Cancelling Titan led us to Overwatch, and as another example, cancelling Nomad led us to World of Warcraft."Īnd sure, cancelling a project that's apparently going awry is sensible if you can afford it. "Not shipping a game is never an easy decision to make, but it has always been the right decision for us. "Historically, we've launched about 50% of the total projects we've worked on over the past three decades-those are the ones we consider representative of Blizzard quality," they said. Kotaku's official response from a Blizzard representative didn't comment on any of the specifics claimed by these sources, but did point out that Blizzard cancel a lot of projects. They're still not sure if it'll be isometric or use shouldercam, and much could still change - or be scrapped. Supposedly it's getting away from the gentle look of Diablo III and back to the grit and grime of Diablo II, and drawing a bit of influence from Destiny with ideas of MMO-lite hub cities where you can meet other players and story-driven dungeons like Destiny's Strikes. Next came 'Fenris', which is the project currently looking like it'll be Diablo IV. Kotaku's sources say folks worked on it from 2014-2016, then it was scrapped. It might not even end up named Diablo IV, given how different it was. So on went Blizzard's Team 3 to a project codenamed 'Hades', which Kotaku describe as a "Diablo take on Dark Souls" with an over-the-shoulder camera rather than the traditional top-down look. Some say they felt Blizzard management saw D3 as a big mess (which it was, at first), and wanted to move on. It paints a picture of direction changes and unpleasant surprises going back years, to the cancellation of a planned second expansion for Diablo III in favour of working on something new. Kotaku's report draws from eleven current and former Blizzard employees, who speak anonymously because this isn't authorised, obvs. Supposedly that's why Blizzard didn't talk about Diablo IV at BlizzCon this month, instead announcing mobile game Diablo Immortal: it wasn't ready enough, too much is in flux, and after the failure of their somehow-never-announced MMO Titan, they don't want to rush it. The report says it's currently going isometric with a Diablo II-ish gritty look, but this too may change and. It's a great sample of the ARPG, and is undeniably building up excitement for Diablo 4's full release.The game we expect to be Diablo 4 was once looking like a Dark Souls-ish over-the-shoulder affair, according to sources speaking to Kotaku, though that plan was dropped a few years back. For the most part, however, the Diablo 4 beta can run very smoothly at times. There are balance issues, as Barbarians struggling with Dungeon bosses understand, and graphical errors aplenty, as well. There are certainly more than four issues that need to be fixed in Diablo 4's early access beta. It's possible Blizzard was stress testing on the beta's first day, as improvements have been made quickly. Queue times had peaked over two hours at one point on the first day of the beta, shrunk down to around 80–90 minutes, and are now often below five minutes. But Blizzard is at least trying to fix them or make them less pronounced.ĭiablo 4 players have shared positive news regarding the beta's queue times, now that the second day of the beta has begun. Whether Blizzard can solve them while the Diablo 4 early access beta is ongoing, or prior to next weekend's open beta, is unclear. It's not just taking notes and dealing with these issues prior to launch. To be clear, these are issues that Blizzard is actively working on, according to its forum post. The fourth issue is high RAM and GPU usage on select hardware. The third issue is rubberbanding or being blocked while transitioning between areas. The second issue is players are disconnected and told that their party doesn't exist. The first issue is that players are unable to join a party while in-game. These issues are on top of Diablo 4's queue problems. In a list posted on Blizzard's Diablo 4 forums, the studio shared four key issues that it's aware of and working on. RELATED: Asmongold Loses Diablo 4 Beta Character Live on Stream It will be able to take what it learns from the betas and apply fixes to the full launch of Diablo 4. As exciting as it is to be able to try Diablo 4 months ahead of the game's launch, it's clear that Blizzard's intent with the betas is to stress test the game in a live environment. There's the ongoing Diablo 4 early access beta, which will last through the current weekend, and then an open beta starting March 24 and lasting through that weekend. Blizzard is holding two beta sessions ahead of Diablo 4's launch in June.
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