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Diablo III shelves PvP to make launch

by Justin Olivetti on Mar 9th 2012 9:00PM

Betas, Fantasy, Launches, PvP, Diablo III

233

When a release date is nearing and a crucial game feature is falling behind, what is a studio to do? If you're Blizzard and you're looking at the fate of one of the biggest titles of the year, you yank the offending feature from the game so as to not delay the entire product.

Blizzard announced today that Diablo III's PvP is not living up to the studio's standards and that it will be removing it for now in order to keep the game on track for launch. So why not just hold back the game until it's completely ready? In the words of the studio, "We ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who's waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete."

Diablo III's PvP functionality will be restored at an unspecified later date with multiple Arena maps, achievements, personal progression, and a matchmaking system.

[Thanks to Marc for the tip!]

Source: PvP Update
More coverage: Diablo III official site

Reader Comments (233)

And...here....we....go. /jokerface

Bet you that RMT AH made it in though! Gotta get that cash!

@Nenene
Additionally: So much for 'When it's ready'.

Old Blizzard is dead.

@Nenene Blizzard is dead. No need to qualify the 'old' part.

What we have now is VivActiBlizz - only better than Zynga because they have better quality drones slaving for them.

@Nenene
Blizzard´s new motto for the upcoming games: "When its Diabloed"

@Nenene

Hopefully this adjusts peoples expectations of their next MMO as well. They've been all about the money and not at all about the games for years now.

@Nenene

Really, really sad. Not because I intended to ever buy another Blizzard product ever again, but to see a company fall so far from its former glory.

Remember when "PvP' wasn't something game devs had to work around.

They delivered a great game and just added a damn pvp toggle and let the magic happen.

This new generation of gamers needs to be spoon-fed everything.

On another note, while "when its ready" is definitly dead, Diablo 3 has been promoted as "almost ready" for almost 2-3 years now so.

@kalipou134 I remember when pvp basically killed online Diablo due to the constant griefing. Gamers have short memories, I guess. It's not an easy feature to do right, and personally I'd rather they cut it and ship.

@Nenene

Blizz is dead. Long live Blizz

@Nenene

You either die young or live long enough to become the bad guy.

@kalipou134

Don't forget Wrath of the Lich King. And Cataclysm. Boy, were those shining examples of "it's shipped when it's shipped, done or not".

@Nenene Blizzard and Bioware are dead. Gone. They've been eaten by two awful corporations with a long history of buying game development studios, chewing them up and leaving their dead damaged brand carcasses on the roadside.

On the positive side, this leaves room for new, brash and innovative studios to fill those vacancies. I'd rather play Torchlight 2 than D3 anyway.

@Blyn
'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned.'

@NeverDeath

Sadly, this is the way the industry works now a days. If you are being published by a major studio, you are on borrowed time only. Ultimately, your project planning is at the mercy of the money peoples overarching yearly/quarterly goals. These goals coupled with lame media demo's and other things that promote throw away work mid project will inevitably constrain, derail, or otherwise destroy development teams production, iteration and quality goals.

The only studios that are in development positions to ship "when its ready" are ones who are privately owned, or have more unique circumstances (usually indy). This is the reality of triple A games. No body, not even blizzard has a blank check anymore.

@Joaquin Crowe

Indeed. I am looking forward to Torchlight 2 as well. Also, while not really the same thing, Dungeon Defenders is my favorite loot generated game.

@Joaquin Crowe

Mass Effect 3 begs to differ. Day 1 DLC debacle aside, that game is amazing...multiplayer is surprisingly great and deep as well. Regarding blizzard though, does seem like they jumped the shark. I never did much pvp in Diablo 2, but surprised after the long development cycle that they can't launch with this feature.

@Torticoli good job joystiq. This was ALMOST a post about an official release date.

Hopefully next time

@Radeus
Day1 DLC = instant no-buy. I don't care what game it is.

Bioware can piss up a rope.

@Nenene Yeah. I'm not to fond of this RMT idea.

Only reason I may even get Diablo is because my girlfriend and her friends but I really don't like supporting this type of system.

All this DLC and RMT business is old and the more we support it, the worse it gets. People complain for example about pay to win games...well, you keep on buying games like this and it won't be long before Pay to Win is "standard".

That's how I feel.

Nothing has changed in their business model. Vivendi has always run Blizzard with an iron fist, and they've always had some shell company take the blame for it.

10 years ago it was Sierra today it's activision.

But for those of us who're old enough to remember how people whined about Diablo 2 being ruined because it had cartoony graphics and that it got released too soon because Blizzard was ruined by Sierra it's kind of hilarious to see how little has changed.

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Diablo III shelves PvP to make launch

Reader Comments (233)

Posted: Mar 9th 2012 9:02PM Nenene said

Posted: Mar 9th 2012 9:04PM Nenene said

Posted: Mar 9th 2012 9:47PM Borick said

Posted: Mar 9th 2012 10:27PM Fabius Bile said

Posted: Mar 9th 2012 11:02PM SnarlingWolf said

Posted: Mar 9th 2012 11:55PM NeverDeath said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 12:13AM kalipou134 said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 12:34AM maxwell97 said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 12:50AM jimr9999us said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 1:56AM Blyn said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 4:58AM Torticoli said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 8:38AM Joaquin Crowe said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 8:53AM Nenene said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 9:04AM Kalex716 said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 12:00PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 12:33PM Radeus said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 3:44PM MythosMinion said

Posted: Mar 10th 2012 7:51PM Nenene said

Posted: Mar 11th 2012 3:00AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 11th 2012 6:46AM oddshrub said

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