We're now two weeks past the launch of Diablo Immortal (D:I). The white hot outrage which was sparked by that game's monetization is starting to burn itself out; meanwhile, general sentiment about D:I itself, and about the Diablo franchise as a whole, has begun reverting to the mean.
That mean average level of sentiment seems a lot less positive towards the Diablo franchise as a whole than I expected, though, and while D:I has made a pile of cash in its first two weeks, that pile is also smaller than I thought it might be.
Way back then, in the pre-plague times, my take on Blizzard's mobile D3 port was pretty simple: If the game was free to play, and if the monetization wasn't too obnoxious, I would give the game a try. I was curious to see what they'd managed to pull off, just not curious enough to spend money on D:I.
In case you were wondering why I haven't posted here about Activision Blizzard's Diablo Immortal woes, it's because I've been posting about them on my blog all about Diablo III, and why it was such a disappointment to me.
Yes, yes, I know... It's probably an issue for me, but I'm still coming across stuff on the Internet that makes me think of Diablo III... even when it's not directly about D3. Por ejemplo, this article at Kotaku:
Overwatch’s PTR just got a bunch of new custom game options, and people are using them in responsible, measured ways to— just kidding. They’re turning the game into a dang Bugs Bunny cartoon.
The new custom game options allow players to boost movement speed, remove cooldowns, change team sizes, ban heroes, and alter all sorts of other values. That’s already resulted in a handful of cool ideas. Also, a whole lot of chaos.
All this, and the new custom options have only been live on the PTR for a couple days. I imagine things will only spiral further out of control once the server browser hits live servers.
This should be a lesson to every game developer out there. The larger population of gamers includes a large number of creative, and often technically-savvy, people, who apparently cannot wait to add content, and thus value, to your game. Give them the option to create custom games, or maps, or mods, and the free content will flow; give them an easy way to showcase their creations for other players, and you can extend the lifespan of your game by years, all at zero cost to you. Even the mod tools don't cost anything, since they're probably the same ones you used to make the game's official content in the first place. The other option, of course, is to lock down your game, insisting on rigid control over every aspect of the experience, and nerfing the shit out of any creative fun way the players find to play your game that isn't the core experience you'd intended. Basically, the approach taken by Diablo III, whose players spent years begging for the ability to mod the game... before losing interest and leaving because Blizzard refused to even discuss the possibility. The kicker here? Overwatch and Diablo III are both Blizzard games. As is StarCraft II, a game with best-in-class modding capabilities and an Arcade showcase that makes finding them super-simple. SC2's Arcade is available with free editions of the game, too, meaning that you can play all the SC2 mods you want without spending a cent... including basically-complete versions of Diablo and Diablo II. Yes, you read that right... you can play fan-crafted HD "remakes" of D1 and D2 in the SC2 Arcade, but not as D3 mods. D3, of course, is basically moribund, with Blizzard planning only one new class (as paid DLC) and no other new content that we know of, and players openly wondering whether Blizzard is getting ready to abandon the game entirely, while Overwatch is inspiring a flood of creative player-created content, even before the custom game functionality goes live. The two situations, both in games from the same publisher, couldn't be more different; it's actually hard to believe that both games were made by the same company. I don't think it's a coincidence that the vibrant, thriving game is the one whose dev team appreciates and encourages the creativity of its players, while the team that's taken the opposite approach from the very beginning is the one that's struggling to sustain player engagement. Learn the lesson, devs. Unleash the creativity of your players; give them toys to play with, and an unstructured place to play, and you can reap the rewards of other people's creativity and passion for years. The alternative is for you to maintain the flow of content by yourselves... which, whilecertainlypossible, it a lot harder and more expensive to do.
Seriously, I haven't seen press coverage like this of a Blizzard game, any Blizzard game, since D3's Error37-laden launch. It's amazeballs. Today's gem comes from MMO Examiner:
The Diablo community are always one to voice their opinions, and a
recent thread in particular has certainly got tails up on the official
forums. Players have been called upon to sum up in one sentence the
single worst thing about Diablo III.
