With increasingly DLCs and pre-order early access, we are entering an age where games are never really finished and you are effectively buying a Beta game. That will never come out of Beta.

A poem is never finished, only abandoned. ~Paul Valéry

As far as the L4D2 comparison Valve actually invited the organizer of the protest to Valve HQ to play L4D2. That same organizer said "yeah this isn't that bad" and then basically told everyone to go home. Valve responded to the protest directly. It still annoys me to no end that you can play all the L4D1 content in L4D2 but only added one 3 map campaign to L4D1--I'd still like to see L4D1 supported with community maps (becoming official like Cold Stream) and new weapons introduced or maybe new modes (fix the L4D1 versus so that bots fill in empty spots like L4D2).

Bashiok stated that the Auction House factors into the frequency/quality of items that are dropped in any given game:

http://us.battle.net...opic/5149013410

Given that this affects all players (the always online requirement) I am left in the awkward position of being one of those few guys that only plays solo, and refuses to use the auction house. That means I play with nerfed drops, without the counter (the AH) to balance it out. Is it silly of me to want to play without the Auction House? Yeah, maybe. I never traded in D2, either, but at least there my drops weren't nerfed to compensate for trading. I'm not in this to participate in some kind of virtual economy meta-game. I want to play the game by making use of what I find, self-sufficient and self-contained.

Well there was gambling in D2, and near the end game when I had more cash than I could carry, I would always gamble. Not actually owning D3 I don't know if gambling is in the game but I'd wager the GAH currently replaces the gambling aspect.

I hear D3 does have gambling. They call it blacksmithing, and it's shitty and expensive and not worth leveling.

I hear D3 does have gambling. They call it blacksmithing, and it's shitty and expensive and not worth leveling.

I wouldn't know about that. While this is also tied to the AH apparently, and the odds of getting something good are slim, at least you're guaranteed an item of minimum stats. Through cowardice and other tactics (I basically forgo the elite monsters and rush to the boss now and just kite them to death), I've managed to progress my monk pretty far. Yet it's frustrating that I need at least Act 3 gear of the next difficulty level to properly gear for this difficulty level's Act 1 when it comes to random drops. At least with the Blacksmith, I can be guaranteed of acquiring a proper leveled item, even if the stats are horrible.

Someone else made this statement, and I honestly have to agree with the person, that the game seems to be less "Diablo 3" and more "World of Diablo", only without the monthly subscription fee, in terms of how the gameplay feels so far.

I've personally used the blacksmith pretty much, and a large part of the gear I've used have been from him. I'd say he usually produce pretty cool stuff, it's just not necessarily for you character (ie +80 dex, +76 str, +90 dex is pretty nice at level ~36, but useless if you're a wizard or which doctor). I don't think it's particularily expensive either, unless you count the fact that you need to 'salvage' your items instead of selling them which doesn't give you the tiny sum they're worth.

And now there's this to add to the hilarity:

[color=#263034][font=Arial, sans-serif]

Then I logged in to my

[/font]Diablo III[color=#263034][font=Arial, sans-serif]

account earlier today and found that I had become one of those careless victims, my character stripped bare and my gold balance drained.

[/font]
[/quote]

Think about it. Someone hacked and robbed your single player game. And there I thought single-player Lag was an oxymoron!

[quote name='JTippetts' timestamp='1338257612' post='4944216']
So no, I don't count the "record breaking sales" as any kind of valid measure of the worth of this game.

Neither do I. The worth of the game is irrelevant to my point. My point is a lot of people seem to be complaining bitterly about issues and then buying the game anyway.[/quote]Do we have evidence of this?

Perhaps because it's possible to both like a game, and hate the way it's been crippled with DRM? (Plus the first buyers are not going to know until after they've bought the game.)

It seems perfectly consistent that more criticism is generated for the most popular games - of course you won't get much noise over a game that no one cares about.

Would not buying really help? Or would they just blame the lower sales on piracy, like they always do? What about games that get lots of sales without this system?

Well, not buying the game would give your argument a bit more legitimacy.[/quote]I don't see how. The issue of whether this is a good thing is not affected by whether one has bought the game. Indeed, generally we expect people are more likely to complain about something they have bought, than something they haven't, or even don't care about. By this logic, no one should ever complain about the immensely commercially successful Windows.

It would only affect an argument of "I'm not going to buy this game because of this" or "We should stop this by not buying the game", but I'm not sure people are saying that, and even if they are, are those people then buying it?

Anyhow, if the sales are booming, I'll remember that the next time I hear them complaining about piracy killing sales.

Bashiok stated that the Auction House factors into the frequency/quality of items that are dropped in any given game:

I didn't read it like that at all.

They purposely lowered the ingame drops because they account for the existance of the AH. When you say it, it sounds like they dynamically alter the droprates based on what's on AH at the time. I'm not sure that's what Bashiok is saying.

Looks like some hackers made a 100% compatible web based Diablo 3 client and server emulator now: http://www.error37.com so people can get the full Diablo 3 experience without paying a dime.

Looks like some hackers made a 100% compatible web based Diablo 3 client and server emulator now: http://www.error37.com so people can get the full Diablo 3 experience without paying a dime.

[quote name='ChaosEngine' timestamp='1338345502' post='4944524']
Neither do I. The worth of the game is irrelevant to my point. My point is a lot of people seem to be complaining bitterly about issues and then buying the game anyway.

Do we have evidence of this?[/quote]

As I said before, the evidence is largely anecdotal. But given the vocal complaints that are kinda hard to miss on the web coupled with the huge sales figures, I think it's a reasonable assumption.

[quote name='mdwh' timestamp='1338308423' post='4944353']
Perhaps because it's possible to both like a game, and hate the way it's been crippled with DRM? (Plus the first buyers are not going to know until after they've bought the game.)

It seems perfectly consistent that more criticism is generated for the most popular games - of course you won't get much noise over a game that no one cares about.

Would not buying really help? Or would they just blame the lower sales on piracy, like they always do? What about games that get lots of sales without this system?

Well, not buying the game would give your argument a bit more legitimacy.[/quote]I don't see how. The issue of whether this is a good thing is not affected by whether one has bought the game. Indeed, generally we expect people are more likely to complain about something they have bought, than something they haven't, or even don't care about. By this logic, no one should ever complain about the immensely commercially successful Windows.

It would only affect an argument of "I'm not going to buy this game because of this" or "We should stop this by not buying the game", but I'm not sure people are saying that, and even if they are, are those people then buying it?

Anyhow, if the sales are booming, I'll remember that the next time I hear them complaining about piracy killing sales.
[/quote]

Er, that was exactly my point with my first post in this thread. Mostly I just wanted to post this penny arcade comic.


My point is pretty simple. On one hand, people are angry. Whether that anger is justified or not is irrelevant. On the other hand Blizzard are seeing obscene amounts of money being thrown at them.

Companies are ultimately pretty simple entities. If an action is perceived to increase profits, they will continue to take that action regardless of whether that action is actually responsible for their profits or not. Until you stop giving them money, they will keep doing whatever they want.