Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls

Bubbles

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what a glorious shit show this turns out to be

Activision wins patent that uses matchmaking to make you want to buy stuff | PC Gamer

""A system and method is provided that drives microtransactions in multiplayer video games. The system may include a microtransaction arrange matches to influence game-related purchases. For instance, the system may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player. A junior player may wish to emulate the marquee player by obtaining weapons or other items used by the marquee player."

the patent in question
United States Patent: 9789406
 
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Evernothing

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Those systems work too. In R6 Siege, I picked up the character Blackbeard after I played against someone who had him, and saw that I liked his ability / playstyle. I used in game earned currency not real $$$, but still.
 

Needless

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Disgusting blackbeard picker GET OUT

i would be surprised if that isnt already a thing in other games to a degree
 
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xzi

Mouthbreather
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member when videogames were fun and matchmaking was made for a chance at a healthy competitive environment
 
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Balroc

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Yeah, I remember buying a couple of champions in League back in the day after seeing people play one that looked interesting. I don't know if I would be as susceptible to it now but the cognitive pull is quite strong.
 

Tholan

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Diablo 4 may have been reworked from scratch probably because the upper management set up ways to monetize the game as a priority, instead of making a game that is fun to play first then thinking how to milk it. Diablo 3 was the first of this kind with the AH, and it failed hard so they had to rethink the whole concept, and it looks like they haven't found anything clever yet.
I'm sure we'll be speechless when we see the mtx-ridden monstrosity that D4 will be. 4 acts as 4 DLC, unlockable character ala battlefront 2 (pay $$ or you need at least 2000 hours to unlock The Assassin !) etc.
 

goishen

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member when videogames were fun and matchmaking was made for a chance at a healthy competitive environment


You damned hippie. You should pay for that matchmaking and if you wanna have any chance at winning. Open your fucking wallet, now!
 

Aamry

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Don't know the accuracy of this vid, but looks like bad news for ActiBlizz

 
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Burns

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Don't know the accuracy of this vid, but looks like bad news for ActiBlizz



It looks like the tech sector, in general, may have been trending downward for the last month. Activision-Blizzard was at $83.28 on Oct 1, $68.99 on Friday (Nov 2), and $64.25 at close today (Nov 6).

So Blizcon shenanigans probably didn't help, but the stock was likely headed for a hit on Monday, regardless.

Some sources:
Wall Street Journal (paywall): Dow, S&P Rise Despite Tech Sector Drop
From last week about tech ETF trends: https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/etfs/tech-stocks-slammed-etfs-beat-market/
More about October: Tech stocks plunged in October, suffering their worst month since the 2008 recession
 
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Fedor

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ya5eyotd8kw11.jpg
 
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Bubbles

2022 Asshat Award Winner
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Diablo 4 may have been reworked from scratch probably because the upper management set up ways to monetize the game as a priority, instead of making a game that is fun to play first then thinking how to milk it. Diablo 3 was the first of this kind with the AH, and it failed hard so they had to rethink the whole concept, and it looks like they haven't found anything clever yet.
I'm sure we'll be speechless when we see the mtx-ridden monstrosity that D4 will be. 4 acts as 4 DLC, unlockable character ala battlefront 2 (pay $$ or you need at least 2000 hours to unlock The Assassin !) etc.

It seem to be very clear that they have scrapped D4 development at least twice and started over. If it's true that they wanted to announce D4 at 2017 blizzcon but didn't, one can easily deduct from it that Battlefront 2 debacle had a major impact on their decision and it's clear that that version of D4 was very very heavily driven by mtx. So much so that they had to abandon the entire development and start over. Next reset probably happened just weeks ago. Probably top brass had been pushing for more and more mtx in that version as well. Most likely many lead devs just said fuck it and quit. So they have to start over yet again. When they announce D4, it will seem to be incredible at first (rumors are (reddit lols) it's gonna be open world style). All shiny and beautiful. Nothing or very little will be said about mtx at first. Even during various Q&A's they will dodge the question. They will try to lure people into it. It will be a mtx creep. But undoubtedly the game will be developed around it. Ideally I would like D4 to go with PoE route and not have gold as currency but gold/points is one of the main driving factors when it comes to mtx so I don't see it happening. Having gold in your game is wonderful from the mtx standpoint because over time it loses value and you need more and more of it.
writing this much hurts my brain. I need to get back to fsr and just post shit
 
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OU Ariakas

Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
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It seem to be very clear that they have scrapped D4 development at least twice and started over. If it's true that they wanted to announce D4 at 2017 blizzcon but didn't, one can easily deduct from it that Battlefront 2 debacle had a major impact on their decision and it's clear that that version of D4 was very very heavily driven by mtx. So much so that they had to abandon the entire development and start over. Next reset probably happened just weeks ago. Probably top brass had been pushing for more and more mtx in that version as well. Most likely many lead devs just said fuck it and quit. So they have to start over yet again. When they announce D4, it will seem to be incredible at first (rumors are (reddit lols) it's gonna be open world style). All shiny and beautiful. Nothing or very little will be said about mtx at first. Even during various Q&A's they will dodge the question. They will try to lure people into it. It will be a mtx creep. But undoubtedly the game will be developed around it. Ideally I would like D4 to go with PoE route and not have gold as currency but gold/points is one of the main driving factors when it comes to mtx so I don't see it happening. Having gold in your game is wonderful from the mtx standpoint because over time it loses value and you need more and more of it.
writing this much hurts my brain. I need to get back to fsr and just post shit

It is fucking mind boggling that these giant companies cannot view the landscape of games and see that there are very easy ways to do mtx in a non-intrusive but very profitable way. We bring it up a ton in this thread but, again, PoE shines here. They price the QoL MTX's rather inexpensively so that when you start to enjoy yourself you dip your foot in for a few stash tabs for a measly 5-10 bucks. Then, once you are full on hooked you start paying upwards of 15 bucks to make your favorite skills look different. The number of people that play PoE and bitch about the MTX pricing is so close to 0 that rounding down would put you there.

But they won't look out there and do something that seems fair for the customers because, as Jim Sterling so eloquently puts it, they don't just want a lot of the money; they want all the money. Every fucking time.
 
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xzi

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I don't know, it costs 40$ to make your character not look like a dogshit level 8 retard for the entire time you're playing. I'd say it's reasonable for people to say that's slightly overpriced. However it's a F2P game and you can just go play Diablo Mobile instead
 

mkopec

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That whole Battlefront 2 thing was, like always, way fucking WAYYYY overblown by dumb fucking kids which didnt even understand the system. And they even took the shit out before the main release of the game to never come back either. Fucking bitch ass gamers.
 
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Punko

Macho Ma'am
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The D3 RMAH made them fucktons of money. The only issues they had were technical issues, there were no legal issues. It wasn't minors involved in microtransactions, it was full grown men spending 250 $/€ on pixels.

The technical issues were so overwhelming though (adjusting PC clock to make auctions finish instantly mainly, but some people were also editing sales prices on the RMAH) that, due to the fucktons of money involved, they had to close it down.

Some people made a lot of money scooping up all the items that were offered up for bidding, by making them end instantly and relisting the item for 25% more as an instant buy. I never fucked with it since I considered the legal consequences, but obviously not everyone cared as much.

I bought € 250 worth of gold right before they doubled the gold price people could list items at in the RMAH, while the max RL money value remained the same.

I called them the day after that change to request the money from that purchase back, since they had halved the value of my virtual gold. They instantly agreed on a full refund.