Ready for the BETA!

I agree the game needs to finish beta before diablo 3 hits... they need to anchor an early revenue stream, because despite the fact that D3 will probably pale in comparison to its predecessors, WOW has opened the door for them... and everyone will be playing it no matter what.

Anchoring players means that they have spent money and will inevitably return when D3 finally fails to keep them entertained, which will probably be a run-through or two.... if they aren't anchored early they will have less of an instinct to come back and spend, since they already spent on D3.

Yep thats the main thing, getting people used to and invested in this game before diablo 3.. i think the skill system alone will make this game very playable over D3.

But other than torchlight 2/online i dont really see any direct competition so its important to build up a player base before hand, rather than just a community forum base

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zeto wrote:

I agree the game needs to finish beta before diablo 3 hits... they need to anchor an early revenue stream, because despite the fact that D3 will probably pale in comparison to its predecessors, WOW has opened the door for them... and everyone will be playing it no matter what.

Anchoring players means that they have spent money and will inevitably return when D3 finally fails to keep them entertained, which will probably be a run-through or two.... if they aren't anchored early they will have less of an instinct to come back and spend, since they already spent on D3.

what the hell are you talking about? People can play more then one game. I played D2 and a lot of others... at the same time. I played D2 and TQ at the same time.

Also, it may happen that PoE sucks and D3 is awesome. Or they both may suck. Who knows?

What the dev's of PoE need to do is focus on PoE and not worry about things they can't control. They don't "need" to release the game any sooner then they want too.

Also, the success of WoW though important, is not the only reason why D3 will sell like hot cakes. It's because Blizzard makes games people like. I love how everyone thinks that WoW is the reason that Blizzard is so successful, WoW is why Blizzard is main-stream, they are successful because they make amazing games. Three games that basically set the standard of 3 genres (ARPG, RTS, MMO) came out of 1 company.

I get what you mean though. For me its kinda like halo and COD. I usually play halo cause i feel like i am wasting the time i put into COD that i could put into halo instead.

actually you can thank condor for the diablo series, just like bethesda is not responsible for fallout creation, yet both companies will be thought as such by most people

its easy to pick up and develop sequels based on previous success for such big companies, its what most publishers do now is just buy the company lol


WOW is the most well known game in the world, even non gamers know the name to suggest that it wont be 1 of the main reasons why future blizzard games will be popular is absurd


as for playing both, not all gamers are like that.. i will but i would probably go with 1 or the other in the end, while the bulk of gamers would just pick 1

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eversorgod wrote:

actually you can thank condor for the diablo series, just like bethesda is not responsible for fallout creation, yet both companies will be thought as such by most people

its easy to pick up and develop sequels based on previous success for such big companies, its what most publishers do now is just buy the company lol


WOW is the most well known game in the world, even non gamers know the name to suggest that it wont be 1 of the main reasons why future blizzard games will be popular is absurd


as for playing both, not all gamers are like that.. i will but i would probably go with 1 or the other in the end, while the bulk of gamers would just pick 1

I said WoW is why blizzard is mainstream.

Yes my grandma knows what WoW is, but she doesn't play it, she isn't a gamer, so that demographic isn't relevant to the discussion. (Yes I know there are grandma's who play it, there are also grandma's who shoot heroin, but I'll wager both make up a minority.) Also, I wonder if WoW is more well known then Mario.

If the "bulk of the gamers will just pick one". Then how can so many millions of copies sell for both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat? Mario and Sonic? Call of Duty and Gears of War? Yes, some players are attached to either one or the other, the more extreme players are usually the "hardcore" gamers who go onto boards and flame each other. Still, the great mass of people just buy games they like.

I know that Blizzard was inspired by other games when they created Diablo (nothing is new, nothing is truly unique). They were probably inspired by D&D (so thank you) which was inspired by Tolkien (so thank you) who was inspired by mythology (so thank you) which was created by imagination.

Blizzard was already huge prior to WOW though. If http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Best_selling_Blizzard_games is remotely correct, they were essentially just as big between starcraft and diablo.

So I think it's only proper to say that WoW will influence all future projects of theirs, probably to their detriment... however it's probably not fair to say that that is why they are 'mainstream' as they were a huge company prior to that with 2 of the best selling games of all time.

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zeto wrote:

So I think it's only proper to say that WoW will influence all future projects of theirs, probably to their detriment...

I guess we'll have to wait to see if this is true.

Until then, it's only a faded opinion.

Zeto is right. The vast majority of players will invest their time into one or the other. That's not to say they won't play both. I'll play through both PoE and Diablo3 when they come out but like almost every other player, I'm not a professional gamer. Once I play through them, I'll need to choose one to continue to play while the other will get set aside. There's just no way that I (or most other people) have the time to invest in both games to experience all that both games have to offer. This is very much a zero sum competition.

Diablo3 already has the advantage because it's much more well known. I would bet that hundreds of times more people are actively following D3 as PoE. Yes, the fact that WoW is the most successful and best selling game in history certainly helps D3 get even more publicity.

The trick will be to release PoE early enough that players will get very invested in it. Many players will then leave PoE to play D3 when it comes out. After they play through D3 once or twice and comes time to make a decision, having already invested hundreds of hours (and maybe even some money) into PoE can help tip the balance in PoE's favor rather than abandoning it for D3 forever.

However you have to keep in mind that blizzard invested a lot of money in d3... They need to sell a lot of games in order to get that money back... I don't think that this will be a problem for them (as you already described they have a really big playerbase). But on the other hand GGG will not need that many people to write black numbers. So of course it isn't nice to loose players but i don't think that this will mean the end to PoE or something like that. And i think that there will be a lot of players who will play both d3 and PoE if both games are good.

Of course i think tpapp157 is right with the following argument:

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tpapp157 wrote:

The trick will be to release PoE early enough that players will get very invested in it. Many players will then leave PoE to play D3 when it comes out. After they play through D3 once or twice and comes time to make a decision, having already invested hundreds of hours (and maybe even some money) into PoE can help tip the balance in PoE's favor rather than abandoning it for D3 forever.

However the best thing is to create a real good and fun game... I think there are already enough registered people to spread the word if PoE will satisfy there expectations!