How much free content do you think you're entitled to? Not being snarky, honestly wondering. The games had solid support for quite some time, with new areas, mode, items, seasons, etc.
Define 'solid'.
Seasons had their moments, but aside from the D3 'faithful', I wasn't under the impression that the change-ups to sets (and the sprinkling of season-exclusive leg items) were THAT much of an incentive outside of the people who liked chasing leaderboard GR numbers.
Similar with the 'new areas', which didn't really add all that much in terms of the D3 grind, only really changing the palette and adding a few new enemies/enemy mechanics.
Should they just support the game ad infinitum? A new class is a fairly sizeable chunk of content for an ARPG, along with the two new areas (with new mobs if they follow the other areas) and the D1 anniversary stuff. The only thing we're not getting that a "proper" expansion would have had is new story content, considering a) the story in D3 is mostly dogshit and b) most people play through it once, I'm not sure how much of a loss that is
To each their own, but considering that the character feels like the meat of the ARPG experience (with the other main pillar being loot) I'm wondering what exactly you mean by "substantial content"? New areas (we're getting those)? New story?
I think for at least me, it's more of a proposition value. RoS added not only a new class and a large new area/palette, but an entire revamp to the way the end-game worked.
The Necromancer feels.....piecemeal. Nickle-and-dime-esque, especially if they're not careful in their pricing.
Taken with no context, a 5-15 dollar fee for a new character in an ARPG isn't NECESSARILY a bad value proposition, but these things don't happen in a vacuum. This goes back to the value that RoS had for 40 bucks. It wasn't just the Crusader, it was a whole bunch of shit.
Blizz is free to devise monetary compensation in whichever way they choose, but they don't get a free pass for it, in the context of their previous value offerings.
Also this.
We have already seen what new areas amounts to with Diablo 3 with the Ruins of Sescheron (it lasted like 15 minutes and once you got Kanai's cube you never went there again). Even with the Necro, its going to amount of rushing to 70 and doing the same damn rifts everyone has been doing over and over and over again already.