NEW NOTE: When i first posted this back in 2007 I expected diablo 3 to become slightly more of an MMO, something between d2 and WoW. I was also pretty certain that diablo 3 would give your character the option to choose between either joining the hell or heaven faction. This led me to write the following suggestions on the premise that D3 would support factions and that blizzard would turn diablo 3's online mode into something more than just co-opt."
-----
Here's what I had originally written:
Suggestion for D3:
I think factions should be decided later on in the game, instead of at the very beginning. Otherwise the possibility to choose a faction would just be an option akin to race and class selection (not much innovation there).
You know those comic books that change stories depending on which pages you decide to pursue reading. I believe this genre first started with the popular gamebook series called "Choose Your Own Adventure". Well depending on the types of quests you choose to follow, you're character might either take the path of imperturbable goodness or gradually sink into a state of evil and betrayal.
Story:
Much like Nithalak's conversion from good to evil, key NPC’s will be tempted to join the evil side either by their own volition or by having their bodies infiltrated, occupied and controlled by evil spirits against their will. This causes the World of Sanctuary to lose order within the ranks as confusion, distrust and gossip increase. The corrupt NPC’s will spread rumors, and perhaps even sabotage their own encampment to increase disorder. Eventually they might also surreptitiously open the gates and allow monsters to enter.
This is when your character enters. S/he is asked to go and fight the invading monsters that have breached the gates. At the beginning of the game every player does the same quests and fights the invading monsters accordingly until around level 25-30. But before you reach level 25-30 you'll hear a lot of gossip and name calling; one NPC saying another NPC is not trustworthy or up to something mischievous etc.
From there on there will be two story lines/two paths you can choose from. All determined by your quest selection. So evil quests will be assigned by corrupt NPC’s and vice versa. Quest will not be indicated as being either good or evil. However evil quests will be somewhat obviously suspicious or evil in nature (so choose your quests wisely, pay attention to what they say and observe how the NPC's behave themselves). You will have been warned to be on guard for evil NPC's.
The more evil quests you do versus good quests will point you in the direction of either the good faction or evil faction. From around level 50-59 you'll no longer be able to take on good quests if the majority of your completed quests were evil and vice versa. Therefore the quests that follow will inevitably lead you further into the evil world or vice versa. At this stage you are either amongst the forces of good or evil.
Eventually as the game progresses, people's factions will be officially decided, depending on whether or not they were honorable enough not to be swayed by the forces of evil. This might occur at around level 65 assuming there’s a total of 99 levels.
Once you’ve entered a faction that's when the "real" fun begins. It's when you get to use mounts and use holy versus unholy equipment. It will be an all out faction versus faction onslaught.
You'll be able to reach higher ranks within the factions based on your loyal deeds and achievements, not necessarily based on you're level. (such deeds may include killing so many opponent faction leaders (actual players from opposing factions), You get more points by killing an opponent faction general than you do a captain and so forth.) And there will be quests in which you'll be given specific task to hurt the enemy faction, like set traps, kill a certain angel or demon etc.
There could be a total of 15 to 20 ranks for each faction. the first 10 or 15 may be obtained by accomplishing tasks, while the last 5 ranks will be determined by your ladder rank. The higher you are in the ladder the higher your rank becomes. Perhaps you're kill to death ratio of opponent faction players could influence your ladder rank. So that rank isn't only about grinding but also skills.
Equipment:
I also think that white and black gear should be made available later on in the game until your fate is decided as either good or bad. Perhaps you will gain the power to wear black items only once you prove your absolute allegiance to your faction, once your officially inducted into a particular faction. After you've demonstrated your honor, they’ll outfit you with your first black suit/or white suite, and instill in you the power to enchant any item into either holy or unholy depending on which faction you’re in.
Or maybe once an items is enchanted it can never be converted into the opposing faction side as there will be an unbreakable/permanent spell attached. This means all items enchanted with either the holy or unholy aura will permanently be for either the heaven or hell faction respectively. So that unholy gear cannot be worn by members of the heaven faction and vice versa.
