Actually, leeching won't be an option in Diablo 3 so the first arguement is pretty invalid. It's not like "right i'm gonna leech to lvl 45 (since lvl 60 is the cap in Diablo 3) and i'll experiment with builds. Leveling the character will take time. Imagine leveling every single character by actually playing and think about how much time it takes. And yeah, 4 player limit and extremely hard enemies on 4/4 people games ensure there won't be rushing/leeching.
Also, the respec won't be "a little gold". It's going to take time and quests (from the little info we have so far). And lots of gold. To remove a skill point, not reset the whole skill setup. Quoting Bashiok here: "If you want to completely change your skills, you'd better start a new character".
Who said anything at all about leeching? Trist runs til 10ish, tombs til 20, cows til 24, ancients, norm baal runs til your high enough to kill nm ancients, then guy right to nm baal runs. You could do this with friends of the same level no problem, no leeching required, and all get up to hell baal runs with no rusher in probably 5-7 hours. Only exception might be if your all playing untwinked, but if you have some leveling gear set aside on an alt you should have no problems.
If you wanted to rush/leech you could just grush to hell chaos and get a new toon to level 80 in 2-3 hours.
Now on that part, think that quality won't come in masses. We don't know if there's going to be an Auction House or something like that, so we can't be sure how it's going to work out. Either way, the really cool stuff will be rare and the player will be up to decide what to charge for it. Is it 5 High Runes, or 20,000 gold? Do you really see a difference? I don't. Learning curve is not knowing what to charge for items. It's knowing what to pay for items YOU need. That's needed with any kind of economy too.
Yes I see a difference. Like I already said twice, you can't farm high runes throughout the entire d2 game, but will be able to farm currency everywhere in d3. This leads to an environment where mass time spent gold grinding can compensate for learning the game, and going for quality over quantity.
There is no learning curve with currency based economies. If there is an auction house you simply search for your item, and see what the other 10 are going for. If there is no AH you simply google it, just like every other game with currency items are going to have a relatively set value that doesn't vary much from sale to sale. If you barter every trade you do also comes along with the notion of how bad do I want what he has, and how bad does he have what I want. Currency is just bleh I don't need this I'm just gonna sell it and horde more gold away, and when I get 30k saved up I can definately buy that armor I want, because there is currently 17 sets of it for sale for that much in the AH.
Gold sinks will exist. Gold farming might be possible, but stuff like wands, staves, armors etc that used to sell for awesome money in Diablo 2 won't give that much money. There's going to be substantially less gold from items in the game aswell, since with the new artisan feature, we'll salvage more than we vendor and we'll pay money to upgrade them and make useful items, socket them, upgrade gems etc etc.
It doesn't matter if an item gives you 35000 gold or 3 gold when you sell it, the actually amount you get it going to be relative to the game. That aside, when you have to come up with sinks so people can't accumulate gold too fast, you already have a broken system. Gold is either going to be too hard to get to the point where the game is just an annoying grind fest, or is going to be massively accumulated over time, both of which are bad.
The only game I've ever played that came anywhere close to currency being useful without massive amounts of sinks, limited how much currency would spawn, and the more that was in game, the less you would get for things. The only real sink was you would get charged rent on your gear each day, with more expensive gear costing more to rent. The only reason it remained stable was because 10 million 1 month after the server went up, was still worth the same 10 million in terms of what you could do with it 5 years after the server was up. I've yet to see any other currency based game come anywhere close to being as stable. You'll end up thinking your rich with 500k a month after d3 starts, but 5 years down the road when people have 20billion saved up, and a noob gets on and plays for a month, he'll realize he's dirt poor and everyone else has years of currency horded away. The design is fail right from the start.
There's many ways to cause grief, true. But PK was a very obvious one. It's one thing to PvP and another to gank people that do PvE while they're focused on something else. And let's not forget the regular exploits of PK'ing in Diablo 2, like TPPK (just a thought). Votekick could very well be used to kick someone who sucks at playing, someone who's annoying or someone who just goes AFK and lets everyone else do the killing.
I guess if you win more then you lose on the game, and if your adult enough to just lose an accept the fact you just got pwned when you do lose, you look at pk, from both sides of the fence, as fun. If you just lose every time and can't handle losing to someone who knows the game better or just outsmarted/outplayed you in that instance, then yeah, I guess your right, it is nothing but grief.
