in the game. Even a .01 percentage change in loot drop can drastically change the balance between player challenge and reward."Knowing that the margin of
FIFA Coinsfailure can be so high, making a game expected to sell millions at launch alone
is a high-pressure situation. "[Keeping fans happy is] absolutely one thing we
always have to keep in mind when we tweak anything in the game, because we have
to normalize those slight changes to over a million players, or even 5 million
players."Martens
, "Even defining what 'super rare' means in the
trove flux game changes when you scale to five million players. So even if we make a mistake with a 'super rare' item
and it only affects 400 players out of 5 million, that still is 400 players who
have a bad experience. It's really a big deal."Naturally, Blizzard keeps an eye
on the action RPG space. There have been notable Diablo-inspired games, whether
talking about Runic's Torchlight or Iron Lore's Titan Quest, or games with
less-obvious Diablo
like Gearbox's FPS Borderlands. Every successful action RPG that has come out since the last Diablo has in some way raised peoples' expectations for Diablo
III."We honestly think there are a lot of fabulous games in the space," said
Martens. "Even console games, like Borderlands and mobile games like Dungeon
Hunter where the loot drop mentality is a very important part of game design. We
know how hard these kinds of games are to make and there's so much pressure on
us because
have enormous shoes to fill."It's a matter of respect and reverence for the Diablo franchise, and what it's done for the gaming community, that keeps the
competition in the genre very civil -- it's a contrast from claims of "Halo
killers" or executives going back and forth over who has the better military
FPS.What Blizzard is looking to do
mmogo is exceed fan expectations and live up to the
very legacy that the studio has created, which is no easy feat considering that
the lengthy time span between