-The items don't necessarily need to be either all black or white, they may remain very colorful but some sort of pattern is necessary to help differentiate the two factions while at the same time giving each players a sense of uniqueness- (We wouldn't want every hell players and heaven players to look identical).
Another must have feature is special modifiers to attach to weapons once they're enchanted. These mods will differ significantly between heaven and hell enchantments. This way a paladin from the heaven faction may differ greatly from a paladin decked out with hell equipment. This will increase replayability since people will want to try out the different outfits even on identical builds.
Quests that revolve around the faction duality:
Initiation / right of passage quest:
For entry into hell: you’d be presented with a list of currently active/online heaven faction players the same level as you. Or maybe up to 10 levels below your own. Next to their names would be indicated their current location. Your task would be to seek and defeat one (or more than one) such character so as to show hell that you are truly on its side and would even battle your own kind/race in order to gain entrance into hell’s headquarters.
For entry into Heaven:
I’ve yet to come up with an idea.
Perhaps heaven will take extra caution with their initiation process to ensure that no infiltrators make it pass the gates.
From level 60-99 the game will become a sort of capture the flag battle royal between the two factions. In the last act there will be heaven's headquarters on one end, and Hell's domain on the other. In between will be a bunch of terrains/waypoints to get through from one end to the other as you near either end the terrain will look more and more bright or dark depending in which direction you're going. In this vast territory separating both worlds, both factions will do quests, and sometimes opponent factions will cross one another and PvP will ensue.
Of course at one point the good guys will eventually need to win, I just don’t know how to incorporate this into the story, what will happen to the evil faction :(.
The interesting feature that this brings is that two very different stories might evolve even though they both revolve around the same overall storyline. Perhaps Tyreal will only be seen as good on the heaven side. While he might make a few appearance in hell in which his character and loyalty might change. So the story could only be seen from every angle only once the player plays both factions. Maybe he's trying to infiltrate hell's faction or maybe he's truly lost his wits.
Quests that revolve around the faction duality:
Initiation / right of passage quest:
For entry into hell: you’d be presented with a list of currently active/online heaven faction players of the same race as you and that are at the same level you are. Or maybe up to 10 levels below your own. Next to their names would be indicated their current location. Your task would be to seek and defeat one (or more than one) such character so as to show hell that you are truly on its side and would even battle your own kind/race in order to gain entrance into hell’s headquarters.
I really like that idea, but why shouldn't it work both ways? Heaven sending you to hunt down a player of the Hell faction?
Actually.. if there we're some sort of 'hardcore' setting like on D2.. As a member of Heaven, you would hunt down a member of Hell and defeat him.. and have the option of attempting to turn him to the light. The other player would then have the option of turning or try to fight back. If they chose to fight, they would have to kill the Heaven faction player or die and lose their character.. It could work both ways as well.. except the Hell player attempts to 'corrupt'.
Now that would be 'hardcore' Heaven vs. Hell.. heh =)
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"There's no doughnuts in Diablo. Oohhhh, I just threw it down. BlizzCon exclusive: no doughnuts. -Jay Wilson
Haha maybe in hardcore. Having you character terminated would definitely suck in normal mode.
That's what im saying. They really could make the game really interesting if they had the feature of turning to the light or being corrupted. But they would only actually die in hardcore mode.
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"There's no doughnuts in Diablo. Oohhhh, I just threw it down. BlizzCon exclusive: no doughnuts. -Jay Wilson
I suppose it would definitely increase replayability on the hardcore end of things. Since most people will at least want their character to win the initiation quest and gain entrance into hell or heaven. It's also quite an accomplishment; all the players in hell or heaven will have defeated and permanently killed an opponent. This would be a real badge of honor because you'll have terminated some other guy's character- MWUAhahahah. Fortunately this only occurs at level 60 instead of 90. (of course getting to level 60 should be just as easy or easier than it was in diablo 2... otherwise people might not want to go through all the trouble knowing they have a 50/50 chance to die or not)
Once accepted into a faction I'm sure players will work extra hard to form powerful guilds. So that they travel in groups and watch each other's backs when trespassing onto enemy faction territory.