However, there are plenty of ways around it regardless, so if you think it is nothing but grief yet do nothing to avoid it you deserve the aggravation. You want to do some Baal runs, you start a pub run, and soon as you get 8 people you start slapping a password on so no random people can join and mess things up for your run. If you make a few friends this way, or have a few friends already, its pretty easy to get 8 man runs going on a daily basis. That's why the password feature is there, for your protection, if you want to constantly pub and never private, its part of the game.
Also you always get plenty of warning when someone is going to pk you. Its not like a big message saying SAUSAGE HONKEY HAS HOSTILED YOU doesn't appear on your screen, and you have to wait for them to come find you and kill you. During this time you could just save and exit and go to a different game. Its actually the most annoying thing that can happen to a pk'er when everyone just leaves and you don't get any kills.
So you don't want to password your games, or leave your game. You could just kill the guy. Even if you want to say you can't with a pvm build and all that good stuff, that is just not true. If your running baal for example, and get pk'd, to put it bluntly, your a moron. Someone hostiles you, and your at the throne room. There is only one way in. Just send a couple guys to spam attacks on the entry point and its insta death the second the would be pk'er walks in. But there I go again, expecting people to actually learn little tips and tricks as they play the game, curse this evil learning curve thing I enjoy so much.
They didn't remove PK to implement aesthetic rewards. They removed PK to implement Arenas, that are pretty meaningful. The rewards are just a bonus. Just like the PvP Ladder.
PK didn't add anything but grief to PvE. Sure, it was fun for the one that attacked. But for the other guys that had a PvE build? Not that much fun. Diablo 2 was flawed in many different ways (as it was well made in others). That particular part was a failed feature taken from the original Diablo. There's nothing meaningful in killing people that aren't trying to kill you. It's the exact opposite.
What's this pvp ladder you speak of?
Yeah so I'm just beating a dead horse now, but pk added enjoyment to the game, unless you were horrid at it. You keep insisting it was only fun for the attacker, but that is simply not true. I couldn't imagine going on and running 20-30 chaos/baal runs a night and never having anyone make a pk attempt at me. I could go run chaos 100 times and not die. Its just the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over. People trying to pk my runs was the only possible random event that would ever happen. Being able to get bored of it and go make a pk attempt at someone else was just an added bonus. But yeah I guess if you never wanted to learn how to get better at the game and come up with some tricks on how to pwn people, then its easier just to lump pk in the grief category and talk about how unfair it was, even though another player couldn't do anything you weren't capable of doing.
Actually, leeching won't be an option in Diablo 3 so the first arguement is pretty invalid. It's not like "right i'm gonna leech to lvl 45 (since lvl 60 is the cap in Diablo 3) and i'll experiment with builds. Leveling the character will take time. Imagine leveling every single character by actually playing and think about how much time it takes. And yeah, 4 player limit and extremely hard enemies on 4/4 people games ensure there won't be rushing/leeching.
Also, the respec won't be "a little gold". It's going to take time and quests (from the little info we have so far). And lots of gold. To remove a skill point, not reset the whole skill setup. Quoting Bashiok here: "If you want to completely change your skills, you'd better start a new character".
Who said anything at all about leeching? Trist runs til 10ish, tombs til 20, cows til 24, ancients, norm baal runs til your high enough to kill nm ancients, then guy right to nm baal runs. You could do this with friends of the same level no problem, no leeching required, and all get up to hell baal runs with no rusher in probably 5-7 hours. Only exception might be if your all playing untwinked, but if you have some leveling gear set aside on an alt you should have no problems.
If you wanted to rush/leech you could just grush to hell chaos and get a new toon to level 80 in 2-3 hours.
We both know that it takes more time than that to get to the higher levels. You simply ignored the Nightmare content (that's like... 30 levels?) from the time to kill Baal normal till the time you're actually able to kill Ancients nightmare. Cause without someone to kill them for you you're in no way able to do it. And by the time you kill them you can kill them, you don't get as many free levels. Also keep in mind Diablo III will have different mechanics than Diablo II when it comes to xp and leveling.
Now on that part, think that quality won't come in masses. We don't know if there's going to be an Auction House or something like that, so we can't be sure how it's going to work out. Either way, the really cool stuff will be rare and the player will be up to decide what to charge for it. Is it 5 High Runes, or 20,000 gold? Do you really see a difference? I don't. Learning curve is not knowing what to charge for items. It's knowing what to pay for items YOU need. That's needed with any kind of economy too.
Yes I see a difference. Like I already said twice, you can't farm high runes throughout the entire d2 game, but will be able to farm currency everywhere in d3. This leads to an environment where mass time spent gold grinding can compensate for learning the game, and going for quality over quantity.
