**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

[lozina]

darn, ok at least now I know I should uninstall this and download the full client before the release date... would hate to realize this on the day of release and have to sit there doing it when I know I could be playing!

 

[lozina]

BTW - dont know if this has been posted but in case anyone is interested in getting a nice detailed summary of key differences between D2 and D3 I found this guide to be quite helpful!

http://www.osirisguide.com/diablo-2-vs-diablo-3-a-running-list-of-differences/

 

[Juddog]

PVP will be included. People will adjust to whatever balance there is for PVP. You can plan the game entirely around PVM without having to worry about the PVP players, just let them do their own thing. But limiting the PVP options is lame. In D2 there were certain builds that were best for PVM and others were best for PVP. Hell, in D3 you don't even have to choose, you can swap back and forth with ease! So why not give PVP players the options they want?

I just dislike the knee-jerk reactions to PVP situations that tends to happen when PVP gets tossed in as a secondary priority.

 

[Farmer]

Alright, I'm going to "prepay" for this on the 10th.

 

[gothamhunter]

I was able to resume the beta client download more than once. It uses P2P for the transfer, or you can disable the P2P and download direct from a server (which was faster for me).

Really? If I wanted to stop it, I had to click cancel, and if I started the app up again it asked where to install it to and overwrote what I already downloaded. I couldn't find a "resume" app in the download folder.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I just dislike the knee-jerk reactions to PVP situations that tends to happen when PVP gets tossed in as a secondary priority.

The problem from a game mechanic designer's point of view is that PVP and PVE are two very different things, and a game needs to be designed from the ground up for one or the other, trying to balance the two will almost always fail.

 

[Elcs]

EU servers go live 00:01 CEST 15th May...

I can't wait two whole weeks!!!

Anyway, Diablo III is just my stopgap until Torchlight 2 comes out.

 

[slayer202]

US midnight PST

 

[lozina]

Will there only be one US server - on the west coast?

 

[Adrenaline]

EU servers go live 00:01 CEST 15th May...

I can't wait two whole weeks!!!

Anyway, Diablo III is just my stopgap until Torchlight 2 comes out.

Torchlight 2 looks fantastic to me. I hope Diablo 3 doesn't wind up being a stopgap for me as well.

 

[lozina]

Heh, I was just reading about the real money auction house - and I think 3rd party selling will be pretty much unphased by this system. The fees are just ridiculous. Buyers and sellers alike will get much better results using 3rd party sites.

 

[slayer202]

Heh, I was just reading about the real money auction house - and I think 3rd party selling will be pretty much unphased by this system. The fees are just ridiculous. Buyers and sellers alike will get much better results using 3rd party sites.

For instance, folks hoping to turn the game into a business opportunity will be discouraged to learn that Blizzard will take $1 off the top of every piece of equipment sold (and 15 percent off of everything else), and charges a 15 percent transfer fee to move money through a third party like PayPal. To avoid that surcharge (as well as PayPal's own transfer fee), players can choose to move funds to their Battle.net account, where they can use their money to pay for games, subscriptions or more in-game items. Of course, once they do that, that money cannot be refunded back into real-life cash.

Ouch. $1 off everything is very steep, and another 15% + paypal cut is insane. Losing a dollar on each transaction kind of kills the system as a way to trade.

Great news for d2jsp...and the shop sites.

 

[BudAshes]

The problem from a game mechanic designer's point of view is that PVP and PVE are two very different things, and a game needs to be designed from the ground up for one or the other, trying to balance the two will almost always fail.

As long as it's an option I don't care if it's balanced much. As long as the same build isn't the best for both pve and pvp.

 

[mingsoup]

I feel that supporting online single player DRM like this is a bad thing.

When I want to play D3 12 years from now, will the servers be around? That is what *seriously* bothers me about this.DRM free single player games are timeless. I wish someone would develop a better game and give it to gog.com to distribute. I'd buy it 4 times over. I *really* don't want to support this business practice. Then, again, I really want to play D3. I don't know if Torchlight 2 will cut it. I'd feel so slighted if I buy it. That and its NEVER going to go on sale. Why do people support this practice.

 

[MrRamon]

I'm going to get diablo3. I played the beta and was fun although I'm disappointed a bit...

