Even though I don’t give any credit, it’s easy to find “sources” that call Diablo 3 a “failure”. Not a failure on business aspect, mind you.
To try to answer these questions, I’ve spoken to 11 current and former Blizzard employees, all of whom spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to press.
It’s still not clear why Blizzard wouldn’t want to support a game that had been so commercially successful, but the theory on Team 3 was that Blizzard’s management had lost faith in Diablo III and saw it as a failure, even before Reaper launched.
It’s easy when you dig up. Someone may have tried to appease fans, but nobody can tell. D3’s design was utterly reverse of what D2 did; fans were pissed so it’s natural they felt let down. By no means it was a commercial failure thanks to wide appeal on several platforms (was it seven?) unlike Diablo 2 which got stuck on PC only until present day; that’s for sure.
D3 might have failed to satisfy some oldschool d2 fanboys which wanted a newer d2 but at the same time it brought new ppl to the franchise.
They wouldnt have ported it to consoles if it was a complete failure. Its the fastest selling pc game and one of the most sold pc games that doesnt smell failure.
And d2 funded the development of wow alone? Where u got that information from? Both sc and wc3 did pretty well at the time being esport games. Wc3 success is the reason to why they even made wow.
Both d2 and d3 did pretty well but haters gonna hate. They taking ideas from both d2 and d3 when making d4 mean that they find that both games succeded and have their qualities.
I consider both d2 and d3 as success even though none of them were perfect.
I’d say D2 allowed for a bigger scope for D3 and D3 funded WoW given the timeline and being developed by different studios. D2 funded LoD and the D3 MMO that Blizzard North was making before the studios collapse and shutdown.
I really hate being this guy but every day some D2 knucklehead proves it true. It seems like a majority of D2 posters here just can’t stand D3 and go out of their way to subvert reality that D3 was a success and have to bash D3 just for the sake of Bashing D3 and thise that enjoy it.
While many of the D3 posters that liked D3 more than D3, have no issues with D2s success and really just point out the flaws ir reasons they didn’t like D2 as much.
It just boggles my mind the mental gymnastics some use to validate that D3 was only a success because of D2 players who bought the game. Nit that it could have been a fun game enjoyed by a wider range of players than just thise that enjoyed D2. It’s just more gatekeeping BS.
This might be happening with D2/D3 so much and so often because those two are very, very different games. I love both of them for starkly different reasons. I enjoyed D2 for the atmosphere, the strategizing, wanting to access previously inaccessible content, et cetera. I enjoyed D3 for the action, the tactics, wanting to experiment with previously unfamiliar mechanics, and so on. Both are action-based RPGs set in the Diablo universe, but they explore that in distinct directions. In D3, I don’t need to worry about how to deal with Lightning-Immune field monsters as a Chain Lightning Sorceress. In D2, I don’t need to blame myself for not putting up with 5 minutes of constant twitch controls. How D2 and D3 deliver fun is so unlike each other that it’s strange they are both numbered mainline titles to me.
Seeing as how Diablo (and Diablo 2) basically defined modern ARPGs, I can see how D3 was meant to go further rather than retread. Purely from a game design perspective, D3 is (to me) more fun at the moment of playing. Aside that, though, D3 isn’t as… emotionally big as D2. Visuals are flighty, character commitment is days at the longest (setting aside pushing for the moment), and the delivery of storytelling is simply subpar.
D2 and D3 are both fine games, but they are Diablo games in seriously different ways. D2 was here first, though, and people who like D2 only find it easier to mock D3 rather than people who like D3 only find mocking D2 to be. D3 fans can’t easily say D2 is not a “true” Diablo game due to chronological logic at the least.
Yep. They were trying to appease the fans by giving promises for the future. It’s like “we have much better Diablo games on the array! Even better than Diablo 3 even! xD” or “We get the woes of Diablo 2 fans absolutely, Diablo 3 were a dumpster fire!11! oneoneone”.
Relatable but vague things that anyone can make a meaning out of, just because they hyped things too early with a completely wrong timing. I have a hard time believing those developers interviewed are anonymous or identities hidden at all. They can’t move without any affirmation from the company.
True.
I think it’s reverse…
Diablo 3, being released in 2012, can not fund WoW’s initial 2004 release at all, unless you made a typo of sorts or mean something else. Back then, from 1995 to 2007, both Blizzard and its subsidiary Blizzard North until its closure, were under Vivendi also.
