Is there any word or hope that there will be new content, ACT VI? or Diablo 4? I still have yet to pay 15 bucks for a simple class that should have been released, to begin with the game's launch.
rumors are fake news, nothing going on really. lets hope for blizzcon, 2 years of no news are enough, we just need someone on blizzcon to come out and say we are working on something, even if they have nothing to actually show us.
I think this will be the case with everything that has been happening hiring-wise and with how they phrased stuff at last year's con. Announce something with maybe a teaser.
rumors are fake news, nothing going on really. lets hope for blizzcon, 2 years of no news are enough, we just need someone on blizzcon to come out and say we are working on something, even if they have nothing to actually show us.
I think this will be the case with everything that has been happening hiring-wise and with how they phrased stuff at last year's con. Announce something with maybe a teaser.
yes, but diablo did get the shaft at blizzcon last year. it was anniversary year. they should have announced the follow-up, be it successor, expansion or 3.0 for example. their behaviour against their own top franchise really hurt me as someone who got hooked with D1.
rumors are fake news, nothing going on really. lets hope for blizzcon, 2 years of no news are enough, we just need someone on blizzcon to come out and say we are working on something, even if they have nothing to actually show us.
I think this will be the case with everything that has been happening hiring-wise and with how they phrased stuff at last year's con. Announce something with maybe a teaser.
yes, but diablo did get the shaft at blizzcon last year. it was anniversary year. they should have announced the follow-up, be it successor, expansion or 3.0 for example. their behaviour against their own top franchise really hurt me as someone who got hooked with D1.
Well, 1) Diablo isn't Blizzard's top franchise--in playerbase, age, or revenue. 2) 2017 wasn't the anniversary year--Diablo I came out in 1996, so it would be 2016. And 3) we did get some pretty cool anniversary attention--we got the entire original game redone in D3, which I don't think was done for any other franchise.
And, meh. I mean, this is literally nothing new for Diablo. We went years with literally, absolutely nothing--not even words. Not even a character pack, anniversary event, new maps, game modes, expansion, etc. Hell, not even panels at any of the events.
They said at the community panel that something was in the works, that's good enough for me. More would have been nice, but Diablo has one of the smaller teams and had changes in leadership since 3 came out. Honestly, the fact that they went out of their way to say, "sorry guys we won't have any big news this year," was 100% way more respectful to their players than saying nothing, letting players hype themselves up over nothing, and getting nothing.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this year. And, again, based on context, it seems like we're more likely to see something this year than last.
I think Diablo can go either way right now, I feel that we can either be extremely disappointed or extremely happy in the Diablo reveal at Blizzcon (It's going to happen)
I for one will very happy with either an expansion or new game (D4 or Mmo (I prefer mmo, I'm sick of WoW, but can't stop playing it))
I will be very disappointed if they announce a platform for the phone...which was also rumored.
Either way I'll be glad that Diablo will get some love.
Blizzard are the kings of trolling their fans (See Titan) so it is extremely possible that they purposely "announce" stuff via hireing boards and leaked info to get us hyped up. For example the job posting for an mmo lead designer, and the guy that got the position said he was excited to join the Diablo team
I think Diablo can go either way right now, I feel that we can either be extremely disappointed or extremely happy in the Diablo reveal at Blizzcon (It's going to happen)
[...]
Blizzard are the kings of trolling their fans (See Titan) so it is extremely possible that they purposely "announce" stuff via hireing boards and leaked info to get us hyped up. For example the job posting for an mmo lead designer, and the guy that got the position said he was excited to join the Diablo team
I feel similarly. Actually, I'm pretty much torn when it comes to the future. Diablo 3 was a one-time exception for Blizzard: the company always worked on the mantra "it's done when it's done". Things were polished for so long until they were deemed to be world class - or shelved, like Titan, or for the older people among us examples like SC:Ghost, WC:Adventures. Especially those two defined the mindset within Blizzard, and it made them stand out in the industry. Nothing other than A+ quality was excepted. Diablo 3 clearly wasn't that, at the start. It was horribly rushed (read this insightful but also shocking story about how achievements were quickly added in the end of development).
