The Past, Present and Future of Diablo

[Julio Franco]

Since 2014 updates to Diablo III have been light and sporadic, and four years later, Blizzard's announcement of Diablo Immortal at a time when fans are hungry for any news of a Diablo IV has led to big questions about the future of the franchise. What's really going on with Diablo?

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1753-diablo-past-present-future/

 

[Bubbajim]

Rumour has it that if you say "Diablo Four" at a mirror three times you'll hear a distant voice ask, "Don't you have phones?!"

 

[Imran Mikayle]

“There are lots of mobile game players at Blizzard,” said a current developer. “There are lots of people actually excited about mobile games. The reaction inside the company to Immortal is very different than the reaction outside the company. Part of the thinking on a lot of these is, people want to work on smaller projects. Smaller projects in mobile tend to make sense.”

Or maybe they are just tired. Why not hire new talents to take on projects for both pc and console.

 

[Capaill]

It sounds like Diablo IV has massive scope creep. Somebody needs to make a decision and get cracking on the game.

 

[lipe123]

Meh, just release a HD remastered Diablo 2, it would be better than Diablo IV.

 

[Stark]

Blizzard's soul is taken over by EA, and it's another loss for the PC gaming community among numerous other studios, come what may one thing you need is the "essence" of the franchise, take latest star wars or marvel vs DC for that matter.
EA regrettably misses that point by a whole football field or may be 10 football fields put together, not everything is about deadlines or microtransection but they don't care.

(P.S. a few beers may have played a role in this comment)

 

[fps4ever]

Well as long as their developers and employees are happy about mobile games that is alright. It's not like their fan base and customers pay the actual bills or anything. And they get tired out (like having a steady job) is some burden? Sounds like they had a perfect job of when its done its done and don't like having any sort of deadlines...wouldn't we all like that?

 

[Nocturne]

I have no faith in them, at all.
D3 was a train wreck, and including focused on straight action and no RPG making the game feel like it was Goldenaxe with a Diablo skin, while it was fun on consoles, and a fun game it sure wasn't and didn't feel Diablo game.

Diablo as a franchise was successful and legendary because of it's marriage of turn based RPGs and an Action game. The problem is Blizzard seems content with reinventing the wheel rather than giving the actual fans of the franchise what they want.

Diablo 4 was apparently more a Dark souls clone in early development, no one ever asked for that, sure cool, but that isn't Diablo. Why can't they just make what the fans want An ARPG inst ad of another action game skinned and dresses to look like one, If I want to play Dark Souls I'll play that If I want a fantasy brawler I'll play Gauntlet, Goldenaxe, or D&D Chronicles of Mystara.

Just give the fans what they want a Diablo ARPG. D3 sold on the expectations it was like D1 and D2 which it wasn't to the point it doesn't even qualify in the genre. D3 may have been a financial success but it was far from being a critical success that they needed to produce.

GGG spawned because of the incompetence.and created Path of Exile, which every person I played or know who played D1and D2 agrees is the new Diablo series and a shining example of how to make a F2P game properly.

 

[doomworm]

Blizzard's soul is taken over by EA, and it's another loss for the PC gaming community among numerous other studios

I was thinking the same thing. You can see EA's tendrils spreading through Blizzard, just like with Bioware and so many others. They'll bleed it dry and move on to the next one.

 

[Dxire]

I have no faith in them, at all.
D3 was a train wreck, and including focused on straight action and no RPG making the game feel like it was Goldenaxe with a Diablo skin, while it was fun on consoles, and a fun game it sure wasn't and didn't feel Diablo game.

Diablo as a franchise was successful and legendary because of it's marriage of turn based RPGs and an Action game. The problem is Blizzard seems content with reinventing the wheel rather than giving the actual fans of the franchise what they want.

Diablo 4 was apparently more a Dark souls clone in early development, no one ever asked for that, sure cool, but that isn't Diablo. Why can't they just make what the fans want An ARPG inst ad of another action game skinned and dresses to look like one, If I want to play Dark Souls I'll play that If I want a fantasy brawler I'll play Gauntlet, Goldenaxe, or D&D Chronicles of Mystara.

Just give the fans what they want a Diablo ARPG. D3 sold on the expectations it was like D1 and D2 which it wasn't to the point it doesn't even qualify in the genre. D3 may have been a financial success but it was far from being a critical success that they needed to produce.

GGG spawned because of the incompetence.and created Path of Exile, which every person I played or know who played D1and D2 agrees is the new Diablo series and a shining example of how to make a F2P game properly.

I love Diablo and I am also an oldschool runescape player and for years now I think that for the diablo franchise, Blizzard should have followed Jagex's motto for the work they do with their community to make a game that everyone can enjoy in some way. Oldschool runescape has polls every now and then with a lot of ideas/content that also comes from the community and if they do not get approval from at least 75% of the community then it doesn't pass, on the other hand if they do get 75% approval or more, it passes and they start to work on those upcoming updates. The game is growing in players each year, simply because, what player in their right mind wouldn't like to have a choice of what happens with the game they will keep playing?

