After BlizzConline ended, Wyatt Cheng hopped into Reddit to answer a few questions and to address the “No Release Date” feedback circulating around the community.
Hey all,
Blizzconline is wrapped up. In lieu of hanging out at the hotel lobby across the street I thought I’d swing by and try to answer some extra questions submitted for the Q&A.
Before getting to a bunch of specific questions, there were a lot of questions on release dates, testing dates, beta timelines, roadmap, etc.
For those of you hoping for a release date, I’m sorry but we don’t have one for you. Our focus is on making sure the game is great when we’re able to get it into everybody’s hands and proper testing is required to do that. We learned a lot from Technical Alpha. The next phase of testing will add elder game systems and we need to make sure those are all feeling good before we proceed to the next phase of testing after that. I can’t give you a specific release date because it depends on how our testing goes – if the game’s not ready, we won’t release it.
(SoWaS) Will more characters be added?
We absolutely want to add more characters after launch. Classes from other Diablo games are all possibilities as is the possibility of broadening the Diablo universe with a never-before seen class.
(SantiagoCeb) We know we have instanced 4 man dungeons. Are we going to have instanced 8 man raids? Open World bosses? An endless dungeon?
Raids: The engine supports game modes that will allow for more than 4 players in an instanced environment and we have ideas to take advantage of that.
Open World Bosses: We have a few open world bosses in the game now, such as the large hydra in the Library of Zoltun Kulle.
Endless Dungeon: No plans for an endless dungeon, but we do have plans for other ways to experience the game other than the outdoor zones, instanced dungeons, and Elder Rifts you’ve seen so far. Some of those systems will be seen during upcoming testing phases and some of those are still in early concept stages for post-ship live update content.
(Divine_0)R they going to Decrease the Minimum requirement for the Game? Cause many of us Don’t have any High end Device
Yes – we are looking to expand the list of supported devices. Fair warning, we are looking for a AAA experience and there are limits to what we will be able to support. Look for the final compatibility list to be lower than Tech Alpha but higher than a potato.
(OkAlrightIGetIt) Will Diablo Immortal ever be updated with any Diablo 4 features or content as time goes on?
Post-launch Diablo Immortal will be updated with features and content based on what makes sense for the game. Good ideas can come from anywhere, and that includes any Blizzard game and non-Blizzard games too.
(ScamperNZ) How will the servers be structured?
The current plan is for there to be multiple servers (like WoW). New servers can be opened up over time to allow in new players, and older servers could have their population managed (via merge, transfers, or other mechanisms) if their population were to fall too low.
(Strygaldwire) How many percent of the game has been finished so far?
I can’t tell you how much is finished, but what I can tell you is that Technical Alpha represented less than half of the full game. It was deliberately constrained to early and mid-game systems only. Do not take this to mean the game is less than half done though! Our elder game systems have been in the development for a long time, we just stripped them from the tech alpha builds.
(ProfessorWC) Has there been more talk about controller support?
We are actively investigating controller support. The main challenge right now is that full controller support isn’t just movement and skill usage, it’s also menus, inventory management, paragon trees, NPC UIs, chat, etc. To set some expectations – we would love to see controller support but full controller support may not make the release version of the game.
Thanks all of you who have been supporting the game and the team. It really means a lot to us. It’s too bad we were not able to gather in person this year. — source: Reddit
Hope you enjoyed this article. Please, support Blizzplanet on Patreon (monthly) or PayPal (once), and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch for daily Blizzard games news updates. |