More of a timeline thing. World of Warcraft came out in 2004 and before that, there was a development cycle that apparently took them more than 3 years. Your description should be more accurate perhaps, I completely forgot about Starcraft to be honest.
Development. World of Warcraft was first announced by Blizzard at the ECTS trade show in September 2001 .
Stop defend D3. Game is a joke.Rich company couldnt repair this garbage in any way.Fans send Like thousands ideas. Blizzard wanted to keep crap vision instead of listen ppl and check what is fun for players .That was easy solutions to keep fan base in longterm. Iam not really interested on D4 aswell. Looks Like will be same politics as D3.
WoW geeks ruin everything. WoW sucked since open beta and probably way earlier, and I’ve always said so. As a dev, if you’re not harshly critical of your current and former work in perpetuity, that’s a problem. Lofty standards good, lenient standards bad! At least for administrators.
Way to knock players for appreciating a game (D2) too much, in too much detail? We should just appreciate D3 for what it does offer instead of what it doesn’t? Yes I was doing just that, until they nerfed even what D3 does offer (Inferno). Tell me you were excited to beat Inferno after they nerfed it, and I’ll revoke much of the preceding, but to me, that was the moment they killed D3’s single redeeming quality (besides new characters and graphics and things par for the course). The D3 debacle might have “blown over” if the game had just stuck to its gun instead of buckle under the pressure of the softies calling for their game to be handily beatable so that they can be done with it already, and summarily complain that the game lacks content, to no one’s surprise. Pff.
D3 was a scam for many. I’m curious to know how many of those initial sales were tied into the 1-year WoW subscription offer, and how much of QA were WoW players exclusively and played no other Blizzard game.
Or maybe no game should be so excellent that it fosters a culture space and lifestyle all on its own, being merely “minor entertainment”?
I also replayed D3 after the D2 beta left me thirsty.
And keep in mind I’m 35, played D2 for years at release and hated D3 when it came out. But replaying both made me appreciate D3 a lot more.
They changed something, because Normal difficulty wasn’t that ridiculous before. Indeed, I just beat the game without my HP bad even dropping once, and oneshotted every single boss including Diablo.
But in D3 you can change the difficulty whenever you want. Normal is just really baby difficulty. There are 20 tiers of difficulty. Just play on Expert or something to have a normal feel of the game.
I dunno. I didn’t like the arcady stuff at first either, but now I kinda like it. In Diablo 2 as well, once you beat the game and know everything and rush through everything, it just doesn’t feel much serious anymore.
Now that’s wrong, D3 has much, much more customization. In D2, classes only have 5 builds at best. They can only have 5 spells or so, and usually only use 2 or 3.
In D3, you just have all your spells unlocked. But you don’t have to use the same ones as your friend. You can make an ice and a lightning sorcerer just as well. The more you level, the more runes you get, allowing even more customisation. Now your lightning sorc can use that ice blast but lightning.
Then legendaries allow for even more customization. Unlike D2 where legendaries only give you stats, here they often change the behavior of your spells, making one core around which you make your build.
Yes, you always get the crown from the Skeleton King. It’s the first boss and it’s to make new players happy. It gets better later. Personally, I found the crown on a random enemy just before the boss, then got it again… But hey, the same thing can happen in D2. I actually once saw the same legendary drop on the same screen.
I’m surprised, in D2 monsters are extremely simple and just rush at you. In D3 they have special abilities. Like those fatties that explode when you kill them, forcing you to evade (unless playing on normal…) The Fallen shamans that ressurect their friends are also in D3 btw, just not as present as there are many more enemies.
Not sure what you mean. The only thing you can buy in Diablo 3 is the expansion and the Necromander pack. All the other spam was probably about the current Season rewards, which is a great feature and free.
Heh, I don’t use that stuff, but I like to collect. Doesn’t really empede gameplay.
What you should really be complaining about is the cartoony graphics and lack of atmosphere, and the awful, awful writing worthy of baby’s first book.
If you played it for years at least do a proper comparison. I think that’s a horribly wrong statement for the reaction.
In D3 you can have like 4-5 different main class Set builds per character, each of them deviate with use of passives or a single active ability. Difference only comes from efficiency and gear optimization, rest is reflexes. That’s too much gear heavy but it’s the allowed customization and just works as a filter for end game performance. You don’t have to deviate the gameplay that much to differ individual characters, that would make difficulty obsolete after a while.
