I have three pretty serious concerns with the post.
- There needs to be chat in the console version. We all know why. It’s not a head scratcher.
- Not having lobbies in the console version and only having these presets is too limiting.
- Custom games made the game. Being able to type “trist03” into the game search helped us keep the group strong g during the entire run.
Furthermore a combination of these things make a pretty humungous hole in the social capabilities of the game. I am saddened that my purchase on both platforms was now merely a result of damage control. I’ll still have the PC version to experience the full game. Without chat OR lobbies in the console version, I don’t see a current pathway for the console players to not have a frustrating experience similar to the beta. I am completely dumbfounded and appalled that simple text chat, an item that is conveniently included in the xbox gdk, is not automatically included in the console release. By all means on release please do yourself a favor and join a game with 7 random people and try communicating with them. Chat must be a thing. It is a 100%, without rebuttal, a core feature of the game. Now combine this with not having lobbies. So login to the console and try to actually interact with another player to even a small capacity which you can on the PC. It’s not possible. We are going to get a beta product on full release and taking away these three things has completely killed the multiplayer and online social experience. Trading was supposed to be a thing. And the voice chat rebuttal already died. This is due to a much lower percentage of players automatically being on voice. I remember when it was an avid thing all console players had as a gold standard. Unfortunately this is not the 360/PS3 days when everyone used a mic. These days I put on my headset and find that about 1 in 10 players use voice in-game and often it’s even fewer than that number. They aren’t using it. So now we will be scrolling through premade button-clicky things instead of creating a custom game with a unique name, not be able to chat pre-game or outside of game’ or coordinate trades or even be able to have group discussions or gathering outside of the game, we won’t be able to communicate in the game. Once in-game, we’ll be yelling into our headsets hoping the 7 out of 8 players who don’t participate in voice chat will hear us, and there will be no method to reference what was said earlier in the game session. We wont be able to quickly type game messages to let players know “next game” or “here”. Just the word “here” appearing on the screen does WONDERS for the team experience. And the “next game” will not be something you can look up. It’ll always start out empty and we’ll need to wait for randos. “Runs” will not be a thing. Removing the most core feature of being able to lookup a game by name, and also the core feature of text communications is totally absurd and will certainly kill the game. I will add that it won’t be a matter of pressing my controller button (tv and console turn on automatically), plop on the couch, and playing diablo, keyboard at my side. It will be a random hodgepodge of mimes who can’t use sign language and a broken game community that can’t organize into groups or communicate at the most basic level like the PC players. I’ll need to either sit at my desk (I do that all day for work so no thank you) or movePC over to the TV and need to deal with the endeavor of PC-to-TV, which isn’t as convenient as the console format. Once on the PC I will not be able to show console-only friends the true flavor of D2. They will not be experiencing the same game. It will be silly and awkward for them. They won’t be able to type "trist02"in the chat and they won’t be able to enter that game name in the game-finder. They won’t be able to make a game at all, let alone actually freakin’ type the name of the game or type anything at all. It’s something that should have been a stone-solid non-negotiable must-have. God how I got excited for the console release and GOD was I that positive, hopeful, faithful player that said “it’s ok this chat is just not working in the beta, it’ll be in full release because look! The chat page is here, it just doesn’t work in the beta”. There have been plenty of rants in these forums which were never considered, but I hope I demonstrated how limiting and completely awkward the console experience will be, not reflecting that amazing social experience we all love and remember from 20 years ago, and it still holds true today. I will turn the console game on first thing on the 23rd, and if chat isn’t in the game, I will sadly press “A” on the refund button. Along with likely tons of others. I was really really confident in you this time. I thought that this would actually be a 100% victory for Blizzard considering everything. But someone who doesn’t know diablo somehow influenced the right people to not need to develop chat or channels or custom games on the console and the millions of console players new and old alike will now miss out on what diablo truly has to offer. When console players are yelling into their mic hoping someone hears them, not be able to make a dedicated game, and not be able to do proper trades or runs, they will look over to their friend who pumped this game and made them buy it and say “dude. you hounded me to buy a dumb game, bro.” It’s killed. The game on console is absolutely killed because we were too busy talking about how the skull is one pixel off or how auto gold pickup will be convenient. Now the console players will be crippled in such a way that will make it a poor experience. Please include chat, channels, and custom games (baalrunz001) on release. Not doing so will completely destroy the console version’s popularity and playability (and Ratings & Reviews section which never goes away from day one FYI. Those poor reviews will be sitting there years later earliest show up first). Please remember, these items were on the to-do list during beta and now they’re getting dropped completely at the expense of the entire game experience. Please add chat, channels, and custom games to console. I don’t want to refund this ge and I don’t want to play on PC any more. The console shouldn’t be murdered like this! Please!
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