- It is time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from Sanctuary and beyond. Each episode, a heroic party of Nephilim Band together to help keep you informed on everything in the Diablo universe. And now your Diablo community podcast - To you from somewhere in sanctuary. This is episode 4 4, 1 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Spewing Seasons. It is January 12th, 2024. And this is Jen.
I've got a few things to talk about today, and I'm gonna just go right through all of them. There is an article on games industry biz titled x Activision exec accuses publisher of Discriminating Against Old White Guys. Former employee says he was laid off for whistleblowing about company preference for younger non-white employees. Now this is probably somewhat scandalous in here, but we'll just see what they wrote.
The person who wrote this is Brendan Sinclair, the managing editor for Games Industry Biz. A former Activision executive has sued the publisher in California state court accusing the company of age discrimination and violating the state's whistleblower protection law as reported by Law 360. There's a link in that article if you wanna check that out.
The suit was filed earlier this week by a 57-year-old former tech executive who worked for the company from 2014 until being laid off as part of a restructuring in the Activision Blizzard Central Tech Department to last August.
The lawsuit gives several examples to establish that Activision Blizzard discriminated against him, starting with statements Bobby Kotek allegedly made at a leadership conference that said the problem end quote with Activision is that, quote, there are too many old white guys. And quote parentheses, the suit doesn't say exactly when the conference was End of parent.
It says A pair of white executives left the company shortly afterwards saying their departures were based, at least in part on Kotex ageist remarks. End quote, I gotta wonder how old Bobby Kotek is. Is he in that group? I don't know. One of those departing executives recommended the plaintiff as his replacements, the suit said, but he was passed over in favor of a younger non-white employee who then became his manager.
The suit accuses that manager of creating a hostile work environment and criticizing his work such that his merit based base salary increase, uh, increase for the year was the lowest he received during his tenure at Activision. The suit notes that a woman in his department complained to a human resource to human resources about her own merit-based increase being below expectations, saying she made false and defamatory remarks about him to human resources.
And his manager, the plaintiff responded by fi, filing his own complaint with human resources, accusing the company of failing, quote, to protect plaintiff from the discriminatory and defamatory accusations. Plaintiff asked for checks and balances and made clear that plaintiff was the first person to sound an alarm that a larger issue might be brewing according to the suit.
He demanded that the accusations be investigated independently, but the suit says plaintiff's complaint was ignored and he was not taken seriously. The suit says he was laid off as part of central tech restructuring in the August, in August of 2023 on a team of 200, he and six other men, 47 or older were cut. Activision placed profits over people by determining that the older, higher paid executives, uh, terminating the older higher paid executives.
He said the suit notes that Activision currently has open job listings for Central Tech Department roles. This is a freaking mess, um, , you know, and it goes on from there. So, um, it is not uncommon for people to be harassed at work no matter who they are. Uh, I don't really usually hear a lot from, as they called it, old white guys, uh, being harassed typically. Uh, it's often younger women and people of different, uh, backgrounds and ethnicities and such like that.
But this guy might have a point. , you know, I think he might have a point. I think that's probably what, uh, you know, happened there for him and a couple of other people who are over 47. And I think that's weird.
If you've got someone that's been working on your company, whatever your company is, and they've been doing a good job the whole time they're there, I don't see any good reason to, you know, say, okay, we're kicking you out now because you've hit the magic number that says you're not allowed to be here anymore, or some weird shit like that. Um, it's kind of disgusting.
I'm not surprised that Kotick did that because he's kind of a jerk too, and he's not actually part of Activision Blizzard anymore, so that's, he's, you know, that's become part of Microsoft. I'm sure most of you know about that, but if not, hey, yeah, it's part of Microsoft now. But yeah, this is really just kind of, kind of, um, unexpected, you know? So I mean, hey, if, if you're an old white guy in a gaming company, this could happen to you and hopefully it won't.
But this was an Activision thing and well, here we are. We've got another article here from Windows Central titled Diablo Four Season of Blood Review. Rays of Light Shine through for Diablo's End Game, but there's still a long way to go. This is written by Jez Corden on January 5th, 2024. She writes, I'm by no means an ultra hardcore player, but you don't need to be to know. Diablo four has a lot of problems. Uh, here's from the article.