This as expected prompted a number of diverse responses. There isn’t
much of a recurrent theme, though a few players did point out their
disdain for RNG (Random Number Generator), with users such as Zeddicuus
stating: ” RNG on my gear for the quality of the gear that just RNG’d is
getting a bit much.” For those unfamiliar, RNG in a nutshell is that
stats on dropped items in Diablo III are randomly generated from a list
of possible stats for that corresponding weapon/armor slot.
Others are quick to point out what has been a criticism ever since the
content revealed at Blizzcon 2016, in that there is little to enjoy from
re-releasing previous features. Province’s biggest problem is
“Re-worked existing crap instead of new content.” Others go on to point
out a lack of trading, no advanced skill tree system and a lack of
creative freedom for players during the game.
The lack of robust RPG elements has been a sore point since the game launched without them, and then failed to add them in the Reaper of Souls expansion, and the game's over-dependence on items (and thus RNG) is a direct result of that. Any sufficient deep dive into D3's official forum will turn up thousands of posts on these subject, going all the was back to the pre-launch beta. So, none of this new. Today is, however, the first time I've seen an item pop up in a Google News search that actually acknowledges these long-standing issues. You'd almost think that Blizzard had jumped the shark, or something. GG, Blizzard. GG.
I can't help it. I'm finding the reaction Blizzard's latest D3 PTR to be rather fascinating. The next take? Paul Tassi's, at Forbes.
Blizzard just rolled out the patch notes for 2.5.0 for Diablo 3, and while they are adding a few welcome features to the game, they show just how dry the well is starting to run as well.
Positive changes include new tabs for materials to free up stash space, a quasi-buff to bounty rewards, and a new “loadout” armory system where players can save not just gear, but skills, socketed gems and even Kanai Cube powers to be able to switch easily between builds.
[...]
But the one addition in the patch that’s managing to roll a lot of eyes in the yes-we’re-still-playing-Diablo community is the addition of Primal Ancient Legendary weapons.
Right now, there current system in place has Legendary/set weapons/armor that drop with special properties and increased stats over “normal” items. For a while now, there has been a chance for each of those items to drop as an “Ancient” variant, which has increased stat ranges in categories like Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, Resist All and so on.
Now, Primal Ancient Legendary Weapons will be even more rare, and have a chance to drop with even better stats than those.
Why is this bad? More powerful gear is fun right?
Yes and no. The problem is that this puts yet another insane level of RNG into the game as a way of artificially extending playtime without actually adding anything new or valuable. The concept of an “Ancient Ancient,” or a Primal Ancient, is the definition of pure power creep.
[...]
This may not be a big deal, but it’s emblematic of Blizzard sort of throwing in the towel when it comes to supporting Diablo 3 in what are apparently the last stages of its life. The Darkening of Tristam event was very underwhelming, and now the answer to “now what?” is just creating yet another god tier of items that push power creep up to new heights, and make players feel like the builds they’ve perfected so far are now trash.
What can I say? I agree with all of this.
I did take issue with one thing that Tassi wrote in his article, though, when he described the Armory as "something every game in this genre desperately needs." D3 definitely needed an Armory, because D3 doesn't have characters in the way that most RPGs have characters. Instead, D3 has loadouts, which means that switching around your equipped items changes your entire build.
Games with robust RPG elements don't work this way. Path of Exile, for example, has a passive skill tree that profoundly affects the way your character plays, and which simply cannot be respec'ed in a few seconds with a couple of button clicks. PoE has characters, and encourages players to make more than one character in order to experiment with different builds and various game mechanics, all of which would render an Armory system like D3's useless.
By saying that every game of this genre desperately needs an Armory-like system, Tassi is either saying (a) that Diablo III isn't an ARPG, or (b) that he knows very little about ARPGs, and needs to play some Path of Exile, stat. Or Torchlight II, or Grim Dawn, or Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem... or, really any real ARPG.
Go on, Paul. Give it a go. You're bored with D3, anyway.
