D4 had over 1 million closed beta access players, with multi-millions expected this weekend. Wow.

As long as people don't refund it really doesn't matter what happens next. That's the beauty of the time-honoured tradition of selling products as virtually complete rather than essentially renting them out. Sure -- renting makes more in the long run BUT that assumes there is a long run. That you could be arsed servicing tenants. And so on. Diablo IV has made its money back with ease and then some. It is a complete game, as complete a game as Blizzard has ever released -- cliffhanger endings are not a sign of incompletion and never have been. Not if every major story thread is handled in the product. And you can get hundreds of hours out of the one time payment if Diablo IV is your sort of game. It is, for a game aiming towards future service, ludicrously good value.

Everything from there is extra. I suspect after other triple A service attempt flops (Fallout 76, Anthem, Avengers) Blizzard realised they had to hedge their bets: aim for long term service but deliver a complete short term product.

So here's the conundrum: a short term product appeals to we casuals and limited time gamers. Parents. Full time workers. Devoted partners. Etc. A service game generally doesn't, as it relies on some measure of FOMO nad attention in regular intervals. You play a game as product; a game as service plays you. So DIV as product was a huge hit. Objectively. But those apt to dig into a service almost certainly find that product wanting. They are already into WT3 and 4 and fairly criticising the game's shallow width, its lack of "things to do". They will just end up back on PoE or LE or whatever service keeps their twitchy little brain stimulated.

I don't have much faith in DIV's service potential. I haven't seen a singlr person in town wearing paid cosmetics and I see a lot of people in Ktown, without fail. I almost think they should have gone the full trad rpute of product+paid expansions. The ending feels like it's leading that way -- do we really want the next chapter to be nothing more than a free update designed to sucker in service payments? I sure don't.

At any rate, DIV could cease all development today and as long as the servers remain up it wouldn't die for months. The games industry needs to get over this notion that a game is dead just because you don't see people playing it en masse. The whole notion of live vs dead is necessary, again, for when you need players to keep injecting "micro" payments. For a product, "dead" is much less of a worry than "undersold".

Now that's purely from a consumer's perspective. Blizzard have a rough task ahead because unlike other service games, DIV sets the quality bar stupidly high. You aren't paying to overcome intentional f2p ugliness. You aren't left wondering if that locked off zone is planned dlc. They aren't even selling storage or extra character slots yet. Yet.

The whole thing would be much less fascinating and more frustrating were the game not perfectly fine as is. This one was a huge win for Diablo fans.

As for Exiles like some we see here using words like trash tier....well, who cares about their opinion of DIV? They have PoE.

So I guess someone out there was pretty pissed off that Diablo IV had a smooth launch.

Sad little shits.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

So I guess someone out there was pretty pissed off that Diablo IV had a smooth launch.

Sad little shits.

Big companies get DDoSed, more news at 11.

"

heaven0777 wrote:

"

鬼殺し wrote:

So I guess someone out there was pretty pissed off that Diablo IV had a smooth launch.

Sad little shits.

Big companies get DDoSed, more news at 11.

Still sucks.

I was at a BBQ so didn't impact me, but I'd have been pissed if that was my only time to play this weekend, and some edgelords messed with that.

The D4 storyline is top notch. Best I've ever seen. The mechanical game play is also very fun. I love the space bar evade command, for example. a very fun game

For those folks that want to attack and belittle any ARPG that's not PoE. Here's my suggestion as to how to look at it. D4 will expand the general ARPG player base. PoE will then reap the benefit of that in a year or so.

"

Turtledove wrote:

The D4 storyline is top notch. Best I've ever seen. The mechanical game play is also very fun. I love the space bar evade command, for example. a very fun game

For those folks that want to attack and belittle any ARPG that's not PoE. Here's my suggestion as to how to look at it. D4 will expand the general ARPG player base. PoE will then reap the benefit of that in a year or so.

I am so glad you liked it too. Not just me and a bunch of reviewers and Diabloski then. Feels weird praising Blizzard for writing but it didn't surprise me that much -- they had to shed every weakness of D3 and writing was a big one.

Space bar evade is kinda standard for arpgs these days, but I can see why an exile would find it novel.

I admit I haven't played as much as I thought I would, just blasted through the campaign to "get it over with" (in this case, because I was legit into it) and then sidled back to Elden Ring which I have finally fifured out alt-wise. I read a "complete story route" guide that blew my mind; no way anyone would hit all those beats in the right sequence, but i hit different ones with each character. Also my gaming group is busy AF IRL so I don't want to burn out on DIV's non-story content.

--

Re the DDoS: flash in the pan really. I imagine many DIV players are not the sort to melt down because a single casual game goes offline for a handful of hours. In percentile terms, I reckon PoE has more one-game gamers than DIV by a wide margin. Which is also kind of interesting: PoE should be ripe for a dramatic DDoS, so why don't we see more of them? Is GGG too small? Too well protected? Too close to home?

Wait. It has secret endings? Ffs. Of course it does.

...patch notes with 100% buffs to all classes, zero nerfs.

Goodness me.

The teleporting to the NM dungeon you select is such great QoL.

Helltide loot and NM dungeon XP boots very noticeable.

And the skills...well as you mentioned, "This is a buff".

I am playing around in the D4 endgame now. Still lots to do. Lots of different builds to play. I can see myself playing this game for at least a year or two. Maybe longer depending on whether or not Blizzard puts effort into changes for new seasons?