There is no learning curve with currency based economies. If there is an auction house you simply search for your item, and see what the other 10 are going for. If there is no AH you simply google it, just like every other game with currency items are going to have a relatively set value that doesn't vary much from sale to sale. If you barter every trade you do also comes along with the notion of how bad do I want what he has, and how bad does he have what I want. Currency is just bleh I don't need this I'm just gonna sell it and horde more gold away, and when I get 30k saved up I can definately buy that armor I want, because there is currently 17 sets of it for sale for that much in the AH.
Again, what's the difference in "paying 20.000.000 gold instead of 5 high runes"? Yeah, the guys that don't get lucky to find them (i only found a Ber rune and a few Ist runes back then) won't be able to trade for good gear? That's a good economy? Economy is economy. You get to buy stuff paying something you worked for. Yeah, a gold based economy will give access to people that aren't that lucky with drops, or simply dedicated enough to farm gold during lower levels. Those dedicated people will have to miss out on upgraded stash, upgraded artisans and other things. That's how things work. I still don't see any difference between saving 30 million gold and 500 High Runes except for the fact that lower level people won't be able to get rich... ever. Prices will go up and down depending on the demand and the gold availiable in the market. That's one healthy economy there. You get good gold for the very rare stuff? You spend it on the stuff you want. Be it for alts, or for better gear? It's up to you.
Gold sinks will exist. Gold farming might be possible, but stuff like wands, staves, armors etc that used to sell for awesome money in Diablo 2 won't give that much money. There's going to be substantially less gold from items in the game aswell, since with the new artisan feature, we'll salvage more than we vendor and we'll pay money to upgrade them and make useful items, socket them, upgrade gems etc etc.
It doesn't matter if an item gives you 35000 gold or 3 gold when you sell it, the actually amount you get it going to be relative to the game. That aside, when you have to come up with sinks so people can't accumulate gold too fast, you already have a broken system. Gold is either going to be too hard to get to the point where the game is just an annoying grind fest, or is going to be massively accumulated over time, both of which are bad.
The only game I've ever played that came anywhere close to currency being useful without massive amounts of sinks, limited how much currency would spawn, and the more that was in game, the less you would get for things. The only real sink was you would get charged rent on your gear each day, with more expensive gear costing more to rent. The only reason it remained stable was because 10 million 1 month after the server went up, was still worth the same 10 million in terms of what you could do with it 5 years after the server was up. I've yet to see any other currency based game come anywhere close to being as stable. You'll end up thinking your rich with 500k a month after d3 starts, but 5 years down the road when people have 20billion saved up, and a noob gets on and plays for a month, he'll realize he's dirt poor and everyone else has years of currency horded away. The design is fail right from the start.
So if i were to be inactive for a month, i'd lose all my gold? That's game breaking right there. I worked for armor and gold, why have it taken away? I'm the hero who saves the world, i have to pay taxes for stuff i worked for? If i get much gold, it's either cause i traded something or i farmed it. Either way, it's up to my dedication (and luck) to get it. IF gold doesn't have too much value, alternative currencies will definitely come up (be it high lvl gems or something else) or the prices in gold will go up. Again, part of a healthy economy based on demand and supply.
There's many ways to cause grief, true. But PK was a very obvious one. It's one thing to PvP and another to gank people that do PvE while they're focused on something else. And let's not forget the regular exploits of PK'ing in Diablo 2, like TPPK (just a thought). Votekick could very well be used to kick someone who sucks at playing, someone who's annoying or someone who just goes AFK and lets everyone else do the killing.
I guess if you win more then you lose on the game, and if your adult enough to just lose an accept the fact you just got pwned when you do lose, you look at pk, from both sides of the fence, as fun. If you just lose every time and can't handle losing to someone who knows the game better or just outsmarted/outplayed you in that instance, then yeah, I guess your right, it is nothing but grief.
However, there are plenty of ways around it regardless, so if you think it is nothing but grief yet do nothing to avoid it you deserve the aggravation. You want to do some Baal runs, you start a pub run, and soon as you get 8 people you start slapping a password on so no random people can join and mess things up for your run. If you make a few friends this way, or have a few friends already, its pretty easy to get 8 man runs going on a daily basis. That's why the password feature is there, for your protection, if you want to constantly pub and never private, its part of the game.
