Blizzard Quarterly earnings from 2014:
“it announced that Diablo 3 had managed to sell more than 20 million copies worldwide. This includes sales of the original game and the Reaper of Souls expansion on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3”
So your wrong; that includes consoles, and that figure doesn’t equate to a huge number of new fans coming wanting to destroy the Diablo franchise. Nice try.
Totally agreed. I think there’s one specific distinction that needs to be made as well, the hardcore d2 player-base is basically split (imo) based on forum responses.
Modders (pd2) and unmodded (meaning vanilla / plugy only).
I’m basing my this on forum responses that I see most often, I don’t actually know the numbers.
Both (mod vs unmod) are in agreement, for the most part, about the minor QoL changes that have been added thus far.
The ones going head-to-head most often seem to be modders vs unmodded.
Modders wanting drastic changes for the sake of yolo/new players from other games/vanilla is too stale/needs balancing, etc seemingly coming from a place of trusting devs as they trust the mod community.
Unmodded crowd mostly saying no changes at all/only minor/keep to promised advertising/etc, seemingly coming from a place of distrust in the devs to do it right.
And that bitterness over the ploot alone is showing that in spades.
Certain changes, like ploot, drastically change the unmodded game, therefore alienating them as a population. Other changes like a charm inv, is great for the ones who play pd2 but not the vanilla bros.
The thing is, most adamant purists who screamed for no changes started playing PoD / PD2 recently and start to see that they were in the wrong:
If currently purists on this forum, just try out these mods, they’ll see how it vastly improved the game without changing the core essence of it. But they won’t try it and they’ll even lie that they tried it without trying it.
That’s all entirely opinion based. I played pd2, not so much PoD and I don’t like either of them very much. Personal taste, but I can’t say they improved the game, they just changed it.
I adore plugy but dislike the maphack options, like showing enemies or whatever, so I don’t use that function. But I can’t say that maphack makes the game better, I would say the opposite actually. The QoL stuff for stash is great for my grailing but I wouldn’t want a larger inventory as I feel that it would take away stuff from the game.
Thank you.
I absolutely oppose to changes that simplify a game or make it easier. I don’t want things handed to me on a silver platter just cause I logged in that day. I think this is part of why I like the Dark Souls franchise so much. There’s a huge sense of achievement when you finally kill a boss.
I’m not sure I’d say that it stood the test of time. As I said earlier in this thread, I only saw about 20,000 players online when I last logged in back in 2012. That’s basically a dead game from the perspective of any marketing team.
Adding an optional alternative loot mode isn’t something that I’d call “dumbing it down”. To me it just means I can play multiplayer and get a chance at loot instead of having to play single-player. I’m fine with playing single-player, but I think most people would prefer to play multiplayer if they stood a chance at getting loot.
I really don’t think that adding optional additional loot modes is going to ruin the game. I think it’ll appease a large portion of the player-base that’s clamoring for it without impacting the others who don’t want it.
On the other hand, if they go and re-balance Hell difficulty and remove the immunities and then rebalance synergies to allow every class to be able to kill a level 85 monster in 2 hits, that would absolutely ruin the game for me. So would removing talent trees and replacing them with a choice of 1 of 3 talents at various levels like they did in WoW.
I like the loot system an awful lot; the drop rates make uniques and sets and runes rare enough that you get excited when they do drop (until you reach the point where you’re farming baal with an orb sorc every 10 minutes). I just don’t like having to fight other players for it when I know I’m going to lose, and I’m sure a lot of other people feel the same way.
Exactly. As I said earlier in this thread: “Have you not seen what’s happening to WoW? People are leaving in droves. It’s not the mountain of cash you think it is anymore.”
I’m glad you pointed out Bellular, since I don’t watch him. He’s got some good data in that video on WoW’s Health. I’m worried that Activision Blizzard is headed for the grave, and consequently so is Vicarious Visions.
Your name is so apt. Can you explain why you think that adding optional additional loot modes is going to “destroy” D2R or turn it into D3? Or are you just trolling?
I think it would probably double their sales given how many people I’ve seen saying they won’t buy it without personal loot, given that it’s a complete deal-breaker for those people. I also think that if it’s optional, it’s not going to impact any of the core player-base.
This is why I love D2:R. Thank you for pointing out that adding personal loot won’t make it any different.
They said “more than” in the quarterly earnings, which could easily reach what the Wikipedia article I referenced has listed.
