Quote (Crossed @ Jul 25 2023 12:34am)

There was and still is no real endgame in D2 and to make matters worse the journey was fast, easy, and provided no challenge or depth. That's why classic WoW and Runescape have completely destroyed D2 in longevity.

D2 was a good story game for its time and that's about it.
It could not compete with the GOATS in the live-service model.
Blizz should have made it a subscription game and tried harder.

There's a saying you've probably heard of: You get what you pay for.
And D2 is a great example of something that can only go so far with its limited monetization structure.

Hobos and Euros like to cry about America not having free healthcare (a lot of states do have free healthcare though in some compacity) but guess what country they are flying to when their medical shit hits the fan?
The USA baby.
It's time to wake up and realize money = quality and this applies to all facets of life.

Quote (Crossed @ Jul 25 2023 06:34am)

There was and still is no real endgame in D2 and to make matters worse the journey was fast, easy, and provided no challenge or depth. That's why classic WoW and Runescape have completely destroyed D2 in longevity.

D2 was a good story game for its time and that's about it.
It could not compete with the GOATS in the live-service model.
Blizz should have made it a subscription game and tried harder.

There's a saying you've probably heard of: You get what you pay for.
And D2 is a great example of something that can only go so far with its limited monetization structure.

Hobos and Euros like to cry about America not having free healthcare (a lot of states do have free healthcare though in some compacity) but guess what country they are flying to when their medical shit hits the fan?
The USA baby.
It's time to wake up and realize money = quality and this applies to all facets of life.

Quote (BlakeXeal @ Jul 25 2023 12:16am)

That didn't really work out for Grand Theft Auto. The game stagnated and became just a recurring quarterly update cash grab to sell shark cards. There should have been another GTA out by now, but due to "money" they kept trying to milk GTA online for close to a decade. We could have been playing an ENTIRE game worth of content and yet we just have a few heist updates and car removed on a game released in 2013. When you tell executives and developers you will give them money for bare minimum effort (skins) they won't want to make things like expansions. When you sling money at them like whales on fake currencies, they ignore releasing new games and innovating. Minimum effort maximum money is their end game.

We have actual proof this doesn't work and objectively makes gaming worse. Developers don't want to move on to the next product or expansion if the current iteration is receiving so much money from whales. The reason wow continues to release expansions is because it grants them a boost to the playerbase every 2 years once people get tired of the current treadmill of content they've created. Innovation itself seems to have taken a nose dive with all the new avenues of monetization released. If money always meant a higher quality product why have certain games with extreme monetization gotten worse over the years? WoW is a shadow of it's former game population.

Quote (Snyft2 @ Jul 25 2023 03:49am)

the endgame isnt the reason for that, its just mass appeal :( and mass appeal is decided by unexpectedly retarded factors. example: which are the most popular sports in the world? first 3 are football (soccer you call it), field hockey and cricket. thats because the popularity of the sport isnt decided by how good or how fun it is, but by a somewhat unexpected factor - size of the stadium :unsure: people like large, open areas with a lot of other people :blush: thats why football has such mass appeal, and no one goes to for example water polo to inhale water vapors along with the sweat that comes with it :wacko: thats kinda the same reason people prefer mass games to single player ones, quality has nothing on it

so when you compare things, compare them to something in their class. d2 is an arpg, and for an arpg its managed to keep stable fanbase for years, and it did that because it has an endgame. basically its what gummy said, compare arpg to other arpgs. recently even arpgs have become all about size and player/content quantity. good example would be poe, shitload of things to do but nothing actually fulfilling, yet it still works due to quantity alone, and d4 uses the same principle, its just a worse game than poe. d2 didnt offer much quantity, but it definitely did offer quality :drool:

about monetization and healthcare you are right im not disagreeing, the times now are indeed like that..but it wasnt like that 20 years ago :cry: back then it was about passion and quality, now its...well yeah as you said, business model, monetization structure and good advertising :( i miss the old days :cry:

Quote (Crossed @ Jul 25 2023 02:26am)

Doesn't have anything to do with appeal, longevity has to do with player retention.

WoW and Runescapes journey was so much better for that.

Also monetization = new weekly/monthly content.

Quote (Crossed @ Jul 25 2023 02:46pm)

Talk about cart leading the horse.

Big stadiums are built because of popular sports and other events, not the other way around.

Quote (C4NTWO @ Jul 25 2023 05:53am)

if you think d2 was a good story and nothing else, it shows how little you played that game. d2 is the best arpg ever because of itemization. we didnt play for 20 + years because of the story... haha.

Quote (Crossed @ Jul 25 2023 10:05am)

I just beat D2 when I was a kid and that was it, maybe messed around hostiling people cuz the game was boring with nothing to do.

After that I played a lot better games like Guild Wars 1, Counterstrike, and Starcraft. I feel bad for anyone who missed out on any of these games cuz they were playing D2 😥

Quote (Crossed @ Jul 25 2023 10:05am)

I just beat D2 when I was a kid and that was it, maybe messed around hostiling people cuz the game was boring with nothing to do.

After that I played a lot better games like Guild Wars 1, Counterstrike, and Starcraft. I feel bad for anyone who missed out on any of these games cuz they were playing D2 😥

Quote (Crossed @ Jul 25 2023 07:05am)

I just beat D2 when I was a kid and that was it, maybe messed around hostiling people cuz the game was boring with nothing to do.

After that I played a lot better games like Guild Wars 1, Counterstrike, and Starcraft. I feel bad for anyone who missed out on any of these games cuz they were playing D2 😥