Blizzard working on end-game solution for Diablo 3
Thursday, July 05, 2012 2:17 PM
Blizzard has said it is working on end-game solutions for Diablo 3, after admitting that "eventually [players are] going to run out of stuff to do".
Responding to comments from Diablo gamers, Blizzard community manager Bashiok said that while the title cannot compete with World of Warcraft in terms of content, the company is working on updates that will prolong the gaming experience.
"We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months," he explained.
"There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged and we know it's not there right now."
Describing forthcoming patches - 1.0.4 and 1.1 - Bashiok said that while they would give gamers "things to do", and the latter include PvP content, a full end-game solution is still some time away.
"It's a huge feature if we want to try to do it right and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1," he told Blizzard community members.
He was then asked if the company had released the game too early, to which he replied: "Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose, but we believed pre-release that the item hunt would be far more sustainable."
Then refuting a suggestion that people were turning away from Diablo 3 - the 12th fastest selling PC game in the UK ever in the first week of release - Bashiok insisted "hundreds upon hundreds of thousands" are still playing every day, with the game still to launch in China.
Another user then said that this implied millions had given up on the action title already, to which Bashiok replied that this figure did not refer to the number of unique players.
"I think you also overestimate how many people actually play the games they purchase every day or even every week," he concluded.