... I simply could not let this pass without comment. First, the set up. A couple of years back, when Blizzard was in the process of adding the Ancient tier of Legendary items to the game, I had this to say about it:
ALs are a terrible idea. They add no new gameplay, since they're exactly the same items just with bigger numbers; they solve none of the game's existing problems; and they make existing problems, like power creep, worse, not better. And they're only necessary because Blizzard's most recent attempt to deal with item over-dependence (leveling out the drop rates of the game's Legendary items so that you can find what you need for your build) basically eliminated ultra-rare item-hunting -- without actually solving the problem of item over-dependence! And once added, they effectively can't be removed, and will make all of Blizzard's subsequent attempts to deal with the game's issues harder.
Ancient Legendaries are a terrible design, the latest link in a cascading chain of terrible design decisions... and so, of course, Blizzard is set to add them to live servers next Tuesday. GG, Blizz. GG.
I was right, too -- Ancient Legendaries were a terrible idea. They did make the game's creeping decimalism problem worse, they didn't solve the rare-item drop rate issue (i.e. the items which hold all the best gameplay in D3 basically never dropped), they didn't add any new gameplay, and, having been added, they couldn't be removed. It may not be the worst design element of D3, but it's close. And so, naturally, Blizzard are about to repeat this mistake. Because of course they are. From the 2.5.0 PTR patch notes:
Apart from the word "primal," that's almost exactly the same description that Blizzard gave for non-Primal Ancient Legendaries when they were added to the game... except that this time they didn't even bother to explain why they're doing this yet again. No new gameplay, no problems solved or even mentioned, and worse power creep/creeping decimalism, all for the laziest fucking piece of copypaste game design that I've ever seen. They've literally just upped the numbers another x%, put a different coloured border around it, and called it a day. The comment section underneath these patch notes tells the tale:
And so on... and so on...
BTW, for the mathematically inclined, if the stat range on PALs is 30% higher than ALs (the same ratio as ALs to Normal Legendaries), then 13 equipment slots worth of Primals will roughly equal a 30-fold power increase. That's 30 times the damage output of current all-Ancient builds, in a game where a Witch Doctor's pets can already critically hit for tens of billions in damage. This is the kind of lazy, creatively bankrupt nonsense that inspired me to delete by Battle.Net account and, man oh man! am I ever glad I that did. I am well out of this shit. #fuckyouBlizzard
I know, I know... I said was done with this, and this really is the last post on the subject. I promise. This is just one last PSA for any Diablo III fans who might stumble on my humble little blog.
In case you were wondering if you should reinstall D3 to check out the "Darkening of Tristram" limited-time event... you shouldn't. You really shouldn't.
I knew that without needing to actually test the content; in fact, I was so convinced of it, that I had my BNet account deleted, rather than waste time testing this crap. But you don't have to take my word for it.
I'll say it again: Diablo really is dead, Blizzard really are out of ideas, and I don't regret the decision to delete my BNet account at all. But I think that there is one way that the Darkening of Tristram content might make a kind of practical sense... at least, from Blizzard's perspective.
Of the criticisms that have been directed at Diablo III by old-school Diablo fans, most of them seem (to me, anyway) to have fallen into two main categories. One the one hand, are the people (like myself) who were complaining about the game's mechanics and gameplay. To those people, D3 was just poorly designed, and no amount of superficial polish could compensate for the shallowness and hollowness of the core experience.
Others, though, had a different complaint: aesthetics. D3, they said, just didn't look right. It was too bright, too colourful, too slick and glossy, and the soundtrack sucked compared to Matt Uelmen's now-iconic work. D3, the argument went, just didn't look or feel like a Diablo game; Blizzard just needed to fix that.
