Greedy Blizzard.

[robpurdy]

Yesterday someone posted this in the chatbox. i read it and was amazed by what this person had to say. thought i would make a proper thread for everyone to read it

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/top...1504839?page=1

post your comments and thought below.



Well I have to applaud Blizzard in all reality. From a business stand point it would seem like you're on the perfect track to make the shareholders at Activision very, very pleased.

You've taken a game with so much hype built around it, a game with a rabid and wildly large fan base, a game vaulting off of the massive success of the previous generation - and you've turned it into your sacrificial lamb.

I understand that WoW is dying. The cash cow that you have been able to depend on to fill your coffers is finally drying up. It had a great run. MoP is not likely to defibrillate the failing heart of what was once the WoW empire, and you know this. Starcraft 2, while an amazing game, cannot replace this cash cow - then again it wasn't meant to. How could it? Your business foresight is very, very attuned. Because of this you carefully planned your next chess move: Diablo 3.

What better way to birth another golden goose than to bank an entire game off of the most addictive part of what Diablo 2 was: the item grind. Pure brilliance. And so, from the ground up, you formed this game to be solely about item exchange - this would be the titan built to replace WoW's subscription based bankroll in the form of micro transactions.

Except one thing: you're boring.

On May 15th 2012, after nearly a decade of anticipation, we were given Diablo 3! Except, it's not quite Diablo 3. It's a slimmed down, cut up version of the Diablo 3 everyone was taught to expect. Except, it wasn't given to us, we still had to pay you full price for it: $60.

My how the mighty hath fallen. Why is it not Diablo 3, you say? Well let's see. Anyone remember all those teaser videos spoon fed to the community over the past 3 years? Videos slowly leaking to us glimpses of the content we could expect to experience? I do.

From nearly FOUR years ago:

@2:10 "These current weapons just won't do!":

Diablo 3 (III) Barbarian Gameplay Part 1 (HQ) Official - YouTube

I guess scrapping this idea all together was more developmentally cost effective.

@6:30 "Let's see what a real fight looks like."

Diablo 3 (III) Barbarian Gameplay Part 2 (HQ) Official - YouTube

Indeed, lets. I'm still waiting, actually. Is it just me or does that environment look entirely more engaging than the atmosphere we've purchased at release?

@2:00 Did he say randomized, dungeons, quests and encounters?

Keith Lee's Interview discussing Diablo 3 on Gamespot (HQ) - YouTube

If their idea of newly generated fights, quests and environments is a continuous cycle of the same things from a pre-conceived list, he's spot on!

So where's the beef? - some might say. The beef is that this is not Diablo 3, this is an imposter. A hologram. An artificial replacement. A lame duck substitute for what hype built it up to be. A cut up and slimmed down version of what should have been. In essence: a slaughtered, sacrificial lamb.

That leaves myself and thousands of others saying indeed, where is the beef? Blizzard's answer: there is no cow level. But hey, we got rainbows and unicorns!

Is anyone still in complete denial about how truly boring this game is or have people started to shake off the honey moon dust?

You eliminated enchanting, PvP, pet companions and other things from the release version so that you could market it as part of a later expansion for more money. (This is a trend in gaming that several developers have been following; withhold content you've been advertising for the past two years and charge a premium for it at a later date. I shouldn't have expected Activision-Blizzard to be any different, and that is my fault. I wrongly assumed this group was made of trend setters and leaders, not followers - so shame on me.)

You didn't include a single player mode because you can't make money off of people if they aren't using the AH in a multiplayer format. Less work for you in the development stages, and forces people to engage in the micro-economy that your bankroll is based on. Again, brilliance. Which leads me to my final point:

There is so LITTLE dynamic to this game I cannot believe it took this many years to create it. In fact, I don't. So why the long wait? I'll tell you: economic law.

More specifically, the legality and complications that stemmed from the idea of a multinational game built around a Real Money Auction House. This process, I imagine, took years to iron out - while the game itself probably took no more than a few actual working years to complete (and it truly shows).

