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Blizzard's Free-to-Play 'Diablo Immortal' for iOS Available From Today

macgabe said:
Looks pretty good. Had a quick look on phone - well made game. I think it'll be successful. Good idea to fill with microtransactions, only negative I can see is it all looks pretty slow, which is the counterpoint to this form of monetisation. I watched a YouTube stream on 2x and the voices were normal speed! That means they're really pushing the deferred pleasure psychology. Still, interesting to see what people will spend one or two of the 1200 months of their lives on. Nice for Activision and should be good for Apple too.
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I've been playing it a few days now on small iphone x - very slick. Basically like WoW with a Diablo skin and some nice Diablo touches like the old music from DII and DI. Obviously if you're not into all the crafting/looting waste of time you'll never like this kind of game, but for what it is I'd say it's a big success. I never thought I'd be interested in playing this sort of game on a small screen with my big fingers - not even a big fan of Wow gameplay although I do like the immersive world. As for all the pay for gems nonsense - total nothing burger, I haven't paid a cent of $, just my time which is far more valuable. You can enjoy all the features without paying anything, but I hope enough people do buy enough gear to make it a really profitable franchise.. Great success for Activision, Netease, and Apple.
 
macgabe said:
I've been playing it a few days now on small iphone x - very slick. Basically like WoW with a Diablo skin and some nice Diablo touches like the old music from DII and DI. Obviously if you're not into all the crafting/looting waste of time you'll never like this kind of game, but for what it is I'd say it's a big success. I never thought I'd be interested in playing this sort of game on a small screen with my big fingers - not even a big fan of Wow gameplay although I do like the immersive world. As for all the pay for gems nonsense - total nothing burger, I haven't paid a cent of $, just my time which is far more valuable. You can enjoy all the features without paying anything, but I hope enough people do buy enough gear to make it a really profitable franchise.. Great success for Activision, Netease, and Apple.
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Huh? How is this similar to WoW gameplay wise? Quite different I think and definitely not ”WoW with a Diablo skin”. More like ”Diablo with a mobile phone game skin”. :D

Or can you elaborate what you mean perhaps? If you'd like. :)
 
star-affinity said:
Huh? How is this similar to WoW gameplay wise? Quite different I think and definitely not ”WoW with a Diablo skin”. More like ”Diablo with a mobile phone game skin”. :D

Or can you elaborate what you mean perhaps? If you'd like. :)
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Not an expert on WoW - only played it a bit many years ago. But it's something in between both games.
Four things:
1. They've really expanded the crafting and collecting mats like WoW - that's now a major part of gameplay.
2. The whole look of the geography, autonavigation, spawning mobs etc is borrowed from WoW.
3. Interaction with other players - you now see them walking around like WoW - I almost never played Diablo 3 with other players. This version it's impossible not to.
4. Side quests, events , shadows, paragons, clans, daily, weekly, hourly rewards etc have all been expanded massively - again borrowed from WoW.
 
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macgabe said:
Not an expert on WoW - only played it a bit many years ago. But it's something in between both games.
Four things:
1. They've really expanded the crafting and collecting mats like WoW - that's now a major part of gameplay.
2. The whole look of the geography, autonavigation, spawning mobs etc is borrowed from WoW.
3. Interaction with other players - you now see them walking around like WoW - I almost never played Diablo 3 with other players. This version it's impossible not to.
4. Side quests, events , shadows, paragons, clans, daily, weekly, hourly rewards etc have all been expanded massively - again borrowed from WoW.
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I see what you mean, but the core game mechanics are still very different to WoW I think.
 
What is the point of playing this game, spending hundreds of hours, trying to level up your character and get the best gear in the game, when a spoiled kid with the credit card of his mom can achieve the same thing in one day? The objective of Diablo is to find the rarest of all items, and build the best of all characters. This is virtually impossible, without spending not hundreds but thousand of dollars on virtual coins, orbs or whatever crap they have invented. This is a casino game with Diablo skin. The only difference is that no matter how much real money you put in, you never see real money out of it.
 
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nikaru said:
What is the point of playing this game, spending hundreds of hours, trying to level up your character and get the best gear in the game, when a spoiled kid with the credit card of his mom can achieve the same thing in one day? The objective of Diablo is to find the rarest of all items, and build the best of all characters. This is virtually impossible, without spending not hundreds but thousand of dollars on virtual coins, orbs or whatever crap they have invented. This is a casino game with Diablo skin. The only difference is that no matter how much real money you put in, you never see real money out of it.
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Unfortunately that is the way most mobile games go. Perhaps more countries should do like Belgium and the Dutch and just ban games like that.
 
HQuest said:
Waiting for the game to be banned at every single country worldwide.

Absolutely everything microtransaction and Pay to Win that exists out there is exploited to the max on this game.