First, I want to stress that this is by no means an ultra hardcore A RPG players review. Moreover, my experiences across the 100 plus hours I've put into it playing casually with my friends since the season's launch. As I write this, I've completed the entire season journey for Diablo four season of Blood save a couple of Level 21 glyphs, and I wanted to share some of my experiences while also amplifying some of the feedback I've seen around the web for season two.
I've killed Uber Lilith, I've spent dozens of hours grinding durel and the various materials required for him and the other bosses. I've meticulously refined my off meta build and honestly had quite a lot of fun doing so. It would be false to suggest that I haven't enjoyed my time with this season. Overall, Diablo Force combat is infectious and satisfying as we outlined in our non end game review of Diablo four and its base game.
However, we're a long way from Diablo four's launch at this point, and season three should be fast approaching season two of blood ends on January 23rd, 2024, and will pave the way for new characters, a new meta and new seasonal features. Blizzard opted to make Diablo for an always online game with promises of a live service funded by a notoriously expensive cosmetic store and seasonal battle passes so far, I'm not sure the payoff is quite where it needs to be just yet.
There's a picture here looking at the screen where your character in season two is able to use vampiric powers where you like select them, put them in, that kind of thing. Um, so this one is highlighting the Vampiric Power Domination level three and kind of goes on from there. I think if you've been playing the season, you've probably done at least some of this to continue.
She wrote, so for those who don't know, seasons in Diablo typically revolve revolver, probably meant revolve around some type of theme complete with the battle pass to grind for largely cosmetic rewards.
I finished the Battle pass so long ago at this point that it's difficult to recall how I felt about it, but the cosmetics you get are, well, okay, I suppose your mileage will vary based on your preferences, but the theme of the season revolved entirely around vampires and vampiric powers the cosmetics did too to some degree, although I would argue they're nowhere near as detailed or interesting as some of the items you can get from the base game, nor the expensive cosmetic
store attached to the game. I found myself not really using anything I got from the Battle Pass saved for season blessing, gameplay modifiers, which are gated by level. Either way it's hardly a ringing endorsement of it. Perhaps it's a good thing that the battle pass isn't that necessary to purchase and represents what amounts to a preference on the part of the player.
Very little of what you'll be doing in Diablo Four's end game revolves around the Battle Pass, specifically though, and instead focuses on the seasonal quote journey. There are seven tiers of the season journey to get through with increasingly difficult and or grindy challenges to beat. Depending on how efficiently you play or how overpowered your build is.
More on that in a minute. You could take anywhere from 50 to 100 plus hours to beat out, and much of the activities revolve largely around doing the same thing repeatedly over the course of time to try and keep things fresh and differentiate. Season of blood from the base game and season of the malignant to season of Blood offered some fun. Its brief story beats and, uh, oof. It's a little bit of a typo here I think, or I'm reading it wrong, it's probably the second thing.
Uh, and introduced us to Lord Zeer, an ancient Vampiric persuasion. The story culminated in an impressive setpiece battle with Zurich himself, who then returns his Echo Uber form post story. In addition, the season added regional blood harvest events were swarms of vampire minions. Could, would congregate players who vanquish these enemies can obtain currency to perform a ritual, which quite literally makes it Rain Loot.
These events were incredibly fun to participate in while leveling up and made gearing up far less shoring than previous incarnations of the end game. As part of the story season two players were also essentially infected with Vampiric blood and could equip up to five vampiric powers to elevate and complement their builds and play styles.
Some of these added extra mobility to classes that perhaps didn't have great mobility previously, while others COEs in truly insane build synergies better for some classes than others. And there's more in this, if you wanna read the whole thing, everything will be [email protected]. As for me, I've, I like playing anything that has to do with vampires. I've been like that for a very long time, whether it's a TT RRP G or whether it's in, you know, like Diablo or whatever.
There's other video games out there that have, you know, vampires or let you be a vampire, that kind of thing. I just think that's fun. Um, have I gotten through the season journey? No, not at all. . Um, I'm on the fourth part of it, I think, but yeah, it's interesting to see like a really good explanation of what this person's experience was in Diablo four season of Blood specifically. And, um, I don't know, I mean, I guess it's up to all of you to see what you think about that.