Pretend, for the moment, that you're an exec at Blizzard, faced with the challenge of winning back a Diablo fanbase that have mostly headed for the hills as a result of a) Diablo III, and b) the way your own people insulted and belittled them for daring to complain about Diablo III. You, Blizzard exec, have to choose between one of two options:
you can rebuild all of the gameplay elements of D3, from the core outward, at an enormous cost of both time and money, with no guarantee that doing so will win back the trust and goodwill of alienated Diablo fans; or
you can greenlight a "D1 in D3" mod instead, which retains all of the gameplay of the existing game but overlays the D1/D2 aesthetic on the experience, at a fraction of that cost.
You're an executive, remember. Which do you choose?
It's a rhetorical question, obviously, since we already know which one was chosen. The Darkening of Tristram, intentionally or not, serves as a perfect test of the aesthetic argument. If D3's mechanics really were solid, and its problems purely aesthetic, then TDoT would have made D3 awesome. Because it really is D3 with a D1/D2 look and feel, including the awesomely eerie Uelmen music.
Instead, it sucks. Because what TDoT essentially does, intentionally or not, is strip away the superficial gloss and polish from D3, leaving its gameplay utterly exposed. Gone is the fluid feel created by D3's excellent animation work; instead, D3's gameplay is forced to carry the entire load. And the result, according to players like Kripparrian, is no fun at all to play.
Kripparrian, remember, liked this game. He's the first person to kill Diablo in Inferno, on Hardcore, before they nerfed Inferno to actually make it playable.; in fact, Kripp & Krippi may be the only people to do so. He played a ton of D3. He used to stream D3. And yet, when presented with D3's naked gamplay, stripped of the fluid animations and slot-machine-stimulating light show, he hated it.
The logic is inescapable. If D3's aesthetics really were the problem, then TDoT would have been the solution. They aren't, so it isn't. Layering D1/D2 aesthetics over D3's just serves to reveal the real issue: utterly unengaging gameplay, the result of a core design that's rotten with terrible decisions.
The one good thing about TDoT is that it's only available for one month at a stretch, and only for one month of the year. Blizzard clearly weren't sure how people would react, and limiting availability serves to a) keep people wanting more, if they did end up loving it, and b) limit the damage, if they didn't.
Was it just this morning that I was writing about how broken Diablo III still is, and how desperately Blizzard has been trying to appeal to the nostalgia of Diablo II fans to breathe life back into their moribund franchise? I think it was:
Of all the recent BlizzCon Diablo rumours, this is the one that I
believe, simply because it's exactly the kind of desperate, pandering
bullshit that Blizzard have been doing for years, trying to
convince Diablo II fans to come back to Diablo III (and buy its
expansion pack) in spite of the fact that D3 is simply an inferior game,
in spite of its gloss and polish.
Well, wait no longer, Diablo fans, because the pandering is real.
Diablo 3 players will get access to a brand new character, the oft-requested Necromancer, as an update to the Reaper of Souls expansion next year.
Blizzard showed off a trailer for the Necromancer during
its BlizzCon 2016 Opening Ceremony Friday. Blizzard co-founder Frank
Pearce said its addition was something fans had been asking for since Diablo 3’s launch in 2012.
The new Necromancer, Pearce said, is inspired by Diablo 2’s version of the character, and "takes advantage of everything Diablo 3 has to offer."
No details yet on exactly what the hell a "character pack" is -- my guess is paid-for DLC, because the players who've been begging for Blizzard to add Necromancers to D3 for years will obviously be stupid enough to stump up some green for that shit. I'll tell you what a "character pack" isn't, though. It isn't an expansion pack, or a sequel, or prequel, or even an HD remake of D2.
The class itself will be shit, too -- even if it takes advantage of
everything D3 has to offer, D3 is such a shallow, hollow shell of a game
that "everything" amounts to more of the same boring skill system,
broken itemization, and mind-numbing gameplay that have sent D2 fans
fleeing en masse.
So... Blizzard have now delivered basically nothing for their Diablo fan base for a third straight BlizzCon, and on the 20th Anniversary, no less, except for one new class that should be added to the game for free but which will probably cost $20. Diablo fans have every right to be disappointed, and so far, it looks like quite a few of them are.