Then came the auction house. In hindsight, it was the worst thing Blizzard ever did, and they admitted it themselves on multiple occasions. I mean, they did this for all the right reasons, and it heavily backfired, but the effect can never be cured: The completely "broken" D3 in the beginning was a pay2win slugfest, a game that some "hardcore" gamers truly enjoyed and that attracted some vile people (who weren't interested in playing the game, but just wanted to make money - and unfortunately succeeded). Millions of players were alienated, couldn't finish the game, and left for good. I've tried to bring back some of them, but for them Diablo 3 is like a new version of their once favorite dish that was served with some disgusting sauce on top, and no matter how many times you promise them "this time I'll make it right", they'll probably never return your dinner invite. Understandably, I'd say.
Therefore, I think a complete reboot might be the only reasonable thing. Which is so sad because I think Diablo 3 with RoS is close to a perfect game. The only thing it needs is (and I'm gonna be crucified for that, but I'll say it): microtransactions for cosmetics. It's what almost every other game has these days, it allows for an endless stream of income (more than anything else in the business), it allows for a crazy amount of content (see ALL OTHER FREAKING BLIZZARD GAMES). Microtransactions in D3 would mean that we'd easily get a way to finance just a handful of new items each season and maybe a skill revamp/balance change once a year. Or even more - looking at SC2 (which is now even F2P thanks to microtransactions) we might even see one new class per year. What I personally would love are some super rare, but not super powerful items to promote a long-term item hunt. The problem is: millions of people who played D3 won't come back to that. Especially if you tell them "D3 now has microtransactions - BUT ONLY FOR COSMETICS" they'll get auction house PTSD and turn away.
So what's gonna happen? We don't know. I think there's a 1% chance that Blizzard is doing anything along the lines what I pointed out in the previous paragraph for D3. There's a bigger chance (say 33%) they're working on D4. There's about an equally big chance they're working on a reboot (DEMONS VERSUS ANGELS F2P VR MOBILE MMO or whatever; I don't really care what they call it as long as they stop this "Nephalem" bullshit, imho). And then there's a chance - like you said, Aerisot - of them doing none of this and just letting the franchise die. The Diablo 3 job posts could easily just be for recruiting purpose and the new game could be something entirely different. Like an casual, clicker-based MMORPG in the Overwatch universe. Or whatever. :-)
So what's gonna happen? We don't know. I think there's a 1% chance that Blizzard is doing anything along the lines what I pointed out in the previous paragraph for D3. There's a bigger chance (say 33%) they're working on D4. There's about an equally big chance they're working on a reboot (DEMONS VERSUS ANGELS F2P VR MOBILE MMO or whatever; I don't really care what they call it as long as they stop this "Nephalem" bullshit, imho). And then there's a chance - like you said, Aerisot - of them doing none of this and just letting the franchise die. The Diablo 3 job posts could easily just be for recruiting purpose and the new game could be something entirely different. Like an casual, clicker-based MMORPG in the Overwatch universe. Or whatever. :-)
I personally liked the Nephalem theme, maybe because i releated with the Nephilims and i just love that concept.
Few things that are wrong are the difficulty curve (you put set items and go from T3 to T13 in an instant), no difficulty cap, too much powercreep and it needs a bit more depth in the item system/endgame content.
Microtransactions are the worst thing you can do to a game that you pay 60 dollars to start with. It's just overgreed from developers unless it's a F2P game. I'll definetly remember when games came with all the customization included or at most with a 15$ DLC cost instead of the gambling RNG lootboxes that are never going to give you what you want.
Microtransactions are the worst thing you can do to a game that you pay 60 dollars to start with. It's just overgreed from developers unless it's a F2P game. I'll definetly remember when games came with all the customization included or at most with a 15$ DLC cost instead of the gambling RNG lootboxes that are never going to give you what you want.
A one-time payment means there is no continuous support. And that's what we want. D3 was released 6 years ago - I'm sure the next Diablo will not have a huge price tag but a different financial model. Just look at what they did to SC2 - it became F2P but now enjoys more updates than ever because of the insane income stream from skins, portraits, and stuff.
But then you throw "lootboxes" in and that's what people wrongly conflate. No one, absolutely fucking no one, ever wants this game to become "pay2win", i.e., loot for payment. Microtransactions should always be purely cosmetic or "optional", not mandatory to enjoy any kind of game content or be able to compete for anything.
