Why is this relevant to hacker news? This piece of news is something I'd expect if I went to reddit, but this shouldn't be anywhere on Hacker News at all.
Diablo III coming May 15
101–110 of 125 posts
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#102Expectations for D3 have gone from out of this world to all over the place lately. On top of the release pushbacks and feature cuts a few weeks ago one of Blizzard's PR people said essentially "don't get your hopes up for D3" (Google Bashiok Diablo 3). That furor was a bit overblown but still expectations are down for many people.
I think D3 will be more of what we got in SC2: essentially the same game but prettier. Which is sad because Diablo, WC2, SC and WoW were blockbusters (edit)in large part(/edit) because of their innovations.
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#103I am super excited for this, but a little disappointed that Blizzard apparently doesn't understand exchange rates. The Australian dollar is currently worth (marginally) more than the US Dollar, and yet the game costs an extra $20 here. I don't understand how this is justifiable.
I'm a little confused on how it is sold. Is it the box with air in it, only? Which is ridiculous for a game which is only playable with a net connection. And the battle.net site suggests you can buy a digital copy. If so, why can'y you buy the digital copy? What prevents you from?
I was referring to the digital copy - it's $20 more in Australia than it is in the US.
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#104I am super excited for this, but a little disappointed that Blizzard apparently doesn't understand exchange rates. The Australian dollar is currently worth (marginally) more than the US Dollar, and yet the game costs an extra $20 here. I don't understand how this is justifiable.
I'm not sure if you're having a rhetorical meow or just want to know what's going on here, so I'll offer an explanation. It's not about exchange rates and never ever will be. It's about purchasing power. It's just normal market segmentation, like how textbooks are cheaper in India/China than in the U.S. Whats the average purchasing power of an Australain versus an American? The Australian dollar is worth more than th…
It was a little of both I suppose :)
I guess it's particularly frustrating when you compare it to a company like Valve - who set the same prices for Australia as they do for the US (not sure about other regions) for all of their new releases. Even Apple have brought the App Store price tiers almost to parity between the two regions.
I suppose that they did do the math though - as you said - I think they just priced me into ordering an import instead. A quick look around has shown a few online retailers offerring it for less than $AUD 60.
Meow.
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a given, will be more interesting to see how individuals make large amounts of cash.
Do you really think that individuals will be able to make any money with this system? Farming versus INSERT INTO Loot (...) doesn't seem like a fair fight. I suspect that you'll have Blizzard not only taxing transactions, but being the counter-party in many of them anyway. If they can control the drop rate for farmers (and hence the perceived value), yet can materialize items at will what's to stop them from turning…
As with any currency, if we expect blizzard to create tons of items (inflation) then their price will be devalued appropriately. Unexpected inflation could benefit them initially, but it would also turn people away from the game.
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#106I don't like Blizzard much anymore. I liked WarCraft 2 and 3, and Diablo 1 and 2 (liked is a bit of a strong word for Diablo 1 and 2, though... 'twas more addicting than fun). Nice gameplay, good for LAN parties, and a decent hacker culture on all of them. In fact, the excellent map editors in StarCraft and WarCraft 3 were inspired by some hacker-made Warcraft 2 map editors.
Now? Blizzard's doing all they can to control the whole experience. No LAN capabilities, shameful treatment of the bnetd folks, and others that have been mentioned here. Contrast to id games who open source their engines and invite folks to build on them.
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#107While I'm very (very) excited for this game.. I'm very nervous about my productivity this summer. There are few things that can pull me away from coding. This is one of them. Maybe D3 will open some new startup opportunities? Yes.. yes that's what I'll tell myself. It's all research.
You could sell a game guide for D3, however Blizzard legal hates those. They've done stuff like file takedown notices with ebay, over and over. Then when the guy filed a counter notice, they refused to go to court, waited for the time period to expire, then started filing more takedowns for his new game guide auctions. This disgusting behavior got his ebay account suspended! And they refused to ever explain specifica…
Wouldn't making a game guide be fair-use, similar to an unauthorized encyclopedia of a fictional universe (like Middle-Earth)?
Even so, I suppose you'd have to defend the fair-use in court.
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#108Oh, they're fiendish indeed. They're offering the game for free if you sign up for a year of WoW. That's just mean. I managed to abstain from that, but I did pre-buy and pre-load the game. I was just so excited they had Mac support (which, last I'd heard, was sort of up in the air I thought).
The Mac support has always been great for Blizzard games and D3 is no exception. I've been playing the beta in a 2009 MBP for a couple of weeks now and everything looks pretty smooth. Unlike companies like EA, Blizzard spends real time making sure their Mac offerings are as good as the Windows ones and that is enough for myself to be a supporter.
Interesting, but you're right now that I think about it. I've never stopped to think about the fact that ALL of their games have always supported both platforms.
Makes me appreciate them even more. :)
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every Blizzard game released in the last 17 years has been released on PC and Mac at the exact same time (as far as I can recall).
Wrong. Diablo 1 had a long wait for Mac. http://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_I
Interesting, thanks. I was a dirty Windows user back then.
Re: Diablo III coming May 15
#110I have the beta. It's pretty awesome to behold, but the gameplay isn't significantly different than d1/d2.