In Diablo 2 you can have 7-8 builds per character easily, you can check from wikis and fan sites to witness it yourself. Player can differentiate them by the use of charged use or off-class skill items, stat allocation or skill allocation. An end game Diablo 2 character can easily tap 10 or more on hot keys easily to switch back and forth to refresh buffs and debuff for initiate inside and outside of combat. I’m not even counting the passive abilities coming from the high level uniques and runewords.
Turning D4 into a Just Dance clone would also bring new people into the franchise. Doesn’t mean it would be a good thing.
I think there is two aspects to this:
Blizzard considers anything, which does not generating a constant post-release revenue stream, a failure. They didn’t monetize D3. And thanks god for that… but they wont repeat that “mistake” with D4.
They consider it a failure due to the damage it did to the brand value of Diablo. Blizzard don’t just want to sell a lot of D3 copies - which they certainly did. They want to sell a lot of D4, D5, and all other kinds of non-Diablo related games. D3s very problematic launch did nothing good for either Diablo nor Blizzard, as brands. RoS might have helped a bit, but it is very hard to change a bad first impression.
EQ2 sucked worse so WoW got a pass. Not to say WoW didn’t have its amazing facets. SS vs. TM. Honor patch was nuts. And I practically lived inside Alterac Valley. Great times.
Now for the suckage. Play on a PvP server, get subjected to shart game design. Play on a Normal server, get told “it’s your fault for being flagged”. If you wanted to be a paladin, you needed to run with the “steampunk” motif or else you were hopelessly handicapped (essentially because Blizzard insisted that every paladin should have a 12-sec absolute invincibility, and to counterbalance around that). Regardless of your profession, your primary offensive move is praying for procs. Unless you go sword + board, which was fun to contend with OP warrs and rogues, but then prepare to be blown-out twice as hard by mages and priests. Yea, the whole rock-paper-scissor dynamic got old. It didn’t help that our paladin CM (also druid CM) hated paladins, and I wish I was exaggerating.
Games that require a large active community to be practically functional are destined for the junk pile. I mean, anything becomes better with friends, so what a weak crutch that is, if you ask me!
You know, if Blizzard wants to design games contingent on a massive community, maybe they ought to consider customer satisfaction and not only zomg 3.5 mil scammed. Maybe not take the community for granted if their games need it so badly?
What I mean is this. A PvP game in which playtime is the sole determining factor for victory, would be universally berated as a worthless game except as a gimmick. That I mean when I say, corpse campers and the like who push this “gameplay” are opposites of computer game connoisseurs.
Allies may be worse. Get ganked by someone 10 levels higher, you barely peel them off at 10% health and as you’re applying first aid, wonder what your ally has planned with all the time they were given, and that just might distract them enough for you to apply your non-instant CC and glorious victory is in sight, and serves them right for underestimating the 2 of us, oh my ally bailed at the first sign of trouble. Fork this game.
All Azeroth needed to not be a godforsaken nihilist hole where honor dies, is a single additional area check per player death: If there is a worthy opponent even remotely close, no dishonor is given. Instead we got civilians. Nobody liked civilians.
Well, treating WoW as a PvP game is your first mistake. It’s a PvE game with PvP elements, and the vast majority of players plays it as a PvE game. Want PvP, play the dedicated content for it. The massive majority of people don’t want it in open world content, ergo they will avoid it if possible.
Yup. As evident by how late PvP was added to the game to the fact they changed PvP servers to PvE. Sure warmed helped make PvP servers not needed. But ask why it was done? Because no one PvPs and warmode plus cross realm merging allows for those that want to to be able to more often.
Even back with the original D3, the initial lvling process was piss-easy (Acts 1-4, normal), with it only getting hard once you’ve beat the game and started to re-progress (Hell, Inferno, and eventually Nightmare mode).
Currently, D3 revolves entirely around the end-game, lvl 70 - You and your friend is essentially missing 90% of the game. If I remember, you are unable to access Adventure mode as well as Challenge Rifts, and you can’t even access Torment difficulties until you hit lvl 70 at least once on the account.
The “difficulty” of Diablo doesn’t come from Normal, but from higher difficulties. Of course, eventually the only real difficulty will be acquiring the right Greater Rift, there’s a fairly steady difficulty curve as you go up.
