Diablo III is a great game, there’s no doubting that. But the “end game” offered is indeed a little bit stale.
Over on the game’s official forums, some players have been asking if anything is going to be done to alleviate some of the “end game woes” people have been experiencing. There’s been issues with farming in the game’s final Act, specifically the items and elites encountered aren’t as good or challenging as those from Act III, not to mention a general sense of “what do I do now?”
Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok took to the forums to respond, saying that Diablo III is no World of Warcraft, meaning new dungeons, quests, NPCs, and items won’t be pumped out at a regular basis. That being said, there are some plans in place:
We’re working toward 1.0.4, which we’re really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we’ll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we’re of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they’re not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game.
Bashiok also mentioned a progression system being tossed around, but that won’t be until “far after 1.1” and that they want to make sure they’d do it right, as is the case with anything Blizzard does.
Then again, it’s odd to see people complain about a franchise that has always involved dungeon crawling and loot finding to feature an end game that only offers, well, dungeon crawling and loot grinding. Maybe attitudes will change with the addition of PVP in Patch 1.1.