Getting to lvl 60 wasn't really supposed to be easy. It's because Blizzard never made it so you can't just rush through everything, if you played legit, or just on single player. It took a little longer...
I honestly think if Blizzard is gonna have about the same set-up as with D2.. they should be sure to put lvl restrictions on all the main quests. So you can't get to the hard difficulty at lvl 1.
But in hardcore mode.. there would be other parts where you could die by another player.. other quests that involve both factions.
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"There's no doughnuts in Diablo. Oohhhh, I just threw it down. BlizzCon exclusive: no doughnuts. -Jay Wilson
Interesting idea, but the dueling part between players will never happen, forget about it. I don't think the whole focus on heavenly and demonic weapons will exist either, it seems a little too black&white for me (;))
But the splitting of factions is great, what should be brought into D3 is a real chance for characters to pick sides. One thing that would have been fun was for the evil characters to play with the good, only the good wouldn't know they were evil. And that could certainly get interesting for you hardcore fans out there.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
What I read reminds me of Fable and what Fable 2 is attempting to do. The original Fable really created a good form of good and evil, you could choose your quests and determine what faction you wanted to be which would effect the game. Also in Fable 2 they want to take it further and make item prices vary and many other things vary for which faction you are.
I've always thought of this as a great idea, for one it make the game more realistic, you don't start out as good or evil, you start out neutral and your actions speak louder than words.
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Dream as if you'll live forever, and live as if you'll die today. "James Dean"
Or course at one point the good guys will eventually need to win, I just don’t know how to incorporate this into the story, what will happen to the evil faction :(.
I've figure out a cool way to end the game.
The last quest would involve killing the real diablo in his own home court.
To do this good faction online players will need to breach pass Diablo's top henchmen. These henchmen will be evil faction online players of a certain rank (fairly high).
To defeat diablo you will need a party of 5-6 players. To form this party there will be a final battle party finder window they can open to find players who wish to battle (some might have passwords on them so only you and your friends could team up). Once you are all ready, a message will be sent out to all hell faction online players of a certain rank. They will have a final battle game finder window which they will open and join to prevent heaven faction leaders from confronting Diablo. When both teams are full the match will begin. If the heaven faction can defeat the 5-6 henchmen they will then make their way to diablo. They must then defeat him (which will obviously be no easy task- a bit like the uber quests). This would require good team work not just to defeat diablo but when battling his henchmen.
This way dueling will truly be an intergral part of the game, and not something you do just to get a break from PvE.
i think of it as a good idea. but there would be a seperate section in multiplayer. so like you could have the multiplayer in diablo 2 and there will be a seperate section in multiplayer that will do this faction thing.
Why wouldn't you want it to be the standard gameplay mode? I would not want to have diablo 3 be an identical replica of diablo 2 with just a different story and a normal nightmare and hell mode in which you revist the same content three times over.
I'd prefer a story filled with a captivating and long enough story line to keep you interested throughout all the levels up to level 90. To do this you need twist and turns in the story. Debating between good and evil, becoming inducted into a faction (knighted), and playing a significant role in either faction. And a final battle that will truly test player skills and teamwork.
And I don't know any better to do this then to really make the players play a significant role in the story line, Being Captains and Generals in the game, and being Diablo's bodyguard. Or maybe even be given the status of arch angel on the heaven faction.