And again, everything will be in the show [email protected]. Diablo Mortal has a couple of things over on X, formerly known as Twitter, and one of them is a recruit a friend event, which has some kind of strange looking monster pulling a man into who could be a barbarian from the coloring on his, the marks on his face might be a barbarian and from the clothing as well, probably barbarian. And he's like trying to choke this guy and I'm like, what is this?
You know, but this is what it says on X reclaim sanctuary with friends at your heels during our limited time Recruit a friend event you have until January 25th to recruit or recall players and until February 8th to complete tasks and reap the rewards tag a friend you want to play with below. And some people may have done that. And then there's this other thing from Diablo Immortal, it's called, uh, there's a, like a large like wanted poster and it says, wanted in big letters.
Across the top there is this grotesque looking puss laden thing with a lot of sharp teeth and underneath its name I guess is Dresa Blight Spewer. Um, so here's what Diablo Mortal wrote on Twitter. This, uh, the grotesque facsimile of humanity known as D saw the Blight Spewer seeks to destroy all we hold dear with its pestilence play Diablo immortal now to defeat this horrific monster for the good of sanctuary. And there's a little blood drop emoji in there.
The Diablo four account on Blizzard, uh, I guess is the best way to put it, has a thing from yesterday titled Tune into our Next Developer Update Live Stream, and that's gonna be on January 18. So here's just a tiny bit of what they put in there because this is not a long article. Our next developer update live stream begins on January 18 at 9:00 AM PST and we'll unearth details about the next season's gameplay features, season journey, and quality of life updates.
Plus we'll also share information about the new competitive leaderboard system, the gauntlet join associate director of community, Adam Fletcher, game design manager Daniel Tanguay, quest designer Madeline James and lead class designer Adam Jackson as they delve into the danger awaiting you in Diablo four's third season. We'll also hold a q and a segment at the end of the stream for players to field their questions directly to the team.
Visit our Diablo, Twitch and YouTube channels to watch live following the developer update live streams. Conclusion, we'll post another article with a video of the live stream so you can still catch up on the details if you miss them. If you're not done with, uh, season two, maybe get in there and finish it. I know I won't get there, , I don't play enough.
Um, I tend to get distracted by shiny things on the rest of the screen and all the little exclamation point quests, but you know, whatever, whatever works for you do that. I suppose there is an article here from Max Roll titled Season 30 Lords of Hell. It was d it was, uh, updated on January 5th, 2024. So here's some of, uh, what they're doing and uh, here's a little, I'll just read it.
Diablo three season 30 Lords of Hell Brings Back the Lords of Hell Theme from Season 25 where you can find seven unique soul shards to socket into gear for unique and powerful effects. Also, the rites of sanctuary and visions of ity season themes are now a base feature of the game and are part of season 32. Uh, not 32 but 30. In addition, you know, , um, read all the info about season 30 below and there's an orange text here.
Our season 30 mega post will be arriving in a few days to help you get ready with updates to all of our guides. So season 30, the lords of Hell Preview Sanctuary needs you to answer its call for aid in season 30, the Lords of Hell starting on January 12th, which is today at 5:00 PM P-T-S-T-C-E-T-K-S-T Nephilim can harness the power of the lords of Hell season theme, which first debuted with season 25 for an in-depth.
Look at the now permanent rights of sanctuary and visions of enmity themes, class balance and more. Take a gander below. So here's what we've got, uh, season 30, the Lords of Hell and there's a little bit of, uh, storyline here though the black soul stone has been destroyed, lingering fragments of the lords of hell once contained therein still persist in sanctuary.
These soul shards hold immense power, power that once belonged to the prime and a lesser evils, cunning nephilim who find and wield these soul stones must exercise. Caution power can be alluring and the road to the burning hells is paved with good intention. So that's like the little story part.
Season 30 is the first to utilize our new season theme rotation system reintroducing the lords of hell Theme first seen in season 25, players can embrace evil by infusing themselves with the essences of Hell's lords. Using soul shards, players will embark on their season journey to discover and upgrade demonic soul shards based on the seven Lords of hell. By embodying a prime and lesser evil players will inflict new forms of pain and suffering on the demons of sanctuary.