It doesn't take an overly intelligent mind to figure WHY they would want to use a RMAH and get a cut of (a lot of) the transactions. That's fine. Here's the problem: you built the entire game around a pure gear grind, and then force that gear grind to revolve around the AH, specifically the RMAH. There is literally no other dynamic. When you build a game from a purely business stand point, you're not building a great game - and a great game this is not.

In conclusion, gamers, do you really want to spend your time on yet another slave-like gear grind? If so, eat your heart out. You'll find no better place to do it! If not, there are a plethora of other games out there much more deserving of your $60, I promise.

Diablo 3 was built around Activision's greed. Participate at your own will.

Gamers hold grudges and people aren't going to forget this disaster. If you obliterate your true fan base, the pillars of your success come falling soon after.

I give this post less than a few hours before it is deleted by Blizzard moderators. Can't have that bad flavor out there, can we? Truth hurts.

Regards, a long time fan.

[TehVoyager]

im gonna quote from Blizzards site.

This isn't the truth, it is a rant from a person who considers statements from the Company itself to be automatically false and are always hiding a hidden motive. They've made statements in regards to everything from why PvP is not in the Release, and why the game is not offline single player, and the OP of that previous thread OBVIOUSLY doesn't take any value in anything Blizzard says.

This is akin to Conspiracy lunatics who believe the Government is out to get them personally (unless they just happen to be terrorists of course lol)

All the OP's post was, was nothing more than ignoring everything Blizzard stated, then made an assload of unsupported claims that are nothing more than asserted as truth. Saying it's the truth is not the same as backing it up with reliable, consistent evidence that doesn't require interpretation

the real problem with Diablo 3 isnt what is mentioned in that post. its all the players who are viewing D3 with rose tinted glasses, expecting it to be Diablo 2 with better graphics.
its a new design team, its a new game.
/8bitglasses
DEAL WITH IT.

personaly, i enjoy the piss out of Diablo 3. to the extent i've thought about hanging up the mantle on my iLvl 402 5/8h Bear tank (and guild master) in world of warcraft. to me, its THAT GOOD.

Lets take a look at 90% of the QQ:

Offline mode: usuailly shows up when the servers are down. basicly "Entitlement generation" people who want to play NOW. they dont really give a damn about being able to play on the bus, or in the shower, they just want to play NOW and are upset because the servers are undergoing maintainence. Diablo 1 and 2 were primary offline with an online mode because the technology diddnt exist (or wasnt inexpensive enough) to allow allways online. they couldnt do it. so they did what they could do. that technology now exists, and is in most places. even if you are outside an area where regular cable/dsl isnt available, there is still systems such as Yagi WAN, Satellite, Cellular and ISDN. this also allows blizzard to keep the server code to themselves to reduce hacking and pirating of there game.

AH complaints: these are, in a way, justified. as much as i enjoy D3, i agree it should have spend more time in beta. But, its a new game, with new technology. this isnt your wow servers auction house. this is a region wide auction house. its just a BIT bigger. its going to have issues. were talking about all of north america, south america and austrailia all using one auction house. thats alot of stuff. thats alot of users. anyone who really expected every facet of Diablo 3's launch to be 100% seamless and perfect obviously hasnt played too many games at launch. they allways have bugs that noone found in beta. even non-online non-multiplayer games have problems. look at console games. in Oblivion you could dupe items by selecting stacks of scrolls and arrows, then clicking something else in your inv. not to mention the code was poorly optimized and ran slow as hell. you'd crash and your progress would be gone. and guess what? just like Diablo 3 they had to patch and fix. look at wow-Cataclysm. (im not comparing wow and D3. just the launches) Eastern Kingdoms server went down when cata launched. if you logged out in UC, SW, IF and etc you were hooped.

Games have issues after launch. nothing to get your undergarments in a twist over.


Legendary item compaints: Diablo shouldnt be about everyone farming the same item. i like that yellows compare to uniques, but it does chafe me a bit that blues compare to yellows and uniques. look at wow. when blizzard decided to make "Cash for Legendarys" daggers, every raid group that wanted to be competitive HAD TO HAVE A ROGUE. if you diddnt have one, you had to get someone to start playing one, or recruit one. now every rogue is expected to have at least the 2nd stage of his weapons. and even for other classes. a bear is a bear is a bear. even out of form we all look the same. one weapon that is BiS. Two trinkets. everything is "This is the best in slot item". there is no variety. in Diablo 3 thats different, and different is good. do you like attack speed? Movement speed? Life steal? magic find? your gear is going to be different than any other players. this is a good thing.