What better way to bring closure to the diablo series then to play such a pivotal role in the game on either side.
ok i think your idea had alot of potential and i do like it. sounds good. but the only thing i dont like is it sounds like the game would just be a PvP game and that was the only reason i didnt like it. like i never PvP in diablo 2 becasue whenever i do i die in 2 seconds and eventually that will happen in your idea. which is why i suggested 2 multiplayer games. one with a story that would be similir to diablo 2 and then have another one that would be like yours for people who wanted to just pvp could just do that. sorta like you could pick between hardcore or normal.
ok i think your idea had alot of potential and i do like it. sounds good. but the only thing i dont like is it sounds like the game would just be a PvP game and that was the only reason i didnt like it.
Make the PvE content the basis for the game then. Remove the henchmen, bea the game regularly. The PvP option is an interesting idea, and could be different way of completing the game. You could pick yourself which way you'd like it to go. Or it's be PvP in multplayer, and only Diablo in singleplayer. Or Diablo will be an MMO and it will be like this all the time. We'll have to see when it comes.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Bumping an old thread of mine.
Now that diablo 3 is out, it seems pretty certain that we won't be seeing factions get added to the game. D3 online will offer nothing more than co-opt mode. Sure i don't doubt that there will be many new features. Surely battle.net will provide plenty of new interactive tools. But online mode doesn't seem to be getting the sort of remodeling I was hoping for.
I have to admit however that blizzard made a good and safe decision by staying true to the diablo series insofar as not creating another MMO and keeping it a hack and slash action rpg. I've thought long and hard about ways to turn diablo into an MMO... and it really cannot be done without completely destroying the main premise of the story. MMOs require that all the players be equally powerful. Sanctuary is comprised primarily of weaklings in which heroes are a rare occurrence. So a world teeming with thousands of heroes at one time would be a major stretch. Then again the Worldstone was designed to weaken mortals. Upon each new generation of mortals their forces would be further weakened. But now that the Worldstone has been destroyed, mortals might rediscovered their original powers. Mortals are the Nephalem (cross breeds between angels and demons) after all.
But even if they could reshape diablo into an MMO from a story point of view. The gameplay itself would have to deviate significantly from diablo and fans would have difficulty digesting such a makeover. There are just too many ways for an MMO to ruin the authentic Diablo gameplay we've all come to adore.
But I still think we can squeeze in factions without making a big leap in changes. The developers do have plans to fill diablo 3's online facet with features that will set it apart from the single player mode. These features will need to be very compelling because battle.net will be the main incentive for players (and especially piraters) to purchase the game. Piraters will be able to play the single player game easily, only players with a legit serial key will be able to play online. This means that the experience you get online should be far more enriching than the single player version.
So factions could be one such online feature.
Adding things like the diablo event and Uber quest really helped prolongue the populary of diablo 2. Similarly, I think factions and the events that grow around it will help make end game play more fun.
In this genre there tends to be little to do once you've completed the game. You're force to revisit the world over and over again to find loot and duel. I think factions can fill this void and extend the lifespand of the game.
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-----
Here's what I had originally written:
Suggestion for D3:
I think factions should be decided later on in the game, instead of at the very beginning. Otherwise the possibility to choose a faction would just be an option akin to race and class selection (not much innovation there).
You know those comic books that change stories depending on which pages you decide to pursue reading. I believe this genre first started with the popular gamebook series called "Choose Your Own Adventure". Well depending on the types of quests you choose to follow, you're character might either take the path of imperturbable goodness or gradually sink into a state of evil and betrayal.
Story:
Much like Nithalak's conversion from good to evil, key NPC’s will be tempted to join the evil side either by their own volition or by having their bodies infiltrated, occupied and controlled by evil spirits against their will. This causes the World of Sanctuary to lose order within the ranks as confusion, distrust and gossip increase. The corrupt NPC’s will spread rumors, and perhaps even sabotage their own encampment to increase disorder. Eventually they might also surreptitiously open the gates and allow monsters to enter.
This is when your character enters. S/he is asked to go and fight the invading monsters that have breached the gates. At the beginning of the game every player does the same quests and fights the invading monsters accordingly until around level 25-30. But before you reach level 25-30 you'll hear a lot of gossip and name calling; one NPC saying another NPC is not trustworthy or up to something mischievous etc.
