So now D4 is launched, what can we expect for D2R?
Maybe just cycling seasons with no to little balance/ bug fixes?
Could we ever hope any major update or even new content, like a expansion, a new character, or new game mode like “Adventure Mode” on D3?
Terror Zones has been a nice addition to prevent the eternal loop of boss runs, but still is not exactly an Adventure Mode nor exactly “new content” but a way to revitalize the old one.
So, what can we expect on D2R in the future? or is it mostly done now?
I think the game will end up like Warcraft 3. Barebone support and maybe a balance change from time to time.
Those old games have no economic value to the company which is completely fine imo because that’s just the norm.
Most of 20 years old games don’t get any form of love at all, so it’s already a big win to have this Remaster/Remake.
They refused to add in ways to monetize the game so that it could continue to be justified to support it fully, so I wouldn’t expect much.
We already know characters can have halo effects since set items were introduced. Would have been easy to make a bunch of 3 dollar halo skins and have some money coming in that way, and we know that pets are obviously doable so having a pet worm or felbeast would have been another 3 bucks a pop.
There were so many ways to introduce cosmetic mtx to d2r that would have worked within the framework of the game. It’s almost like they didn’t want the game to succeed.
It could be nice if “non-battlenet-required” online could get added on the future when significant updates or monetization were already squeezed, so the community can mod the game and create their own servers with their own updated, mods and support, similar to some projects wich already exist with classic D2.
We can only hope, I guess. But yes right now its ok with new seasons and new stuff, like Terror Zones or the addition of new stuff like Sundering Charms.
Funny thing is, I never liked mods, no economy in mods which was part of the D2 experience of a new ladder for me and most mods were less interesting than the original anyway, however now these Dev’s “improved” the game I wish D2r had mods.
Would find one that simply removes the “improvements” and hopefully some of the OP gear to make the difficulty balance better and play that instead of normal D2r.
I presume the original plan was to actually deliver what they promised, a remaster, before throwing that overboard and reworking number of critical aspects of the game making it more of a remake than remaster.
Feels like the original target audience was D2 fans and most of those just wanted D2 with better graphics at 1080p to 4k and possibly some QoL improvements, not adding parts of D3 to D2r.
That they were able to modernize the game to increase its longevity is a gift itself. If you are a fan of D2, this was probably the best thing that could happen. Though there’s something to be said about that nostalgic experience of playing 2D on your 20 year old PC.
The only issue I can foresee is that the game is now locked down into the battle.net eco, so if there ever does come a time where Blizzard doesn’t want to support the game anymore, players will be screwed. But with the original version of the game, we can still fire up a copy and LAN play. Modern games like D3 don’t have this luxury and will probably eventually fade away without any way to play them again.
While I always wished we would see more additions like chapters, characters, or modes, I never expected any to begin with. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how much they’ve put into it so far.
I do think we’ll probably get a reasonably beefy update next season since last time was so bare. They’ve been doing doing a “tick-tock” pattern where every other patch is more substantial with features/RWs, but I’m not expecting anything extravagant. My money is on some new Shield RWs like what they did with Helms.
Beyond that though, I figure this game will probably be going into maintenance mode. I’d like to be wrong, but we’ll see.
Give it time… there will be a lull over the next year, many of the VV devs that ended up working on Immortal and D4 will come back to update d2r. I’m betting next season will introduce significant additions. D3 has gotten some of its most significant seasons the last few years, 10+ years after debut so it gives us hope d2r should get meaningful changes for a while too.
True, but the guys that made D3 are there making new D3 content. Its not the case for D2. None of the OGs that made D2 are there anymore they are long gone.
I am hoping for more of the same. I would like to see each season get small updates. Moving previous LO runewords to NL. Maybe buff some uniques or lackluster runewords. The wish list still remains, but I am a bit doubtful about items like: bring back TCP/IP, Fix the spam/chat issues, Make the Lobby work like it did in D2LOD, moving Cain to his rightful place in A5, etc.
I think we’ll still get balance changes and bug fixes for the next few seasons, but I wouldn’t expect any big updates and especially not new content (not story or art asset related content anyways, just stuff like new runewords).
That’d be awesome, but Blizz is never going to restore TCP/IP or any sort of non-Bnet multiplayer after the Tech Alpha was cracked. That was a decision the business suits made and the devs probably begrudgingly followed their orders and removed it.
In regards to when Blizz stops supporting D2R and it becomes a bricked game because of the DRM, yeah that’s gonna suck. Not that it’d be likely to happen, I imagine they’d only pull support if Blizz as a whole goes bankrupt or dissolves or something. Having said that there’s unofficial workarounds to both of these issues that have popped up.
I expect that D2:R will fade into the timeless abyss where its problems are ignored until the end of time… Just like the original game.
They claimed moving the game to the modern Battle.net platform would enhance cheat detection, which I’m sure it did… But even so, it doesn’t matter if they’re only banning every ~6 months. If they ramped the banwaves up to once a week, or a time frame just long enough that cheaters can’t refund, and short enough where they can’t get the bots rolling enough to generate revenue… THAT would make a difference.
But…
They don’t want to do that… Because that would mean less money for Blizzard…
1: It’d be more work on Blizzards end… (aka more money spent for manhours) Banning once every 6 months is significantly less work than banning every week. Plus there’s the support that goes with it for appealing false-positive bans.
2: Botters wouldn’t automatically rebuy the game when they are banned. (aka less money coming in) Right now the botters KNOW that Blizzard isn’t going to do anything for several months after a banwave happens. So a botters knee-jerk reaction is to rebuy the game, get it set back up and continue their RMT business as usual.
Does Blizzard support their games? Just enough to scrape by to make sure their games run. But when it comes to player generated problems? As long as their activity isn’t taking down the servers for everyone else, who cares?
A lot of companies simply don’t my want money these days.
I have money to spend on my hobbies – but nobody but Nintendo, FromSoftware and Bethesda are willing to take it among gaming companies, and many other markets are no better.
…while they take income for granted, it not we who are lucky to have money to spend on games, it’s gaming companies that are lucky to have consumers willing to spend money.
As long as current management remains and until they take out the trash in the dev room, will ONLY GET WORSE!
They have done everything in their power and lied through their teeth to curtail anything involving making a better environment for actual players and yet promoted a strong and healthy environment for botters.
And they want you to be a lemming and buy more of their products so they can continue to fleece you on their terms.
Only you can prevent and change this … STOP giving them money until they change! Pretty easy concept. It’s working with Target!
If blizzard actually cared about its legacy players they’d allow D2R client modding.
The community has time and time again shown that they know what players want, the developers at blizzard aren’t gamers, they’re popsicle furries and people with agendas.
Let us mod this game, D4 ain’t for me. PD2D2R would be pretty sick though
