DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Yeah, but the maddening thing about D3's design so far is that they've been doing MAJOR DESIGN REVISIONS since the start of the beta, on skills and on stats and on crafting and runestones and weapons and companions, some based on player feedback and some not, and there's still doesn't seem to be a strong feeling that the product that's on the table now is something that really works. More than any of my personal reservations about individual design decisions, the fact that they haven't seemed to have nailed down a final design direction is profoundly disturbing. I am honestly no longer confident that Diablo 3 will be a game I want to buy.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

IIRC, one of the lead devs even went on camera saying that people should and I quote, "lower their expectations" for D3.

[jenova_9]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

They were corrected by Blizzard, though, mew! It actually is better than people expect!

They were just referring to people that expect it to make their bread toast faster, mew.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

We've been over this before - SC2 is a complete experience, as are the expansions. The people who QQ'd have finally stfu (most of them anyway) by this point as they've come to realize this.

Or they just stopped fighting the bullshit and started towing the corporate line. I don't like a developer telling me what a "complete" experience is, as if I'm stupid enough to not be able to tell for myself.

D3 does not sound like a complete game when they start pulling features and don't know what the stats do. Why wait around for Blizzard to get it right again when this genre has moved on?

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

In what way was SC2:WoL not a complete experience?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

In what way was SC2:WoL not a complete experience?

If you have to ask that, there's no convincing you. There were supposed to be more campaigns in the original release, then they realize they could chop those up, sell them for more and even have inflated collectors editions for expansions. Should I put this past the parent company that has a COD and Spiderman game every year? From the company that ran Guitar Hero into the ground and left everyone holding the bag?

Blizzard chops this stuff up now because slow-and-steady no longer cuts it when you work for one of the biggest publishers on the face of the earth.

When you start talking about DLC and expansions before the retail game is out, you're dealing with a business that gives fuck-all about the consumer.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

How many missions would you say should have been with released SC2 for it to be considered a "complete" product?

---------- Post added at 08:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:25 PM ----------

I'm getting bored waiting for a reply, so I'll just run through the possible answers and you can tell me if I've missed one.

• You could give a number, which would be arbitrary and meaningless.
• You could say the number of missions doesn't matter and leave it at that, but the number of campaigns does seem to matter to you so that wouldn't make sense. If you want more campaigns but don't care about the number of missions, Blizzard could have cut the terran campaign in half and put in some zerg missions instead and that would make the game "complete" under those criteria, which would be nonsense.
• You could say that none of the numbers matter, it's the story that needs to be complete for the game to be considered complete, which would be getting somewhere but still nonsense. In this case, Blizzard could have written a story that's 1/3rd as long or 1/3rd as complex to get it all to fit within 30 missions and the game would suddenly be "complete" without in any way improving the quality or quantity of content in the product.

What I'm getting at is your definition of completeness is completely arbitrary and self-serving. It has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of content that is shipped with the disc, or more to the point the amount of work put into it, but is predicated completely on your indignation at the developer's assumption that people who buy one thing from them will buy something else from them later.

There are so many perfectly valid complaints to be made that it's seriously annoying to see you harping again on this non-issue, especially when you're making disingenuous arguments like "You shouldn't believe it's complete just because the developer says so, but you should believe that it's incomplete just because I said so."

[Aeni]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

How many missions would you say should have been with released SC2 for it to be considered a "complete" product?

---------- Post added at 08:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:25 PM ----------

I'm getting bored waiting for a reply, so I'll just run through the possible answers and you can tell me if I've missed one.

• You could give a number, which would be arbitrary and meaningless.
• You could say the number of missions doesn't matter and leave it at that, but the number of campaigns does seem to matter to you so that wouldn't make sense. If you want more campaigns but don't care about the number of missions, Blizzard could have cut the terran campaign in half and put in some zerg missions instead and that would make the game "complete" under those criteria, which would be nonsense.
• You could say that none of the numbers matter, it's the story that needs to be complete for the game to be considered complete, which would be getting somewhere but still nonsense. In this case, Blizzard could have written a story that's 1/3rd as long or 1/3rd as complex to get it all to fit within 30 missions and the game would suddenly be "complete" without in any way improving the quality or quantity of content in the product.

What I'm getting at is your definition of completeness is completely arbitrary and self-serving. It has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of content that is shipped with the disc, but is predicated completely on your indignation at the developer's assumption that people who buy one thing from them will buy something else from them later.