From there on there will be two story lines/two paths you can choose from. All determined by your quest selection. So evil quests will be assigned by corrupt NPC’s and vice versa. Quest will not be indicated as being either good or evil. However evil quests will be somewhat obviously suspicious or evil in nature (so choose your quests wisely, pay attention to what they say and observe how the NPC's behave themselves). You will have been warned to be on guard for evil NPC's.
The more evil quests you do versus good quests will point you in the direction of either the good faction or evil faction. From around level 50-59 you'll no longer be able to take on good quests if the majority of your completed quests were evil and vice versa. Therefore the quests that follow will inevitably lead you further into the evil world or vice versa. At this stage you are either amongst the forces of good or evil.
Eventually as the game progresses, people's factions will be officially decided, depending on whether or not they were honorable enough not to be swayed by the forces of evil. This might occur at around level 65 assuming there’s a total of 99 levels.
Once you’ve entered a faction that's when the "real" fun begins. It's when you get to use mounts and use holy versus unholy equipment. It will be an all out faction versus faction onslaught.
You'll be able to reach higher ranks within the factions based on your loyal deeds and achievements, not necessarily based on you're level. (such deeds may include killing so many opponent faction leaders (actual players from opposing factions), You get more points by killing an opponent faction general than you do a captain and so forth.) And there will be quests in which you'll be given specific task to hurt the enemy faction, like set traps, kill a certain angel or demon etc.
There could be a total of 15 to 20 ranks for each faction. the first 10 or 15 may be obtained by accomplishing tasks, while the last 5 ranks will be determined by your ladder rank. The higher you are in the ladder the higher your rank becomes. Perhaps you're kill to death ratio of opponent faction players could influence your ladder rank. So that rank isn't only about grinding but also skills.
Equipment:
I also think that white and black gear should be made available later on in the game until your fate is decided as either good or bad. Perhaps you will gain the power to wear black items only once you prove your absolute allegiance to your faction, once your officially inducted into a particular faction. After you've demonstrated your honor, they’ll outfit you with your first black suit/or white suite, and instill in you the power to enchant any item into either holy or unholy depending on which faction you’re in.
Or maybe once an items is enchanted it can never be converted into the opposing faction side as there will be an unbreakable/permanent spell attached. This means all items enchanted with either the holy or unholy aura will permanently be for either the heaven or hell faction respectively. So that unholy gear cannot be worn by members of the heaven faction and vice versa.
-The items don't necessarily need to be either all black or white, they may remain very colorful but some sort of pattern is necessary to help differentiate the two factions while at the same time giving each players a sense of uniqueness- (We wouldn't want every hell players and heaven players to look identical).
Another must have feature is special modifiers to attach to weapons once they're enchanted. These mods will differ significantly between heaven and hell enchantments. This way a paladin from the heaven faction may differ greatly from a paladin decked out with hell equipment. This will increase replayability since people will want to try out the different outfits even on identical builds.
Quests that revolve around the faction duality:
Initiation / right of passage quest:
For entry into hell: you’d be presented with a list of currently active/online heaven faction players the same level as you. Or maybe up to 10 levels below your own. Next to their names would be indicated their current location. Your task would be to seek and defeat one (or more than one) such character so as to show hell that you are truly on its side and would even battle your own kind/race in order to gain entrance into hell’s headquarters.
For entry into Heaven:
I’ve yet to come up with an idea.
Perhaps heaven will take extra caution with their initiation process to ensure that no infiltrators make it pass the gates.
From level 60-99 the game will become a sort of capture the flag battle royal between the two factions. In the last act there will be heaven's headquarters on one end, and Hell's domain on the other. In between will be a bunch of terrains/waypoints to get through from one end to the other as you near either end the terrain will look more and more bright or dark depending in which direction you're going. In this vast territory separating both worlds, both factions will do quests, and sometimes opponent factions will cross one another and PvP will ensue.