We need to get over our anxiety and see microtransactions for what they really are: the only thing to save our game. Because the 60 dollars you paid 6 years ago don't fund the game developer for the 2020 patch/expansion anymore, and with a few thousand hours played (which many of us here have on our record) it becomes quite ridiculous to even bring forth that argument, in my opinion.
Edit - just as some food for thought, look at what happened to SC2 after they announced it to be free to play. The game was in a similar state of where D3 is now a few years ago, and then they introduced micro transactions and realized they can just make it F2P because so many people buy skins and stuff (the only content that costs money are the campaign and co-op commanders after level 5).
I've tried to bring back some of them, but for them Diablo 3 is like a new version of their once favorite dish that was served with some disgusting sauce on top, and no matter how many times you promise them "this time I'll make it right", they'll probably never return your dinner invite. Understandably, I'd say.
This has to be kept in mind when you look at the insane number of boxes the game moved, even if relatively little of the playerbase stuck with the game very long. PC expansion sales seem to be downright pathetic compared to the blockbuster original game and console bundles, which is why IMO we haven't seen a second expansion and almost certainly never will. They are far more concerned with how to win these lapsed people back, or to expand their unexpected success on consoles, than how to monetize the few existing users at this point.
For that reason I think there's far more than 1% chance that we are looking at least a psuedo-reboot. They won't call it Diablo 4 because they don't want the public to think it's just Diablo 3 over again, even if the game mechanics end up very similar. They will want to have some kind of microtransaction setup from the start to milk a huge population of fresh players and hopefully fund ongoing content. I also suspect they will think long and hard about whether they can tilt gameplay somewhat more in the console direction while remaining a great PC experience.
PC expansion sales seem to be downright pathetic compared to the blockbuster original game and console bundles, which is why IMO we haven't seen a second expansion and almost certainly never will.
That's part of the reason. My theory about what is/has been happening with the Diablo series is the following:
Josh Mosqueira came in 2013 with the idea to resurrect the remnants left from D3 due to the severe development (J. Wilson) and marketing (AH) abuse this game has been submitted to. He has taken the best possible route and as all the player base agrees D3 is a polished game nowadays. Why did he left in 2016 then? Here comes the conspiracy theory and the second part of the reason I mentioned.
*** Speculation ***
Mosqueira left, because they (ActiBlizz) told him they are working on a bigger Diablo project and are going to scrap the second D3 expansion (which transformed into the Necro DLC). The main reason for that (starting from scratch) is pretty simple - you are making more money in the long run if you have a game that is designed and build in its core around micro-transactions. We saw where the PoE studio went - from a 10 people crew to a deal for millions with a Chinese conglomerate. That is exactly because its marketing model crushed in every aspect the D3 one.
***
With the above in mind I am 100% confident that Diablo 4 is in production atm and we will see its beta in 2020 meaning an announcement will be made at Blizzcon 2018/19.
What is left for D3?
Not much. A maintenance mode. D3 could have been delivering content if its model incorporated micro-transactions, but since D4 is in production it makes sense for them to not make the already angry D3 player base more angry with introducing shiny stuff for something that is going to be substituted very soon (in their time standards).
The only way to save D3 (based on the above - no more content or micro-transactions) is by making it e-Sport worthy. SC1 and WC3 are still played without having new content or steady income. They are played, because they are (and will always be) an e-Sport. D3 has a chance to achieve an e-Sport status with Challenge Rifts if they are improved to a better level. But CRs are kind of a game within the game (as the PoE lab) and the majority of the D3 player base don't care at all for them. That is another reason why they are heavily investing in D4 atm - an aRPG could bring you a ton of money even without having an e-Sport scene. You can milk it for 10-15 years and release a new one with shinier and cooler cosmetics in it. People will always love it and this equals money for your company.
Is there any word or hope that there will be new content, ACT VI? or Diablo 4? I still have yet to pay 15 bucks for a simple class that should have been released, to begin with the game's launch.
