Blizzard Admits Diablo III End-Game Failure

[Ghonzor]

I stopped having fun after the first week. Even new characters didn't make the game any fun. And come on, if throwing a stampede of zombie bears at people has lost its charm, you're doing something wrong.

Huh. In my day, endless cow or baal runs was the end-game. Do they actually expect you to reach level cap in D3?


(also, get off my lawn)

And yet somehow Baal runs were at least enough to keep me interested. Getting 8 people together to go wreck his shit? That was fantastic. I barely got to Inferno in 3, but I had a 93 Necromancer in 2 and loved the hell out of him.

 

[Brad Shepard]

Blizz admits it, why cant Bioware?

 

[Fireprufe15]

Short version: Blizard didn't think anyone would play through their game so quickly so they decided to not put an endgame in. ie They sold us an incomplete game at a price higher than most PC games and forced us to get uncapped internet from isp's, forgetting that they also ship to countries where internet is not as cheap, fast or readily available as the usa and europe.

Shorter version: Blizard should have spent more time thinking.

Aaaaaand...im done.

 

[Chappy]

2. I don't think anyone is experiencing any logging issues anymore because that issue was sorted.

The game works just fine, it's not broken.

The Game isn't broken but the servers need a tweak. Today I got Error '3007' is it? Where you are disconnected from Battle.net 5 times and while Latency and lag was good for 1-2 hours afterwards the server started to chug it a bit until I had to leave the game because Latency hit 6K.

Before you say it no it is not my internet connection my internet connection is fine, Neither is it the settings on the game or the use of Processors or CPU I've run through all that already the servers at times are just plain bad and could really use some help.

 

[Woodsey]

1. I'm not getting how it treats the players like criminals.

Because the quality of the paying customer's experience suffers due to Blizzard attempting to tackle piracy. I.e. By making inane always-online requirements, when they could have quite easily included a completely separate single-player too.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Read it on Diablofans... Sad that, after a decade of WoW and TWELVE years of developing Diablo 3 they couldn't predict this.

Scratch that! They knew, but didn't care.
And then they say Marketing BS like "Bwuh!!! This is what we see after a WoW expansion comes out! Bwuh! So it's NORMAL FOR US! Don't complain about our half arsed effort, BWUH!!!!!"

Bah. Spent precious money on collectors edition and stopped playing within a month. Total betrayal of trust here. No PVP after ages, no NOTHING.

FF off, Blizzard, FF off!

 

[Aeshi]

1. I'm not getting how it treats the players like criminals.

Because the quality of the paying customer's experience suffers due to Blizzard attempting to tackle piracy. I.e. By making inane always-online requirements, when they could have quite easily included a completely separate single-player too.

Because we all know how well that worked for Diablo II right?

Oh no wait the multiplayer was a hack filled mess (but the 3 people playing singleplayer were able to do so offline so that's ok then)

Scratch that! They knew, but didn't care.
And then they say Marketing BS like "Bwuh!!! This is what we see after a WoW expansion comes out! Bwuh! So it's NORMAL FOR US! Don't complain about our half arsed effort, BWUH!!!!!"

Or alternatively, they realized it would happen regardless of what they did and didn't expect people to mind (since it was apparently perfectly ok when every MMO ever did this? or do those 3 extra letters double as a 'disconnect as much as you damn well want' sticker?)

 

[Woodsey]

1. I'm not getting how it treats the players like criminals.

Because the quality of the paying customer's experience suffers due to Blizzard attempting to tackle piracy. I.e. By making inane always-online requirements, when they could have quite easily included a completely separate single-player too.

Because we all know how well that worked for Diablo II right?

Oh no wait the multiplayer was a hack filled mess (but the 3 people playing singleplayer were able to do so offline so that's ok then)

Separate single-player as in one that's completely severed from online-play, with another single-player that's as it is now.

Because duh.

 

[Aeshi]

That's what Diablo II did.

