Followers = Colossal waste of Dev. time?

I don't mean any offense, but you don't represent the majority of people that will play the game. For better or worse. People here, logging in with their Diablo II keys to talk about an unreleased product - - on an essentially hidden forum - - do not represent the vast majority of people that will play the game. Which doesn't mean we don't want the game to appeal to you or be a lasting game you'll want to play as long as you played Diablo II, it very much is our intent to be, but we have a broad range of Diablo fans to appeal to.

Looking at Diablo II the amount of people that bought the game, never logged on to Battle.net, and never went beyond Normal are not insignificant. In fact, they're a substantial portion of the people that bought copies throughout the life of the game. The same goes for StarCraft II. Many (maybe most) people play through the story on normal difficulty, they MAY jump into multiplayer for a bit, and then that's about it. Putting effort into ensuring their experience is a solid one is not a waste of time because some other people completely skip the story and go straight to the 1v1 ladder.

Followers fit in with that 'average' use of games very well, but their intent is to also help people expand beyond their initial intent of beating it on Normal, and then shelving the game. If the followers can get a player excited about co-op because they like playing with another character, that's a win. We also think they just add a lot to the experience up front, which is important.

And, they're memorable characters. I don't think the scope of who these people are needs to end because their health doesn't scale so we can ensure the end-game is pure and there's less visual noise in multiplayer games. We don't have any plans for them beyond what we've announced, but, I wouldn't be surprised if they became meaningful in other ways in the future. Even if they're not, if someone enjoyed playing along with them, enjoyed the dialog, and liked what they add to the single player experience (which is pretty significant) then that's not a waste of time.

Q u o t e:
Not even needed to finish Normal mode according to Bashiok

Normal is super easy. It's intentionally super easy. You will die, but you can essentially slap on gear and not think too much about it, and probably beat the game without too much trouble. There will be many people though that will get a good amount of damage and utility by keeping their follower along. But, realistically people aren't going to actively refuse the help of a follower as they play through the game the first time.

I can beat the game on normal without gemming any items. That doesn't mean gems are a waste of time as a system. One happens to be required more at higher difficulties, one happens to be more useful and fun when playing alone in Normal. There's nothing that says all of our mechanics have to be useful at all times through all difficulties and classes or else it's a waste of time, and in fact, that'd probably make things super boring.

Followers were originally going to be available during co-op, and actually are right now because of a bug in the current build we're playing. And it's crazy. If you're unfortunate enough to also have a witch doctor, it's insanity. Eight characters running around plus all of the potential pets. It's complete chaos. That's the biggest reason they aren't going to be available outside of single player.

We also love that they're these strong, vocal, named characters that have a place and point in the world. They have objectives, they have opinions, and when you're by yourself it's awesome. They'll chime in and offer a comment on something, and it just does that much more to bring the world to life. But, in a co-op game, we all pick the Templar, and all of a sudden there's this character in the world cloned four times, with the same voice, saying the same things... and it gets real weird real fast. Also they do tend to talk a bit, and having four followers all piping in at different times can be pretty annoying when you're trying to talk with your friends.

There is actually the situation where you can have a follower and then re-run the quest where you pick them up, which could be a little weird, but we have some creative solutions we think keep that specific paradox from unraveling the spacetime continuum.

Followers have been a feature and we've known who these characters were going to be since before we announced the game, and while they haven't been in active testing that entire time, we're pretty well informed in how we feel they'll play out best. Of course, iteration is the name of the game. I don't really see the current plan changing, personally, but I'd be willing to be wrong. I just don't see a potential for (clean) alternative options outweighing the pretty massive negatives that these rules correct.

Q u o t e:
Blizzard doesn't care about feedback. Blizzard has always felt that whatever decision they make is the best decision and anyone who disagrees is wrong. It's pointless to complain about this follower system because they won't be changing it any time in the near future.

We take and implement tons of feedback. Good feedback that makes sense and makes for good changes to the game. Tons of people offer bad feedback with bad ideas or things that just won't work outside of the narrow window they perceive a game through. There's a difference.

Q u o t e:
OK, so "followers" are there to get casual players interested in co-op. Fine. But there are two things that happened here:
1. Mercenaries were removed
2. Followers were added to aid players in normal

The logic for 2 was addressed, but not the logic for 1, which was the OP's major issue.

If we were remaking Diablo II that would be a good point. But this is Diablo III. We can't remove something that was never there.

Q u o t e:
I find the "we're not remaking Diablo 2" argument tired and repetitious.

Me too, yet people still don't seem to get it. :)

Q u o t e:
I don't believe in the golden goose theory that some developer is suddenly blessed with the ability to design a perfect Diablo 3 game.

Us either, that's why we have many designers, and strike teams, and internal tests, and feedback forms, and hundreds if not thousands of employees playing and offering feedback. You can claim that none of them could be "true" Diablo II fans, and I wouldn't argue with you, because no matter how much of a veteran you are, it doesn't make you a good designer.

Q u o t e:
I am not jaded, I do understand a certain amount of the game needs to be made for the public, but even though I accept people want to have no brainer fun, how certain can I be to expect a true challenge?

I appreciate that, and I don't know. I can't even begin to know how to answer a personal question like that for you. Maybe you'll want to wait a few months after the game comes out to see how it pans out. I don't know. Should I devise like a letter scale for how I expect your expectations to be met? It'll be a P. You can be certain to expect a P-level challenge.

If your goal is to be disappointed, then I'm sure you'll achieve it.