The lead game designer for the upcoming Diablo III, Jay Wilson, has announced that the initial launch of the game will not include any player versus player functionality. While this might be a major let down for most of us eager fans, Wilson has clarified that Blizzard decided to do this rather than push back the release date yet again. I suppose that’s good news, right?
After many delays and unfulfilled promises from Blizzard and the D3 team, it seems that we’ve finally received a conclusive answer as to why we aren’t playing the most anticipated game of the last two years: PvP. Here’s what Wilson had to say about it on the official Diablo website:
As we’re counting down the days until we’re ready to announce a release date for Diablo III, we’ve come to realize that the PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards. Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve made the difficult decision to hold back the PvP Arena system and release it in a patch following the game’s launch. After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete.
So, it’s great that we finally have some specifics of what’s been happening with the game, and it seems like the launch might actually happen this century. Is launching the game without PvP Arenas a bad idea? I say that although it’s unfortunate that we’ll have to wait to kill each other, it’s better than the alternative. What do you guys think?