Did I mention that Path of Exile is running an all-weekend race event? And has a huge content patch coming in the next 2 weeks? With the beta for their even huger 3.0 content patch coming on the heels of that? And that PoE is completely free? No wonder the Father of Diablo calls it the ARPG that's actually pushing the genre to new heights.
I've blogged before about my Diablo III experience, but just in case I wasn't clear enough before, let me state this explicitly: I believe that D3 is shit.
It's very glossy, highly-polished shit, to be sure, all glossy and kinda pretty from a sufficient distance, but if you get close enough to smell what it's made of... well, there's just no mistaking what it's made of:
of D3's four primary attributes, two are mechanically identical to each other, a third is mechanically equivalent to the first two, and the fourth (Vit) goes up at the same rate for all classes as they level, meaning that it may as well not exist, either;
of D3's many, many skills, most are so boring and useless as to see no use at all; the only ones that get used are those with 6-piece sets, or set-compatible legendary items, to support them;
breaking the game's attribute system actually broke its combat mechanics, creating a "hit box" problem which gets worse as characters' move speed increases, which is (at least partly) why characters' move speed bonus is capped at 25%;
breaking D3's attribute system broke its itemization, too, resulting in a game where every character, regardless of class, uses exactly the same gear, where the gear is mostly boring and interchangeable, and where melee characters need 30% of extra damage reduction to be viable;
gutting the game's RPG systems and putting all of its gameplay into the loot system resulted in a game where short-circuiting the loot hunt is game-killing, according to Blizzard themselves, and yet also essential, which is why they added Kanai's Cube (and its multiple legendary-yielding formulae), and eventually Haedrig's Gift (which just gifts you with a 6-piece set if you play the latest season);
leveling a new character is so trivialized that it's possible to reach the level cap in just 33 seconds;
the story is so lacklustre that Reaper of Souls added an entirely separate game mode in which players don't have to interact with the story at all;
even in that mode, bounties are so boring that people only run them when they need the crafting mats that you can't get any other way, and rifts are only run to obtain greater rift keystones, resulting in an expansion that actually contracted the experience, leaving all of the remaining active player base doing one thing, and only one thing, which is running grifts over and over.
Do I need to go on? Because I can. You know I can.
Most of these issues have been issues since the game launched in May of 2012; four-plus years of additional development have added polish and gloss, but haven't actually fixed the game, since the developers have been either unable or unwilling to admit that the game's problems all have their roots in these core design flaws. D3 is a game which feels very fluid, thanks to some stellar character animation work, and which is neurologically stimulating, thanks to glossy visuals full of flashing lights, bright colours, frantic motion, and constant chiming sounds, but it's pretty and stimulating in exactly the same way slot machines are stimulating; and, like a slot machine, it's designed to be addictive without being engaging at all.
That's why the Reaper of Souls expansion sold so poorly that Blizzard won't talk about its sales numbers, and redefined the term "Reaper of Souls" at the end of RoS's release quarter to mean all basic game licenses going back to the base game's launch in May of 2012. It's why Blizzard quietly stopped telling Diablo II fans to take off their "rose-tinted glasses," and started talking up their love of the Diablo legacy at BlizzCon 2015. It's why they started nakedly pandering to Diablo II fans with features like Kanai's Cube, which was literally pitched as being reminiscent of the older game:
Those who played Diablo II might remember the Horadric Cube, a unique device which allowed you to combine items. Useful as it was, it was easily surpassed in power by the item from which it originated, Kanai’s Cube. In Patch 2.3.0, players will be able to discover this powerful ancient relic and utilize its incredible potential, including the ability to break down Legendary items and equip their special effects as passive skills (which are separate from your other passive skills), convert crafting materials from one type to another, and so much more.
Diablo III is a highly polished turd, a glossy, smelly mess which sells millions of units whenever launched in a new market, but which totally fails to retain those players. Blizzard desperately needs to bring those older Diablo fans back into the fold, but can't just admit that their latest Diablo game is crap, or apologize to Diablo II fans for having spent years talking smack to and about them.