We can't wait for players to get their hands on soul shards and start unlocking their true power. Nephilim can find seven unique soul shards based on the seven lords of hell, which give players demonic new powers, one of three prime evil. So shards could be equipped into Helms and one of four lesser evil. So shards can be equipped into weapons each. So shard can be upgraded three times using a new seasonal exclusive consumable. The hell forge ember so shards and hell forge.
Embers can drop from anywhere in sanctuary, but so shards have a higher chance to drop from bosses. Sol shards cannot be traded but can be salvaged or utilized in candles, suns despair. You may only equip one prime evil soul shard and one lesser evil soul shard at a time. Lastly, Sol shards and hell forge embers only drop in seasonal play and will not transfer to your non-seasonal character when the season ends.
For a look at the capabilities of each of the sol shard powers, look below and it has a list of what each of these are. I'm just gonna read you titles of them and you can look for this, you know, on shattered soul stone.com in the show notes after I'm done with the show. So there's a sliver of terror, a shard of hatred, fragment of destruction. That's the three, um, the three evils, you know, um, terror is Diablo, shard of hatred is mephisto.
Uh, destruction is Baal. I think the lesser ones are stain of sin, drags of lies, remnant of pain and essence of anguish. That's what those are. There are of course season 30 cosmetic rewards that look very shiny. I'm fairly certain I have some of these, but I don't know that I got everything but I'll probably play later and see, you know, what I need. I guess there is the season journey rewards. So here's what we've got for that.
According to Maxwell, if you've been diligently slaying demons for the past few seasons and reached conqueror in the season journey, each time you've surely accrued a few extra stash tabs, you'll earn one additional tab each season by finishing the conqueror tier up to a maximum of five st tabs. I might already have those, I'm not sure. So there's guardian of sanctuary. Finish a level 70 Nephilim rift on torment 13 within five minutes gem of my life, level three legendary gems to level 55.
All I do is win complete two conquests this season. Disarm you kill Racano at level 70 in under 15 seconds on torment 13 difficulty money ain't a thing. T-H-A-N-G, the s that's how it's written. Slay greed on torment 13 difficulty take you there. Reach greater rift level 60 solo power amplification. Use cane's cube to augment an ancient legendary item with a level 50 plus gem and cubic reconfiguration. Use cane's cube to Reforge, a legendary item. There's also, um, a seasonal conquest thing.
It's kind of interesting. So you push your way to greater rift level 75 to complete divinity slash lion hearted on a good day slash I can't stop guides you to get your legendary gem grind on three level three's legendary gems to 65 to complete this challenge for the speedy speed demon slash need for speed requires the fastest nephilim to complete a Nephilim rift at level 70 on torment, uh, 10 or higher in each, in under two minutes.
For curses slash stars align, pick any cursed chest event that requires killing monsters and defeat over 350 or more at level 70 on torment X 10 or higher. And the fiercest demon, slayers boss mode slash worlds apart is a speed challenge where you'll need to eliminate the following bosses at level 70 and torment, um, in under 20 minutes.
. So it's the skeleton king, the butcher, Zoltan, Kool Gam, Claudia Ano Diablo, Adria Queen, Iran, Magda Al, siege breaker, assault beast, Edan, ISAL, Al and Malthe. And then there's HDR's gifts. We know what that is. You finish something like you finish chapter two or chapter three and then you go over and talk to Hadrick and he gives you some cool stuff. These are the class sets that are going to be available. Well now basically, uh, the barbarian, it's the legacy of Rayor, the crusader.
It is the armor of a con for the demon hunter. It is embodiment of the marauder. For the monk, it is in's mantra for the necromancer, it is pestilence masters shroud For the witch doctor, it is Zuna Masa's H which I think I played one year. Uh, and the wizard is Del Sears, a magnum opus. So that's everything you need to know. There's some patch notes and other stuff in this article if you wanna find out more. In addition, the darkening of Tristrum has returned on January 3rd.
We're at January 12th, so it's probably still there. It generally goes for most of January and I don't think it, I don't think it's ever carried over into February. So here's a little bit about that. If you haven't been paying attention to the show or maybe you just stop paying attention to Diablo three for a while 'cause you're playing Diablo four, I don't know. Diablo's anniversary is right around the corner.
