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Yes, D3 and SC2 are two completely different genre's of game. I realize that hardcore SC2 players will continue to play no matter what hot new IP hits the market. However, Blizzard games do tend to cannibalize their players. One example is how TL featuring live D3 beta streams.
My first experience with Blizzard was Diable 2. I have a ton of great memories from college of my friends and I playing D2 on a LAN for 8+ hours a day. We had our own jimmy-rigged D2 server which comprised of old PC parts we all had laying around. Literally the server didn't have a case...it was just a motherboard and some other stuff laid out on a table, plugged into an outlet.
Although many people on TL seem to believe that SC2's player base consists of only Master/Grand Master league players, the truth is, the vast majority of SC2 players/fans are diamond or lower. I consider anyone who's not in one of the Masters leagues to be a casual player. It's probably something like 90% casual, 10% hardcore. I'm not saying D3 will take all of the casual players away, but it will take quite a bit. I'll be proven right if it takes a lot longer in the queue to find a ladder match once D3 is released.
I think the game that will really take a hit is WoW. D3 will be the first true attack on WoW's 14 million strong player base. As a former hardcore WoW player (well over 200 days/played) I can tell you that there is something very appealing about a single player RPG game with the quality that we've come to expect from Blizzard in a universe we already know and love.
I think Activision/Blizzard has a plan in place to keep all of their players buying and playing their games for years to come. With the slated SC2 expansions along with more WoW, D3 and expansions, and their epically secretive "next gen MMO" I see more players shifting between games rather than leaving the Blizzard world all together.
Poll: Will you lose interest in SC2 when D3 comes out?Not planning on buying D3 (88) 38% Will play D3 more than SC2 (65) 28% Will buy D3 but still play SC2 the majority of the time (32) 14% Planning on putting my entire life on hold when D3 comes out to give it 100% attention (28) 12% Will play both D3 and SC2 equally (20) 9% 233 total votes Your vote: Will you lose interest in SC2 when D3 comes out? (Vote): Not planning on buying D3
(Vote): Will buy D3 but still play SC2 the majority of the time
(Vote): Will play both D3 and SC2 equally
(Vote): Will play D3 more than SC2
(Vote): Planning on putting my entire life on hold when D3 comes out to give it 100% attention
 
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As a casual gamer it all depends how engaging and entertaining Diablo 3 will be. So I can't really vote in this pool until I play D3 itself.
*BUT* if I was to choose I would pick #3 - Will play both D3 and SC2 equally
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as a fairly competitive sc2 player i do plan on playing D3 for fun, even if it cuts into my sc2 practice time a shitton for a while (i'll just have to put in more when i get back lol) D3 just looks so ridiculously fun to play and im looking quite forward to it
i plan on playing D3 as a way to relax from sc2
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I don't think posting this poll on a hardcore SC site will produce very good results.
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United States883 Posts
Knowing myself this is what is going to happen. I will play D3 obsessively for a short while. Then I will get the urge to play some SC2. I will ladder until I lose, then get fed and go back to D3. Which I will play until I die a couple times and then go back to SC2 ladder. Rinse repeat.
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Somewhat of a valid concern, but I think it's kind of like whenever a new MMO comes out and people are like "holy shit WoW is DEAD!", I don't think Diablo 3 has the appeal to take players, even the casual ones, really and wholly away from SC2. It's just not that up-their-alley I think. SC2 is, I think, inherently a less casual friendly game than LoL, WoW or D3. It's not as much of a jump in, have some fun and relax, log out thing (which is a big part of WoW's appeal, for the record).
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Not at all. Different playerbases, so they won't compete too much and people can definitely do both.
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@DEN1ED - where would be a better place to post a poll about how much SC2 players are planning on playing SC2 once D3 comes out?
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no one cares.
EASY, I'm joking...
I for one will likely take a higher interest in D3 as I'm more of an older gamer now and although the competitive side of me lusts to play SC2 all out, I simply don't have the time anymore. I'll enjoy what I can from streams and follow the scene but I'll likely become what I would of hated in the past, and that's the casual not so hardcore gamer (but with a BW background to boot). 1a2a3a4a
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War 3 also came out in 2002, 2-4 years after SC and BW, and looking back that's now considered before SC/BW really got big. And that's another Blizzard RTS.