PVP removal: Coundnt care less. i'd rather they implement it later and make sure its done RIGHT rather than drop it with launch half broken. would you rather have another "FOTM" faceroll class like in Wrath? or like in TBC when Resto druid = win?? IMO, even if PvP doesnt launch for 6 months, im okay with that, because it means they are making the system BETTER.


Difficulty levels: wait, so we complain that wow is too easy and faceroll, and that diablo 3 is too hard? what the hell is this madness? Inferno wasnt meant to be cleared in 2 weeks. it wasnt made to be cleared in a month. the groups that did it either used skills that were op (that wiz who soloed Inferno diablo), Corpse ran past dangerous foes to just get to the necessessary bosses (method) or used skill combinations that produced unanticipated effects (athene) (and yes stacking 4 monks and becoming perminantly invincible was not intended. dont give me that crap!) so really, is inferno that "hard" or are you pushing content without enough gear? i think its the latter.

/rant

[slowmo99]

Entitlement thats all it boils down to. People think because WoW is so easy and you can faceroll for the best gear they should be able to in D3 as well. And younglings cant deal with a game that is down for non peak US hours totaling less than 5% of the time in a week.

AH complaints are the only valid ones about this game. Its a pain in the ass, but at the same time it will more than likely be fixed in the coming week or 2 and be all good.

Also the barb gameplay videos and interview are 4 years old, and I'm sure the overall end product is a lot different than what the team envisioned it would be 4 years ago.

[Rawrypop]

I love how easily people throw around the world "entitlement," as if to imply it's acceptable in some way for a company that has been doing this for over _NINE_ years to have this same issue every single time they launch a game - or for that matter, that it's acceptable at all. It simply isn't acceptable, and people claiming we should "shut up and wait" are missing the point. If you buy a hamburger and it comes out with a giant pile of feces on it, do you shut up and eat it? No, because it's not acceptable. Neither is this. The tech to make Diablo 2 do what Diablo 3 does, was perfectly available when it was released, the design team then didn't do it, simply because it was in their best interest not to do so. People were expecting a game that was closer to Diablo 1, with improvements, and that's generally what they got. The problem is, that it's no longer about making a good game, or providing good service, but how much you can squeeze out of every person with the minimum amount of service provided. I've played through the entire game, Normal, Nightmare, Hell, Inferno, entirely and wholly by myself, and I don't see how playing with another person at any point would've added to my experience. In fact, playing with another person removes your companion from play. If you've played by yourself, you would know that that companions actually throw out foreshadowing and bits of story as the game progresses, which was actually a nice touch. The fact is, the person in the post that is linked is entirely correct, it wasn't a game built for gamers, or Diablo fans even, more to raise their bottom line.

[jmack21]

I'd also like to add the fact that some people really DO want to just play single player - I understand they don't want people to pirate the game but you really should not have to be online to play it at all times. Same thing with SC2. You also can't get hacked in single player.... pretty sure that should be part of your "90% of the QQ".


-- I also completely agree with the person who posted this on the blizzard forums --

[SDCA]

One thing I'd like to chime in on is when, or rather if they do implement "pvp" it better be a free addition seeing as the game was advertised to have that. It's obvious the game was rushed and content was withheld just to be compiled for an expansion or patch. Blizzard/Activision has the resources to better manage this game, but their doing a poor job aren't they.

[nbk_cord]

I personally think if they were all about the RMAH for the wealth they would have enabled it on launch.
Not to say that theres been alot of issues with just the AH but i dont think they are all about the profit. Since also prices of gold are dropping fast.

[CheeseProphet]

The only reason this guy gets attention is because he uses grammar, most things he claims are just plain untrue.

"people always talk about stuff like this but it is obvious they have never looked at the financial statements. Looking at activision's 2011 annual report (http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...11AR_FINAL.pdf) their revenues, which are made up of product sales and subscriptions, have grown every year for the last 3 years so all those people cancelling their subscriptions are making a HUGE difference on their bottom line."