Also you always get plenty of warning when someone is going to pk you. Its not like a big message saying SAUSAGE HONKEY HAS HOSTILED YOU doesn't appear on your screen, and you have to wait for them to come find you and kill you. During this time you could just save and exit and go to a different game. Its actually the most annoying thing that can happen to a pk'er when everyone just leaves and you don't get any kills.
So you don't want to password your games, or leave your game. You could just kill the guy. Even if you want to say you can't with a pvm build and all that good stuff, that is just not true. If your running baal for example, and get pk'd, to put it bluntly, your a moron. Someone hostiles you, and your at the throne room. There is only one way in. Just send a couple guys to spam attacks on the entry point and its insta death the second the would be pk'er walks in. But there I go again, expecting people to actually learn little tips and tricks as they play the game, curse this evil learning curve thing I enjoy so much.
It's not about winning or losing. It's about being out of place. Right, i do see a big warning that someone hostiled me. But i also want to kill the boss that i was after when i entered the game in the first place. There's no honor to kill a player already softened up by a boss. No matter how easy it could be for a team to kill the guy who's trying to PK. I just don't want to have to bother with him when i'm in a game that's for PvE.
If you want to show you're awesome, do it on even terms in the arena. With someone that actually bothered to make a spec that's good for killing people instead of monsters (MMO experience shows that PvP builds are made for burst dmg while PvE make sure you have good dmg over longer time).
That said, i wouldn't mind a "free to hostile" kind of game (like hardcore perhaps?) that would allow people there that had the same mindset as you. Would be interesting to see how many would actually decide to play there and what they'd be aiming for.
They didn't remove PK to implement aesthetic rewards. They removed PK to implement Arenas, that are pretty meaningful. The rewards are just a bonus. Just like the PvP Ladder.
PK didn't add anything but grief to PvE. Sure, it was fun for the one that attacked. But for the other guys that had a PvE build? Not that much fun. Diablo 2 was flawed in many different ways (as it was well made in others). That particular part was a failed feature taken from the original Diablo. There's nothing meaningful in killing people that aren't trying to kill you. It's the exact opposite.
What's this pvp ladder you speak of?
Yeah so I'm just beating a dead horse now, but pk added enjoyment to the game, unless you were horrid at it. You keep insisting it was only fun for the attacker, but that is simply not true. I couldn't imagine going on and running 20-30 chaos/baal runs a night and never having anyone make a pk attempt at me. I could go run chaos 100 times and not die. Its just the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over. People trying to pk my runs was the only possible random event that would ever happen. Being able to get bored of it and go make a pk attempt at someone else was just an added bonus. But yeah I guess if you never wanted to learn how to get better at the game and come up with some tricks on how to pwn people, then its easier just to lump pk in the grief category and talk about how unfair it was, even though another player couldn't do anything you weren't capable of doing.
PvP ladder will be there, along with a PvP matchmaking system to make sure you're playing against people at a similar skill level as yours. The more you progress, the higher you get up the ladder getting achievements, titles and all kinds of aesthetic rewards.
Again on the gameplay part: it's not about skill. It's about doing something you enjoy, opposed to HAVING to do something you don't like. I did PvP playing Diablo. When i wanted. I did the same playing Warhammer Online too. Lord of the Rings Online too. But again, when i felt like it. I don't like some random moron to come and attack me when i'm busy with something. Sure i can take some time off to kick his ass, but perhaps i'm not into PvP that much.
Also, it's not like we'll be doing the same thing over and over again for weeks to get to the level cap or to get the equipment we want. It's a new game, don't judge it like it's the previous game. We have very little information as of now for the actual end-game, except for the fact that we're going to be around 55 by the end of Hell, with the level cap being 60.
The fun thing is. The other thread was closed and when i came here people are off topic all around the place =[
Anyway, i bet D3 will be ported for consoles. Blizz have ALOT of publicity, they can break any silly resistance imposed by console fanboys. And imo D3 would play alot better in consoles then in PCs. Keyboard are tecnically inferior to controllers in many aspects, from orgometry (don't know if it's the right term in english) to precision and speed. It is only used when you need 20+ keys.
The fun thing is. The other thread was closed and when i came here people are off topic all around the place =[
Anyway, i bet D3 will be ported for consoles. Blizz have ALOT of publicity, they can break any silly resistance imposed by console fanboys. And imo D3 would play alot better in consoles then in PCs. Keyboard are tecnically inferior to controllers in many aspects, from orgometry (don't know if it's the right term in english) to precision and speed. It is only used when you need 20+ keys.