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I bailed on D3 when they took out PK.
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Horridly skewed results but if I were a casual sc2 player, i'd switch to d3. I'd almost always choose pvm over pvp in a casual setting
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Diablo was just as much a part of my childhood gaming as Starcraft so I have to play it. I plan to split time with SC2. Most likely, I will eventually start playing less D3 and more SC2. Frankly, no game I have ever played has held my full attention for as long as Starcraft has. I enjoy Halo and COD and I'll probably get the yearly edition whenever it comes out but a month later I, and most of my friends, are sick of it.
Went off on kind of a tangent, I don't mean to imply D3 won't hold my attention for a long time but I don't see anything comparing to Starcraft. Perhaps because my favorite part of D2 was what most people found boring - the trading game. My best memories from D2 are all about me finding an item (or being gifted it) and then working trades to get better and better stuff. Since trading will be completely different in D3 I just don't know how I will feel.
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It might. I take my SC2 pretty seriously but I still love to mess around with other games every so often ie Minecraft 1.8 comes out => No SC for a week.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
On September 24 2011 03:13 Monarch.StarCrack wrote:
Although many people on TL seem to believe that SC2's player base consists of only Master/Grand Master league players, the truth is, the vast majority of SC2 players/fans are diamond or lower.
I... I feel like I need to stop you right here. "many people on TL" do not believe that 2% of the laddering population is the entire Sc2 player base. That's just wrong. I don't know who on TL believes this, but they're part of a tiny minority of people who... basically haven't played Sc2.
Like, I can't even... how do you even think this? I'd go so far as to say that literally nobody on TL believes that Sc2's player base consists of only Master/Grand Master league players. I'm really confident you're wrong here.
Here's what most people on TL think, and is also the truth: Most people on bnet do not regularly ladder 1v1, and the vast majority of those who do are really bad.
Also, given the level of Sc2 devotion on these forums, I'm not sure a poll of us is a good indication of what's going on in the casual Sc2 scene.
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Kind of weird answering for me. I'll probably play exclusively D3 when it comes out, but once I've gone through the game once or twice I'll come right back to Sc2...clicked on full attention to D3 but I feel like my answer kind of skews the poll results.
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I will play both games. But most of my time will be D3. I'll still play SC2 maybe 2-5 games a day and maintain my mechanics to stay in masters league.
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I have a lot of friends who play SC2 casually. We do lots of 4v4s against each other and customs and stuff. I don't think anyone is planning on switching to D3. Even though we all have found nostalgia towards Diablo series, it doesn't look like it will be anywhere near as social an experience as SC2. Another thing that SC2 has that D3 doesn't is watchability. All of us enjoy watching stuff like MLG and IPL, mimicing builds and laughing about drama. Which really adds to our playing experience when we do play. I don't see D3 providing anything comparable. I agree with the OP's hypothesis that D3 will pull far more from WoW than SC2. LoL/HoN are the bigger threats.
All that being said, the sharp drop in number of ladder games played since D3 beta release is alarming: http://www.sc2ranks.com/map/55804/tal-darim-altar-le
(the link is only for NA games on Tal'Darim, but if you look at all other ladder maps you'll see the same trend)
It might have something to do with summer ending and kids going back to school. Or LoL. I don't know what the figures were like last year. It doesn't look like SC2 ranks stores that information in archive.
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I feel like a big portion of players will drift off and then never come back. Granted, there will be a group who will, and another group that'll come back once HotS is released, i feel like a large number of players might be lost, but it's like Blazinghand said, the vast majority of sc2 players don't read TL. Their level of interaction with the game is blizzard news bulletins on the home page of sc2.
We're going to lose a large number of players, but we've been shedding them ever since release, with dead island, and fear 3, and any other number of random games that come out and steal players away one at a time.
It won't be that huge a deal imo
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All the friends I consider casual players have already stopped playing SC2 and haven't been on for a month or more. D3 will make some dent I'm sure but I don't think it will be that big long term, and once HOTS comes out SC2 will bounce back bigtime.
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EPT