Actually it's here now. Um, with the Darkening of Tristrum event, whether you're a series veteran craving nostalgia or a newcomer hungry for your first taste of the has passed, this annual loving homage to the earliest days of Diablo is for you. And it's talking about you have to stop the cultus, you have to explore the cathedral, discover precious loot. I don't know if I have all that precious loot. I'm pretty sure I have the little butcher pet and some of these other things, so I'm not sure.
Um, exclusive rewards and challenging enemies await you, but they won't last forever. The cultus will appear on December 31st at 4:00 PM PST. So that's already happened. And the portal opens January 3rd at the same hour. Both parts of the event end January 31st at 4:00 PM PST. So that's, um, pretty easy to get through. We also have a, uh, description of season 30, the lords of Hell Preview.
It's got a really neat graphic at the top with a screaming demon and some of the smaller ones and one of those nasty shaman that try to sometimes, you know, resurrect their dead. And it just annoys me in every Diop game there is. So here's what this says, sanctuary needs you to answer. Its call for aid in season 30, the lords of Hell.
Starting on January 12 at 5:00 PM P-S-T-C-E-T-K-S-T Nephilim can harness the power of the lords of Hell's season theme, which first debuted with season 25 for an in-depth. Look at how now permanent rights of sanctuary and visions of Enemity themes class balance and more. Take a gander below. Did I already read this to you? I don't think I did. Okay, so here's a little bit.
Season 30, the Lords of Hell, and they have a little bit of a story in here though the black soul stone has been destroyed, lingering fragments of the lords of hell once contained therein persist in sanctuary. These soul shards hold immense power, power that once belonged to the prime and lesser evils. Cunning Nephilim who find and willed these soul stones must exercise caution power can be alluring, and the road to the burning hells is paved with good intentions.
I feel like something else I just read had that, you know, but maybe I'm wrong. Um, okay, so, uh, season 30 is the first to utilize our new season theme rotation system reintroducing the lords of hell Theme first seen in season 25, players can embrace evil by infusing themselves with the essences of the hell lords, uh, using soul shards, players will embark on their seasoned journey to discover and upgrade demonic soul shards based on the seven Lords of hell.
By embodying a prime and lesser evil players will inflict new forms of pain and suffering on the demons of sanctuary. We can't wait for players to get their hands on soul shards and to start unlocking their true power. Um, and there's all the ones that I mentioned from the Max Roll thing, that's all the soul shards you'll find in there.
Different types. Uh, there's a description in here about all the soul shards and if you've played it before you might remember, but it's been a while since it was season 25. Um, and we're at season 30 now, so you might not remember everything, but there's a lot of stuff in here to talk about. There's a developer's note that says, in pursuit of all of Diablo three's systems to feel both fun and challenging.
The Altar of Rights adjustments were made to maintain a sense of progression throughout playing while not coming into conflict with other features. The Empowered Shrine has been removed from the random shrine effect of the Father Seal from Altar of Rights. I don't know what that means, but it's probably important somewhere. And then there's all these other things in here that, uh, that you can do and all of the seasonal conquest stuff you can do Hedrick's gift is described.
I already, I think I already talked about what the, um, the armor classes were, so yeah, okay. There's also class balance changes striking a middle ground between fun and balanced as our top priority when it comes to classes. As we mentioned in our season 29 article going forward, a series of iconic themes from seasons past will be reintroduced roughly every three months. The below class balance changes were made to ensure each class remains both fun and balanced.
As powerful season themes returned to to Diablo four developers note over time we have seen some builds gain a massive amount of power leaving other builds behind and in need of updates. The Wizards Meteor has dominated the battlegrounds of Sanctuary for far too long, as well as some other sets we believe to have found a good avenue for each build to perform in and have improved sets across each class to work towards this goal.
And there's a whole bunch of stuff in here if you wanna know specifically about what they did to your favorite class. Um, it might be good, it might be bad. I don't know. I will eventually jump into this and just see what's there on x Gio has a list from Max Roll and it's talking about, uh, well here's what he wrote. The hashtag Diablo three at Max Roll, Gigi solo push tier for season 30. Which build are you excited to play with?
