In a recent post from Bashiok (D3 Community Manager) he stated "We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game." It is clear that Blizzard thought the item hunt would keep players hooked for at least a few months. They estimated by that time the PvP system would be in place and players would have something to keep them busy.
However, with D3 out for a little over a month now over half of the original player base has stopped playing. Two following major features that kept people playing D2 were simply taken out of D3:
#1. Character Customization- The swapping of Skills and Skill Runes allow for constant experimentation with builds, but give players no reason to make more than one character of each Class. For example, in D2 forced you to make multiple Sorceresses if you wanted a Lightning/Fire/Ice Sorceress, but D3 offers no replay value in this area.
Not only that, but the auto allocation of stats diminished the replay value of D3 even further. The only thing that really sets character's apart from one another is the Gear that he or she equips.
#2. Leveling Up- In Diablo 2, increasing the level of your character made him or her more powerful and you were rewarded with Stat Points and a Skill Point with each Level Up. However, in Diablo 3 it seemed that Leveling Up was very easy aside from maybe levels 58 to 60.
At this point many players have Level 60 characters and their only real goals are upgrading their gear and/or trying to beat Inferno Difficulty. Unfortunately the current item hunt is just not enough to keep the majority of players interested anymore.
Conclusion
Unfortunately we will have to wait until Patch 1.1 for PvP to arrive and currently no one knows when that patch will be released, maybe 2 or 3 months down the road. As for actual end game content (Eg. Progression Systems) we may not see it until 2013. The total number of Monthly Active Users will continue to decline until there is some end game content to challenge players. We will see what Blizzard plans to do over the next few months.
Official Blizzard Quote From Bashiok
"We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now.
We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly 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 which it itself still a ways out."
However, with D3 out for a little over a month now over half of the original player base has stopped playing. Two following major features that kept people playing D2 were simply taken out of D3:
#1. Character Customization- The swapping of Skills and Skill Runes allow for constant experimentation with builds, but give players no reason to make more than one character of each Class. For example, in D2 forced you to make multiple Sorceresses if you wanted a Lightning/Fire/Ice Sorceress, but D3 offers no replay value in this area.Not only that, but the auto allocation of stats diminished the replay value of D3 even further. The only thing that really sets character's apart from one another is the Gear that he or she equips.
#2. Leveling Up- In Diablo 2, increasing the level of your character made him or her more powerful and you were rewarded with Stat Points and a Skill Point with each Level Up. However, in Diablo 3 it seemed that Leveling Up was very easy aside from maybe levels 58 to 60.
At this point many players have Level 60 characters and their only real goals are upgrading their gear and/or trying to beat Inferno Difficulty. Unfortunately the current item hunt is just not enough to keep the majority of players interested anymore.
Conclusion
Unfortunately we will have to wait until Patch 1.1 for PvP to arrive and currently no one knows when that patch will be released, maybe 2 or 3 months down the road. As for actual end game content (Eg. Progression Systems) we may not see it until 2013. The total number of Monthly Active Users will continue to decline until there is some end game content to challenge players. We will see what Blizzard plans to do over the next few months.
Official Blizzard Quote From Bashiok
"We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now.
We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly 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 which it itself still a ways out."
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