My Fears Have Been Confirmed

Whatever issues are revealed tomorrow (e.g. "core system mechanics"), they obviously can't say polish, bugs, player balance or runes. They'll need to come up with something really good.

Jay Wilson's post just went up moments ago.

So, Jay has been preparing this for a few weeks now and everyone was anticipating a significant post detailing the drastic mechanic changes and huge additions being made.

Boy, are they in for a surprise.

It ended up being exactly what I thought; they're still "polishing the game, the rune system, and minor UI changes". The same stuff they've been doing for months and months. It really can't get any more obvious than this; the recent explanation is not a good reason for the delay.

They're cutting out a ton of stuff (Cauldron, Identification, Mystic Artisan, Nephalem Cube, etc.) but they're adding one extra button. And, they're still constantly "tuning and making balance changes."

I am completely shocked that they tried to pass this off as their excuse.. I was expecting something really big, at the very least, that could have possibly explained the long delay. I imagine that others are beginning to clue in now after reading that "big update".

There must be something else going on. One suspicion is the RMAH, Battle.net Balance, and system integration with PayPal which has been postponed by several weeks now.

* UPDATE:

I'm not sure I really agree with this @Diablo tweet:

Jay Wilson (@angryrobotics) just released a wealth of insight into dev iteration & core game systems changes inc: http://ow.ly/8yAHo #D3

A wealth of information and core game system changes? Here's a summary of everything they actually did:

• We have been finishing and polishing the content for about a year now.
• Oh, and there's lots of work left to be done. Over the past few years, we've been tuning and making balance changes too.
• Most recently, we removed Scrolls of Identification. That took us about 5 minutes.
• We also removed the Mystic Artisan. Oh wow, this was a tough one.. took all day.
• We removed the Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube. 5 minutes.
• We removed salvage option from common white items. 5 minutes.
• We moved the fifth quick slot button. That took a while.. it was like 30 minutes of work.
• We moved the Stone of Recall button. 5 minutes of work.
• We moved the Salvage button to the Blacksmith Artisan instead. 10 minutes of work.
• We moved character stats to the Inventory UI. 15 minutes.
• We renamed Attack, Precision, Defense, and Vitality to Strength, Dexterity, Intellect and Vitality. In a way, we sort of brought back Willpower, which was actually removed from the game in late 2010. This didn't take any time at all, because we've already been experimenting with attribute changes over the past few years.
• We were able to complete all of these massive changes in 3 days, but trust me, we're still doing A LOT OF STUFF right now. It's like really busy. That's the Blizzard Promise™.

Basically, art, music, and programming are the forms of content in game development that take up the most amount of time. The changes that Jay Wilson described are all simple back-end database adjustments (text and numbers).. there has been no new content designed or added.. only deleted. Even the attribute changes are minor and they have been reworking it for years now.. even longer than they have been experimenting with runes. Everything described is nothing "new", it's really just polish.

* UPDATE:

I just want to make a clarification here. Jay Wilson's post shouldn't scare you at all.. this is just a stall for time to ease player frustration and to give the impression that some "real work" has been done (because it has nothing to do with the SK delays.) :)

To me, this does not mean a delay at all. Mark my words: all of these changes are DONE and they were probably completed weeks or months ago. Everything Jay detailed will very likely be in the next beta patch or patches. This IS and WAS NOT a lot of work and it should not worry you at all. This is all minor stuff that has been completed and they do NOT have a lot of work ahead of them.

Jay's post does not mean a delay. So, don't panic.

My only concerns now are with the B.Net Balance system and PayPal.

* UPDATE:

Post from Bashiok:

Keep in mind everything detailed in the article today is already in the game, and most of it is complete. Once you get Patch 10 and see that, I think it may sink in that these aren't theoretical changes we're still working on, they're changes we've completed.

Ah, here we go.. you guys need to start reading between the lines! :)

Read Bashiok's entire post; he just echoes what I've been saying. Most of this was probably completed a long time ago.. the Jay Wilson post is just to show that "something is being done". But it's all just minor stuff, meaning that there's something else delaying the game.