Long gone are the days Blozzard made games to gamers, from gamers. Now they make games to shareholders and people with more money than sense.
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Already level 40 without paying for anything! You do not have to pay to play well…
 
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Good question, no grind at the moment, but only lvl 52, if you forget about the micro transactions is actually quite good.
 
ackmondual said:
I'm hearing you can't finish the game without paying large amounts of $$
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Who has finished the game yet? Should be no problem to finish without paying. Diablo has always been a long game enjoy it what is the purpose of rushing through it quickly…
 
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waloshin said:
Who has finished the game yet? Should be no problem to finish without paying. Diablo has always been a long game enjoy it what is the purpose of rushing through it quickly…
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Finish as in getting to the end of the game. The amount of time it takes to get you there isn't the issue (whether you play everyday, 8 hours a day, or drag it over the course of a year). The reviews are saying after you get to a certain level, you'd better pony up, as it's going to be a very rough ride in PvP, and the regular mode.
 
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After getting g to level 60 and He’ll 1 I see why the complaints about pay to play. Every monster is a high level difficulty killing your in seconds. Any bounties are almost impossible now.
 
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waloshin said:
After getting g to level 60 and He’ll 1 I see why the complaints about pay to play. Every monster is a high level difficulty killing your in seconds. Any bounties are almost impossible now.
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I am not having the same issue. Ok I did spend 9 bucks on unlocking the 2nd row of rewards but that is it.
 
Sir_Macs_A_Lot said:
Pass.
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Pass for me as well. If I were to be honest, the game doesn't look that bad for what it is. I wouldn't mind trying it for the first 30 to 50 levels FWIW (I couldn't get through Nightmare difficulty for Diablo 2 anyways). And I probably wouldn't mind throwing them some $$ (up to $20. Definitely NOT the thousands of $'s that some folks have) their way. However:
1) I have PLENTY of other video games that take precedence
2) My phone is too small for 'serious gaming' (Google Pixel 4A. Only a 2.7" screen width. The iPhone equivalent would an SE)
3) In the meantime, I'd rather just play this on my PC then. However, if I fire up my PC, I still have Diablo 3 I'd like to get through, and will just play that instead.
 
l0stl0rd said:
Unfortunately that is the way most mobile games go. Perhaps more countries should do like Belgium and the Dutch and just ban games like that.
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The mobile games go this way, because there are millions of brain damaged people, the majority of which are unsupervised kids, that make this business model more profitable than the standard business model when you buy the game.
 
l0stl0rd said:
Unfortunately that is the way most mobile games go. Perhaps more countries should do like Belgium and the Dutch and just ban games like that.
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You can damn well bet Apple wouldn't like that. They take their 30% cut, and they're still making $$ hand over fist.

nikaru said:
The mobile games go this way, because there are millions of brain damaged people, the majority of which are unsupervised kids, that make this business model more profitable than the standard business model when you buy the game.
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TBF, consumers are just as much to blame. There's a reason that as of a decade ago, f2p makes up 86% of the app store. It's because this is how we voted with our wallets. You can bash the Android user group all you want, but the phrase "people generally don't pay for things" most definitely also applies to the iOS App Store".

A podcast mentioned that if we were willing to pay premium pricing for apps, then we might not have ended up where we are now. However, "premium pricing" isn't just $5. It's whatever premium apps cost these days, and up the price by at least 5x. So $50 for an app.

I'm always amused how people bemoan how in the olden days, you pay once and get a complete product. Nm that sometimes bugs and such did get through and weren't fixable, but your typical NES game like Super Mario Bros. would cost $60... in 1986 money (that's roughly $160 in today's money). If you were willing to pay $60 for a AAA game this day in age, you'd get a quality product for sure. However, studios discovered that'll waaay price themselves out of the market.

And they also bemoan how AAA companies buy up indie shops, and kill off their souls. The sad truth is, many of those indie shops were hemorrhaging money, and were begging to get bought up. They weren't going to survive on their own anyways.
 
Here is something that might make you laugh… or piss you off.

I’m enjoying the game. I put a decent amount of time in it (level P89) and have spent a few hundred bucks because I’m impatient lol and have the money to waste. Well last week I purchased a $7.99 pack that you can buy once a week only. I’ve purchased it before with no problems. This time when I purchased it, the payment confirmed with Apple Pay, but I never received the item and it was still available in the store. I tried buying it again and the same thing happened. The next day I had 2 charges for $7.99 but still none of the items purchased.

I contacted Blizzard support and they were very quick to respond. They checked and confirmed that I did not receive the items I paid for, but they said there is nothing they could do about it. They said they cannot give me items and they cannot refund me. They said if I purchased through their website they could give my money back, but because it was through Apple there is absolutely nothing they can do. I was mad so I contacted them again and got the same result.

What makes this entire situation even better is the fact that Apple is denying me my refund. They won’t budge. They said if I fight the charge they will lock down my iTunes account and freeze everything associated with it.

This is kinda maddening lol. It’s not like I’m going back and asking them to refund every purchase I’ve made.

So much for Apple having our back.
 
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