 

[Nocturne]

I love Diablo and I am also an oldschool runescape player and for years now I think that for the diablo franchise, Blizzard should have followed Jagex's motto for the work they do with their community to make a game that everyone can enjoy in some way. Oldschool runescape has polls every now and then with a lot of ideas/content that also comes from the community and if they do not get approval from at least 75% of the community then it doesn't pass, on the other hand if they do get 75% approval or more, it passes and they start to work on those upcoming updates. The game is growing in players each year, simply because, what player in their right mind wouldn't like to have a choice of what happens with the game they will keep playing?

GGG with POE is almost like that, they do and take a lot of feedback from players and consider the community and the health of the game before making design decisions, after every season that adds content to the game, they do take into account the plausibility and reception of the season before adding it permanently to the game, an Example was Abyss league, a lot of people liked it other than the Abysmal chance to face the Lich, so they tuned it better to make it a part of the game and did a little more balance on Abyss Gems and Stygian Vise Belts, Pokémon league errr, Beastiary League, wasn't really liked due to the mechanics of throwing nets to capture monsters, so before adding to the game as part of the new crafting system they tuned it so the master follows you now and does the capture mechanic so you can focus on surviving and dealing damage without the extra wonky mechanics added, thus fixing the League for the players, Harbinger League was way way overpowered, people liked it, Ancient orbs allowed you to reroll Unique Items as another item as the same type, and acquiring them wasn't hard, so they turned it into a random rare mod on maps and made a unique map that allowed you to access those items still without compromising them. Honestly the longer the time goes and the greater the game gets the better it has become.

 

[Nocturne]

Blizzard's soul is taken over by EA, and it's another loss for the PC gaming community among numerous other studios, come what may one thing you need is the "essence" of the franchise, take latest star wars or marvel vs DC for that matter.
EA regrettably misses that point by a whole football field or may be 10 football fields put together, not everything is about deadlines or microtransection but they don't care.

(P.S. a few beers may have played a role in this comment)

True but it is ok,

We still Have Larian, CDProject Red, GGG, and several others that shine as the pillar of "Doing it the right way, and doing it right by the fans"
Either way that ***** CEO of EA did what he wanted and started the whole PC games can cash in better on MTX pay to win Pay walls which he had a hardon for since 2006 when I started to hear his nonsensical crap about how gamers in the west should act like Asian gaming culture paying for every digital breadcrumb...………..

P.S. A bottle of Dewar's 12year was my influence...…..

 

[Krackan]

"I’ve spoken to 11 current and former Blizzard employees, all of whom spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to press"

That right there shoots all credibility out the window. He could simply make anything up at this point, and we'd have no way of proving him right or wrong. I really don't understand why Kotaku is featured so heavily on this site.

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

Past: Amazing
Present: Meh
Future: PURE SH*T

 

[m4a4]

Blizzard's soul is taken over by EA, and it's another loss for the PC gaming community among numerous other studios

I was thinking the same thing. You can see EA's tendrils spreading through Blizzard, just like with Bioware and so many others. They'll bleed it dry and move on to the next one.

...What the heck does EA have to do with Blizzard. I'd understand if you said Activision, but EA?

 

[Stark]

...What the heck does EA have to do with Blizzard. I'd understand if you said Activision, but EA?

well they have their claws in 'em but anyway technically you are correct and not intentional on my part.

 

[Darth Shiv]

"I’ve spoken to 11 current and former Blizzard employees, all of whom spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to press"

That right there shoots all credibility out the window. He could simply make anything up at this point, and we'd have no way of proving him right or wrong. I really don't understand why Kotaku is featured so heavily on this site.

Yes it's not great but it is a reality. Fact is most will assume there's no D4 until a teaser is shown anyway.

 

[Mugsy]

> "how Blizzard will monetize Fenris..."

Few words were more disappointing to read than those.

I date back to the original Diablo released in the 1990's. Back then, "how to turn a game into a perpetual cash cow AFTER the consumer bought it" wasn't on anyone's radar. Maybe it's a necessity today, but when "how to keep making money after the sale" is part of the design process, you seriously curb your creativity.

On the question of whether or not to use an "overhead" vs "over-shoulder" view, I see no reason why players should not have the option to choose the view they prefer. Racing games like "Need for Speed" have always offered a choice of views including "overhead", "cockpit" and first-person "bumper cam". Personally, I'd love a 1st-person Diablo that relies on Surround Sound to let you know when something's sneaking up behind you (maybe sell a "rear-view mirror" mod later on?)

If they wish to launch a "test balloon" on the preferred view, I'd say go back and re-create & release Diablo-I as "Diablo-1 VR" using the Hades engine. And release it publicly the same way D1 was, as "Shareware" online. A nice modernized FPS version of the original beloved game. Wanna make money off it? Easy. Start with a "free" (shareware) base game that ends up on 5-8 million PC's, then sell Expansion Packs adding features found in D2 & D3. Then sell "Customization" software to create weapons, armor, character classes, even entire levels.

I think Diablo is really straying away from what made the franchise great in the first place. And a "throwback" style game that includes a "throwback" means of distribution would do a lot to bring back that old "early PC" joy of discovering a great game and sharing it with your friends.

 

[MikitaM]

Meh, just release a HD remastered Diablo 2, it would be better than Diablo IV.

Better Diablo 1