You’re sounding very salty and argumentative there, attacking me personally by saying “your wrong” and “Nice try”. I just answered your question with my best estimate based on what sources I could google in 30 seconds. Try to be civil?
The only large survey I saw was on reddit about 5 months ago by u/Chrompower in the thread “Diablo II: Resurrected - Change Or No Change Survey: The RESULTS!”.
According to him there were 4352 participants, 99% of which had played D2. Just glancing over his results, 39% of people are opposed to personal loot, 49% in favor, and 12% undecided.
For most of the other QoL improvements (stash improvements, drop name toggle, adding ladder-only content to other modes) which VV has already implemented, there were typically ~70% in favor.
I wish more people in the #nochanges camp would do this.
your OP was “do everything possible to get the D3 crowd”, wasn’t it? personal loot doesn’t automatically transform this into D3. But if they DID do everything possible, yes it would destroy the game. obviously.
personal loot isn’t going to bring in millions of D3 players. you either enjoy D2 gameplay or you don’t. its an old game and still plays like an old game. (which is a positive to me, most new games suck now a days)
I’m not sure what that distinction is supposed to mean. We only know(based on publicly released information):
The reason I’m getting annoyed is just because I’m against pker’s and for personal loot, I’m considered part of a fictional group of people that came in during Diablo 3 and want to “destroy Diablo 2”. I’ve played Diablo 2 for years, but the sales for D3 clearly scale when new platforms are released, and I’d be curious to know the units that can’t be attributed to that trend are families buying additional copies of the game, but that information wasn’t released to investers.
Where do you pull these statistic from? From where the sun dont shine? 
Mountains of cash come from whales, not from subscriptions, primarily.
He said "“No new features till after launch”, implying that additional features will happen after launch. I wonder what those new features will be.
This particular number? Yes.
If you want hard numbers, see:
This fills me with apprehension. I desperately want to see D2:R thrive.
Then start with that on your post instead of leading with these imaginary numbers 
And even the real numbers are from reddit, out of all places, the community as a whole is not represented well there.
While i don’t think Ploot is one of them, its going to be fun watching the rage over whatever they do change. So far the changes have been glorious and i hope they keep on comin. buff the dead skills! i’ve always wanted to be able to telekinesis things to death like im jean grey from x-men. (x-people*)
I think most people are open for game changes but not at launch. For the launch all we need are few quality of life changes that they have done and old bugs fixed. Later on they can add some new stuff. Also having Diablo 2 Resurrected now is advertising for Diablo 4 since we probably have to wait at least 2 more years for it. If they manage to engage current players, old players and new players for D2R they are likely to have big crowd for Diablo 4.
If you’re looking for a 9th friend, I’ll accept a pre-order 
It is not your station to be worrying about Blizzard’s or VV’s financial situation. Resurrected should do exactly nothing to cater to the ‘Diablo 3 crowd’. First, it’s already an infinitely superior game to D3. Second, being a faithful remaster is a key selling point for D2R.
^ All you need to know.
As I say to everybody brining #nochanges
D2 survived 20years because how well made it has been but it was not a 20years of steady population, it dwindled over the years because it became overrun and outdated leaving only diehard playing it
But now to last another 20 years it needs more than new graphics, it needs qol, balance and content… in line with the original game
Like an old tercel, it’s well made to last long, but at some point it’s better to add modern comforts along with the new engine
Why does an old game need to be retrofitted to accommodate a different audience from a different game? Are you suggesting D3 is dead? Is D3 a failure? If D3 players are seeking refuge in another game, because their game is dead, then why would you want them to change D2 to be more like a failed game? Wouldn’t that result in D2R dying as well? The premise of your argument makes no sense to me.
They may only get one chance to get it right. I want the game to be faithful to the original. Not a D3R Frankenstein project.
Blizzard is already working on D4, so no need to ruin D2R when we already have another game in the works-- a new game that can be however the community wants it. So let D2 players have D2R-- it’s intended for them.
You think 200 people at VV are working on D2R? Lol
and it is for the diehard players, the most passionate of players. Also don’t forget bnet was broken. Bots and server lag made the game unplayable for many. It has nothing to do with the game itself, just bad bnet service. The modern bnet service is one of the biggest appeals of D2R. We really don’t want change, just modern network and support.
Some just think of the $40 as paying for bnet upgrade. lol