WoW isn't dead whatsoever.

[Creepwalker]

The only reason this guy gets attention is because he uses grammar, most things he claims are just plain untrue.

"people always talk about stuff like this but it is obvious they have never looked at the financial statements. Looking at activision's 2011 annual report (http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...11AR_FINAL.pdf) their revenues, which are made up of product sales and subscriptions, have grown every year for the last 3 years so all those people cancelling their subscriptions are making a HUGE difference on their bottom line."

WoW isn't dead whatsoever.

Take those figures with a grain of salt. That is not purely WoW's intake, you gotta remember Activision owns far more than that.

[hackerlol]

im gonna quote from Blizzards site.



the real problem with Diablo 3 isnt what is mentioned in that post. its all the players who are viewing D3 with rose tinted glasses, expecting it to be Diablo 2 with better graphics.
its a new design team, its a new game.
/8bitglasses
DEAL WITH IT.

personaly, i enjoy the piss out of Diablo 3. to the extent i've thought about hanging up the mantle on my iLvl 402 5/8h Bear tank (and guild master) in world of warcraft. to me, its THAT GOOD.

Lets take a look at 90% of the QQ:

Offline mode: usuailly shows up when the servers are down. basicly "Entitlement generation" people who want to play NOW. they dont really give a damn about being able to play on the bus, or in the shower, they just want to play NOW and are upset because the servers are undergoing maintainence. Diablo 1 and 2 were primary offline with an online mode because the technology diddnt exist (or wasnt inexpensive enough) to allow allways online. they couldnt do it. so they did what they could do. that technology now exists, and is in most places. even if you are outside an area where regular cable/dsl isnt available, there is still systems such as Yagi WAN, Satellite, Cellular and ISDN. this also allows blizzard to keep the server code to themselves to reduce hacking and pirating of there game.

AH complaints: these are, in a way, justified. as much as i enjoy D3, i agree it should have spend more time in beta. But, its a new game, with new technology. this isnt your wow servers auction house. this is a region wide auction house. its just a BIT bigger. its going to have issues. were talking about all of north america, south america and austrailia all using one auction house. thats alot of stuff. thats alot of users. anyone who really expected every facet of Diablo 3's launch to be 100% seamless and perfect obviously hasnt played too many games at launch. they allways have bugs that noone found in beta. even non-online non-multiplayer games have problems. look at console games. in Oblivion you could dupe items by selecting stacks of scrolls and arrows, then clicking something else in your inv. not to mention the code was poorly optimized and ran slow as hell. you'd crash and your progress would be gone. and guess what? just like Diablo 3 they had to patch and fix. look at wow-Cataclysm. (im not comparing wow and D3. just the launches) Eastern Kingdoms server went down when cata launched. if you logged out in UC, SW, IF and etc you were hooped.

Games have issues after launch. nothing to get your undergarments in a twist over.


Legendary item compaints: Diablo shouldnt be about everyone farming the same item. i like that yellows compare to uniques, but it does chafe me a bit that blues compare to yellows and uniques. look at wow. when blizzard decided to make "Cash for Legendarys" daggers, every raid group that wanted to be competitive HAD TO HAVE A ROGUE. if you diddnt have one, you had to get someone to start playing one, or recruit one. now every rogue is expected to have at least the 2nd stage of his weapons. and even for other classes. a bear is a bear is a bear. even out of form we all look the same. one weapon that is BiS. Two trinkets. everything is "This is the best in slot item". there is no variety. in Diablo 3 thats different, and different is good. do you like attack speed? Movement speed? Life steal? magic find? your gear is going to be different than any other players. this is a good thing.


PVP removal: Coundnt care less. i'd rather they implement it later and make sure its done RIGHT rather than drop it with launch half broken. would you rather have another "FOTM" faceroll class like in Wrath? or like in TBC when Resto druid = win?? IMO, even if PvP doesnt launch for 6 months, im okay with that, because it means they are making the system BETTER.


