Look at this gem

[newyorkstocker]

Original post by: Cursondax

Dear Money,

Now that we've ignored your feedback for two months and we aren't making as much money on the RMAH as we hoped, I would like to take a step back and discuss how we can molest your wallets more effectively.We've had an enormous amount of complaints since the launch. I speak for everyone at Blizzard when I say that you are loud and annoying and we hate you. We truly believe "Every Dollar Matters," so I want to thank you for sharing your experiences in an effort to help us figure out how to be more subtle in our gouging. Your money makes it possible for us to continue developing Brother Kotick's vision of a micro transaction utopia, and we never take that for granted.

The launch week of Diablo III was obviously a debacle. The positive was that we made nine-hundred trillion dollars, the not so positive is that you couldn't play the game. We were thrilled that Diablo III made all of the money ever (topping even our most recent debacle). We've been so floored by the response that we all took three week vacations in small island countries and bought BMWs with toilets built into the seats. Frank Little in accounting bought a lifetime subscription to Cherry Trees Weekly. Guy's weird.

The launch had many challenges, chief among those being our insistence on always-online, our inability to properly gauge demand, our logistical incompetence in meeting demand and our unwillingness to spend the money necessary to ensure that we only "double it" when it comes to untested game mechanics, never to hardware infrastructure.

However, I do not wish to apologize for the misstep--after all, it wasn't us who crashed our servers for three days straight. You did that. We will do our absolute minimum to conquer this for future releases if we feel like it. In response to the immediate and overwhelming demand for a faithful followup to Diablo II, the team did everything they should have done a month previous to allow players to play the game they paid for. Despite these efforts, you keep crashing our servers by your insistence on playing the game. Rather than address this directly, I'll just say that even as we work to drive you away from the game and into the less-hardware-intensive Auction Houses, it's a sure bet your hardcore characters will die from lag spikes and server outages.

We hope that our actions in the past have demonstrated that above all else, we're committed to keeping you paying for anything we make, no matter how rotten and cynical it actually is. Have faith and you will be rewarded. With $5.We are not satisfied with only making nine-hundred trillion dollars; we want people to continue paying for Blizzard games for a very long time. The Diablo III team has made a passable, lukewarm and aesthetically pleasing experience. As such, our teams are working hard to fill in the gaps with all sorts of ancillary stuff. Kind of like how the frog DNA in Jurassic Park filled in the gaps in the dinosaur DNA and caused the dinosaurs to spontaneously change sexes. This is why Diablo is a woman. Because of the frogs.

You've seen some of that work already in patch 1.0.3, and you'll see additional "improvements" with patch 1.0.4. On the game balance front, this update will contain changes designed to further treat this game like WoW. We know that the "2 trillion builds" we touted before launch was perhaps a bit optimistic, but we would realistically like to get that number up to five. Maybe six. Per class.

Another topic we?ve seen actively discussed is the fact that better, more distinct Legendary items are needed. We agree. I have no explanation whatsoever for why legendary items have been useless for two whole months, but Patch 1.0.4 will include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably (hopefully) won?t be expecting, like extra frost damage or reflects damage back at attacker.We're also working on a number of features that already exist, such as chatting with your friends, joining their games and seeing their achievements. In addition, we will be constantly improving the auction house since we know that's like super duper important to you all. This is how your money is being used. Thought you should know.

Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Unfortunately that goal got lost when the guy in charge of itemization, Ned, had a stroke and the part of his brain that makes game design decisions leaked out his ears and into his cereal. Also, Ned has a hard time eating cereal anymore because the brains made him sick. Pray for Ned, please. Anyway, the RMAH was created to protect you. We needed to keep you safe from the big, scary black market sites that all of you would, of course, be going to for items you couldn't find in-game because of Ned and his bad choices. It was never our intention for you to feel like the auction house is mandatory, so stop feeling like that. What are you, an idiot? We did it for your own good! Now you understand and we can all move on together.

One other common topic we?ve seen in the forums is the always-connected experience, and the perception that the online requirement is nothing but an ineffective form of copy protection that has already been *****ed. While we?ve never said that this requirement guarantees that there will be no cheating or game *****s, we did strongly imply it was necessary because of all the cheating and *****s in Diablo II. Seeing that cheating and *****s still exist, we would like to divert your attention to this cute bunny: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3XBUPZtl2hk/TkzFiB6HxgI/AAAAAAAAA_Q/z4rxNi333T0/s1600/cute+bunny+011.jpg.

Diablo III's always-connected requirement is necessary for, like, the integrity of the experience. If someone knows what that means, please email us. It's also necessary for us to support you playing with your friends (even if you don't have any), because we don't want you doing that yourself via a LAN. LANs are scary. A LAN once ate my friend. It's true. Look it up.I know many of you are also looking forward to patch 1.1, our PvP update, which will come out in maybe 6 more months. We wouldn't want to just flip the switch and let people just attack each other. That would be a disaster! Instead, the PvP we're providing will provide a wonderful, controlled and constrained arena combat experience which will satisfy WoW players, which seems to be our primary demographic for some weird reason.

We're also doing some other things and stuff. It's going to be awesome. We can't give out any specifics but get excited!As always, we pretend to care about your feedback and do whatever we want regardless. Just think of us as Congress. The Congress of Fun?, and Jay Wilson is Joe Biden. Suck on that!