Alter Plus Soul Shards at once 24 hour plus Stream Live, by the way, Twitch, YouTube. And here on Acts going for World First one 50 H-C-S-S-F hardcore solo self found with, uh, NATS, uh, dh. So he's gonna play Demon Hunter and there's like an S tier of the best builds a tier and B tier in this tweet, and the rest of the show is coming from Wow Head, which is a pretty good site overall in my opinion.
So one day ago they posted that Diablo four was nominated for Dice Awards, um, online GOTY role-playing GOTY outstanding original music composition written by Jez Tross and it says its awards season and the finalists are in this year's Dice Awards held on February 15th are packed with 2020 three's biggest hitters and Diablo four has been nominated for not one, not two, but three separate awards.
The Dice Awards is the video games industry Premier Pure Juried Awards show held by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Scientists, which scientists no ss, um, AI, A IAS professionals from across the video game industry serve as the peer jury voting on the finalist through a secured confidential ballot.
Several prominent names from Activision Blizzard were invited to be some of this year's peer panelists, including Steve Derek, Adam Fsco, Dionne Rogers, Pedro Seminar, and Harrison g Pink, who recently left the company. And so there's a list of these games. The ones that they selected in here, uh, as online game of the year, include Call of Duty, modern Warfare three Diablo, four Omega Strikers, I don't know what that is.
Street Fighter six, I remember playing that years ago, but maybe not number six. And then the finals is, um, another, uh, another game I don't know about really. While Diablo four is a finalist in three categories, it's up to some absolute powerhouses, particularly in the role playing game of the year category. No matter who wins though, one thing is absolutely certain. 2023 was an incredible year for gaming. Good luck to all the finalists.
So the outstanding achievement in original music composition has the following games. Alan Wake two Diablo, four, Marvel's Spider-Man, two Planet of Alana and Star Wars Jedi survivor. So we'll just have to see who takes the award, but it's a good group of things.
Also on Wow Head written by Arc Tane is an article posted six days ago that says more events with cosmetic unlocks being added in the future in Diablo four, that with midwinter blight just ending in sanctuary, one of the relatively few ways to obtain new free cosmetics has been removed from Diablo four. That doesn't mean these cosmetics were a one-time deal, though in a reply to a comment on his post on X, formerly known as Twitter, literally they wrote that I love when they do that.
Uh, global Diablo community development director Adam Fletcher revealed some big news about what we can look forward to over the year in Diablo four, Fletcher confirmed that more events like the recent mid-winter blight will be added to the game over time, which will allow players to unlock more cosmetic rewards. This means players will have more opportunities to unlock free and dropped cosmetics for their characters likely themed around events instead of it relying exclusively on Teal's shop.
So there's a tweet, you know, posted in here about that Other Blizzard games like World of Warcraft are familiar with holiday specific events such as Love is in the Air and Hallows End. I like the Hallows End one and I haven't played Warcraft in a very long time. Could this mean we'll see Valentine's Day and Halloween events like in Wow or would we see other different holidays celebrated in Sanctuary?
We also have, again from Wow Head, this one's written by Jen, uh, J Tross, who is not me by the way. Um, Diablo four, season three launch date confirmed January, 2023. It's finally confirmed in just a few short weeks. The season of Blood will officially be over and season three of Diablo four will begin on January 23. Blizzard has updated the login screen in Diablo four. Changing the Splash banner from Season of Blood Ends to next season begins.
Curiously, we still do not have a season name revealed to us. While Season of Blood gave us a launch trailer, we have yet to see the same for season three or even know much about it. This does confirm however, that with season of Blood also ending on January 23, we will have no downtime between seasons. This release date does pose some interesting challenges.
However, with only nine business days between now and season three's launch, blizzard has a lot of information to get through in a very short time and no current dates announced for things such as the campfire chats or patch notes. While we likely expect some information soon, TM players will once again have no time to test the upcoming season on A PTR.
Like Diablo. Three players have gotten used to, many players have been calling for PTR implementation to allow for better balancing and testing, but as of now, blizzard has reported no plans for a PTR cycle. And then the last article is also from WOW Head and is written by OD and it is titled, as you may expect, Diablo four needs a PTR. Here's why. So let's hear why it has been just over seven months since the release of Diablo four in an incredible year for gaming.