Difficulty levels: wait, so we complain that wow is too easy and faceroll, and that diablo 3 is too hard? what the hell is this madness? Inferno wasnt meant to be cleared in 2 weeks. it wasnt made to be cleared in a month. the groups that did it either used skills that were op (that wiz who soloed Inferno diablo), Corpse ran past dangerous foes to just get to the necessessary bosses (method) or used skill combinations that produced unanticipated effects (athene) (and yes stacking 4 monks and becoming perminantly invincible was not intended. dont give me that crap!) so really, is inferno that "hard" or are you pushing content without enough gear? i think its the latter.

/rant

In Bold...
Spot on mate, That is exactly what I was going to say. These people are so flustered that they can't see things for what they are, with respect.
I played Diablo 2 and it was a good game however its successor would not quite be the success it has been unless it had been simmered down, that is the truth...that is how it is...that is how it will be from now on. If a company has to ship in volume they must have mass appeal through simplicity. I can understand this can be very frustrating.
People with such complaints were indeed looking for a Diablo 2 v2012.
On a side note I do agree with the OPs points on launch day issues and I feel the game could have used a couple of weeks more in the oven to iron out some of the bugs.
I love this game and wouldn't have had it any other way.

[TehVoyager]

I love how easily people throw around the world "entitlement," as if to imply it's acceptable in some way for a company that has been doing this for over _NINE_ years to have this same issue every single time they launch a game - or for that matter, that it's acceptable at all. It simply isn't acceptable, and people claiming we should "shut up and wait" are missing the point. If you buy a hamburger and it comes out with a giant pile of feces on it, do you shut up and eat it? No, because it's not acceptable. Neither is this. The tech to make Diablo 2 do what Diablo 3 does, was perfectly available when it was released, the design team then didn't do it, simply because it was in their best interest not to do so. People were expecting a game that was closer to Diablo 1, with improvements, and that's generally what they got. The problem is, that it's no longer about making a good game, or providing good service, but how much you can squeeze out of every person with the minimum amount of service provided. I've played through the entire game, Normal, Nightmare, Hell, Inferno, entirely and wholly by myself, and I don't see how playing with another person at any point would've added to my experience. In fact, playing with another person removes your companion from play. If you've played by yourself, you would know that that companions actually throw out foreshadowing and bits of story as the game progresses, which was actually a nice touch. The fact is, the person in the post that is linked is entirely correct, it wasn't a game built for gamers, or Diablo fans even, more to raise their bottom line.

^^^^^Perfect example of Rose tinted glasses and "I WANT IT NOW" mentality.^^^^^

One thing I'd like to chime in on is when, or rather if they do implement "pvp" it better be a free addition seeing as the game was advertised to have that. It's obvious the game was rushed and content was withheld just to be compiled for an expansion or patch. Blizzard/Activision has the resources to better manage this game, but their doing a poor job aren't they.

PvP is planned for Patch 1.1

it wont cost extra, as of now.

[Rawrypop]

^^^^^Perfect example of Rose tinted glasses and "I WANT IT NOW" mentality.^^^^^




PvP is planned for Patch 1.1

it wont cost extra, as of now.

I hope you're joking. Most sincerely I hope you're joking. "I WANT IT NOW" mentality, I laughed at that. 10/10 for serious. Expecting the service or product you paid for, isn't a bad thing. Expecting things to go smoothly, isn't a bad thing. What _is_ however a bad thing is allowing sub-par service to go by without calling it out. If fanboys such as yourself continue to fervently defend companies that provide shitty service, they will continue to provide the same shit over and over and think it's okay.

But let me guess. Any fast food order you've ever put in has come to you 100% correct. Every product you've ever bought worked 100% as advertised without error. Nothing in your life has ever gone wrong and you've never complained about anything at all, ever. If so, congratulations, you're insanely lucky and I hope your flawless streak continues. If not, then I'll be the first to laugh at the irony.

[SDCA]

PvP is planned for Patch 1.1

it wont cost extra, as of now.[/QUOTE]

Custom dancing in Wrath of the Lich King, that proposed addition was honestly one of the main reasons I bought the expansion. I quit playing wow about 4 months ago, as of that point they still hadn't implemented it. Hope you can sense the bitterness, (not towards you) but I don't give much confidence towards Blizzard's statements, especially after Diablo 3's launch and current stability or lack there of.

