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The Gadgetzan Gazette - Vol. 32 #8
"Weird Al" Yankovic Performing Live at BlizzCon 2016!
"Weird Al" Yankovic Live at BlizzCon 2016!

"Weird Al" Yankovic at BlizzCon

This year's BlizzCon closing musical act is none other than "Weird Al" Yankovic! Read the full announcement below:

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blog Post)

Hoist your accordions and ready your battle-axes, because “Weird Al” Yankovic is closing out BlizzCon 2016!

The Grammy Award–winning pop parodist will be taking the stage the evening of Saturday, November 5, to provide an epic send-off for everyone celebrating this year’s convention. If you didn’t score tickets to the show, Blizzard gamers and Weird Al fans around the world can still get a front row seat at home with the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket.

BlizzCon is the biggest Blizzard party of the year, packed with in-depth developer panels, intense esports tournaments, the legendary Friday night contests, and what’s sure to be an epic finale from Weird Al.

The Virtual Ticket lets you watch the action online, live and in high definition. You’ll also be able to watch most of the concert in on-demand videos that will be available within a few days after the show, although some portions may be edited or unavailable. For the best experience, be sure to watch it live!

Order a Virtual Ticket and you’ll also receive a treasure trove of in-game goodies for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch.

Check out the press release for more information on this year’s closing concert featuring Weird Al. And get ready for an evening of mandatory fun—we’ll see you at the show!

Season 8 Journey Conquests Bug

Many of you have already noticed that this Season's Conquests don't actually complete your corresponding Season Journey parts. Blizzard is aware of the issue and is currently investigating solutions. While there's no ETA for a solution yet, we should be getting an update on the situation soon.

Developer Chronicles: Greater Rifts

The Diablo team is back with another issue of the Developer Chronicles, this time focusing on Greater Rifts. If you want to know more about the design philosophy behind Greater Rifts, and especially their diversity, read the full blog post here!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blog Post)

Hello, Joe Shely here again. Today I’d like to answer a question about Greater Rifts.

Before we start, I’d like to note that although this post will focus on Greater Rifts, it’s important to keep in mind that Nephalem Rifts and Bounties are equally important ways to play Adventure Mode.

“Sometimes I can clear a level 45 Greater Rift, but other times it feels like I’m not even close. Why?”

Greater Rifts present an ever changing set of circumstances to overcome, which can naturally prove more or less challenging for your character. From different monster types to elite affixes to environments, you never know exactly what’s around the next corner.

Before we get into how you can better overcome these challenges, we’ll first look at the philosophy behind them, including the importance of balance and diverse styles of gameplay.

Read the full post here.

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Season 8 Guides

With Season 8 well underway, you might want to have a look at one (or both) of these Google-Docs based Guides:

The first guide comes from Twitch streamer fstd3 and features leveling guides as well as starter, and end-game builds in addition to useful data on drop rates and the like. Check fstd3's Season 8 Pocket Guide here!

Our second guide was compiled by Deadset and focuses entirely on builds, with everything from beginner to end-game GR (solo and group) builds. With 6+ builds per class, you're sure to find one that suits your needs. Find your perfect build here!

Blizzard Voice Now Available

Blizzard has added voice chat functionality to the battle.net client itself. To activate it, create a channel from your battle.net friendlist and add your friends to it. Additional settings can be found in the client's settings menu.

New Layout for the Official Diablo Website

Diablo 3's official website on battle.net has also received a visual overhaul.
Contrary to earlier claims, the background image is not a new one, but instead merely an RoS artwork with Malthael removed from the center.

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Season 8 Starts Tomorrow & Season Overview

Season 8 will begin on Friday, October 21st. The exact start times are as follows:

• North America: 5 PM PDT - LIVE
• Europe: 5 PM CEST - LIVE
• Asia: 5 PM KST - LIVE

Since there was no patch in-between Season 7 and 8, the new Season will be very similar to the previous one. The most significant changes are those to the Season Journey. If you're interested in the steps required to complete the Season Journey, we recommend checking Bagstones brilliant Season Journey Tracker. It shows each step for each of the Journey milestones (including Conquests) and saves all your progress in your browser, as it did in previous Seasons. What's new is that you can now export your progress to either show other players, or to use on another browser for yourself.

The rewards from the Journey have also changed, you'll get the Andariel Wings and a new Portrait Frame this time around. Additionally, the class sets you get via Haedrig's Gift have also rotated on:

• Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
• Crusader – Seeker of the Light
• Demon Hunter – Natalya’s Vengeance
• Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
• Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
• Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing Arcana

If you haven't played Season 7 or Patch 2.4.2 yet, you can catch up with the Patch in One Minute video below!