Thats bullshit. The only thing controllers have above keyboards are joystick. Otherwise, its just more comfortable and maybe more "healthy" for your hands to use a controller, but technically inferior? Uh, no.
Btw, Torchlight has since been announced for the Xbox. I'm sure Blizzard will be keeping a close watch on that development, which could end up being encouraging for D3 on consoles.
How can a controller be faster and more precise than a mouse?
I suppose that comes down to which your fingers are more familiar with.
Anyhow, exploring the console area aint such a bad idea as consoles are meant to handle games with high performance and such, and they're bound to do it anyways
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Who said anything at all about leeching? Trist runs til 10ish, tombs til 20, cows til 24, ancients, norm baal runs til your high enough to kill nm ancients, then guy right to nm baal runs. You could do this with friends of the same level no problem, no leeching required, and all get up to hell baal runs with no rusher in probably 5-7 hours. Only exception might be if your all playing untwinked, but if you have some leveling gear set aside on an alt you should have no problems.
If you wanted to rush/leech you could just grush to hell chaos and get a new toon to level 80 in 2-3 hours.
Yes I see a difference. Like I already said twice, you can't farm high runes throughout the entire d2 game, but will be able to farm currency everywhere in d3. This leads to an environment where mass time spent gold grinding can compensate for learning the game, and going for quality over quantity.
There is no learning curve with currency based economies. If there is an auction house you simply search for your item, and see what the other 10 are going for. If there is no AH you simply google it, just like every other game with currency items are going to have a relatively set value that doesn't vary much from sale to sale. If you barter every trade you do also comes along with the notion of how bad do I want what he has, and how bad does he have what I want. Currency is just bleh I don't need this I'm just gonna sell it and horde more gold away, and when I get 30k saved up I can definately buy that armor I want, because there is currently 17 sets of it for sale for that much in the AH.
It doesn't matter if an item gives you 35000 gold or 3 gold when you sell it, the actually amount you get it going to be relative to the game. That aside, when you have to come up with sinks so people can't accumulate gold too fast, you already have a broken system. Gold is either going to be too hard to get to the point where the game is just an annoying grind fest, or is going to be massively accumulated over time, both of which are bad.
The only game I've ever played that came anywhere close to currency being useful without massive amounts of sinks, limited how much currency would spawn, and the more that was in game, the less you would get for things. The only real sink was you would get charged rent on your gear each day, with more expensive gear costing more to rent. The only reason it remained stable was because 10 million 1 month after the server went up, was still worth the same 10 million in terms of what you could do with it 5 years after the server was up. I've yet to see any other currency based game come anywhere close to being as stable. You'll end up thinking your rich with 500k a month after d3 starts, but 5 years down the road when people have 20billion saved up, and a noob gets on and plays for a month, he'll realize he's dirt poor and everyone else has years of currency horded away. The design is fail right from the start.
I guess if you win more then you lose on the game, and if your adult enough to just lose an accept the fact you just got pwned when you do lose, you look at pk, from both sides of the fence, as fun. If you just lose every time and can't handle losing to someone who knows the game better or just outsmarted/outplayed you in that instance, then yeah, I guess your right, it is nothing but grief.
However, there are plenty of ways around it regardless, so if you think it is nothing but grief yet do nothing to avoid it you deserve the aggravation. You want to do some Baal runs, you start a pub run, and soon as you get 8 people you start slapping a password on so no random people can join and mess things up for your run. If you make a few friends this way, or have a few friends already, its pretty easy to get 8 man runs going on a daily basis. That's why the password feature is there, for your protection, if you want to constantly pub and never private, its part of the game.
Also you always get plenty of warning when someone is going to pk you. Its not like a big message saying SAUSAGE HONKEY HAS HOSTILED YOU doesn't appear on your screen, and you have to wait for them to come find you and kill you. During this time you could just save and exit and go to a different game. Its actually the most annoying thing that can happen to a pk'er when everyone just leaves and you don't get any kills.
So you don't want to password your games, or leave your game. You could just kill the guy. Even if you want to say you can't with a pvm build and all that good stuff, that is just not true. If your running baal for example, and get pk'd, to put it bluntly, your a moron. Someone hostiles you, and your at the throne room. There is only one way in. Just send a couple guys to spam attacks on the entry point and its insta death the second the would be pk'er walks in. But there I go again, expecting people to actually learn little tips and tricks as they play the game, curse this evil learning curve thing I enjoy so much.
What's this pvp ladder you speak of?
