A Quick Word from Blizzard

Dude same, last year was glorious. I can only hope that this year tops it, I can’t wait.

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Humm I cant see much change. Maybe a d4 trailer. Anything they add to d3 will just end up the same. It will still be xp grind no matter. Lets just get on with D4.

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When I first read about the possibility of D4 being an “over the shoulder” kind of game I was a bit sceptical. But I have since then come around and now think I could learn to like that - even for Diablo. As long as the visual aestetics are brought back to being more in line with D and D2 - dark, bloody, and gory - I will be pleased.

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i prefere to see 40 mobs at once, iso rules.

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I would love to have a view like this: :roll_eyes:

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I have to agree, this is what I wanted most back in the day. Even tried stitching screenshots toghether in photoshop, for my desktop backgrounds.

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It is a sad day when you realize that all those who have a negative interpretation of anything Actilizzard does - are right. I did not want to think about it, did not want it to be true, but here I am. Damn, blizzard, you are breaking my heart.

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the longer this goes on and the comedy stuff activision is pulling with its other games pushes me more and more towards the thought diablo 4 is going to be a lootbox microtransaction infested live service.

as for this thread not long to go now until it hits 12 months, talk about being an embarrassment, but as long as people are still buying diablo stuff no one will care.

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If D4 is infested with loot boxes surprise mechanics, there’s a chance it could pull a trick from the Call of Duty playbook.

This would be dropping them in the game a few months after the initial launch and reviews are in, thereby bypassing bad PR and media coverage that could hurt initial sales and pre-orders.

Play their cards, be economical with the truth, take the players’ money on launch, play them for suckers and then show their true intentions.

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Feel the same way you do. I bought Diablo and instantly became a Blizz fan. I bought D2 without a second thought and could not get enough. Pre-ordered D3 and got a game that was horribly broken and pretty much still in Beta. I was still a rabid fan, so I stuck with them hoping they would figure it out. As they Frankensteined the game, some things got better, some got worse. I pre-ordered ROS because it was a new design team and thought they would finally get it right. It got better, but many core issues remained untouched or broken even further. I still have not bought the Necromancer DLC because they have to deliver the quality content I want before I buy anything from them now.

The really sad part is they still have a rabid fan base, but choose not to listen to them because, hey, they are Acti-Blizzard and we think we know what we want, but they really know what we want. For years, we told them what content we wanted, and we got power creep. For years we told them what content we wanted, and the game got ported out to consoles. For years we told them what content we wanted, and we got a mobile trash game.

Look at other games, the Dev’s communicate with the fans through stuff like Developer Diaries. They let the fans know where the franchise is going, what they are working on, and a rough time line. Fans critique the new content and the Dev’s actually take this stuff into account and will alter the new content if they find the critiques valid. After 2 years of pretty much radio silence, D3 Dev’s give us - “Don’t worry guys, we are working on stuff, new sets, fix Barbs, and we will get it to you at some point in the future. Some things take longer than others, so be patient, at some point, some time it might happen!!! :+1:

This is why there is a zero chance I will pre-order a D4 if it is announced. I will not buy it until I have seen enough reviews that it has: isometric view, not an mmo, dark hopeless theme, multiple end game options, no PTW mechanics, a rich robust item pool to choose from, and a Dev team that understands what the fans want.

I have the same fear as you, I am hoping for a finished, polished game that has constant quality content updates to sell me along with a possible cosmetic shop to make some extra cash to keep development going, but I fear what we will get is a game that will force people towards micro-transactions where people with no sell control get their wallets drained by some predatory mechanic that is basically required to advance in the game and for the chance to get the cosmetics they actually want.

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No matter how good D4 turns out to be, I will not buy it if it ends up having pay-to-win and/or loot boxes at launch or any time afterwards.

I refuse to throw away money to a company run by greedy executives and shareholders whose only intention is to squeeze every dollar in the most insidious ways.

The only game at this time I have had any confidence in pre-ordering in the last 7 years is Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red going out their way to make a quality game without the pay-to-win loot box dumpster fire bullcrap other companies have been trying to get away with.

CDPR seem to be only ones refusing to board the p2w gravy train and good on them for giving the players what they want.

