Can Diablo III recover it's lost audience in 1.0.4?

Category: News Wire Published on Thursday, 19 July 2012 13:58 Written by scaR Hits: 247

The world of Sanctuary was reborn two months ago amid great hope and anticipation. Trinidad and Tobago's gamers were all geared up and ready for the launch with over 100 players on the Facebook group. Despite the failures at launch and problems that ensued, we pressed on. All the way past normal, nightmare, hell and ultimately inferno. For many of us that's about where the game stopped making sense.

With Jay Wilson facing the wrath of the internet over claiming that Diablo II wasn't as good as gamers remembered it to be, the higher ups got involved. Blizzard Presisdent and Co-founder Mike Morhaime has written a plea to gamers. He hopes to entice us with the promise of the 1.0.4 patch as well as keep us anxiously awaiting the 1.1 PvP (Player vs Player) release.

Dear Diablo Players,

Now that Diablo III has been out for two months, I would like to take a step back and discuss the launch, the feedback from the community, and talk about what the future holds for the game.

We’ve had an enormous amount of feedback since the launch. I speak for everyone at Blizzard when I say that we appreciate the passion and affection many of you have for the Diablo series. We truly believe “Every Voice Matters,” so I want to thank you for sharing your experiences in an effort to help us improve the game. Your support makes it possible for us to continue doing what we do, and we never take that for granted.

You’ve seen some of that work already in patch 1.0.3, and you’ll see additional improvements with patch 1.0.4. On the game balance front, this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team’s goal of promoting “build diversity,” with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities. Another topic we’ve seen actively discussed is the fact that better, more distinct Legendary items are needed. We agree. Patch 1.0.4 will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won’t be expecting.

I know many of you are also looking forward to patch 1.1, our PvP update, which will provide new experiences and give you a whole new way to apply the skills you’ve picked up while battling demons. This patch will also build on the social and auction house changes I mentioned above, and the team will continue to fix bugs and further tune game balance as well.

We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.

As always, we appreciate your candor and passion. Your constructive feedback and thoughts are valuable -- they will continue to help us be a better company. I just want to reiterate that while we can’t claim to have ever shipped a perfect game, we are committed to supporting our games relentlessly and making improvements where we can. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Mike Morhaime

Is it too little too late? Some metrics have shown that Diablo III has lost over 80% of it's audience since launch. Our once very active local Diablo III group has boiled down like bhagi, save for the few latecomers to the game. The last hope that remains is the 1.1 PvP patch. If it fails then the game will ultimately fail to live on as it's awesome predecessor did.

[ Full message from Mike Morhaime : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6080663481#1 ]