News Diablo 3 will be a MMO?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/10/31/diablo_3_mmo/

 

Lol thats awesome. I actually thought it said "Doom 3 will be an MMO" at first .

 

I'd much rather have the D2 style, with small games, rather than MMO. And for more reasons than the monthly fee.

 

Yea, i loved the style of Diablo 2, if they kept that and tweaked it a bit, then added massive multiplayer, i'm sure they would have a massive following.

 

£9 a month to play!!??!!

Loved D2, I mean REALLY loved playing D2...

Paying an extra £9 a month to play D3?? Not too sure about that though

Would probably try it first but I still somehow just think that £100 a year to play a game online when you consider that a broadband unlimited account is only £14.99 a month how can they justify this much?

A fiver would be about the limit in my book... It's not the cash, it's the principle. This is the reason I never played WOW...

JK23

 

Jeeeeeeeesus. I've been waiting for this day in mixed trepidation and anticipation for years, now. Hold the doors and fit me up with a catheter, boys, I'm going in.

Diablo 2 managed to eat two years of my life with a non-persistent world, I don't like to think what an MMO is going to do to me. Eep.

 

I can positivley say that were Diablo 3 o be an online game inly, i would not buy it.

It would ruin the whole experience in my opinion.

There would be unwanted competition between players, with the same attitudes existing on such games as BF2 towards the less advanced players.

Yatesy

 

Yeah, if it goes MMO, they can kiss my money goodbye. Granted, yeah, playing online is really nice, but for games like this, you NEED single player. Plus, in my mind, if I buy a game, that's it. No more money to them. I bought it, it's mine. The idea of having to make an original purchase to "own" the game, and then paying monthly to use it, is ****ing ridiculous. I wish these god damn money hungry production studios would cut this crap out.

 

And then who pays for the persistent upkeep of this persistent world? Would you rather see advertisements for Coca-Cola on the side of the Chaos Sanctuary? Running an MMORPG is a time-consuming and expensive business (at least when it's done right), and these companies do actually need at least some of the money they're making off subscriptions.

 

I realise that for an online version a cost maybe necessary,
but could they not release a single player version with LAN capabilities??

Yatesy

 

Actually, I have to say that that is a fantastic idea, would maybe get me into MMO's

 

Paying ~£9 pr month to play a game you have all ready paid for is just mental. Either give the game away for free and then charge people for playing it or charge for the game and then let the players play for free. The monthly fee is one of the major reasons why I don't play WOW but have great fun with GW.

Ohh and btw I'm still trying to make up my mind about Diablo 3 as a MMO...

 

I can totally understand this, but why can't the company take a more pre-emptive approach to this. I.e. they know that to keep the "persistent" world going, they need X dollars/pounds per player. Simple solution, adjust the purchase price to match. That way, every time someone buys a copy of the game, the pay for themselves to stay online. How would that be any less reasonable than charging monthly?

 

That's a different question, and a very good one - I was only addressing kiljoi's "money-grubbing" accusations. I think Blizzard just looked at the sheer number of people who played (and still play) D2 on Battle.net, looked at the number of MMOs out there and demand for more, and decided to scrap the single-player functions that, at the end of the day, make them less money and will take up way more of their time.

Much as I love D2's dynamic and the way it seamlessly integrated the single-player game into MP play, I think this is the way forward for Diablo. It's certainly the way forward for Blizzard, the lack of support in the last few years (apart from a couple of patches that took so long because there were literally only one or two people working on them) is mostly down IMO to lack of money, and subscriptions will fill this hole. Would still be nice to see SP in, and remember these are just ongoing and partially substantiated rumours, it could still happen

EDIT:

Would you pay $150 for Diablo 3? And furthermore, there's no way for Blizzard to tell exactly how much it "should" cost - they may be able to estimate average cost per person per month, and add on a bit of profit margin, but estimating how many people worldwide will buy the game and pay subscription? And estimating how long on average each of them will play for? I very much doubt that 5 years ago Blizzard suspected that SO MANY people would still be playing D2 to this day.

 

Ok, I can see your point. Doesn't mean I'm happy about it though. The thing that gets me though, if they scrap single player. What happens if I don't like the MMO? I'm screwed? I'd like to say I'd try it for a month or so, see if I like it. But if it sucks the big donkey nut, I wouldn't even have single player to fall back on, to help me justify the cost of the game.

 

Indeed. I really like the EVE method - the game is free to download (or you can buy it in a shop with included subscription time), you can even get free 14-day trial codes from existing players...you don't have to pay a penny until after you've already been in the EVE universe for 2 weeks. Now that's confidence in your game.

 

Well it'll be like any other MMO if it is indeed one - it WILL lose players from the monthly fee. The entertainment industry has been going downhill for years; games are only improving in graphics and special features, not the overall level of fun, so are no exception. And they're the most expensive form of "frequent" entertainment (so, movies, music, etc, not like going to a sporting event or concert). Apparently mental masturbation isn't only more expensive, but you have to let someone else cater it to your personal desires

I'd almost, to some extent, like to see blizzard servers be gone almost entirely; more of a Counter-strike style host-it-yourself thing. Blizzard would merely act as Steam, so to speak, to provide that list of all servers available (and, naturally, store character/item data for the closed realm), but the hosting is all done locally. The main difference being that instead of a server hosting a (cycle of) map(s), each server is just that short duration of play. So CS-style dedicated hosting wouldn't really work, but it would at least keep Blizzard's costs extremely low and negate the need for monthly fees.

That's the one thing I DID like about battle.net - you give the game name, they take care of everything, and it was free. I'm definately a fan of my FPSs, but D2 was really the only RPG (since FFVII) that I've enjoyed. And I enjoyed it because I only had to deal with up to seven other people at a time, not fifty thousand. Making it an MMO, aside from the fees, creates that "noob factor" which makes anyone who didn't start the first day the game came out have a severe disadvantage. It's definatlely still present with the smaller rooms, but at least they make it easy to recover.

Maybe it was just my love for being in hell cows by level nine. Rushes rocked. The expansion adding in 800x600 for a max res... not so much. Well, it was the thought that counted I suppose.

 

I felt the same way when I heard about FFXI. Getting rid of Single player?? What kind of nonsense is this?!? So I didn't play it.

However, as I have been addicted to WoW for quite some time, I find myself highly looking forward to a Diablo MMO. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if they came out with DIII as another game like DII, online and single player, waiting until "Diablo IV" before truly setting everything in stone for an MMO.

 

mmo for the multiplayer half of diablo 3 - yes but as the whole game it's self - no and I reckon I would not be the only person in the world to say this, diablo 2 had such potential but it just had too many bugs this is a chance for Blizzard to get things right and with much better graphics and sound too given the state of the average machine gamers have today.

just my 2 cents for what it's worth , I have never seen a company yet listen to it's propective clients.

 

No to MMO