Maybe we were a bit melodramatic.

Maybe some of you aren’t old enough to remember waiting for Diablo 2. (Man. Am I really old enough to say something like that?) It was announced for release in like 96 or 97…and there were multiple unexpected delays that spanned over – srsly – two years until the release. I couldn’t find any data on these delays, but it stings in my memory as I was *very* upset by it, and that it was the beginning of Blizzard’s “We release when we’re damn ready, and don’t expect us to announce it” policy. People were mad, but it still became one of the best selling (and best playing, frankly) games ever.

The result: the game was awesome (likely much more awesome due to the delays) and people forgot all about the delays.

You know what’s different now? We know a LOT more about this game than we did about Diablo 2. And the dev team is going WAY above and beyond the call of duty, talking to us on the forums, doing all they can to ease our minds about it. Blizzard has never done such a thing.

Check this out: look at all these new dev posts (multiple posts over multiple pages) addressing specific questions of concerned fans and answering questions. *link*. The number of new dev posts is remarkable. Who does that? You know who: Mythic.

This weekend has strengthened my resolve in my decision to pre-order this game, which I did honestly only as a band wagon jump (I was lookin for a new game and my friends were pre-ordered and excited). Over the past month, courtesy of this blog community that I’ve tried to integrate myself into, I have gotten psyched about what looks to be a very good, very polished game due to a very committed dev team. What it boils down to is this:

The game wasn’t going to be good enough. So they dropped stuff that they couldn’t finish on time to be good enough for the game. If you’ve been reading every little shred of info that falls our way like I have, you know how much thought and awesome has gone into this game. Cutting 4 out of 6 cities means that two of them will be the craziest things we’ve ever seen.

Maybe I’m biased since I remember Ironforge being crappy but home and Stormwind and Darnassus both being completely and utterly useless until they added auction houses years later…but I digress. Be stalwart. Srsly. I don’t want to be the only archmage at launch ;)

~ by thade on July 13, 2008.