Diablo 4 will benefit from an Early Access

General Discussion
41

Two issues with that.
One, being a cumulative progress based game genre, as a game company you might have to handle the situation by resetting all progress Early Access users made so far due to a simple game breaking bug seeping into the game. I’m not talking about expected lag issues, graphical glitches, slow render performance, random disconnects, bad hit register and collision checks and so on, those are expected problems on a day zero release of a new game with a crowded studio.
I’m talking about bugs that can be exploited, allowing a single individual having a huge advantage by finding out about a loop in the code. There’s a difference between gameplay issues due technical problems and game breaking bugs that threaten game integrity of a multiplayer game. When that glitch carries over by progress, company obliged to check every involved players’ account to reverse the changes or reset things at the end of Early Access phase. That’s tiring and not worth the risk at all.

Two, since Early Access will not be as stable as a full release some people will wait to buy it anyway and this won’t be reflected on your stock market rise fully. Even though the game has a huge advertisement campaign and hype surrounding it, some players will be cautious to tread instead of pre-ordering mindlessly.
However, since you practically released the game, investors will ask why your stock market haven’t risen properly. Being an early access, company still have to send out advertisement campaigns continuously to remind you of game’s presence along it, hoping players would get it at full release. That’s also extra cost.

42

The irony is that doesn’t matter how many servers will be active on start. That servers can’t serve the all people who want to play at first days.

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43

I’m rather ambivalent about it.

On the one hand, it can be good when players get involved and move the game forward themselves.
On the other hand, we have to deal with a constant thought that we don’t understand the games as RPGs anymore, but give them an endgame, i.e. include a completely different game genre as the main genre.

And if the players then only head for this imposed and the role-playing game itself bypassing other concept, these early access things make the actual RPG world only worse, because more and more the end-game concept displaces the actual game.

I’ve seen this so many times now as hordes of gamers have ended up invading RPGs and completely ruining them with their eSports endgame tunnel thinking.

D4 can and will be good if it becomes an RPG. I like to repeat myself here over and over again because I’ve always been right so far and have been for at least 15 years.
But D4 will slip as an RPG and fail as a game itself if it’s not the RPG and the game itself that is steadily the focus and the rest will be tethered.
But the game itself will be expanded and the world and the RPG will continue to be everything and the rest will just be tethered and adapted.
And that includes not only PvP but also the end-game concept. These things must not dominate the game and stand in the first place, then the RPG and the game as such is done, because these things do not get along with each other.

There are 2 things how it can work. There is no endgame as such, the endgame is the world itself, as it was in D1 and D2 Classic for example.
Or there is an endgame, but it’s only tethered as an option, just like PvP is optional and tethered in a way.
Everything else will always eat up the role-playing games and not come to fruition at all.
Endgame games destroy roleplaying games and can’t coexist if the endgame eSports concept takes over.

It only works the other way around, everything else is an illusion.
The last 1.5 decades have now made that very clear.

And I, as an RPG fan from the very beginning, don’t see why I should have the genre constantly shot to pieces, because they’re actually selling a completely different genre as an RPG game, which in the end isn’t one.

44

Blizz will no do early access for D4. I don’t remember them ever having early access for any of their titles. Also early access can carry a stigma, along with other potential problems.

45

Diablo never was a pure RPG, it was always an ARPG. Those are and always was very different things.

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46

And then after a year there will be a ton more issues and problems with the game because every idea bought forward by the player base wasn’t implemented and the players that bought up the idea will go toxic and complain because their idea wasn’t implemented, it’s a no win situation for Blizzard regardless of what they do

Look at the complaints resurfacing in D2R because the amazon wasn’t changed to the way some players wanted it to be changed, and if they changed the Amazon to the way the ones complaining are those that didn’t want changes will complain because there were changes made

Of course they do, because what they wanted and what they got were 2 different things even though they state it is a remaster and no real change to the game and those complaining wanted a full rewrite and an expansion added with more runewords and other xtras that weren’t in th4e game to start with

Yes it needs proper testing but giving early access where people can get an early look at what to expect in the game and get a heads up on the game and do not do any testing, which I believe would be the majority of those doing the Early access would be doing and no “proper” testing is being done at all

47

And these are way smaller than the refunds that would happen otherwise.

Tell me how many didn’t bought D2R because of ugly Amazon face vs. how many made a refund because of bugs?

48

Why ask a question none of us here know the answer to?

49

World of Warcraft has had it.

50

early, late, middle, no matter they access: launches always suck for games!

51

If it’s coded properly (and for that you need testing) you won’t get disconnected at least. So, once you are in from the queue, you’d play as much as you want.

The other scenario is the D2R launch.

52

it may limit that but it will still happen for a vast majority

53

Then what they can do is launch in waves based on time zones, not simultaneously. But again, if there are bugs, no matter what launch strategy you apply, there will be disconnects and hotfixes/patches resulting in people refunding.

I’d prefer to have a smooth launch even if I have to wait a few hours - at least I could plan my schedule while with the constant unpredictable drops you can’t do that.

54

When? They have given you access to beta on occasion for prepurchasing an expansion, but afaik they never had early access as such.

55

Early access also comes with a certain number of negative effects as well such as:

  1. sharing (depends on how it is accessed)
  2. streaming - might have elements that end up being removed/modified but sets false expectations either way
  3. hacking/prepping for bots
  4. and so forth

Yes, there are good things but early access is generally reserved for trusted people, generally in house but there are software test companies as well.

56

So you mean let the hacks come on release instead during EA?

57

Its better to delay hacking as much as possible rather than let them all be live day 1.

58

They will be live anyway if you don’t test your game. It’s better to let hacks during EA and take measures then.

59

No, its not.

Hacks will come, yes, but making them known before the game is released, and shared, is bad.

But whatever. I am done conversing with ignorance.

60

D2R needed 6 months more at least for a stable release. What you are playing right now is an Early Access sold as a finished product.

Instead of selling buggy and unfinished stuff like D2R, they can do Early Access for D4 in 2022 and receive solid feedback.