Why is Diablo III still a work in progress?

[DainBramaged]

If you were one of the 6.5 million purchasers that made Diablo III the fastest-selling PC game of all time last week, you should know that Blizzard now admits the game you were playing was broken in some significant ways. I don't just mean broken in ways that prevent you from playing the game (though the company is still fixing many server and programming issues that continue to cause connection problems), but broken in ways that made certain character skills unintentionally powerful.

Blizzard has now posted a list of hotfixes that were applied to the game yesterday, and aside from a few obvious usability bugs, all of them significantly scale back the power of certain key class abilities. Basically, if you were using any of these abilities before the patch, you were unintentionally taking advantage of skills that made the game much easier than Blizzard apparently intended.

Take the Monk class's Boon of Protection rune, which let a player's party absorb a good deal of damage for ten seconds. Community Manager Bashiok admits on the forums that this ability "was approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits it provided" and has now been "nerfed to the point of obsolescence until we can implement a new rune in its place in a future patch.

"We don't intend to take these quick and drastic measures often, but considering the severity of the issue, we felt it important to correct it swiftly," he continued.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/05/why-is-diablo-iii-still-a-work-in-progress/

(sigh) like shipping a broken car.....

6 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	Diablo what?
	0 (0%)
	I wasted my money
	0 (0%)
	I still love the game
	5 (83%)
	Kittehs rule
	1 (17%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Neoma]

1. And that is pretty much the same for every MMORPG.

That's not unique to just that game. Every game like that has patches and admits to still be working to perfect it.

Good grief.

Edit: Why isn't this in the Gaming group?

[Ohio Progressive]

3. I agree, but....

Like you said, most games require patches, nothing unique there. The issue people have with Diablo is that it took over a decade for III to come out. In that time there was promise and promise and release date after release date. This was plenty of time for them to get it right, yet we are now told that there are bugs with the game?!? Its frustrating. Its like asking for an extension on a paper and then still turning in a final draft full or spelling and syntax errors.

[Neoma]

5. Over a decade?

They announced it in 2008.

[Ohio Progressive]

8. Diablo II

Diablo II released in 2000. Diablo III released in 2012.

"Development on Diablo III began in 2001 when Blizzard North was still in operation, and the game was first announced on June 28, 2008, at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III#Development

[Neoma]

9. I know. As I said, the announcement was 2008.

[Volaris]

17. Agree. I have not had time to play a MMO to any extent in a while,

but when I was playing Everquest, I think it was decided by online gaming companies that from now on, "We'll just Beta-test it live." and find out what's wrong with it that way.

[intaglio]

2. Happened with Skyrim as well

[Xolodno]

4. Heh....

...remember Vangaurd?


Not every MMORPG comes out that way, LOTRO had a solid launch and everything was pretty much finished. In fact, they put in things that weren't initially promised (such as crafting, etc.). Now Turbines Mines of Moria release....that's an entire different story.

I didn't bother with Diablo III, time to play is way less available these days and SWTOR keeps me occupied and interested enough. Plus, I'm planning to jump back into LOTRO before the next expansion. And I know I will pick up Planetside 2 when it comes out to get my FPS fix.

[Aerows]

20. I never played Vanguard

It was pretty much dead before they managed to get enough stuff in it and the bugs fixed for it to be anywhere near enjoyable, so that one passed me by.

SWTOR wasn't a bad launch by any means, but honestly, even before Diablo 3 got released it was failing to hold my interest. Now, I can't see myself even bothering to play it now. I didn't even finish Mass Effect 3 due to D3's launch.

[OriginalGeek]

30. lol, I didn't finish ME3 because of Skyrim

We got ME3 on launch day - pre-ordered to get the fancy special stuff and jumped in with both feet and I was really enjoying it but then my daughter got Skyrim - I think for Easter - along with several other games - and I wasn't even interested in Skyrim because I was bored by Oblivion - but I watched my daughter play for a while and finally started my own game and that disc hasn't been out of the player since then. Hell, I got 4 weeks behind on my Grimms because I was playing Skyrim instead of watching TV.

I'll either burn out or finish Skyrim and then get back to ME3.

But we haven't decided yet if we'll get Diablo3. I want it but her computer is the only one in the house currently powerful enough to play it on. In fact, I built it for her about 2 and half years ago JUST for the "impending" release of Diablo3. She got so tired of waiting for it she got mad at them and now doesn't want it.

