When developing a game you should always ask will this decision alienate a part of the player base. If the answer to this question is yes, then obviously you should not do it. This goes for everything from color blind mode to alternate languages to game mechanics and the player base translates to potential revenue. I just wanted to talk about three different examples here.
Trading
People out there like to trade and that is all they do, they log in get a butchers cleaver, trade it for 2 sojs, sell 1 soj for 1 butchers cleaver, rinse repeat profit. Not only this but if you find some godly rare sword that smashes every unique you could ever find and your a sorcā¦ well you could trade it for an equal quality staff or say hey guess Iām rolling a barb now. Free open market trade it good for everyone.
Crafting
Just like trading there are people out there that play games just to craft. Make crafting fun and rewarding an example in Diablo 2 some of the best items were crafted items. Only crafted rings could get up to 12% life leech.
Complexity
When you dumb down the game to two stats attack and defense thatās fine for some people, donāt alienate those people who prefer simple. However look at path of exiles community, its huge and its extremely complex, donāt alienate those people either. If I want to min max my attack speed and be the fastest swinging frenzy barb on the planet who are you to tell me i canāt. In Diablo 3 for example there is 1 kind of whirlwind barb and you just find gear to do more damage thatās it. In Diablo 2 you could make at least 12 different versions of a whirlwind barb whether its sword, axe, mace, 2h, dual wield, max str, max dex, etcā¦ And in path of exile you could probably make 100 different versions of a cyclone build. Super simple does not equate to super good its simply, super lazy.
Donāt alienate people if you want a successful game, Iām not saying copy d2 or copy path of exile or copy anything. But donāt be lazy and then blame it on people being dumb which is basically what I heard most of the devs saying when talking about Diablo 4.
I can see why they want to make the game simple for new players but I also hope they donāt simplify stats and affixes too much.
For me the fun of playing Diablo comes even more from the math and theorizing of a build than actually playing it.
I agree with this. The more elements they add to the game, the more people they will attract. Some people prefer to trade in games more than they actually like to kill monsters. Donāt limit people to only one object in just slaying monsters over and over again. Different aspects of the game will bring in different types of people. Make leveling to high levels more difficult , gives people something grind for. Make crafting important and in depth, allows people to craft for hours looking for that perfect item. Make all items tradeable , allowing traders to create a fluid market. Give the game varietyā¦
That might seem logical, but really it is not. Making a game appeal to EVERYONE, is not realistic. Eventually decisions have to be made about what kind of game it will be and what systems will be in it. You canāt have one game be everything to everyone. There comes a point where they say, ok, this is the game we are making and there will be some who donāt like that. Those folks should buy a different game does have what they want.
Sort of like when I make stew. There are lots of things I could put in it to appeal to everyone, but some of those things donāt go well together and it ends up a mess. I have to pick the ingredients that go best, in my opinion, and those who donāt like that sort of stew can eat something else.
Ummā¦ no, no it is not. A video game franchise can not be āliterally molestedā.
Further, they are not making a Diablo into a WoW style MMO as far as I can tell. As to the mobile game, yes, there is a mobile spin off called Diablo Immortal that will eventually be released. Not sure what that has to do with D4 though.
Thatās just impossible.
You canāt please everybody, itās just not possible.
āA part of the player baseā will always be alienated by decisions.
And it doesnāt matter which decision:
Example:
PvP is good for PvPāers, bad for Non-Pvpāers (so make it optional!)
Optional PvP is good for PvPāers, bad for PKāers (so make an area specific for PK)
PK Area is good for PKāers, but bad for Explorers (so make a PK Area thatās not meant to explore, just to PvP)
Said Area defeat the purpose of PKāing, which is bad of PKāers, bad for developer (time waste) and bad for regular players who now have a no-go zone.
I can do that to EVERY SINGLE aspect of the game (and a lot further with PvP too).
People like things differently. Blizzard should take an overall look at the community, trust their guts on their choices and stick to them, as long as they arenāt totally and utterly game breaking.
Soā¦
Try to please everyone, no one gets a good gameā¦
They wonāt ever make a game that appeals to every single person, it is impossibleā¦ but that doesnāt mean they canāt at least try to. Limiting the game to āfinding lootā and so-so trading doesnāt sound like the best they can do. Just hoping they donāt cut corners on this game. If theyāre capable of implementing a robust trade market, then I think they should. Keeps the game healthy and gives a whole other demographic of people interested in the game.
People who want to play the game can do thatā¦ but people who are more interested in trading and playing the market should be able to do that as well.
The only way both things can exists is to have literally 2 separated games one with trading and one without because, for the many tales pro-traders keep telling themselves, trading has a hard impact on the game for those who do not engage in it, from the lower droprates to the absence of ingame tools to reroll loot.
This is a no win set up for blizzard. They will upset some group no matter what they do. If they go the MMO and trading route they will upset the old school players while making the new kids happy. But if they stay true to diablo then the push away the new generation that has to have things dumbed down.
As for trading. Well that is not something I ever personally bother with. If I cant use it then it is worthless and is either distroyed or left on the ground somewhere. As long as they keep any real money out of it. Let people trade if they want. It doesnt effect the game at all really. The leader boards will be full of bots and people will run around with hacked weapons just as they do in d3.
So the real question is this. Do you feel strongly enough one way or the other to not buy the game?
The cinematic trailer was designed for the mature audience, but the āattack and defenseā stacking itemization is designed for the 8 year olds. Itās sickening.
And do they ever poll the playerbase? No they donāt. Theyāve been severely neglecting the forums, and apparently donāt get how important free trade is to MOST peopleā¦yes i said most people. I bet it would clearly be demonstrated by a pollā¦actually, theres a new one going on right now. Guess which one is winning.
Alienation by poor content, IMO, is a real thing, but its rare and in most cases falls between the lines of predatorial practices, such as a company which develops a system like loot boxes; and done very well and fair at that, other companies pick up on the success and do it wrong which eventually leads to wide spread backlashes and government interventions.
If there is anything about conventional alienation by content, regarding Blizzard, it would be the āYou donāt want classicā and everyone shouting āYes we doā. No company is perfect, but if enough Diablo fans (consumers) express their want for more DII aspects, it can be possible for companies alienate their fan base.
I admit in the past, I have been rather, toxic to Blizzard, hense why I havenāt been activeā¦ At all, I havenāt bought a single Blizzard game since RoS, I was fed.
But each passing day I am starting to see, more and more, that Blizzard for the first time in a long time, is starting to reach out to the community. IMO the success of Blizzard could be their downfall, unless they capitalize and understand what their customers want.
I am some zero poster. Feel free to refute, this is how I learn :3
Yes, they do. They send out surveys to a randomly selected group of players via the email registered to the account. They do so for quite a few Blizzard games and services. They have been doing it for at least 10 years. What they donāt do, is share the results.
You need to learn proper survey design and statistics. A poll that is only participated in by a tiny self selected group is not statistically relevant. Proper polling of the whole player base would mean a random sample of a large enough size to get a decent amount of data. The forums or reddit are not random.
āRandomā LOLā¦ if they want a more comprehensive and accurate poll results, they would make it open to everyone; and could put it on their official forums.