The launch of Blizzard's newest title has been a successful one, according to critics around the globe, resulting in a meta critic score of 86. Since its launch, an overwhelming positive reception, Diablo Four's development Road has been rocky for the games community. Season one and its very first significant content patch 1.1 0.0, which included a plethora of controversial nerfs was met with waves of community criticism.
Diablo four's development team apologized and promised to do better and the following patches, including season two's, patch 1.2 0.0 indeed showed promise with significant changes to defenses and underperforming classes.
One of the latest content additions to the game, however, perfectly showcases one of the core issues of Diablo four, the abattoir of Zu, a seasonal end game mode introduced with Patch 1.2 0.3 in early December of last year, was expected to pose a genuine challenge to those who have quote done everything else, end quote in season two.
However, the new end game content was released with many groundbreaking bugs and exploits like conation, counting toward monster progression or players being able to create infinites infinite amounts of sigil dust. Most of these things have been fixed by now, but one burning question which has come up after every single patch since Diablo four's release remains.
Why in the high heavens does Diablo four not have a public test realm where players could test upcoming content and help Blizzard to increase the game's overall quality? There's a bunch of stuff down here continuing with this. I'll give you a little bit more. It's a long article, uh, ptrs in Diablo three and D two R Diablo two resurrected. A quick glance at the history of Blizzard's. A RPG franchise shows that multiple Diablo development teams have used ptrs to their advantage in the past.
The very first PTR in Diablo three was open to the public with the announcement of patch 1.0 0.5 just after just over four months after the games released back in 2012. And there's a little link here from Blizzard and it says, ptrs are a very valuable tool for our development teams. When you participate, share your feedback and submit reports, we can squash more bugs and ensure that the patch we release is of the highest quality possible.
Since then, every Major Diablo three patch in over 25 Diablo three seasons have been deployed on A PTR for over 10 years, setting a precedent for streamlined game development and quality assurance. Almost 10 years later, Blizzard's Diablo team once again installed a public test realm for, for Diablo two resurrected like Diablo three in 2012. The first PTR phase began within six months of the game's release.
D two R players will remember the massive database changes introduced with Ladder season one, which were developed to resolve ongoing performance issues. And here's a piece from Blizzard, the public test realm. PTR is a special realm where we can test balance fixed bugs and other enhancements we make in Diablo.
To resurrected this test environment is available to all owners of the game who can play a critical role in testing features and sharing their feedback to improve the overall experience for all players. The focus of the first PTR will re revolve around fixing database issues and making the online environment more robust and flexible under high volume conditions.
This test will be imperative as it will assist us in stabilizing the gameplay experience ahead of the implementation of the ladder rank play the quoted blue posts perfectly showcase what ptrs in Diablo and all other Blizzard games are supposed to achieve. Players are asked to stress test new content and other substantial changes to Blizzard games. In return, the community receives a more polished, high quality gaming experience. How Diablo four is being tested right now?
I dunno how long this goes on. It does, it goes on for a very long time. I'm gonna skip to the bottom here. Why there's still no PTR in Diablo. Four. We've looked at the franchise's PTR history and the problematic status quo in Diablo four. But why exactly is Blizzard not providing a public test realm?
In an interview with the German gaming website for players number four and players during Gamescom last year, Diablo general manager, rod Ferguson and associate production director Chris Wilson, stated the following.
The question was, do you plan on introducing test servers for upcoming game updates as has been done with Diablo three, Chris Wilson said, generally it's not planned to roll out future updates via test servers in advance in Diablo four, we try to work on new content through contact with the community and their feedback. And Rod Ferguson said a PTR public test realm is interesting, but also brings challenges in terms of development time balance, and what is revealed.
This is something we're very aware of as we've tried it in other games, we've heard the feedback, but we're still looking for ways to optimize this feedback loop and it might or might not be part of that in the future. There's more in this. I recommend you, uh, take a read of it because it's it's a lot, it's very interesting to me. At the very least. You might find it interesting as well, but yeah, why doesn't D four have a PTR?
I guess they're just not ready to do it or they don't wanna give away secrets or I, I don't know. I really don't know. But that's where I'm gonna end the show today. You have been listening to episode 4 4, 1 of the Shattered Soul Stone. Your Diablo Community podcast missed an episode. You can find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come and join us in game.
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