Newsbrief: Following Jay Wilson's departure from the project in January, Blizzard's Josh Mosqueira will be stepping up as the new game director for Diablo III, as announced in the team's blog. In his introductory post, he announces a focus on addressing issues with the in-game economy and item drops:
Itemization is one of our big focuses for Diablo III moving forward... Our goal is to make the loot experience more enjoyable for ALL players. This includes reducing the amount of loot that drops while improving the overall quality, introducing targeted Legendaries, and giving players ways to directly customize their character's armor — both visually and mechanically. We're also looking into ways to reduce the impact of the Auction House. While we think the feature does provide a lot of value, it shouldn't feel like the end-all-be-all force driving character progression.
Mosqueira joined Blizzard in 2011. Prior to that, he served as a creative director on Ubisoft's Far Cry 3.
LOL Antoine. Kris Graft told me I need to ease up on the appearance of "self promotion", so I'm glad you helped me out there :) I'm also not supposed to put links to my relevant papers outside my own blogs anymore, so if you want the solutions I wrote in 2011 (6 months before the game was released), you will have to look up my "Smedley's Dream Part 1 & 2" on your own. Well more like it predicted all the problems with the D3 RMAH. If Josh want's confidential help, he knows where to find me.
Sounds great! Now I may actually play Diablo 3 again at some point.
As it was, I just wasn't enjoying it, thanks in part to insane hyperinflation, bugged achievements, and the fact that I couldn't succeed at higher difficulties without the use of the auction house.
Sounds great. I stopped playing Diablo3 when I realized that I get around 10x the money when I sit 1 hour in the auction house just refreshing for vs. 1h farming. And then of course the loot is much better in ah too...
I guess that still sounds like self promotion....
As it was, I just wasn't enjoying it, thanks in part to insane hyperinflation, bugged achievements, and the fact that I couldn't succeed at higher difficulties without the use of the auction house.
Well, I'm glad they finally admitted it. Good luck turning this drunken elephant around Josh.