So, if you were wondering why Blizzard is leaked the concept art this week for a new Necromancer class that could be coming to D3... well, now you know why.
Of all the recent BlizzCon Diablo rumours, this is the one that I believe, simply because it's exactly the kind of desperate, pandering bullshit that Blizzard have been doing for years, trying to convince Diablo II fans to come back to Diablo III (and buy its expansion pack) in spite of the fact that D3 is simply an inferior game, in spite of its gloss and polish.
D3's problem is not that it lacks a Necromancer class; its issues are all the result of terrible design decisions which continue to cripple the game from its core, and a terrible story that even Blizzard themselves would rather you not think about anymore. I know, there are some active D3 players who have been basically begging Blizzard for years to add a Necromancer class to the game, and I'm sure they'll get some enjoyment from playing with it, but even Necromancers can't raise D3 from the dead. And when Blizzard eventually add the Druid class (which you'd better believe is next on the list), it will not shape-shift D3 from a shit game into a good one.
So, it's the wee hours before BlizzCon, but I'm not excited. Why would I be? More than anything else, the one and only thing that I want from Blizzard this BlizzCon is closure... which I'm not going to get, because they're still trying to sell their expansion-which-contracts-the-game-experience pack to me.
D2 fans are not going to get an apology from Blizzard for having fucked up Diablo so badly, or for years of belittling and insulting us when we complained about their terrible product, or about the broken state in which it launched. Instead, we're going to get a broken, boring, bastardized D3 version of a popular D2 class in a desperate attempt to pander to exactly the same nostalgia that Blizzard spent years mocking us for.
Oh, and a pre-recorded video of Dave Brevik helping to celebrate Diablo's 20-year anniversary... pre-recorded because he's overseas, helping Grinding Gear Games launch Path of Exile in China, a game that he describes as pushing the ARPG genre "to new heights" in exactly the way that D3 didn't. GG.
BlizzCon 2016 starts today, and Path of Exile is running a three-day race event, with thirty-four races in three days. I think I'll do that instead.
Holy wall of text, Batman! Who needs punctuation, or paragraph breaks? Apart from, you know, readers. Seriously, I have no idea WTF is being claimed there, and no intention of reading through that mess to try and figure it out.
World of Warcraft: Legion just released to critical acclaim and Overwatch continues to be the best competitive game of 2016, but Blizzard’s loyalists are hoping that another popular franchise, Diablo, will also be getting some love this year. For a few hopeful fans, this could mean a full-fledged fourth game.
The rumor mill and speculation came after Blizzard North co-founder David Brevik tweeted that he was “proud to be the adviser for the game that pushes this genre [dungeon crawlers] to new heights.”
...
So, just what do these posts mean for the future of Diablo? According to Brevik, absolutely nothing. About a day after his previous tweet was posted, he released an update.
"There has been a lot of speculation (and hope), but I’m not working on the Diablo franchise currently or in the near future,” Brevik says.
Roper clarified on his account, as well, writing that it would “be an honor” to come back to Blizzard to develop a fourth game but that the stories were just rumors.
And don't forget the tetrahedral die (a "d4," in pen & paper RPG parlance) that came in BlizzCon goodie bags, and was (mis)printed so that one set of results reads "1-1-4" rather than the usual "1-1-1" -- an unmistakable reference to Nov. 4th, i.e. the opening day of BlizzCon (unless, of course, you know something about the printing of such dice, which actually get misprinted in exactly this kind of way with some regularity).
Just forget entirely the fact that the Diablo series didn't have a director until about five minutes ago (assuming they've actually hired one, that is, and not just stopped looking -- Blizzard haven't actually announced anything yet), or the fact that anonymous sources inside the company are leaking about D4 being dead, with the next Diablo project possibly being a mobile game of sort, or the fact that Diablo's booth at BlizzCon is, once again, the same size as the nearest washroom.
Brevik visited Blizzard! Surely that must mean something! Except that Brevik himself says otherwise...
