Diablo 3 - Mike Morhaime Open Letter
- Thread starter Dhruin
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I haven't had error 37 since the release week. Certainly was annoying back then though. Lag is occasional, but rare. Despite that, it's still been very enjoyable, yes, and I don't have to spend any more money to enjoy the game either, so I've not seen any of this pushing to spend more. AHs are optional and I've not felt the need to use them.
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Agree with kalniel here. Just don't get this absurd idea that Blizzard is forcing anyone to do anything and that they somehow owe folks Inferno for 60 bucks. Even if you power through and are farming Inferno by the 50 or 60 hours point, you've gotten your money's worth already. Period. To claim anything else is patently ridiculous. On top of that, Blizzard has always said Inferno would be the hardest ever and harder than Hell in D2. If you don't like it, don't play it. You've already gotten your money's worth by then, so if you insist on continuing and shelling out gold or real money to progress in Inferno faster than you could on your own, that's 100% on you.
The extent to which people can feel entitled and/or distort reality to meet their own needs continues to astonish...
The extent to which people can feel entitled and/or distort reality to meet their own needs continues to astonish...
Sure, 50-60 hours of fun for 73 dollars (EU) is almost-OK.
But, you are pretending that Blizzards plans for item monetization don't affect that phase of the game. They do:
Always online DRM, tightly controlled loot drops, no mods, "server maintenance", no character development other than item-equiping.
To each his own - but this is what I was talking about: They have bent every single aspect of the game just to up the chance people will get just a slightly fed up with it and end up spending real coin. It could have been a better game, with no lag, no downtimes, rewarding item drops, character developement etc.
And of course customer should "feel entitled" (this hardly got past my parser, as most of the time it automatically filters out any sentences containing 'entitled', used mostly for non-arguments) about a quality of a products they buy with their own money.
One more thing: The world should stop using the word "hard" to describe phases of a games requiring only time and/or money investments. There's nothing hard about farming. Anyone can do that.
Hard means: requiring high player skill, prior or during the described part of the game.
Multiplying the health of your creeps by 10 doesn't make the game hard - it makes you a bad game-designer.
But, you are pretending that Blizzards plans for item monetization don't affect that phase of the game. They do:
Always online DRM, tightly controlled loot drops, no mods, "server maintenance", no character development other than item-equiping.
To each his own - but this is what I was talking about: They have bent every single aspect of the game just to up the chance people will get just a slightly fed up with it and end up spending real coin. It could have been a better game, with no lag, no downtimes, rewarding item drops, character developement etc.
And of course customer should "feel entitled" (this hardly got past my parser, as most of the time it automatically filters out any sentences containing 'entitled', used mostly for non-arguments) about a quality of a products they buy with their own money.
One more thing: The world should stop using the word "hard" to describe phases of a games requiring only time and/or money investments. There's nothing hard about farming. Anyone can do that.
Hard means: requiring high player skill, prior or during the described part of the game.
Multiplying the health of your creeps by 10 doesn't make the game hard - it makes you a bad game-designer.
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DArtagnan
Guest
I think Diablo 3 is worth the investment. It's just not a worthy Diablo sequel - and I think it's blatantly obvious that Blizzard lost what magic they once had, regarding longevity or intricate design.
They still know how to market and sell their games, though, and there's no denying Diablo 3 is a fine investment if you look at it in terms of how many hours you get out of it. Diablo 2 was just FAR superior in its day - as was Titan Quest, and even Hellgate.
Well, in my opinion.
They still know how to market and sell their games, though, and there's no denying Diablo 3 is a fine investment if you look at it in terms of how many hours you get out of it. Diablo 2 was just FAR superior in its day - as was Titan Quest, and even Hellgate.
Well, in my opinion.
Wow your currency sucks
Diablo 3 cost me less than half the price of Wing Commander 3 even in actual terms, let alone real terms First three are the same as many other games out there, the latter I disagree with - you have to stop thinking of it as using exactly the same skill tree system that earlier games do. It's actually much more like Guild Wars, or LOTRO or other recent games that allow you to build a stack of abilities for a given session, only those abilities are very heavily customisable. It's different, but it's not inferior IMHO. And it has nothing to do with monetisation as there's absolutely no need to buy items.
You're welcome to your opinion - I agree that there are some (though not all) aspects which are focused on profit, but this is a good thing. They are a company, not a charity, and as long as playing the game is entirely optional then they would be irresponsible if they didn't aim to make a profit. Along the way however they're improving the player experience in several ways (while reducing it in others, less important to me). The choice is yours as to whether you prefer the new way or prefer the old way. If it helps make them profitable and thus ensures the viability of the PC gaming platform for AAA games then I'm all for it.
And it could be a console only game too
Sure, but have you played Diablo 3? Unlike other games that just multiply the health of bad guys in harder modes, D3 gives you new bad guys, and gives them new abilities, that absolutely require you to up your player skill to survive. It's a very refreshing experience, and makes finally beating that battle after having to work out what skill loadout, what runes you'll apply, and what tactics you'll have to use to be effective, really quite fun.
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DArtagnan
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Actually, Diablo 3 just adds more of the same abilities to bosses - rather than giving them new ones. Well, maybe a few abilities are reserved for the harder levels - but I didn't feel like I was watching an evolution of abilities - just ever more of the same ones.
Also, it seems to be quite random and half-assed in how they combine, resulting in some extremely stupid combos.
Not sure how refreshing that is - but since the heart of the game is hollow as thin air - I don't think it matters much.
Also, it seems to be quite random and half-assed in how they combine, resulting in some extremely stupid combos.
Not sure how refreshing that is - but since the heart of the game is hollow as thin air - I don't think it matters much.
If I recall correctly, only one ability was reserved for harder difficulties, and it happened to be the most annoying: Invulnerable or some such thing, which caused the minions of the champion to be immune to damage.
Anyway, paying 1 dollar per hour of fun is a pretty good ratio. Compare D3's bang for bucks ratio with going to the movies..
Anyway, paying 1 dollar per hour of fun is a pretty good ratio. Compare D3's bang for bucks ratio with going to the movies..
There is a fatal flaw in this common line of argument that the RMAH drove design decisions to ruin the game: the numbers just don't add up. The number of people that are hardcore enough to actually make a concerted effort at beating Inferno is a tiny, tiny percentage of their customer base. I think I saw something like 3-4% of players have even played in Inferno, let alone been so obsessed with beating it as to spend real money. Let's do an exercise:
6 million sales times 4% = 240,000 players attempting Inferno at all. Let's be generous and say half of them don't quit trying to beat Inferno once they get their asses handed to them and realize that grinding gear endlessly to get good enough to advance just isn't their thing. That leaves 120,000 players. Again, let's be generous and assume a quarter of them are willing to shell out even more cash to buy gear to bypass the grinding. Now we're down to 30,000 players. What do we think the average amount spent would be across these kinds of players? $20? $50? Hell, let's go crazy and say these maniacs are willing to spend $100 dollars on gear on average to beat Inferno! That's 30,000 players averaging $100 bucks spent in the RMAH, or $3 mil. Blizzard sees %15 of that, or $450,000. Do you really believe they based their core design on scoring an extra $450K?
No, they likely expected a lot more, but apparently their game isn´t very fun.