1.) no skill tree
2.) auto stat
3.) pvp - they should just let it ride out. In diablo2 no one would expect my lvl 90+ barb to teleport on their ass. It was fun chasing a sorc .
4,) diablo keeps getting more softcore. - in diablo 1 I learned fast that people would act like your buddy and go deep in the catacombs with you only to mk you because your items would drop and they would take them. I looked out for this and made a low lvl char and waited for people to do this to me and get on my uber char and play the same song and dance only to train monsters to them and take all their stuff. In diablo 2 we had pvp + hardcore. Diablo 3 we have nothing at launch to do with pvp.

 

[lupi]

Went to log on last night and found that they turned off the servers, those bastards!

 

[Juddog]

Ouch. $1 off everything is very steep, and another 15% + paypal cut is insane. Losing a dollar on each transaction kind of kills the system as a way to trade.

Great news for d2jsp...and the shop sites.

Bobby Kotick laughs at your d2jsp site.

 

[lozina]

I'm going to get diablo3. I played the beta and was fun although I'm disappointed a bit...

1.) no skill tree

I guess this is a love it or hate it type of change.

The main reason I did not play Diablo 2 much was the stats/skill tree system. I would end up spending all this time leveling up but end up with a gimp character because I didn't know the most effective character template or something I relied on got nerfed by a patch.

With this sytem I can constaly change spells/abilities around keeping my character fresh and never being worried that I am gimping my character and have to start all over again.

 

[slayer202]

I guess this is a love it or hate it type of change.

The main reason I did not play Diablo 2 much was the stats/skill tree system. I would end up spending all this time leveling up but end up with a gimp character because I didn't know the most effective character template or something I relied on got nerfed by a patch.

With this sytem I can constaly change spells/abilities around keeping my character fresh and never being worried that I am gimping my character and have to start all over again.

Shouldn't people really be complaining that Blizzard chose to include skills that just sucked and didn't work? Getting rid of choices and options is a pretty lame way to fix that problem.

The changes they have made are ok, the game will probably be fun. But I think most of the changes kill the uniqueness of D2 and what made it such a great game with EXTREME staying power. Killing monsters and doing the same quests over and over will get boring when you are using the same character with the same skills, without the option to play the game how you want. But hey, this is probably what they want. It's not pay to play so they don't want people playing it forever. They are probably saving money on servers designing the game the way they did

 

[lozina]

Shouldn't people really be complaining that Blizzard chose to include skills that just sucked and didn't work? Getting rid of choices and options is a pretty lame way to fix that problem.

The changes they have made are ok, the game will probably be fun. But I think most of the changes kill the uniqueness of D2 and what made it such a great game with EXTREME staying power. Killing monsters and doing the same quests over and over will get boring when you are using the same character with the same skills, without the option to play the game how you want. But hey, this is probably what they want. It's not pay to play so they don't want people playing it forever. They are probably saving money on servers designing the game the way they did

Well I'm not sure if it kills the uniqueness, because as some people would argue in Diablo 2 there were basically a few ideal character templates that were getting passed around and everyone would copy, unless you just didn't care about gimping your char in which case you probably were not too much into the game anyway.

With the system they have now, you can only have a limited number of spells/abilities/powers active on your character at any given time. And with each of these "slots" you have several choices to choose from, whose effects/performance are significantly different from each other. Then for each of these powers you have a choice of up to I think 7 different runes which further customizes each power. Some of these runes significantly alter that power's effect too. Like instead of hitting one enemy with a particular power one rune makes it so you have area effect. Or choosing a different rune gives you a defensive bonus, or another gives you a stun effect, etc..

So you have to really think hard about what powers to "equip" on your character. And the beauty of it is you can change it anytime you want. You cannot just hotkey changes on the fly but you can for example if you know you are about to fight a boss then take a pause to reconfigure your abilities to exploit his weakness.

All in all while playing the beta I absolutely loved this system.

 

[Mopetar]

Killing monsters and doing the same quests over and over will get boring when you are using the same character with the same skills, without the option to play the game how you want.

There are something like 25 skills for each class, each with 5 rune stone effects, which in some cases completely change the way the skill works. How are you saying that you don't have options?

