I would LOVE to get a few news from the developement teams, through Community Managers, a bit more often.
Of course, I fully understand that things must take some time, but my purpose here isn’t to hurry them or to get a release date by now (that we all know to be SOON™ ^^).
However, I’m quite interested in the development process. I really like to read the interviews about it.
Wouldn’t it be possible to give us some more regular information about the current work in progress in the various teams ? And ideally a small idea of next step expected timeline.
For example:
“50k players have participated to the Alpha, thanks ”
“First performance results from the Alpha seems quite good, we’ll let you know.”
“We’re in the process of analyzing survey data. We can already say that most people feel happy with the game atmosphere ”
“A part of the graphic team is testing some rework on characters…”
“We’re trying to improve the monster AI, so that it works well on extra-large screens.”
“We would like to launch the Beta in early May, but nothing sure yet, of course.”
“Oops, there’s a big issue with D2R on Battle.net, which could delay the Beta test to mid or late May, depending on how fast we can fix it ”
“Your comments about UI/UX were very useful, Dyrio, we’ll send you an access to our development servers”
… things like that…
Getting this kind of information is probably just a dream, but I try
Or maybe:
“You’re kind but we’re 2 CM only and have to read 10k uninteresting posts per day, no time to speak with devs !”
The forums are a tiny little audience compared to the wider scope that is reached with interviews. So I get why they use that format for releasing information to reach as wide an audience as they can.
It would not be terrible though to link those press releases on the main site under “News”.
Some of your questions were answered in the recent interviews they did post Tech Alpha.
Thread with the rough translation of the Korean interview.
Agreed, the CMs could drop a line every now and then and say “Hey guys! Here’s the latest interview about D2:R by PCGamesN!”. Or they could post the information on D2:R’s website or the Blizzard launcher.
My biggest issue with getting this information from reddit and sources other than Blizzard is the possibility for false information. Everyone on the face of the Earth doesn’t know who is and who isn’t a trusted gaming news source.
Even just having a Blizzard rep say ‘here it is’ removes any doubt about the credibility of the source.
I haven’t been involved in a Blizzard beta since sc2. They were definitely really good at feedback and talking with the community for that beta, but I do wonder if that’s just because of the competitive and esports nature of the genre and playing at a high level.
I hope they’re good at engagement for D2R, because there are honestly so many questions the devs need to directly be asked, and so many flaws apparent in the current design.
And since there’re various debates about features to be included or not in D2R release, or its future patches, it could help us getting an idea of how things might happen, even if they stay open.
For example: “We expect to deliver a first release without more features, then consider community feedback in patches”.
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