Where were you 3+ years ago... I have been fighting the battle of BP tables /Stats /Comprehensive Rune word reform / Skill points / Syngergies for ages now... I fought with almost everyone in this forum including Bashiok over mechanics that should have stayed in the game. I totally and completely agree with your points, but dude you are late to the party man. And yes FCR has BP's. You're awesome, but I wish you were here with me enlightining the Blizzard crew before they got the idea to put the kibosh on any cerebrally challenging character development.
At first, i posted under my other account "thecakeisa_lie" and it wasn't too long before i was banned (temp, so this isn't an evasion).
There's one important thing to remember here - that few, if anyone at all that worked on the first 2 diablo games are actually on board with Diablo 3. This is a new developer, and they made it loud and clear from the beginning that their target audience is not diablo fans and players, rather - it's the masses of causal gamers. Honestly, if they will not listen to 60,000+ of our peers why would they listen to one more if i were there? I've always wanted to make great detailed posts about the mechanics of the game and what could work better - but i knew it would get me nowhere. I saw how far everyone else got with their posts. All i would see is a diablo player giving great reasons, examples, and explainations only to be shot down by a bunch of WoW kids and blizzard fanboy tools that think blizzard cant ever do anything wrong with stuff like "go cut urself emo if u want the game darker turn ur gama down" - seriously - i wasn't about to deal with these kids.
Blizzard made it clear that they also have never actually PLAYED diablo 2. I remember listening to Jay Wilson's interpretation of what a TPPK is (what a joke, lol), as i remember seeing they know nothing of d2 dueling edicut - which is that there is no healing. I learned they put a respawning "health globe" at the middle of their pvp arenas. Anyway the arena is stupid as well. Why cant i just agree to dueling in a pub game if i have a dispute or want to mess around with my friend. we have to leave to go have a fight? that's so stupid just let us agree to duel if you dont like the old hostile button from d2. god.
I saw an amazing post once about what late diablo 2 patches were leading twards - a much more colorful end game with cross class skilling. Example: widowmaker bowa sorc. Amazing colorful build that you dont see every day. I was going to make my own thread on the same subject and bring it a bit further - but i KNEW it would never go into consideration at all. What i read was an amazing eye-opening post. (if anyone knows what im talking about and can link me that would be great.)
Currently, I post in CS GO forums because valve actually cares about their competitive/hardcore community and updates the beta weekly - based on player feedback. When has that ever happened with diablo 3? D3 will come out and it will be a dumbed down - easy game that i may even beat without a single death. There's no skill tree or stats and i can edit my skills any time so there's no reason to make more than 1 of each class - as there was for diablo 2. I had 5 paladins for d2 at one point all with specific purpose. (my favorite was my FOHer). But i wont see anything like this in d3.
Diablo III is more of an obligation for me at this point than anything else. I've invested so much time on d2 as well as browsing these forums and looking at new info as it becomes public. I feel like i have to play through the game more than i actually want to. Blizzard is well aware of this for players like me and to them - $60 is $60. They dont care if i like it or not - just as long as the masses that don't put any effort into being good at a game ever that think COD is a good game like it - then its a success. The game will gross millions weather its a good game or a casual game. The reviews are bought - [see COD reviews, which would only be bought by none other than blizzard activsion]
To answer your question in short - i knew blizzard cares more about making money than they do pleasing their actual fans. Right now - their most money comes from their masses of casual players in WoW - and that's what diablo 3 is designed to appeal to.