[Aerows]

33. I hate to say it

But ME3 just isn't ... fun. The other two were, but the last of the trilogy sucked, and I know why you played Skyrim instead. It's the same reason I played Path of Evil instead of SWTOR, and felt myself drifting away from that MMO. Sometimes, gameplay has it all.

[OriginalGeek]

34. that could very well be why it was so east or me to move over to Skyrim

but it's bad news when I'm done...well, probably not that bad because she also got the new Assassins Creed and that came with the 1st AC, Bioshock 1 and 2, and Batman: Arkham City ...so I might have a lot of things to help me forget a bad ME3.lol

[Aerows]

40. I have to say - Skyrim is FUN

I can't imagine not getting caught up in it

[OriginalGeek]

44. Me neither!

I'm glad I gave it a shot - i had every intention of ignoring it because I didn't like Oblivion. But my daughter played it some over at a friend's house and came home wanting it so we got it.

Now I have to wonder if I should give Oblivion another shot though...maybe i'm just more in the mood for that kind of game now and I wasn't then...

[Aerows]

47. Obvlion withe OOO/3 pack and the texture packs

I hated the game until then. Then it was a challenge, and awesome

[phleshdef]

6. Meh. Thats just normal stuff that happens with games these days.

[DainBramaged]

7. As a free to play game (no monthly fee) I am pleased

and kittehs will always rule.

[Aerows]

23. Your kitty looks a lot like my darling girl :)

[DainBramaged]

26. My Digit, 6-7 months old, found abandoned at a PetSmart

She greets me every evening, goes up on the railing when I leave every morning, and 'looks' at the noise coming from DIII with curiosity.

[Aerows]

32. Mine was starving to death after having been abandoned

and it was winter. She survived on what she could hunt.

When I started feeding her, she was so grateful, she jumped into my lap... and several years later, she's spoiled like a princess. She adopted me.

She wasn't a kitten, she was just a starving to death ~ 14 month old cat. She's brought so much joy to my life

EDIT: And like a puppy - she comes RUNNING the second she hears my voice. I love her so much and she is a wonderful cat. And I should edit my toes out of the picture. Come on, it was last summer and hot as hell so I was barefoot. LOL

[Woody Woodpecker]

10. All week I was selling stuff to buy D3... but I'm not so sure...

Maybe I should wait till they release a much stable version, or would the fun be gone already?

[Aerows]

16. It's stable

We have a 51 Wiz, a 49 DH and me, a 47 Mo in our regular playing group. LynneSin is nearly lvl 40 Barb. We wouldn't have gotten there if it wasn't stable and playable.

Some of this is just hype to trash the game. It has some issues in some spots with fights being way too difficult and some being way too easy, but it just needs some tweaks. Though I can't speak for how things will be in Hell and Inferno because I haven't gotten that far.

If Hell is worse than some of the fights against packs in Nightmare, I might change my mind, because there are some REALLY nasty champion mob modifiers. Though one of them was funny, I nearly laughed myself sick when one of our players got knocked off a platform to plummet into a fire and I just so happened to be standing there to see it. I could just hear the "Waaaaa!" in my mind as she went over the side.

She didn't find it nearly as amusing as I and our other teammate found it LOL!

[DainBramaged]

22. Level 20 Monk, demon hunter and barb

don't know my fav yet, not enough time to get to higher levels. Still play WOW too...

[Woody Woodpecker]

35. Okay, when I can, can I join the DU group?

Thanks!

[Aerows]

36. Of course

it's informal, and we help each other

Send a friend request to Aerows#1220

[Aerows]

11. I'm a lvl 47 monk

And I never even used Boon of Protection. Wish I would have known it was OP LOL. God I hate to see what else they've done to my class...I'm afraid to look.

I hope this isn't the Paladin in WoW all over again - either broken or everyone screaming that it's OP and then neutered to the point of unplayable.

EDIT: Oh this happened a couple of days ago. We played until killing Azmodan in NM mode last night until like 1am this morning, and I didn't even notice anything different. That was the only thing that changed and since I never used it, it's irrelevant to my monk.

[Ohio Progressive]

55. What happened with the Paladin in WoW?

Id send this as a PM but it says I dont have enough posts to do that.

[Aerows]

56. Protadin got destroyed

Then in 2.4 Retribution got OP ... then Protection Paladin got neutered again.

You know the drill. I was a tank and Protection Paladin, as a class, it got destroyed over and over. I canceled my account and let it go. Send me a PM if you want verification that I actually played the class, had an account and all of that. Be thrilled to show you the equipment I had.

[abelenkpe]

12. Because

despite laying off over 600 employees recently and putting out games that are still a work in progress they have record breaking sales? If there are no consequences to their actions why would they change? The fans and money are still there.