But hey, this is probably what they want. It's not pay to play so they don't want people playing it forever. They are probably saving money on servers designing the game the way they did

:hmm:

You need to tie that in with the Kennedy assassination somehow.

 

[SMOGZINN]

There are something like 25 skills for each class, each with 5 rune stone effects, which in some cases completely change the way the skill works. How are you saying that you don't have options?

I'm going to start by saying that although I am leaning towards thinking that this system is a bad idea (explained why below) I think that all that really matters is that it is fun to play. That I think they will have managed.

But, why choice is missing is because you don't have to make any choices. You have all the skills. After just a short time playing it is going to stop feeling like you are choosing skills for your characters and more like you have a gimped control scheme that won't let you have enough hotkeys to use all the skills the game gives you.

You lose the satisfaction of being creative and using what is available to you, because everything is available to you. When things get hard you can just trade out to the right skills for the job.

You need to tie that in with the Kennedy assassination somehow.

Now you are just being silly. It is pretty obvious none of this has anything to do with the Kennedy's.

Spoiler

But it is clear that this is the real reason they faked the moon landing

 

[lozina]

After just a short time playing it is going to stop feeling like you are choosing skills for your characters and more like you have a gimped control scheme that won't let you have enough hotkeys to use all the skills the game gives you.

This is an interesting perspective on it.

Having maxed out all my beta characters I can say that I did have a feeling of wishing I could just hotkey some skills around on the fly, that it is almost a hindrance not having such a feature. And I guess as the game progresses and you unlock more abilities and face mobs with more varied strengths/weaknesses this desire will grow as you actually need to make changes to your abilities more and more.

But I am still glad it's not the old system. To me there's nothing worse than investing so much time in a character but ending up with something I'm not happy with anymore and having to start over from scratch to try something else.

I'm not the kind of person who is looking to be creative in my character build, I look for the most effective build possible and then copy it. I'm a power gamer. I want to be the most efficient possible at killing stuff

 

[slayer202]

This is an interesting perspective on it.

Having maxed out all my beta characters I can say that I did have a feeling of wishing I could just hotkey some skills around on the fly, that it is almost a hindrance not having such a feature. And I guess as the game progresses and you unlock more abilities and face mobs with more varied strengths/weaknesses this desire will grow as you actually need to make changes to your abilities more and more.

But I am still glad it's not the old system. To me there's nothing worse than investing so much time in a character but ending up with something I'm not happy with anymore and having to start over from scratch to try something else.

I'm not the kind of person who is looking to be creative in my character build, I look for the most effective build possible and then copy it. I'm a power gamer. I want to be the most efficient possible at killing stuff

And more than just not having the hotkey options, what I read about MF buffs said that your buff resets if you switch skills! I really don't understand some of their decisions :/

 

[Mopetar]

But, why choice is missing is because you don't have to make any choices. You have all the skills. After just a short time playing it is going to stop feeling like you are choosing skills for your characters and more like you have a gimped control scheme that won't let you have enough hotkeys to use all the skills the game gives you.

Maybe you're misunderstanding the system.

Each character has around 25 different abilities. At the end of the game they can choose 6 of them that they will use. Each of those 6 chosen skills can be given 1 of 5 different rune stone effects, some of which have profound enough effects that they almost completely change the skill and how it will be used. You also have about 15 passive skills, of which you can choose 3.

At most you'll need four extra hot keys assuming skills are bound to both mouse buttons as you'll never have more than 6 active skills at any one time.

And more than just not having the hotkey options, what I read about MF buffs said that your buff resets if you switch skills! I really don't understand some of their decisions :/

I'll use a hypothetical example to illustrate. Let's say that the most powerful Wizard build in the game uses frost damage exclusively. It can easily kill most champion packs and named monsters, but if it runs into anything that's cold resistant it won't work.

The general idea is to prevent people from finding a pack, figuring out what combination of skills can best exploit any weaknesses that monster has, and immediately switching. If you just want to be able to kill the monsters, there's no real penalty, but if you're doing MF runs you'll need to stick with one, solid build to keep the buff. It's just designed to stop people from exploiting the ability to change skills whenever they want to by giving them incentive not to rather than just making some arbitrary restriction to changing skills.