Diablo 3 Thoughts

D3's hype meter is like a rollercoster. The announcement was huge and the hype at it's peak. Three-four years later, they still haven't announced a launch date...and frankly, I'm not even interested that much anymore. At this point i'd buy at at price drop but it's Activision-Blizzard, so I don't expect any price drop anytime soon (let alone the game to be launched).

D2 was awesome but D3's a little late and won't catch up as much as I though it would...

I'm eager to see the game in action, I've been hearing good things about it. There's some new mechanics that look interesting.

It will all depend on how many of my friends get it. If there's a demo available I'll definitely try it, but thinking back to D2... it game idea hasn't changed much, it's same stuff only better looking, D2 veterans will hit disinterest relatively soon unless Blizzard can come up with good end game.

I think thats what will be the downfall of d3, the fact that a lot of the players are old school d2 players looking for the same replay value d2 had. It looks awesome but will it give that same replay value? Who knows, it seems as if they are trying to make the game so perfect that anything they deem as "not play worthy" sets the game back and they go to another beta patch. Removing features and not giving a launch date I think frustrates gamers more than excites them.
I'm also curious to see how the whole bnet 2.0 will work. I can only for see something that falls along the lines of
"Let's make the game unplayable in single player" (which it is there is only online play)
"Get people to buy D3"
"Keep bnet 2.0 free until there is a big enough user base"
"Put a monthly fee on bnet 2.0 because now we have new server costs"
"Everyone who has d3 is stuck either paying a monthly fee to play the game because they can't play it in offline mode"

If I were a betting guy I'd put some money on that scenario falling through near the release of an expansion pack

I believe that the cynic in you talking. Blizzard has never charged for battlenet, why would they start now? They had/have huge populations on their servers playing D2 and Starcraft2, why would D3 change things?

You might find that they add in some paid features, like many other free to play games, but they won't make the original game cost anything.

I hope so. I've always had faith in Blizzard with that, they always said it would never be a paid service and I strongly believe that they wouldn't do that. I really do hope that D3 will blow the socks off everyone that plays it though

I don't like what Blizzard recently does, basically since they joined Activision and the revision of the Battle.net.

Not saying it's all bad. But a lot things they do now have a bitter taste to it. It's way to much about money right in the face of the customer. And money continues to be the reason for changes/features in their games (not only D3). There's to much "streamlining" going on. I can't say that's a good thing. Now, ofc they have to make a buck for living ... who doesn't.  

It just doesn't feel like they want to get the best game for the people out. Like it was in the past. It feels like they change things around, back and forth to make the customer, but not the gamer happy.

My expectations regarding D3 are lower and lower every day. Haven't been excited about it anymore for a year ...

However, maybe it has just been to much franchise/sequels over the years. Waiting for a "new version" of the same game for years is just not very exciting.  

One thing that Bizzard is renowned for is they will not release an unfinished product. So many sequels and games bomb because of deadlines, Blizzard has always pushed deadlines back to make sure a product is done and ready.

That does mean that we have to wait and get frustrated, but it also means that when you do get the game, you rarely have to wait for a lot of patches to fix the game.

Buy you the gamer are the customer, unless by that you mean the gamers who played D2 vs the fresh WOW bloods.

personally I see nothing wrong with the taking the time to release the product they are confident with, it takes balls to do that, because the longer they keep pushing it back the bigger the budget grows that they spend on the game with no returns until they release it. I respect a developer that is willing to take their time and maybe hellfire from publishers to make sure that their game is finished the way it's supposed to be instead of releasing a piece of junk that doesn't work on 50% of player base (hint hint rage).

So far it's clear to me that they are taking things out but they plan to add them back later. They are trying to minimize the workload in order to get the actual game released faster even though if it costs certain features on release date at least there's no halfassed or unbalanced mechanics that they didn't have time to finish properly. That's how a developer shows that they care about their product rather than only the money involved. When the game like this releases, it's well worth the wait, instead of getting garbage like SWTOR where people gave up playing it until bioware patches the game to work properly.

I completely agree. When you pay 60$ for a game you expect it to work properly and Blizzard is good at that. In fact, they are known to give you more for free a few months later (maybe additional free features) and balancing the game (taken from D2's experience). I fully expect at least 1 expansion and a whole lot of good once they've released the game.

My problem with Blizzard is their marketing strategies. They announced it in more than 3 years ago. Call it a tease or call it frustration from not having access to the game but I believe in not announcing your game for more than 2 years before launch. My 2 cent on Blizzard.

PS: They will not charge for BNET 2.0, they have already confirmed the service would remain free. That said, they'll probably include their own Store (their version of Steam).

They released another 100k beta keys yesterday.
More beta = more wait time
It sucks that I don't have a beta key I would have loved to have gotten in on Act 1

Release date= March 31, 2012 according to Amazon...

Not sure how legit that is...

http://www.amazon.ca/ACTIVISION-Diablo-III-3/dp/B001786...

Thats a fake it's been said by Blizzard a few times that all these sites like best buy and amazon just randomly put out dates.
If blizzard didnt give one yet then there won't be one.
Q1 isnt looking good
on the bright side though, the longer they wait to release it the more chance of the new nvidia cards coming out or the new ATI cards coming down in price.

I have no opinion of Diablo 3 as I have not been participating in the beta stages or whatever.

I think everyone has SOME KIND of opinion no? All I've seen is videos. I guess thats where I get my opinions heh