their failure...

The future will prove it...

This is the 6th time we created this post, and we have become quite efficient at it.

"you built the entire game around a pure gear grind"

If that is any different than D2 I would like to hear how.

I just don't get it. I played D2. I played it the same exact way as I do D3, only, in D3, I have more skills to play with. Run around, kill, loot, rinse, repeat. This isn't any different.

Stop trying to make this game something it never was.

"you built the entire game around a pure gear grind"

If that is any different than D2 I would like to hear how.

I just don't get it. I played D2. I played it the same exact way as I do D3, only, in D3, I have more skills to play with. Run around, kill, loot, rinse, repeat. This isn't any different.

Stop trying to make this game something it never was.

And instead of dealing with scumbags in trade chat or trade games, I can throw a good item on the AH for a good price, get the gold for that item, and use that gold to buy the exact item I want.

I enjoy playing Diablo 3; enjoyment is an opinion, and we differ. But that doesn't make most of that review untrue.

And instead of dealing with scumbags in trade chat or trade games, I can throw a good item on the AH for a good price, get the gold for that item, and use that gold to buy the exact item I want.

Yes because you are too damn lazy to find it yourself.

lazy? this is a video game.

I agree. This game has been such a let down. I have been playing it but I find myself getting bored and going back to League of Legends. I just wish ONCE, that a game developer would keep the game play the same, add new content, and upgrade the graphics. If Diablo3 was like Diablo2, with the new content and better graphics, it would undoubtedly be better than this trash they produced. I only kept playing Diablo2 because of the PVP, and that did not even come released with this game. No doubt we will need to spend another $60 just to "unlock" the pvp arena. What a joke. Activision is awful, every game they buy or make is just a scam.

Pretty much over gaming now. Too many corporate sellout companies. Not enough indie developers making decent games.

I feel like this is the prequels to Star Wars all over again. The hardcore nerds who built it up forever didn't get what they expected. Meanwhile the people who just wanted a fun game, think it's even better than they expected.

As a shareholder, I love the RMAH. As a player, I could care less. It isn't going to change how I play the game, so it doesn't bother me.

05/30/2012 08:01 AMPosted by DasBaum

This is the 6th time we created this post, and we have become quite efficient at it.

I see what you did there.

Yeah... where did this game go? I want to play it.

And instead of dealing with scumbags in trade chat or trade games, I can throw a good item on the AH for a good price, get the gold for that item, and use that gold to buy the exact item I want.

Yes because you are too damn lazy to find it yourself.

You must be from the 18th century.

Searchable database was invented years ago. AH saves loads of time. It doesn't require you to live through millions of gold farmer spams on trade channel and is fool proof when it comes to scamming attempts.

Person you replied to isn't lazy. He's smart. And since your opinion is diametrically opposed to his, guess what that makes you.

I agree with mostly everything said here, except I'm pretty sure we're not going to be charged for PvP - that's supposedly going to be made free on patch 1.1.