There are so many perfectly valid complaints to be made that it's seriously annoying to see you harping again on this non-issue, especially when you're making disingenuous arguments like "You shouldn't believe it's complete just because the developer says so, but you should believe that it's incomplete just because I said so."

Don't bother. For some people, they are set in their ways of what they view as a value. Most people don't even remember a time when they paid double for an SNES game than they do for a PS3 game and start bitching about how greedy game developers are. Never mind the fact that disposable income has doubled while the prices have halved in the interim period of comparison.

...

Anyway, unless you're in beta, please don't talk like you know what's going on. The change in Patch 13 was needed and the overhaul on the mechanics have been overblown by rabid fanbois and people pretending to be a part of the beta experience. Then you have a lot of armchair quarterbacking going on with design decisions and such. Tsk tsk. Thought people here would be a little bit above the fray on issues like this.

Anyway, now that we're on Patch 14, I can tell you that the monster balance is nearer to where it should be and is not as auto-pilot a gameplay as originally feared. There'll be more tweaks between now and May 1, but the major pieces are in place. All I can say is that completing the beta, even after the 50th time, never gets old and I'm hungry for the rest of the game.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

One of the patch 13 changes was to double monster damage in Act 1, was it not? That does not speak to me of a finely balanced gameplay design. It suggests that monster damage was not very carefully thought through in the first place. Imagine if when they were tuning SC2 they decided battles lasted too long and doubled damage output. I know it's not an apples to apples comparison, but when something is so out of whack in the first place that they have to throw a big multiplier on it, that gives me bad vibes.

[jenova_9]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Well the monsters being stronger is good thing, mew! Because it would make things more challenging, people would play more smart, and groups would work more as a team.

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Well the monsters being stronger is good thing, mew! Because it would make things more challenging, people would play more smart, and groups would work more as a team.

You really have absolutely no concept of game design do you?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

There are so many perfectly valid complaints to be made that it's seriously annoying to see you harping again on this non-issue, especially when you're making disingenuous arguments like "You shouldn't believe it's complete just because the developer says so, but you should believe that it's incomplete just because I said so."

You're the one that questioned why features are being cut. I see the obvious answer to that question - because they can and if it gets the game out sooner or they can sell it in the next expansion, they will. When you have slobberingly loyal fanbases like Blizzard's its just inevitable that they will be abused. Capcom and Bioware are just the beginning and we can already see things coming apart at the seams for those two.

Maybe those features will come up later in an update but the game already has a DRM and Auction House, so I have every reason to be suspicious.

Don't bother. For some people, they are set in their ways of what they view as a value. Most people don't even remember a time when they paid double for an SNES game than they do for a PS3 game and start bitching about how greedy game developers are. Never mind the fact that disposable income has doubled while the prices have halved in the interim period of comparison.

Is this just bullshit you convince yourself of or do you actually say these things to people in real life where they can laugh in your face after they've paid $50 for a full tank of gas? Cast wild aspersions if you want to, but all we have to do is dial it back seven or eight years and we were getting games that were more content complete at $40 or $50 than we do now at $60

Hell, I can get more content complete games for $30 right now brand new.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

You have a seriously warped notion of "Complete".

What, pray tell, is missing form SC2?

30+ mission campaign with a great story including 4 protoss side missions and 1 secret, hidden mission - check
Easter Eggs & other tributes to the past (Lost Vikings minigame) - check
Complete multiplayer experience with all races playable - check
Map editor - check


You're like the only person I know who's still making the bullshit claim that Blizzard somehow held back with WoL. Personally I'm looking forward more to HotS than D3 at this point, as I can not wait to play the Zerg campaign and try out all the cool new mutations for single player. I'm still not 100% keen on Sarah being immortal though, I hope they change that. Even on brutal, unless there's a strict time limit I don't see how you can really screw up a mission when you have an immortal hero unit.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

They already announced the PvP would be implemented in a free patch, so even taking your point as a given, it's still irrelevant to the case. This smells more like a botched development schedule than a sinister business decision. I mean obviously the timing of the release date took place on the business end, but there's nothing to indicate additional monitization from this.

[Mezlo]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Haven't subscribed to this thread really because, well, mew. But BBQ said Aeni is full of shit, and asked if everyone in real life just laughs in their face, so...

/troll
and
/popcorn