Spoiler: Spoiler Alert:

Spoiler Alert: It didn't work

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

People will be making fun of Blizzard for this for years to come. And they deserve every bit of it for this.

 

[blackdwarf]

every time people are whining about about the end-game of D3, i really am asking myself: "what was the end-game of D2?" that was doing baal runs. nothing more. grinding inferno or grinding one boss has the same result: getting gear. thing is that baal was balanced around lvl 70, so he was a easy kill with the best drops of the game. inferno is balanced around 3 lvls higher then 60. so everything is hard and it will take longer. my guess is that people can't handle that. sure, inferno is sometimes infuriating, but i find that more interesting then farming one weak dude.

i'm still playing D3 and i am enjoying it. but i would lie if there weren't some huge flaws like the the bad public games and the really boring spell specific stats on gear.

 

[Woodsey]

That's what Diablo II did.

Spoiler: Spoiler Alert:

Spoiler Alert: It didn't work

As far as I'm aware, Diablo 2 didn't store a metric fuck-tonne of the game's data on its own servers and then send it to you as you played, as has been the pioneering method of Diablo 3. And hell, as I understand it, the system actually held off in D2 for a few years, and then it sprouted problems later on.

 

[Bat Vader]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

The game is broken because your internet connection sucks?

The game is broken because it treats the players like criminals, has crappy servers that won't allow people online on a whim and, on top of it all, if you dare to buy a digital copy, you're not going to get to play it for three days after the purchase because they want to validate it due to the ridiculous auction house.

1. I'm not getting how it treats the players like criminals.

2. I don't think anyone is experiencing any logging issues anymore because that issue was sorted.

3. They stopped doing that stupid thing where it caps you for 3 days if you bought a digital version.

The game works just fine, it's not broken.

All of these are things that people are still reporting. That they even were there in the first place for what is primarily a SINGLE PLAYER GAME is retarded.

And yes, it treats gamers like criminals by enforcing ridiculous DRM, forcing numerous registrations, constant online presence and multiple checks and passes before one even gets to hope to start the game. In fact, now that the game has been cracked, it seems that the pirates are offering a better service than Blizzard is!

Well it's not really primarily a single player game is it. Considering they were originally intending to make Diablo III an MMO [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117939-Diablo-II-Dev-Diablo-III-Was-Originally-an-MMO]. Just because the other 2 were single player doesn't mean this one is. Also I'm still not seeing how having to always be online and having to register a battle.net account is "treating players like criminals".

The problem that I have with Diablo III is that they gave people the option to play the campaign by themselves; but they have to be online to do it. That does not make much sense to me. If the game is going to be always online they should have turned it into a full MMO or took out the ability to play the campaign solo. People would still complain but at the same time it would give more justification to the always online aspect.

 

[Vulpis]

Hmm. Kungfu_Teddybear might want to be careful--his responses come off as sounding like an he's an ActiBlizz employee.

I do agree with Bat Vader here--if they'd left Diablo 3 as a proper single player game (the whole *point* of SP is being able to play without the need for outside communication, after all), it would have worked better. If they'd gone with the original plan and made it an actual MMO...it probably would have worked better. But because they decided to half-a** it and go with an awful mish-mash of the two that has all the *worst* elements of both...they failed, badly.

And it's kind of amusing that one person actually did state one of the reasons Diablo 2--or even other older games like Morrowind and such--have endured and been replayed over the years: the *MODS*. Being able to add in and take out components that significantly or even completely change the baseline game at a whim do a great deal to maintain interest in a game long after you've finished the original content. Both Bethesda and Valve are smart enough to provide the tools to allow the player base to provide this additional content without having to pay their own devs to do it (and while there's certainly plenty of stinkers as a result, there's also some creations good enough to outshine the original content). ActiBlizz...obviously not that smart, at all.