Always yours my sweet, sugary doves,Mike Morhaime

 

[UFEngi]

WALL OF TEXT. can i get a TL;DR summary? it's funnier if you link to the original post by the Blizz CEO.

Original post that was parodied:
Dear Diablo Players,

Now that Diablo III has been out for two months, I would like to take a step back and discuss the launch, the feedback from the community, and talk about what the future holds for the game.

We?ve had an enormous amount of feedback since the launch. I speak for everyone at Blizzard when I say that we appreciate the passion and affection many of you have for the Diablo series. We truly believe ?Every Voice Matters,? so I want to thank you for sharing your experiences in an effort to help us improve the game. Your support makes it possible for us to continue doing what we do, and we never take that for granted.

The launch week of Diablo III was memorable for many reasons ? some positive, and some not so positive. We were thrilled that Diablo III had the biggest PC-game launch ever, surpassing the lifetime sales of Cataclysm (the previous record holder for biggest PC-game launch) in a matter of weeks. We?ve been floored by the response.

However, the launch had many challenges as well. It has always been difficult to forecast how many players we will have. With World of Warcraft, it was a challenge to handle the immediate demand when we launched back in 2004, and that was just in North America. We eventually expanded to other regions and reached nearly 5 million players by the end of the first year, and there were a lot of growing pains with that. However, we?ve never gone from 0 to more than 6 million players across multiple continents within a few days with a brand-new game. For Diablo III, we looked at historical sales for Blizzard games and other top-selling PC games and watched preorder numbers. We even upped our estimates to ensure we had additional capacity, or so we thought. In the end, it just wasn?t enough, and that is something we will work hard to conquer for future releases.

In response to the immediate and overwhelming demand for the game, the team worked around the clock to support all regions, increase capacity, ship additional hardware to our datacenters, and troubleshoot and fix bugs as they sprang up. While things have by and large been running smoothly for several weeks now, various game-related issues have come up that we have either already responded to or are continuing to investigate (such as the latency issue some of you are experiencing) and make adjustments for. Rather than address every subject individually, I?ll just say that even as we work to address or resolve current issues, it?s always possible that further issues will crop up. We hope that our actions in the past have demonstrated that above all else, we?re committed to delivering an awesome game experience, and we hope you?ll have faith that we will continue to keep that commitment and respond to any new or outstanding issues quickly.

We are not satisfied with breaking launch records; we want people to continue playing and enjoying Blizzard games for a very long time. The Diablo III team has made an epic, entertaining, and beautiful gaming experience. That being said, we know that it isn?t perfect. Our teams are working hard to improve the game balance, build on our design, and listen to what players are saying to make it the best game it can be.

You?ve seen some of that work already in patch 1.0.3, and you?ll see additional improvements with patch 1.0.4. On the game balance front, this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team?s goal of promoting ?build diversity,? with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities. Another topic we?ve seen actively discussed is the fact that better, more distinct Legendary items are needed. We agree. Patch 1.0.4 will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won?t be expecting.

We?re also working on a number of interface updates, including social improvements that will allow players to more easily view their friends? achievements, more quickly join games, and more efficiently communicate with each other. In addition, we?ll be making updates to the auction house in the future to provide players with better information through tooltips and notices, offer improved search functionality, and more.

Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Black market trading sites can put accounts at risk and create many customer service challenges. We felt that the players themselves also deserved the opportunity to benefit from the extra loot they found, as opposed to having all of the benefit go to the black market/illegal trading organizations. We know the auction house isn?t perfect, but with your help and feedback, we?ll be able to continue making it a better experience for those who choose to use it. On the flipside, we are also committed to ensuring you have a great experience with Diablo III without feeling like the auction house is mandatory, which was never our intention. Thank you for all the feedback about that.

One other common topic we?ve seen in the forums is the always-connected experience, and the perception that the online requirement is nothing but an ineffective form of copy protection that has already been *****ed. While we?ve never said that this requirement guarantees that there will be no cheating or game *****s, it does help us battle those problems (we have not found any fully functional *****s). More important to us is that the online requirement is critical for the long-term integrity of the game experience. I fully understand the desire to play Diablo III offline; however, Diablo III was designed from the beginning to be an online game that can be enjoyed with friends, and the always-online requirement is the best way for us to support that design. The effectiveness of the online elements ? including the friends list and cross-game communication; co-op matchmaking; persistent characters that you can use by yourself, with others, and in PvP; and some of our customer support, service, and security components ? is tied directly to the online nature of the game. These and other online-enabled features are essential to our design for Diablo III. That said, there are still improvements we believe we can make to expand the online experience and make co-op play even more rewarding, and this will remain one of our priorities moving forward. Overall, while there are some downsides to the online-only approach, I still believe this was the best long-term decision for the game.

I know many of you are also looking forward to patch 1.1, our PvP update, which will provide new experiences and give you a whole new way to apply the skills you?ve picked up while battling demons. This patch will also build on the social and auction house changes I mentioned above, and the team will continue to fix bugs and further tune game balance as well.

We?re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the ?item hunt.? We?re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we?re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.

As always, we appreciate your candor and passion. Your constructive feedback and thoughts are valuable ? they will continue to help us be a better company. I just want to reiterate that while we can?t claim to have ever shipped a perfect game, we are committed to supporting our games relentlessly and making improvements where we can. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Mike Morhaime