[Ohio Progressive]

14. fasting selling game

in the history of Amazon.com, I believe.

[DetlefK]

13. Maybe they were afraid, the Beta-testers would leak info?

There is just one way to find out, whether a complicated system (like a game) does what you want it to do: testing.

You either run a few thousand or million (MC-)simulations, or hire bunch of testers and hope, they find the bugs.



And to be honest: I will definitely buy Diablo III. About one year from now.
Everybody knows that all big-ass games need several patches until they run smoothly and achieve a balanced game-play.

[abelenkpe]

27. Got my nephew signed up as a beta tester

He was so frustrated at first since in beta it was even more buggy. But he's addicted now

[cyberswede]

15. Did you know we have a Gaming group?

Not that this thread doesn't belong here - I just wanted to make sure people know about the Gaming Group.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1211

[DainBramaged]

19. It would die a slow agonizing death there.

Amazing how folks just can't let a discussion develop without letting us know they would rather see a thread elsewhere.......

[cyberswede]

45. I didn't mean I'd rather see your thread there...

I just thought maybe you didn't know about the group.

[DainBramaged]

54. uH, YEA, I do, for years.........

[jp11]

18. Don't know enough about the problems.

But what I saw in playing it so far is that it is nothing really new. I could have picked up D2 and save the graphics gotten as much enjoyment out of it as d3. IIRC D2 didn't require me to create a battlenet account or be connected to the internet(could be wrong that was like 10 years ago) which is BS unless I'm doing coop.

I stopped buying games at release over a decade ago and now only buy them after they have a price drop from 60-50 or less or a year or more later when they go to half price or less.

Too many games have issues that need several months to fix if they ever get fixed. As for MMORPG or MMO's my experience is they pretty much all suck in regards to being 'complete'. Which they should since they need to have a reason to have you keep paying them if that is their model or to just keep playing as they add more.

I'm not worked up or upset with D3 because first I went through that with SWTOR and the beta state it was released, the terrible customer service etc. Second I didn't buy d3 it was a gift, and finally I didn't anticipate it or even care it was coming out. I enjoyed Diablo, Diablo2 was fun if not painful with all the clicking and the mouse that died due to it. I look at Diablo like an outdated game genre ie side scrollers fun but as a product games have mostly moved on. Diablo 3 adds better graphics that's all I noticed oh and I heard it has RMT so you can launder money through Blizzard after they take their cut.

[canoeist52]

21. All that and a long list of unsupported video cards.

Had to upgrade the machine. This game uses lots of power and memory.

[Dash87]

24. "Blizzard Entertainment" - end of thread.

All of the AAA, big titles now don't care about the quality or creativity of the game you're getting. That's why companies like Blizzard, Activision, and Electronic Arts push out these half finished games - because they can, and people will buy them anyways.

These corporate games are made by huge corporations, programmed by people making no money at all and working 18 hour days (usually being completely off-shore), and planned (levels, art, concept) by white collar stiffs with no concept of fun or play-ability.

The idea for these AAA titles now is to release the unfinished game, and then finish it through DLCs. It's basically getting you to buy the game, and then pay even more for it later on rather than just increasing the price at launch.

This is basically why Indie titles are big now. People are tired of the same garbage over and over again. Indie game makers care about their games, unlike Activision, EA, and Blizzard.

[Aerows]

41. Okay

Indie title from NZ = Path of Exile = awesome, spent money

Diablo 3 = spent money, awesome

Not sure how one cancels out the other, both rock.

[Akoto]

25. Haven't loaded D3 yet. Have to finish ME3 first. Stretching my games out! n/t

[Whisp]

28. warts and all, I love it.

Last edited Thu May 24, 2012, 03:57 PM - Edit history (1)

This is a game that if I could code and put the money into (ha!) I would custom make for me pretty well how it is.

There was a lot of bellyaching in the Battlenet forums in the first day or two about connection/error problems but it's been days of not getting a busy login so that part has been fixed fine, from my end anyway. People are way too impatient, gimme gimme gimme now.

I run on a minimum system requirement so lag was a big problem for me but I resized my window to where I could just read the chat log and it's much better now. I still have problems in certain environments (like snow effects, stuff like that) but it's playable and enjoyable.

One of the major selling points for me was that there is no monthly/yearly fee. I would not go for that, ever. So I figure my 60 bucks, spread out over years of playing like I did D2, is well worth the investment.