Finally, you can also have a look at Blizzard's own Season 8 preview here.

Developer Chronicles: Engaging Monsters

Blizzard's Joe Shelly went ahead and gave insights on what makes monsters engaging and how different monster types mix in Rifts and Greater Rifts. Read the full developer blog below.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Blog)

Hello, Joe Shely here.

 

I’m one of the designers on the Diablo III team working on gameplay systems and content like Greater Rifts. One of my responsibilities is to make sure the monsters you fight are fun and engaging. Today, I’ll be answering a question about rift monsters.

Lacuni in my Zombie Rift?!

 

Progressing though a rift is about dealing with the unexpected. Zombies are slow and predictable, so fighting one group of zombies will feel about the same as fighting another group. We add engaging monsters like the Lacuni or the Succubus to change the fight dynamics.

What Qualifies as “Engaging?”

 

An engaging monster has the capacity to affect your behavior. Let’s look at the Succubus for a moment. Her primary attack, Blood Star, is a fairly slow-moving, seeking projectile. When pushing Greater Rifts, you’d probably prefer not to get hit by that projectile. You might take an action to avoid it, like moving out of the way just before it reaches you or stunning the Succubus when you see her cast.

 

We like engaging monsters. They make the game more interesting by providing opportunities for your character’s abilities and legendary powers to shine. It’s satisfying to use Cyclone Strike to pull several Succubi close and then Blinding Flash them all before they can cast Blood Star.

 

Of course, when you’re playing on a difficulty level that’s easy for your character, you might not worry about the Succubus at all. That’s okay, too.

Too Much of a Good Thing

 

Imagine visiting an area and finding it packed with Moon Clan Shaman, Exorcists, Lacuni Huntresses, Blood Clan Sorcerers, Succubi, and Exorcists. Bit of a mess, right? Although we do throw monsters from different areas together in Greater Rifts, we carefully choose which monsters you see together. A good mix of monsters has a couple of things to avoid, a healthy chunk of basic attackers, and a little spice in the form of a big bruiser or a monster with unusual movement.

 

It’s like monster soup. Too much Lacuni in your soup throws off the flavor.

 

In addition, while a monster’s signature ability can make it engaging to battle against, sometimes it can cross the line and become frustrating. When Reaper of Souls launched, the Primordial Scavenger’s armor wouldn’t break until you’d taken off a significant chunk of its health, but only certain types of attacks were able to bypass the armor to deal damage. This mechanic wasn’t communicated clearly, and some classes had trouble delivering the right kind of damage to break its armor. It didn’t make the monster engaging because it wasn’t obvious what you were supposed to do or how to do it. So in patch 2.3.0, we changed the armor to break after it takes five hits. Since it breaks more consistently, you can now focus on putting the hurt on the Scavenger after it breaks.

 

We’re always on the lookout for cases where we can make a monster more fun and satisfying to kill while keeping the game engaging, and it’s something we consider when designing new monsters.

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Diablo 4 Hype Postmortem

There have been a lot of rumors and speculation on a potential Diablo 4 reveal at BlizzCon over the last week. Spoilers: It turned out to be nothing. But let us recapitulate what was going on.
A few days back, we reported on Bill Roper and David Brevik, two of the developers behind Diablo II who had since left Blizzard, visiting the company again.

Shortly thereafter, Brevik tweeted the following along with an image of a star constellation:

Since he'd recently visited Blizzard, many people took this as a confirmation that he wasn't just working on a "Diablo-like game" but actually on the next installment of the series. However, this is not the case. Yesterday, Brevik confirmed that he is "not working on the Diablo franchise currently or in the near future". While he didn't outright say what he's working on, it appears to be Path of the Exile according to this Chinese site.

As if the hype wasn't already dead an buried at that point, Bill Roper also came out and tweeted that while working on Diablo again "would be an honor", it was just a rumor.

With BlizzCon closing in, everyone seems to be incredibly eager for a new announcement. This incident might serve as a reminder to not trust every rumor and keep your hype in check.
Once BlizzCon begins on November 4th, we will of course be providing live coverage of the opening ceremony and all Diablo panels, so check back here for all the actual announcements.

Season 7 has ended, Season 8 starts this Friday

If you haven't logged into Diablo III for a while, you might have missed the end of Season 7. Don't forget to claim the items from your Seasonal Stash via the in-game mail system!

Since there will apparently be no patch between Seasons this time, the break between the end of S7 and the start of S8 is only one week. This means that Season 8 will already begin this Friday!
We will be giving you another overview post of the new Season closer to its start.