Yeah so I'm just beating a dead horse now, but pk added enjoyment to the game, unless you were horrid at it. You keep insisting it was only fun for the attacker, but that is simply not true. I couldn't imagine going on and running 20-30 chaos/baal runs a night and never having anyone make a pk attempt at me. I could go run chaos 100 times and not die. Its just the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over. People trying to pk my runs was the only possible random event that would ever happen. Being able to get bored of it and go make a pk attempt at someone else was just an added bonus. But yeah I guess if you never wanted to learn how to get better at the game and come up with some tricks on how to pwn people, then its easier just to lump pk in the grief category and talk about how unfair it was, even though another player couldn't do anything you weren't capable of doing.
We both know that it takes more time than that to get to the higher levels. You simply ignored the Nightmare content (that's like... 30 levels?) from the time to kill Baal normal till the time you're actually able to kill Ancients nightmare. Cause without someone to kill them for you you're in no way able to do it. And by the time you kill them you can kill them, you don't get as many free levels. Also keep in mind Diablo III will have different mechanics than Diablo II when it comes to xp and leveling.
Again, what's the difference in "paying 20.000.000 gold instead of 5 high runes"? Yeah, the guys that don't get lucky to find them (i only found a Ber rune and a few Ist runes back then) won't be able to trade for good gear? That's a good economy? Economy is economy. You get to buy stuff paying something you worked for. Yeah, a gold based economy will give access to people that aren't that lucky with drops, or simply dedicated enough to farm gold during lower levels. Those dedicated people will have to miss out on upgraded stash, upgraded artisans and other things. That's how things work. I still don't see any difference between saving 30 million gold and 500 High Runes except for the fact that lower level people won't be able to get rich... ever. Prices will go up and down depending on the demand and the gold availiable in the market. That's one healthy economy there. You get good gold for the very rare stuff? You spend it on the stuff you want. Be it for alts, or for better gear? It's up to you.
So if i were to be inactive for a month, i'd lose all my gold? That's game breaking right there. I worked for armor and gold, why have it taken away? I'm the hero who saves the world, i have to pay taxes for stuff i worked for? If i get much gold, it's either cause i traded something or i farmed it. Either way, it's up to my dedication (and luck) to get it. IF gold doesn't have too much value, alternative currencies will definitely come up (be it high lvl gems or something else) or the prices in gold will go up. Again, part of a healthy economy based on demand and supply.
It's not about winning or losing. It's about being out of place. Right, i do see a big warning that someone hostiled me. But i also want to kill the boss that i was after when i entered the game in the first place. There's no honor to kill a player already softened up by a boss. No matter how easy it could be for a team to kill the guy who's trying to PK. I just don't want to have to bother with him when i'm in a game that's for PvE.
If you want to show you're awesome, do it on even terms in the arena. With someone that actually bothered to make a spec that's good for killing people instead of monsters (MMO experience shows that PvP builds are made for burst dmg while PvE make sure you have good dmg over longer time).
That said, i wouldn't mind a "free to hostile" kind of game (like hardcore perhaps?) that would allow people there that had the same mindset as you. Would be interesting to see how many would actually decide to play there and what they'd be aiming for.
PvP ladder will be there, along with a PvP matchmaking system to make sure you're playing against people at a similar skill level as yours. The more you progress, the higher you get up the ladder getting achievements, titles and all kinds of aesthetic rewards.
Again on the gameplay part: it's not about skill. It's about doing something you enjoy, opposed to HAVING to do something you don't like. I did PvP playing Diablo. When i wanted. I did the same playing Warhammer Online too. Lord of the Rings Online too. But again, when i felt like it. I don't like some random moron to come and attack me when i'm busy with something. Sure i can take some time off to kick his ass, but perhaps i'm not into PvP that much.
Also, it's not like we'll be doing the same thing over and over again for weeks to get to the level cap or to get the equipment we want. It's a new game, don't judge it like it's the previous game. We have very little information as of now for the actual end-game, except for the fact that we're going to be around 55 by the end of Hell, with the level cap being 60.
Anyway, i bet D3 will be ported for consoles. Blizz have ALOT of publicity, they can break any silly resistance imposed by console fanboys. And imo D3 would play alot better in consoles then in PCs. Keyboard are tecnically inferior to controllers in many aspects, from orgometry (don't know if it's the right term in english) to precision and speed. It is only used when you need 20+ keys.
enjoy!
I suppose that comes down to which your fingers are more familiar with.
Anyhow, exploring the console area aint such a bad idea as consoles are meant to handle games with high performance and such, and they're bound to do it anyways