I'm not flush with money so I have to be pretty picky with which games I buy. I got sucked into Dragon Age (altho I do love their character creator, very nice) and found that a disappointment. Skyrim is awesome but has bugs that bug me so I leave it for a while and go back again later (but I won't be doing that for a while now!).

Overall I am very happy with how Blizzard kept the feel of D2 but progressed into some other new areas. I am thankful to the gods that they kept it isometric, that is #1 to me. The crafting system is genius - games where you have to harvest your materials (logging, mining) - that take hours away from hunting - should consider this the way to do it, from my perspective anyway.

The skill system is very different from D2 and was a bit puzzling at first (for some odd reason Blizzard decided not to put on default the Elective Mode, which allows you to custom place your skills on the hotbar) but I find this a much better way to deal with the skills. In D2 (before the reallocate skill option) if you made a mistake you had to suffer with it or start over (just to make another mistake in allotment). Here, you can mix and match and find what works for you best for each hunting situation. Making two characters of the same class is then pointless and hopefully for whatever time it takes to experiment with all 5 classes to get to max level 60, there will be an expansion available.

Gold. There are so many ways to spend your cash you have to choose carefully when you are new and poor. And even when you get romneyrich some of the prices at the auction house for gawdly stuff is astronomical.

Oh, and the gear artistry is just freaking awesome with richness and detail.

So overall I'd give it an 11 out of 10

[Aerows]

38. Good players, and players that enjoy the game will :)

Mostly good players that invest the time to become good players

[Woody Woodpecker]

29. Anyone have a guest pass I can use

Until I buy it - I'm downloading the Diablo game now, and by the looks of it, it'll take me _at least_ until tomorrow to get it done.

I understand the guest pass is good for up to the first boss, which is OK with me - I just want to see D3 in action.

[Aerows]

39. I have a guess pass for a few things

which do you want? Path of Exile is similar to D3. I can shoot you a beta key.

EDIT: No, actually I won't.

[Buns_of_Fire]

31. It's worked fine for me. I'm a Level 85 Moonpie with 7 Grope Clusters.

And I haven't even had to use the Wedgie of Destruction yet!

Kidding, of course. I'm still trying to make my way through Leisure Suit Larry III...

[snooper2]

37. Glad to see you more and more on DU3, Keep rockin' Dain!

[SomethingFishy]

42. Unusual for a Blizzard game...

Looks like Blizzard has fallen into the "has to be released by" game. Used to be they would release a game "When it's ready".

I was out of town for the release. I called the store where I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition and they saved it for me. Picking it up tomorrow.

[Whisp]

46. I think the negative hype is way overdone.

Maybe a competing game company hires people to flood forums dissing like the repugs do.

[SomethingFishy]

48. Cool, I am really looking forward to

fighting my 3 kids for the PC tomorrow. Lots of Diablo players in my house...

[Mr.Turnip]

51. Nah D3 was in developement for a really long time, the Beta was quite long too.

A lot of the problems D3 had were server side, Blizzard wasn't ready to handle just how fast it was going to sell and how many people would be playing it.

[white_wolf]

43. My biggest complaint is the story.

I know Diablo has never been about story and Blizzard isn't Bioware. However, at least the stories in D1 and D2 knew how to get out of the way. This game takes a poor story, poorly tells it, and shoves it in way too much. Either make a good story like Bioware or CDProjectRed does or keep the story out of the way.

[foo_bar]

52. agreed, at least Diablo 1 had suspense in its corner

I don't need Azmodan opening up a comm channel every five seconds to boast about his sharks-with-fricken-laser-beams, demons are supposed to be sinister in a "show, don't tell" capacity, not some smack-talking Karate Kid villain with an inferiority complex ... if Blizzard 2012 built a haunted house, it would be like "Hey! Disembodied hand speaking! No, up here, on the video monitor! I think you'll eventually find my presence quite daunting!"

[white_wolf]

53. Blizzard was trying to intimidate was with Azmodan?

I thought his floating head was comic relief.

[OriginalGeek]

50. sorry

forgot this was in GD. My question was better suited for the game forum and I will repost there.

[ibegurpard]

57. I would've bought this game but for the online requirement

I don't appreciate being saddled with an online requirement for a single-player game...if I want multi-player I will buy a MMO.

[Angleae]

58. The new motto of gaming companies ... "Let them eat patches"

They think, "why have a large QC department to test for bugs when millions of people will pay you to do it?" This is the primary reason I wait several months before picking up a game. The last game I picked up at/near release time was Fallout 3 and it went through 6 patches, some of which broke things that still aren't fixed, and ignored thousands of other problems.