Just a theory that Blizzard wants everyone bored of D2R and D3 at D4 launch so they can transition as much of the fanbase to D4 as possible. Why, you ask? Because D2R and D3 offer no additional revenue stream. They want to maximize the D4 player base that will buy not only the base game, but the seasonal cosmetic battlepasses because that offers potential revenue for years to come. That is infinitely greater than the $0 in additional revenue from D2R and D3. They want us starved for new content and experiencing heavy withdrawals at D4 launch so we will see everything D4 has to offer as new and exciting. They gave us a taste of new D2R content with terror zones and sunder charms and a strong S27 in D3 so when D4 comes out and a lackluster D3 S28 and D2R S3 follows, we will pass on going back and feed the D4 money machine. Not necessarily a bad thing, IF there are better and more frequent content updates in D4 without a garbage P2W model of Immortal.
That would seem like a bad sale strategy imo.
“Hey we want you to buy our next live game! Just look at how bad we are at supporting our current live games. Are you sold yet?!”
The only reason to even have supported D3 for all these years, is to sell more D4 copies some day. Failing to keep that up so close to D4 launch would be a choice for sure.
If anything, they ought to want going out with a bang, with some significant D3 and D2R patches within the next few months.
I doubt that’ll be the case. Honestly I expect we’ll hear more on D3’s upcoming season/patch (ptr version) some time this month.
LAWLZ! Right? Um… er… hmmm… yeah sure, take my money. SOLD!
If the new D3 season launches in February, it will be relatively old when D4 launches. Raxx said that this patch/season will bring significant changes.
If it does, hopefully it’ll be more akin to significant balancing, QoL, and/or added content changes (things that are permanent) as opposed to a major seasonal theme.
That would be the way it should be.
Though they probably have even more reason than normally to add stuff that only lasts for the season. Permanent things wont matter (for Blizzard) when you are not supposed to play these games in 6 months.
But yeah, personally, if they wanted to try to sell me on D4 here and now, the next D3 patch should be dedicated solely to skill re-balancing (touching any items would be illegal!).
Heck, so should the D2R patch for the most part, together with some Unique/runeword item balancing.
Add in some serious nerfs all over the place, to show that they have sharpened the nerf hammer in preparation for D4, would be a nice bonus.
Do you think a fanbase would boycott a new game when its 10 and 20 year old predecessors didn’t provide new content 6 months prior to launch? I know some will probably not get the preorders, but if the game becomes half as great as D2 was for it’s time (D3 falls in this category) then everyone will definitely come back. No matter how much people may hate no more content before D4 launch, their FOMO will overcome their grudge, especially when all of their friends and favorite streamers are playing it. Now if Maxroll and influential PC streamers boycott D4 (which they won’t because Blizzard knows how much they influence the PC gaming community) then people would definitely leave and D4 would become a failure.
Sidenote: Maxroll abandoned DI because it’s P2W (the mobile gaming business model). I could go on a huge tangent of how D4 will not be true P2W and how DI and D4 are catered to different markets but that would require a new post entirely.
It isn’t about anyone “boycotting” anything, it is about people caring enough to buy a game. Supporting your old games holds very little value on its own. Showing potential customers what you stand for, what they can expect if they buy your games, is what long-lasting support offers.
Why stop so close to the goalpost.
People might also look at D3 and ask, “can I expect Blizzard to take botting and cheating serious? Probably not”. Even if they started banning now it would feel too little too late. You have to be in it for the long haul. Which they have been with D3 patches.
A nice content patch at minimum might get you some mentions on gaming sites and social sites, and remind people, fairly or not, that Blizzard games receive patches for a long time.
They would be better off having seasons to keep people playing Diablo games until 4 comes out.
Just plan it so they’re mid season when Diablo 4 drops rather than making it “compete” with a D2R and D3 new season.
Well said. Sure if your 10 year old game wasn’t being updated till right before the new one it wouldn’t necessarily put people off if the new content stopped a significant amount of time before the sequel but since many people will either just keep playing D3 or not care about joining the beta or come back after a short stint at D4 it would make more sense to not seem like you give up on the game right before the sequel comes out.
Or let me rather say, not make it seem like you are purposefully boring players into leaving. Like someone else said we should probably get season 28 at a time when D4 release matches the time when activity has mostly died down.
That would be great. More than for other seasons as we are most probably reaching the end of big new content. One last hurrah of significant changes, hopefully with some long requested things on top of balance, would do wonders for not only keeping future D4 players happy but also those that would come back. And if post D4 means barely any new content and recycling old themes then a waft of new features makes the future play someone would put in longer.
Also I would love that since I don’t see myself being able to play D4 before the end of the year.
The logical strategy is to make a d4 theme (even just cosmetic) in the coming d3 season to preheat. But I assume everything will be slow since this is not their priority and they are already shorthanded for d4.
Wudijo said something similar, is it just speculation or do they really know something.
Lets hope some of the proposed qol suggestions from raxx his thread will make it.
That would be the worst strategy to follow for Blizzard. If you want people to go towards Diablo 4, then you try your best to keep every playerbase across multiple installments happy so they may willfully decide to buy another product. If you leave them all in the dark, that might not really work.
How many players in their right mind, started to play WoW with the subscription model because D3 stopped getting updates for a little while at the initial release? A very small crowd and rest left the game permanently because they didn’t find what they wanted. When you care about MAU numbers, even the slightest lack of care can impact by snowballing into peer pressure and people have many other choices when it comes to gaming now.
First D2R seasons last a year and I will bet you any amount of money that there will be another D3 season before D4 release
They said they were working on the next season in the D4 Livestream. Not sure how many more after that.
My guess is that they got some feedback from Blizzard on the suggestion list so they know some things are being implemented.
I didn’t see where rax said this but he does make it quite obvious when he is speculating and when he knows something so either he has info or the people who repeat what he said don’t pay attention.
On the contrary, i think both D2R and D3 will have their new seson up and runing, probably getting close to their end before D4 launches. And open beta can easily come during that, because that 2 days is basacly nothing.
You obviously have never, ever played a D3 season. 90% of the fan base is bored with the season by week 2.
Telling your player base “nothing to see here, move along” for almost a year (last patch/season came out in like Sept?) is more likely lose players rather than make them hungry for D4. I have been playing a ton of non-Blizz games since week 2 of the season, as has many of their other customers. If it weren’t for the forum PVP, I probably would have forgotten D4 was coming out all together.
As a grand finale, they need to activate all seasonal themes at one time. Couple this with Primal puzzle rings spawn only flavor goblins instead of plain ones and we would have something worthy of remembering. If I cannot get my video card to melt from lag and audio/visual vomit, I will be sorely disappointed.