Diablo III --Impressions start on page 36 --

[rittchard]

1.0.7 patch is out complete with 4 way dueling.  Needless to say I got slaughtered!

[Blackjack]

Ex-Blizzardite Jay Wilson, now free to say... OOPS! 

Diablo 3 Director Jay Wilson: Auction Houses 'really hurt' game
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/diablo-3-director-jay-wilson-auction-houses-really-hurt-game/

Wilson said that before Blizzard launched the game, the company had a few assumptions about how the Auction Houses would work: He thought they would help reduce fraud, that they'd provide a wanted service to players, that only a small percentage of players would use it and that the price of items would limit how many were listed and sold.

But he said that once the game went live, Blizzard realized it was completely wrong about those last two points. It turns out that nearly every one of the game's players (of which there are still about 1 million per day, and about 3 million per month, according to Wilson) made use of either house, and that over 50 percent of players used it regularly. That, said Wilson, made money a much higher motivator than the game's original motivation to simply kill Diablo, and "damaged item rewards" in the game. While a lot of the buzz around the game attacked the real money Auction House, "gold does much more damage than the other one does," according to Wilson, because more players use it and prices fluctuate much more.

"I think we would turn it off if we could," Wilson said during his talk. But the problem is "not as easy as that;" with all of Blizzard's current players, he says the company "has no idea" how many players like the system or hate it.

I would think players who used the system a lot liked it, and players who never used it (me, for example) either hated it or didn't care about it. Or is that oversimplifying? 

[wonderpug]

I would think players who used the system a lot liked it, and players who never used it (me, for example) either hated it or didn't care about it. Or is that oversimplifying? 

I think it's more that the mere presence of the AH alters the game.  In-game item drops just become junk commodities like gold.  You're never excited about an item, other than its worth, because you're likely just going to sell it and then buy whatever item you want on the AH.

[Lockdown]

I agree.
 
And in a game where "loot drops" are (supposed to be) such a core component - this hurts.

[Caine]

I would think players who used the system a lot liked it, and players who never used it (me, for example) either hated it or didn't care about it. Or is that oversimplifying? 

I think it's more that the mere presence of the AH alters the game.  In-game item drops just become junk commodities like gold.  You're never excited about an item, other than its worth, because you're likely just going to sell it and then buy whatever item you want on the AH.

It you never bothered,  you could get quite a way through Nightmare,  as I did.   Until I hit a wall and kept getting killed by specials,  and someone asked why I hadn't bought anything off the  AH.   that was when I learned how under equipped I was compared to my friends.

[Arclight]

I'm a pretty simple guy when it comes to in-game things that effect my everyday play time and enjoyment.
I don't always know why but sometimes I just get a ewww feeling about something when I first experience it in game.
Like the AH in D-3. I saw the writing on the wall within the first two days of playing. My simple love of D games is the
combat and loot drops. Nothing much more. The AH did away with getting significant rewards and loot drops. It quickly became
a frustrating game, with not much of anticipatory playing.
If it ain't broken, don't try to fix it.

[Lordnine]

I think gems on the auction house ruined the game more than anything else for my group of regulars.  One of my friends would just buy a huge stack of flawless gems and hand them out to us.  They were so cheap and common that we never even bothered to recover them from an item before selling it.  They also made crappy items with sockets better than any of the named items we found in the game.

[Roguetad]

The AH was a bad idea, especially for a loot based game with poorly implemented loot drops.  If the loot drops weren't so bad I never would have used the AH.  It no fun getting loot that is 5-10 levels below your character for most of normal and nightmare.     

[Blackjack]

Tomorrow is D3's first anniversary.... Yay?
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/9693905

May 15th marks the one-year anniversary of Diablo III. Help us celebrate the Lord of Terror's rebirth (and contribute to an awesome community project in the process) by submitting your very own birthday greeting!

To participate, simply print out one of the birthday images below (or create your own), take a photo of you and/or your friends, and then tweet the picture to @Diablo using the hashtag #D3BDAY or email it to [email protected]. In addition to re-tweeting our favorites and uploading them to our Diablo Facebook page throughout the week, we'll also be compiling the most impressive greetings to show off here on the official community site after the festivities have concluded.

Sad to remember how I hoped I'd be enjoying it for years and it ended up being a couple months or so.

For me, if some of the insane boss bottles later on were a bit more fair -- maybe a checkpoint within the boss battle -- I might've stuck with it longer. I can't say the AH bothered me as much as what I perceived as unfair difficulty spikes here and there.

Or maybe my late 40s brain just didn't enjoy repetitive dungeon hack'n'slashing over and over as much as my 30s self enjoyed the first two games.

[Gratch]

Playing single-player only, I enjoyed D3 just as much as the other Diablo games.  I'm not big on end-game content though, and typically just play through it once or twice.  I can certainly see how others who were in it for multiplayer or the super endgame stuff were disappointed. 

[CeeKay]

Tomorrow is D3's first anniversary....

so, only 9 years left until D4?

[Blackjack]

Tomorrow is D3's first anniversary....

so, only 9 years left until D4?

CeeKay = Perpetual Optimist 

[CeeKay]

Tomorrow is D3's first anniversary....

so, only 9 years left until D4?

CeeKay = Perpetual Optimist 

OK, so only 9 years until they announce the teaser for the announcement of the press conference where they will announce that they have a special announcement for Blizzcon 2022 where they will announce Diablo 4 is in pre-production and show off some concept art drawn on the back of some bar napkins.

[Blackjack]

While this strikes me as about about 10 months too late, these sound like some promising improvements to the co-op experience...

Developer Journal: Multiplayer Improvements
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/9382478/

From day one, it’s been our goal to make Diablo III a great co-op experience, but right now it's not living up to its full potential. Even if you enjoy playing with your friends, it can often feel easier and more efficient to play solo.

Playing solo has a number of advantages. For instance, you can choose your own route. If you're farming for something in particular (like a specific recipe), you can do it as many times as you want. And you can pause the game and attend to things in real life without making anyone wait.

Of course, multiplayer is awesome, too, and comes with its own benefits. For example, leveling up characters with a group of friends can be an amazing experience. Working together with other players to take down bosses or destroy Elite packs super quickly makes for great farming runs. There's resurrections and the banner system, and don't forget farming for Infernal Machine keys and organs. But, there are also disadvantages, like having to coordinate where you're walking and what you're attacking, losing your followers, and trying to find groups that have similar goals to yours without a defined matchmaking system in place.

The point is that multiplayer can be lot of fun, but given the downsides it can often feel not worth the effort. By making it easier for players to find one another, improving social features, and providing direct buffs to co-op groups, we hope to change that perspective.

The stuff includes matchmaking "tags," multiplayer bonuses, reducing MP monster "extra health" from 70% to 50%, Identify All feature at vendors, combat alerts on map (when one party member encounters elite swarm etc.) and player portal/teleportation banners, private chat with up to 99 bnet friends.

This is going onto the test server first.

My only issue with the tags (via a drop down menu, they're still experimenting with different tag names, like Questing, Key Warden, PVP, etc.) is... people lie.  If D3 could sort of determine what kind of player you are simply by how you've played the game over X period of time, that might be neat. Perhaps impossible, but given how intricate achievements are in games today, maybe not...