Jay Wilson wanted to share a message with the Diablo III community:
Some of you might have seen some headlines or a certain (obviously sarcastic) blue post that implies that we're unsteady about where Diablo III stands, and that you should temper your expectations when it comes to the next installment in the Diablo series.
Let me be clear: Nothing could be further from the truth.
As those of you in the beta have seen, the game is in good shape. Actually, I should say that the beta version of the game is in good shape. The latest full build we've been testing here in the office is in great shape.
We get a lot of sympathy from the other teams because of the long hours of crunch our design team is putting in, but the secret is that playing through the game as we do final tuning, bug fixes, and optimizations is a real joy. We always know a Blizzard game is almost ready when we have to ask members of the team to stop playing so they can get their work done. That’s definitely been the case around here.
We think you're going to love Diablo III when it's released, and speaking of release plans, you can seriously expect a launch-date announcement from us in the near future. See, I didn’t say “soon,” so I’m not taunting you. ;) You’ll know as soon as I know for sure the exact date.
And by the way, we want you to have high expectations for Diablo III and all Blizzard games. That’s what pushes us to try to make the best gaming experiences we possibly can. If Diablo III wasn’t a worthy next installment in the Diablo series, we wouldn’t release it. That’s the way we do it. That’s the way we’ve always done it.
As I’ve said many times in the recent past, we think Diablo III is coming along great and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on it. We’re doing all we can to ensure you have one hell of a time once you step foot in Sanctuary…
Also, I think Diablo is much more comparable to the Evil Dead series personally, and those just kept getting better. OK, I know a lot of you prefer Evil Dead 2 to Army of Darkness, but come on, Bruce Campbell fights a squad of little Bruce Campbells! Priceless. =)
Jay Wilson is the Game Director of Diablo 3, and wants to know “Hey, uh, what’s that you got on your face?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxBCSautRXY
Krovven wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 16:32:Verno wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:14:
People have different opinions and stuff. Many people do not view the traditional "story mode" in games as an inherently multiplayer experience, particularly if its completable solo.
I get it. And as I said, things change. These processes aren't going to revert to being primarily offline, they are only going to become more "online". Anyone making a hard stance of "I won't buy it because of online required", even though they are entirely capable of being online 99.99% of the time, may as well stop gaming right now. If it was only a single player game, I'd be inclined to agree that online required for a game that has no major online components would be a problem (see many of Ubisofts games). But as it is, I don't view Diablo 3 as primarily a SP game and being online required serves to maintain the integrity of the game. Considering cheating is the #1 problem with online games, nothing is going to change my mind on this. Offline whiners be damned.
Hudson wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 11:31:I don't see this on my end, not at all. If anything the biggest complaint I had was when various beta builds started breaking core abilities. Though that *seems* to be mostly sorted out now.
Game is NOT in good shape. It has HORRIBLE animation lag they STILL have not addressed!
Verno wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:14:
People have different opinions and stuff. Many people do not view the traditional "story mode" in games as an inherently multiplayer experience, particularly if its completable solo.
jdreyer wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:06:Cutter wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 13:02:
I find it funny that some people have no problem with Blizzards always on DRM but never fail to castigate Ubisoft for it - and they've actually started backing away from it.
Hey Cutter, there was a post a month or two ago about Diablo's always on DRM in which 100 or so comments totally hammered Blizzard for it. I've read comments on both threads (Blizzard and Ubisoft), and saw about the same ratios of hatred vs. ambivalence (ran about 5 to 1). I think very very few people are being hypocritical about this.
Julio wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:42:
How about get the game out the door instead of doing these PR things on launch dates on a weekly basis?
The more buzz they have to create, the more it feels like this may be another DNF.
eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:31:
Also, as a German, your US you're rules suck! I was merely too lazy to hit the shift - # button, on German keyboard, the ' is not at all easy to reach. ^^
True, but I can still be grumpy about them killing of modding, even if never supported.
Maybe i should play a round BF3 to chill instead of think about Blizzard, it only causes heart attacks ;p
eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:14:
And then pray tell, how do you play Diablo 2 with Median XL... if not outside of B.Net
oh thats right, you don't mod your sacred blizzard approved D2 ;p
For giggles, maybe you should try Median XL, and discover that Diablo 2 is like.. 20% of the game it could have been.
Yifes wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 14:57:*raises hand* Assuming you don't count a couple of LAN games. Literally never played on Battle.net -- have no interest in playing on Battle.net...
Who the hell played Diablo 2 offline anyways?
Krovven wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:13:Alamar wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 14:59:
That calculator is not what the game looks/plays like any more...
I wasn't sure if the calculator had been updated, I'm on an old Safari browser at work and not everything displays there for me.
The point was the skills listed there are the same ones viewable in the game and all unlock by level 30 (off the top of my head). Runes (again from memory) are all available before lvl 40. Both Skills and Runes when they are available and what they do are viewable in-game right way, contrary to what Fion was saying.
eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 24, 2012, 15:11:Didn't I read that ubi's DRM server move wasn't supposed to effect a bunch of games that it ended up effecting such as anno 2070?
Compared to that i actually OWN Anno 2070 even with Activation limits (that don't exist with crack). Even if Ubisoft goes down, Anno 2070 will run, and my saves will persist for as long as I bother to have them persist.