Well, 1) Diablo isn't Blizzard's top franchise--in playerbase, age, or revenue. 2) 2017 wasn't the anniversary year--Diablo I came out in 1996, so it would be 2016. And 3) we did get some pretty cool anniversary attention--we got the entire original game redone in D3, which I don't think was done for any other franchise.
And, meh. I mean, this is literally nothing new for Diablo. We went years with literally, absolutely nothing--not even words. Not even a character pack, anniversary event, new maps, game modes, expansion, etc. Hell, not even panels at any of the events.
They said at the community panel that something was in the works, that's good enough for me. More would have been nice, but Diablo has one of the smaller teams and had changes in leadership since 3 came out. Honestly, the fact that they went out of their way to say, "sorry guys we won't have any big news this year," was 100% way more respectful to their players than saying nothing, letting players hype themselves up over nothing, and getting nothing.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this year. And, again, based on context, it seems like we're more likely to see something this year than last.
I think Diablo can go either way right now, I feel that we can either be extremely disappointed or extremely happy in the Diablo reveal at Blizzcon (It's going to happen)
I for one will very happy with either an expansion or new game (D4 or Mmo (I prefer mmo, I'm sick of WoW, but can't stop playing it))
I will be very disappointed if they announce a platform for the phone...which was also rumored.
Either way I'll be glad that Diablo will get some love.
Blizzard are the kings of trolling their fans (See Titan) so it is extremely possible that they purposely "announce" stuff via hireing boards and leaked info to get us hyped up. For example the job posting for an mmo lead designer, and the guy that got the position said he was excited to join the Diablo team
https://www.deviantart.com/aerisot
Then came the auction house. In hindsight, it was the worst thing Blizzard ever did, and they admitted it themselves on multiple occasions. I mean, they did this for all the right reasons, and it heavily backfired, but the effect can never be cured: The completely "broken" D3 in the beginning was a pay2win slugfest, a game that some "hardcore" gamers truly enjoyed and that attracted some vile people (who weren't interested in playing the game, but just wanted to make money - and unfortunately succeeded). Millions of players were alienated, couldn't finish the game, and left for good. I've tried to bring back some of them, but for them Diablo 3 is like a new version of their once favorite dish that was served with some disgusting sauce on top, and no matter how many times you promise them "this time I'll make it right", they'll probably never return your dinner invite. Understandably, I'd say.
Therefore, I think a complete reboot might be the only reasonable thing. Which is so sad because I think Diablo 3 with RoS is close to a perfect game. The only thing it needs is (and I'm gonna be crucified for that, but I'll say it): microtransactions for cosmetics. It's what almost every other game has these days, it allows for an endless stream of income (more than anything else in the business), it allows for a crazy amount of content (see ALL OTHER FREAKING BLIZZARD GAMES). Microtransactions in D3 would mean that we'd easily get a way to finance just a handful of new items each season and maybe a skill revamp/balance change once a year. Or even more - looking at SC2 (which is now even F2P thanks to microtransactions) we might even see one new class per year. What I personally would love are some super rare, but not super powerful items to promote a long-term item hunt. The problem is: millions of people who played D3 won't come back to that. Especially if you tell them "D3 now has microtransactions - BUT ONLY FOR COSMETICS" they'll get auction house PTSD and turn away.
So what's gonna happen? We don't know. I think there's a 1% chance that Blizzard is doing anything along the lines what I pointed out in the previous paragraph for D3. There's a bigger chance (say 33%) they're working on D4. There's about an equally big chance they're working on a reboot (DEMONS VERSUS ANGELS F2P VR MOBILE MMO or whatever; I don't really care what they call it as long as they stop this "Nephalem" bullshit, imho). And then there's a chance - like you said, Aerisot - of them doing none of this and just letting the franchise die. The Diablo 3 job posts could easily just be for recruiting purpose and the new game could be something entirely different. Like an casual, clicker-based MMORPG in the Overwatch universe. Or whatever. :-)
I personally liked the Nephalem theme, maybe because i releated with the Nephilims and i just love that concept.
Few things that are wrong are the difficulty curve (you put set items and go from T3 to T13 in an instant), no difficulty cap, too much powercreep and it needs a bit more depth in the item system/endgame content.