 

[paketep]

"Blizzard's previously unblemished record of success"

Um, are we talking about the same Blizzard?. Because SC2 wasn't exactly a triumph, Company of Heroes was a way, WAY better RTS, and it was released in 2006.

And that's without taking into account the lack of LAN support.

Blizzard just isn't the same since they merged with Activision. Now all there is to them is hype and fanboyism.

Edit: oh, and lots of greed too. Thus, the RMAH + idiotic DRM that totally destroyed D3.

 

[tetron]

Played this game for a week and got to the end of act IV on hell. Declared the game a POS not even good enough to be considered a mockery of D2 and haven't touched it since. To date Blizzard themselves have only provided me with more evidence to my claims.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

The game is broken because your internet connection sucks?

The game is broken because it treats the players like criminals, has crappy servers that won't allow people online on a whim and, on top of it all, if you dare to buy a digital copy, you're not going to get to play it for three days after the purchase because they want to validate it due to the ridiculous auction house.

1. I'm not getting how it treats the players like criminals.

2. I don't think anyone is experiencing any logging issues anymore because that issue was sorted.

3. They stopped doing that stupid thing where it caps you for 3 days if you bought a digital version.

The game works just fine, it's not broken.

All of these are things that people are still reporting. That they even were there in the first place for what is primarily a SINGLE PLAYER GAME is retarded.

And yes, it treats gamers like criminals by enforcing ridiculous DRM, forcing numerous registrations, constant online presence and multiple checks and passes before one even gets to hope to start the game. In fact, now that the game has been cracked, it seems that the pirates are offering a better service than Blizzard is!

Well it's not really primarily a single player game is it. Considering they were originally intending to make Diablo III an MMO [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117939-Diablo-II-Dev-Diablo-III-Was-Originally-an-MMO]. Just because the other 2 were single player doesn't mean this one is. Also I'm still not seeing how having to always be online and having to register a battle.net account is "treating players like criminals".

The problem that I have with Diablo III is that they gave people the option to play the campaign by themselves; but they have to be online to do it. That does not make much sense to me. If the game is going to be always online they should have turned it into a full MMO or took out the ability to play the campaign solo. People would still complain but at the same time it would give more justification to the always online aspect.

I understand why people are annoyed. But you just get those people that take it to the extreme, to say the game is terrible because of one feature is just dumb, like those people that said Mass Effect 3 was a terrible game because of the last 5 minutes. I've always been indifferent to always online requirements in games, I'm online all the time anyway so why should it bother me? And I like the fact that I can catch up with some old friends from World of Warcraft while I play Diablo III due to the Real ID thing. As for people saying the AH ruined the game because Blizzard lowered the loot drops so that the AH would be used, that's never bothered me either.

I never played the first two Diablo games, perhaps my opinion on Diablo III's always online requirement and RMAH would be different if I had. But seeing as I went into Diablo III having never played the others and therefore not knowing what to expect, nothing Blizzard has done has done anything to hinder my own enjoyment of the game.

 

[mad825]

Does this mean that D3 will be F2P soon?

 

[The Random One]

I still don't understand how people convince themselves it's worth paying $60 for a game that will cost half that in a few years, all for the privilege of playing the game sooner - you know, when it's potentially unfinished, broken and only reviewed by select few.

 

[DanielBrown]

Most of friends and I lost intrest in the game after just two weeks due to not having anything to do. No point in item hunting when there's an auction house and the drop rates for decent gear is retardedly low as well. The friends that are still playing are the ones that only got like two hours of spare time/week, so they probably haven't even gotten to Hell yet.

Really sucks how hard Blizzard dropped the ball with this game. Four years of hype and we got a game based around farming money for Blizzard.

Oh well.

Grim Dawn should be out in a year. Never see any mention of it though. People always bring up Torchlight 2, but never Grim Dawn!
Looks like the proper D3 at least, and it's made by Crate(the guys that did the awesome Titan Quest game). Got all my hype redirected to that game for now.