[TehVoyager]

I hope you're joking. Most sincerely I hope you're joking. "I WANT IT NOW" mentality, I laughed at that. 10/10 for serious. Expecting the service or product you paid for, isn't a bad thing. Expecting things to go smoothly, isn't a bad thing. What _is_ however a bad thing is allowing sub-par service to go by without calling it out. If fanboys such as yourself continue to fervently defend companies that provide shitty service, they will continue to provide the same shit over and over and think it's okay.

But let me guess. Any fast food order you've ever put in has come to you 100% correct. Every product you've ever bought worked 100% as advertised without error. Nothing in your life has ever gone wrong and you've never complained about anything at all, ever. If so, congratulations, you're insanely lucky and I hope your flawless streak continues. If not, then I'll be the first to laugh at the irony.

Welcome to the internet kiddo.
Welcome to gaming.

1: game launches never go smoothly. even companies dedicated to games for 10+ years (sega) screw up. read the story behind why the saturn flopped.
2: expecting things to go smoothly 100% of the times from launch on is just a joke. it NEVER HAPPENS. just go cry to your teddy about it, noone else cares.
3: Sub par service? more launch bug QQ? again, cry to your teddy.

Oh and no, im not a blizzard fanboy. i ripped them up one side and down the other about the legendary daggers. im not a fanboy. i understand some things about games, kid.

PvP is planned for Patch 1.1

it wont cost extra, as of now.

Custom dancing in Wrath of the Lich King, that proposed addition was honestly one of the main reasons I bought the expansion. I quit playing wow about 4 months ago, as of that point they still hadn't implemented it. Hope you can sense the bitterness, (not towards you) but I don't give much confidence towards Blizzard's statements, especially after Diablo 3's launch and current stability or lack there of.

Custom dancing was something mentioned in a trailer for wrath, then promptly forgotten about. the diablo 3 devs have come out and said in one of there blog rolls " PvP will be implemented in patch 1.1"

its a bit different.

[Rawrypop]

Welcome to the internet kiddo.
Welcome to gaming.

1: game launches never go smoothly. even companies dedicated to games for 10+ years (sega) screw up. read the story behind why the saturn flopped.
2: expecting things to go smoothly 100% of the times from launch on is just a joke. it NEVER HAPPENS. just go cry to your teddy about it, noone else cares.
3: Sub par service? more launch bug QQ? again, cry to your teddy.

Oh and no, im not a blizzard fanboy. i ripped them up one side and down the other about the legendary daggers. im not a fanboy. i understand some things about games, kid.

I haven't decided yet if you can't read, or fail to comprehend the negative impact your type of attitude has as a whole to consumers.

Let's start with game launches never go smoothly. Really? On launch day I was able to play: Portal 2 (SP and MP), L4D2 (SP and MP), Dungeon Defenders (Indie game, SP and MP), Dead Island (Horribad, but still available SP and MP) all on the PC, all with no issue. Sure they span back as far as a few years, the point is it can be done, and easily.

Second on that matter, and a point you have yet to explain - Why is this, to you, an acceptable inevitability? Literally ANY OTHER thing would have the same complaints and there wouldn't be victim-blaming people such as yourself yelling "lol u shud expect it, kid!"

In the end, I find your responses horrifying, and your demeanor sad. You are indeed a fanboy, despite your "ripping" of Blizzard over daggers. If people didn't complain about things that are very obviously subpar, things would always be subpar because companies wouldn't know any better. Getting your voice out there is the only way to get things to change. Just because it's been a trend with Blizzard, doesn't make it acceptable. If you don't understand that, you truly are hopeless.

P.S. if your response doesn't contain "kid," "lol," "cry," and "teddy" at least twice, I will assume you were kidnapped or body-snatched.

Edit:

So I run my own computer service store in the area that I reside in. A woman came in to pick up her computer, and I told her that I had (beta) tested her computer and that it should be working properly. I then asked for her money, gave her her change, and continued with "but that it wasn't." I informed her that she would shut off after 20 minutes and she would have to bring it back in for maintenance. When she complained, I informed her of the information TehVoyager has provided, that she was "An entitled person with an I WANT IT NOW mentality" and that expecting it to work 100% of the time was unreasonable. She continued to complain... I wonder why...