These are the knots that Diablo fans have been tying themselves into for months, now, and the speculation seems to be approaching something of a fever pitch as BlizzCon draws ever nearer. And, for a wonder, Blizzard themselves are almost entirely blameless. They're not hyping anything; this time, fans are hyping themselves, aided and abetted by exploitative click-bait articles like Digital Trends'.
Gamespot did a somewhat better job, bluntly stating that "at this point, there's little reason to get excited yet," and admitting that there's been "no official indication about what the future of the Diablo series holds," but even Gamespot go on to assert that "its success guarantees it isn't going anywhere," concluding by promising to "report back with details of that event, as well as any other possible teases that emerge in the meantime." Really, nothing to see here, Diablo fans, but stay tuned anyway!
I wish that these people would just stop, already. The only new morsel of information here is a wee bit of something about Dave Brevik that was immediately debunked by Brevik himself. Diablo fans are already setting themselves up for yet another crushing disappointment -- they really don't need any help with that.
UPDATE: Not only are Brevik and Roper not advising Blizzard on another Diablo project, Brevik has actually joined rival Grinding Gear Games to consult on the upcoming launch of Path of Exile in China.
We now know what game David Brevik is advising on, he’s joining the Grinding Gear Games Path of Exile team in an advisory role and will help them with their launch in China.
The news comes via a press release put out by Tencent addressing Chinese Path of Exile players and news that both Chris Wilson and David Brevik will be heading to China to meet fans.
Grinding Gear’s CEO Chris Wilson confirmed the appointment and told Diabloii.Net, “David is an advisor, primarily for our launch in mainland China, but we hope to learn from his experience as much as we can over the coming months.”
The search is now on for the next Diablo-related breadcrumb that can be turned into a click-bait lede and draw some views over the next two weeks. Man, BlizzCon can't get over with soon enough...
For months now, fan forums and games media sites have speculatedbreathlesslyaboutwhatBlizzardmightannounce at the upcoming BlizzCon for their Diablo franchise. The gist of all the speculation, apparently based on a single tweet and a misprinted four-side die, is that some sort of announcement was coming, and it would be "awesome" -- whether it was a sequel, or a prequel, or a 2nd expansion, or maybe a mobile game, there would definitely be something announced in November. Surely Blizzard aren't about to let a third BlizzCon go by with nothing substantive to show their Diablo fanbase. Right?
From all over the world, members of our community will band together to invade the halls of the Anaheim Convention Center. Whether you’re planning to be there in person or tuning in at home with the Virtual Ticket, here’s what intrepid Diablo fans can expect at BlizzCon 2016.
Diablo 20th Anniversary Panel Get the inside scoop on what’s in store for Diablo III! Join us as Lead Designer Kevin Martens, Senior Game Designer Wyatt Cheng, Lead VFX Artist Julian Love, and Art Director John Mueller share the gritty details on the celebration plans that lie ahead for all our eager nephalem.
What: A retrospective on Diablo’s 20-year legacy and first look into upcoming content.
When: Friday, November 4 from 5:00 to 5:45 p.m. PDT
Diablo III Dev Talk and Q&A Get the inside scoop and ask your burning questions about Diablo III! Join us as Lead Designer Kevin Martens, Senior Game Designer Wyatt Cheng, Senior Game Designer Adam Puhl, Senior Game Designer Joe Shely, and Senior Game Designer Travis Day review upcoming content and features for Diablo III and take live questions from the audience.
What: A deep-dive and Q&A on the content and features headed to Diablo III.
When: Saturday, November 5 from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. PDT
Darkmoon Faire: Quick Talks Similar to the miniature panel-like chats we had last year at the Slaughtered Calf Inn, quick talks are making a return at this year’s Darkmoon Faire! Join our developers as they share insider details about their most passionate Diablo projects and hang out after to chat about your favorite Diablo memories.
What: A series of quick talks from our developers on various aspects of Diablo III.