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First time I started Diablo 2 on my PC I was hooked to this game for almost a year and couldn’t stop playing it… Than LoD came out and it made the game even better…

In all my time playing D2 LoD I never visited the D2 LoD official forum or said a single bad thing about Blizzard nor the game. I was absolutely in love with this game and thought Blizzard North was the best game developer in the world. Never had any problems with playing D2 LoD on Closed Bnet. Everything worked great.

Than D3 came out… and you know the rest of the story…

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It’s almost like some of you are daring bliz to put in microtransaction/PTW stuff. I don’t think that’s wise. The problem with these forums is you get complete troll topics that bliz might not realize are troll and implement bad changes. What people want may not be as clear to bliz as it is to us. Or you could be right; maybe they don’t care what we want and have their own vision to follow.

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At this point Blizzard adding micro transactions wouldn’t bother me; I have no faith in their ability to produce a good game. In fact it would validate me. I have more fun watching this train wreck than playing any of their games since LoD. They could always prove me wrong, but that is almost out of the realm of possibility now. My guess is no matter how good D4 will be (IF that is their plan), I will probably skip it until Diablo 5 if it is still good.

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I’m fine with that. Let’s see who they really listen to - the gamers or the greedy shareholders.

If they decide yes, it’s only going to end badly and they will only have themselves to blame.

They would do well to recognize there is growing pushback against this sort of scumbag profiteering, from governments worldwide outright banning or seeking to legislate against it and more gamers realizing what is really going on.

Does Blizzard want D4 to start its life as another Star Wars Battlefront II?

When game companies add loot boxes or p2w, it’s no accident. They know exactly what they are doing and they don’t care:

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people saying they will wait for reviews, id wait until a month or two or even a year after reviews because activisions already done a bait and switch with crash team racing nitro edition, where after all the reviews where in and the game had shipped it started to add micro transactions and the like.

when we get told diablo 4 is a thing im sure many people will ask our ever forthcoming community manager will there be loot boxes, micro transactions and pay to win surprise mechanics lets see if we get any answers. im betting we wont and im sure a few on here will leap to their defence with claims “well they cant say what will be in the game” “blizzard never say anything”. sorry that ships sailed, hit an iceberg and sunk as far as the community trusting blizzard and expecting a great game to ship.

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If D4 is announced at BlizzCon and that the game will not feature p2w and loot boxes in any form at any time in its existence, they should say so outright during a stage presentation. That’s just sensible marketing.

Otherwise, the question of whether the game will ever have p2w and loot boxes should be asked at the Q&A, preferably by the same guy who asked the April Fools question last time. Put the developers on the spot and make them say it for the record. What they say will be very telling.

If they are silent on the issue or say that they are essentially “still thinking about it” or “are still working out the details” or “don’t have anything to announce”, that for me would be tantamount to a yes, it will have p2w and / or loot boxes in some form.

I don’t see asking on the forum going anywhere.

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yeah what should happen and (il keep saying this) what will be allowed to happen at blizzcon will be two extremely different things. the q and a will be locked down and heavily vetted and i wouldn’t be surprised anyone who gets to ask a question will have it explained to them you ask the question or you never get to attend blizzcon or get freebies from blizzard again, as im expecting all q and a questions as far as diablo go to be streamers and invited people only.

basically so they can be managed as well as be half answers already setup so no more “dont you have phones” from wyatt.

if someone does ask and we get the “we cant say yet” or “its not been finalised” well its a yes. just how far they will go from basic cosmetic stuff you can buy or earn if you grind enough all the way through to pay to win (time saving) cash grabs.

we should find out in a month or so i guess, keep them forges warm guys :stuck_out_tongue:

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They can say D4 won’t have p2w features on stage presentation just to add some when they announce the console version of D4 with of course p2w features like loot boxes. Wouldn’t surprise if consoles would get offline mode too if D4 will look like D2 o D3 with isometric view leaving PC community once again with “shareware” version of the game like we have in D3 RoS.

We could also get a teaser gameplay video of D4 with cool features that won’t of course make it to the game just to make us jump the hype train again and preorder D4 with the promise of all the glory shown on that video, just to end up disappointed like with D3 after buying the game (with no of the cool stuff from the video present in the game)…

Honestly it wouldn’t surpirise me if D4 would be a P2P mmorpg just like WoW was/is. No idea if you still need to pay to play WoW, never played this game…

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Or pull a blatant Activision middle finger bait-and-switch special where they added loot boxes post-launch for Black Ops 4 and Crash Team Racing.

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