Blue Posts on PvP and Coming Feature Changes
Posted 19 November 2012 by FluxWe’re not the only ones making suggestions for improvements in Diablo III, and two threads with ideas and questions about PvP got a few blue replies. No new info, alas, just some general encouragement with that patented Blizzard soon™ that we all know and love.
It would be my guess that we will post a blog update about PvP in Diablo III when we get closer to release 
…
Vaneras: The future updates I hint at are not “super secret” per se, the reason why we are not ready to talk about them yet is that there is a lot of iteration and changes happening right now.
How a new feature looks like today for an example may look completely different next week, and as you can imagine it is hard to make a preview or describe a new feature if that feature will work completely different upon release.
We also don’t want to raise false expectations, so if we announce a new feature and people get all excited about it, then those very same people might get very upset if the developers find that the new feature actually doesn’t work out very well and decide to replace it with something they feel works better.
How soon is soon? No telling. In the past we’ve gotten the blue blogs fairly close to the release of patches or new features, since post-release, Blizzard never wants to share details until they’re sure what they share is more or less what we’ll get in the patch. I hope they’re making progress on the PvP, at least. They all but promised us it would be out this year, and clearly thought it would have long since been out by now, from some of their “a few months after release” type comments.
Developing all the content for v1.03-v1.05 surely took more dev resources than they planned and must have delayed the PvP stuff, but check the calendar; D3 was released more than 6 months ago, and it’s less than 6 weeks until the end of the year. Tick tick tick…
Update: In comments Vei dug up one of many pre-release Jay Wilson quotes about the imminence of PvP patching. From 9:20 point in this interview:
HotS before D3 pvp
agreed, but i remember Jay the Loser Wilson saying on record that no pvp before the year’s end would be a “disaster”, im sure somebody can dig it out.
“Jay: Oh for the PvP patch? For the PvP patch, we definitely… I would say, we want to get it out within months after release. I would say, if it showed up close to the end of the year, that would be… I would say, almost a disaster. So I don’t see it slipping out of this year at all, and I think it’ll be much sooner. ”
http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3205698
9 Min 20 Sec in the video
On the other hand, what did you really expect him to say at the time?
‘Yay hooray, we’ll hammer out D3 for release now no matter what now, but for the PVP feature we advertised since forever you’ll need to wait another year’?
I mean, look at their other post-release content: If I recall correctly, the promised post-release DLC campaigns for WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne took them took forever to hand in. And even that was before they panicked about focusing all their ressources on maintaining WoW’s success / creating a new cash cow franchise …
Will you please stop? Damn fanboys.
I remember this too. In fact, every time I see Diablo 3 and PVP in the same paragraph, “disaster” comes to mind.
Not that PVP is high on my list of things to do, but anything that brings more players back or helps retain players is welcomed. It’s pretty much a no brainier that a high population of players is more healthy for the game, and the “economy”.
You know what? I’m sure this is a minority opinion but here I go anyway: Jay Wilson sucks. I think a lot of the bad stuff in the game comes out of him not having a good enough bull**** detector.
Just my 2 rupees.
Offtopic: @Humungous
rupees? hi there, fellow indian. I’m a bengali from kolkata.
Ontopic: PVP will bring back a LOT of players including three of my friends.. hopefully by xmas. I’m going nuts playing alone.
I originally thought that as well. I no longer think pvp will bring back very many friends that once played. I’m sure there will generally be a big influx again of players, but I doubt pvp will be able to captivate many of those players long enough to stick around for a while ESPECIALLY considering how limited customization/itemization is. honestly XfingersX that pvp is good, but i have little faith at this point in the dev team.
But he has such a good “epic” detector!
Who cares? The game’s broken.
Q2 2013.
Blizzard thought they would release PvP right after because they actually believed they had a well-rounded game and would only have to patch small things. (L M F A O)
They had to scrap all their plans to try to save the game for, at least, the hardcore audience, which is where all their resources went to. Every single patch has been focused on pleasing the hardcore audience because they are their last hope to keep the game alive.
Now that it has been more or less “taken care of”, they will go back to their PvP and casual players plans on full resources, which means Q2 2013 at the earliest.
Yeah, making things easier by reducing monster dmg and health, adding loads of free mf and increasing drop rates sure as hell has made this much more of a game for hardcore players?
I was sure as hell a hardcore gamer five years ago, but since I started at the university I can’t really call myself that anymore. I do play a lot (havent played this much since WoW vanilla) when I have time and did play loads over the summer, but to reach far in this game atm you only have to spend a few hours now and then.
they better put time in expansions then in pvp ****y things , thats what i think !
Probably trying to figure out a way to make money with PVP without a obvious upfront fee…
A random shrine bonus for only one round @0.5 dollars/euros with an option of subscription? Ooooh shiny piles of gold.
“hey guys, we figured we’d tell you, that we have nothing to tell you.”
“We also don’t want to raise false expectations, so if we announce a new feature and people get all excited about it, then those very same people might get very upset if the developers find that the new feature actually doesn’t work”
Oh like say … Talisman or Enchantress …
Enchantress is in the game bro, you mean Mystic.