When: Friday, November 4 at 1:30 p.m. PDT and Saturday, November 5 at 12:30 p.m PDT
This should look very familiar to Diablo fans, since it's basically the same lineup of events from BlizzCon 2015, where they had one panel (which opened with 20 minutes of the D3 devs enthusing about their love of Diablo's "legacy"), an announcement of patch 2.4's content (mention of new D3 content is notably absent in 2016's announced events), and the Slaughtered Calf Inn, a space smaller than the nearest washroom and located behind the face-painting booth, where players could chat informally with the D3 dev team (most of whom have now either left D3, or left Blizzard entirely). 2016's offerings appear to be slightly more formal than the Slaughtered Calf Inn, but no more substantive; in fact, if anything, there's less substance on offer.
In 2016, Diablo fans will get 45 minutes in which Blizzard will try to convince them that they really did love the Blizzard North Diablo games, 1 hour in which they'll answer (some) questions about the current state of the game, and a series of "quick talks" in which the remaining D3 devs will talk about other Blizzard games, and reminisce about their time at Blizzard, generally.
Or... not. Because Blizzard haven't announced anything at all, yet.
I've been seeing articles like this one, from GameNGuide, popping up every few days for a few weeks now:
‘Diablo 4’ Release Date, News & Update: Major Announcement at BlizzCon 2016; New Game Or Expansion Coming?
BlizzCon is set to happen on Nov. 4 and 5, 2016 in Anaheim, California, and fans are already excited for big news. Blizzard Entertainment previously shared that they have a huge announcement to make, which many believe involves "Diablo 4," among others.
iTechPost reported that "Diablo 4" fans were dismayed when Blizzard did not have any fresh details about the franchise at Gamescom in August 2016. Many thought that the game company may have saved big news and updates for their own major event - BlizzCon 2016. The "Diablo" official Twitter account stated that they have something great to reveal in 2016.
Some "Diablo" fans speculated that Blizzard may be preparing an enhanced version of "Diablo II" or "StarCraft." There are rumors that Blizzard might remake either of the two hit titles to suit current platforms. Others opined that the game creator might feature a prequel, sequel reboot or expansion for "Diablo III." Others shared that there might be a mobile "Diablo" game. The rest are hoping that the company will introduce "Diablo IV" soon.
In another iTechPost report, there has yet to be a suitable replacement for "Diablo" game director Josh Mosquiera. Blizzard is reportedly looking for more staff members to work on the "Diablo 4." There are talks that senior designer Wyatt Chang might replace George Musketeer as game director, although he will continue some of the work already commenced. Even if "Diablo 4" is already in the works, it will take a while to complete, so an announcement about a "Diablo II" remake or "Diablo 3" expansion seems more likely to arrive at BlizzCon 2016.
For those counting, these are the actual facts in this excerpt:
BlizzCon is indeed set to happen on Nov. 4th and 5th;
there are indeed many rumours and much speculation flying around Diablo fan sites, forums, and Reddit about what Blizzard might announce at BlizzCon about Diablo, if anything; and
iTechPost has indeed posted multiple articles filled with those rumours and speculations.
That's it. Speculation aside, Blizzard haven't announced who the next game director of Diablo will be; George Musketeer was never actually announced as Diablo's game director by Blizzard, and there's no evidence that he was replaced as such, by Wyatt Cheng or anyone else. All the older "Diablo team" job listings have vanished, and new ones have been posted, suggesting that some folks were hired and that they're hiring more, but right now, that's all we know for sure.
BlizzCon is coming, and once again, Diablo fans seem to be cranking up their very own hype machines, building their own expectations up to a fever pitch that Blizzard can never satisfy. This is actually the kind of hype that I meant to be writing about when I started this blog, and I am going to talk about it, but there's something I need to talk about first.
First, I'm going to talk about why I loved Blizzard's Diablo franchise... and why I consider Diablo III to be one of the worst consumer experiences I've had, ever. Yes, kids, it's story time, a kind of full-disclosure exercise that will put all my biases on full display for later reference. If you're not interested, by all means skip this one.
If you are interested, though, then by all means... read on.