Microtransactions are the worst thing you can do to a game that you pay 60 dollars to start with. It's just overgreed from developers unless it's a F2P game. I'll definetly remember when games came with all the customization included or at most with a 15$ DLC cost instead of the gambling RNG lootboxes that are never going to give you what you want.
A one-time payment means there is no continuous support. And that's what we want. D3 was released 6 years ago - I'm sure the next Diablo will not have a huge price tag but a different financial model. Just look at what they did to SC2 - it became F2P but now enjoys more updates than ever because of the insane income stream from skins, portraits, and stuff.
But then you throw "lootboxes" in and that's what people wrongly conflate. No one, absolutely fucking no one, ever wants this game to become "pay2win", i.e., loot for payment. Microtransactions should always be purely cosmetic or "optional", not mandatory to enjoy any kind of game content or be able to compete for anything.
We need to get over our anxiety and see microtransactions for what they really are: the only thing to save our game. Because the 60 dollars you paid 6 years ago don't fund the game developer for the 2020 patch/expansion anymore, and with a few thousand hours played (which many of us here have on our record) it becomes quite ridiculous to even bring forth that argument, in my opinion.
Edit - just as some food for thought, look at what happened to SC2 after they announced it to be free to play. The game was in a similar state of where D3 is now a few years ago, and then they introduced micro transactions and realized they can just make it F2P because so many people buy skins and stuff (the only content that costs money are the campaign and co-op commanders after level 5).
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This has to be kept in mind when you look at the insane number of boxes the game moved, even if relatively little of the playerbase stuck with the game very long. PC expansion sales seem to be downright pathetic compared to the blockbuster original game and console bundles, which is why IMO we haven't seen a second expansion and almost certainly never will. They are far more concerned with how to win these lapsed people back, or to expand their unexpected success on consoles, than how to monetize the few existing users at this point.For that reason I think there's far more than 1% chance that we are looking at least a psuedo-reboot. They won't call it Diablo 4 because they don't want the public to think it's just Diablo 3 over again, even if the game mechanics end up very similar. They will want to have some kind of microtransaction setup from the start to milk a huge population of fresh players and hopefully fund ongoing content. I also suspect they will think long and hard about whether they can tilt gameplay somewhat more in the console direction while remaining a great PC experience.
That's part of the reason. My theory about what is/has been happening with the Diablo series is the following:
Josh Mosqueira came in 2013 with the idea to resurrect the remnants left from D3 due to the severe development (J. Wilson) and marketing (AH) abuse this game has been submitted to. He has taken the best possible route and as all the player base agrees D3 is a polished game nowadays. Why did he left in 2016 then? Here comes the conspiracy theory and the second part of the reason I mentioned.
*** Speculation ***
Mosqueira left, because they (ActiBlizz) told him they are working on a bigger Diablo project and are going to scrap the second D3 expansion (which transformed into the Necro DLC). The main reason for that (starting from scratch) is pretty simple - you are making more money in the long run if you have a game that is designed and build in its core around micro-transactions. We saw where the PoE studio went - from a 10 people crew to a deal for millions with a Chinese conglomerate. That is exactly because its marketing model crushed in every aspect the D3 one.
***
With the above in mind I am 100% confident that Diablo 4 is in production atm and we will see its beta in 2020 meaning an announcement will be made at Blizzcon 2018/19.
What is left for D3?
Not much. A maintenance mode. D3 could have been delivering content if its model incorporated micro-transactions, but since D4 is in production it makes sense for them to not make the already angry D3 player base more angry with introducing shiny stuff for something that is going to be substituted very soon (in their time standards).
The only way to save D3 (based on the above - no more content or micro-transactions) is by making it e-Sport worthy. SC1 and WC3 are still played without having new content or steady income. They are played, because they are (and will always be) an e-Sport. D3 has a chance to achieve an e-Sport status with Challenge Rifts if they are improved to a better level. But CRs are kind of a game within the game (as the PoE lab) and the majority of the D3 player base don't care at all for them. That is another reason why they are heavily investing in D4 atm - an aRPG could bring you a ton of money even without having an e-Sport scene. You can milk it for 10-15 years and release a new one with shinier and cooler cosmetics in it. People will always love it and this equals money for your company.
TLDR: D3 is done. D$ is coming for sure.