Of course at one point the good guys will eventually need to win, I just don’t know how to incorporate this into the story, what will happen to the evil faction :(.
The interesting feature that this brings is that two very different stories might evolve even though they both revolve around the same overall storyline. Perhaps Tyreal will only be seen as good on the heaven side. While he might make a few appearance in hell in which his character and loyalty might change. So the story could only be seen from every angle only once the player plays both factions. Maybe he's trying to infiltrate hell's faction or maybe he's truly lost his wits.
I really like that idea, but why shouldn't it work both ways? Heaven sending you to hunt down a player of the Hell faction?
Actually.. if there we're some sort of 'hardcore' setting like on D2.. As a member of Heaven, you would hunt down a member of Hell and defeat him.. and have the option of attempting to turn him to the light. The other player would then have the option of turning or try to fight back. If they chose to fight, they would have to kill the Heaven faction player or die and lose their character.. It could work both ways as well.. except the Hell player attempts to 'corrupt'.
Now that would be 'hardcore' Heaven vs. Hell.. heh =)
That's what im saying. They really could make the game really interesting if they had the feature of turning to the light or being corrupted. But they would only actually die in hardcore mode.
Once accepted into a faction I'm sure players will work extra hard to form powerful guilds. So that they travel in groups and watch each other's backs when trespassing onto enemy faction territory.
I honestly think if Blizzard is gonna have about the same set-up as with D2.. they should be sure to put lvl restrictions on all the main quests. So you can't get to the hard difficulty at lvl 1.
But in hardcore mode.. there would be other parts where you could die by another player.. other quests that involve both factions.
But the splitting of factions is great, what should be brought into D3 is a real chance for characters to pick sides. One thing that would have been fun was for the evil characters to play with the good, only the good wouldn't know they were evil. And that could certainly get interesting for you hardcore fans out there.
I've always thought of this as a great idea, for one it make the game more realistic, you don't start out as good or evil, you start out neutral and your actions speak louder than words.
I've figure out a cool way to end the game.
The last quest would involve killing the real diablo in his own home court.
To do this good faction online players will need to breach pass Diablo's top henchmen. These henchmen will be evil faction online players of a certain rank (fairly high).
To defeat diablo you will need a party of 5-6 players. To form this party there will be a final battle party finder window they can open to find players who wish to battle (some might have passwords on them so only you and your friends could team up). Once you are all ready, a message will be sent out to all hell faction online players of a certain rank. They will have a final battle game finder window which they will open and join to prevent heaven faction leaders from confronting Diablo. When both teams are full the match will begin. If the heaven faction can defeat the 5-6 henchmen they will then make their way to diablo. They must then defeat him (which will obviously be no easy task- a bit like the uber quests). This would require good team work not just to defeat diablo but when battling his henchmen.
This way dueling will truly be an intergral part of the game, and not something you do just to get a break from PvE.
I'd prefer a story filled with a captivating and long enough story line to keep you interested throughout all the levels up to level 90. To do this you need twist and turns in the story. Debating between good and evil, becoming inducted into a faction (knighted), and playing a significant role in either faction. And a final battle that will truly test player skills and teamwork.
And I don't know any better to do this then to really make the players play a significant role in the story line, Being Captains and Generals in the game, and being Diablo's bodyguard. Or maybe even be given the status of arch angel on the heaven faction.
What better way to bring closure to the diablo series then to play such a pivotal role in the game on either side.
It's the decisions you make when you have no time to make them that define who you are.
It's the decisions you make when you have no time to make them that define who you are.
Now that diablo 3 is out, it seems pretty certain that we won't be seeing factions get added to the game. D3 online will offer nothing more than co-opt mode. Sure i don't doubt that there will be many new features. Surely battle.net will provide plenty of new interactive tools. But online mode doesn't seem to be getting the sort of remodeling I was hoping for.
I have to admit however that blizzard made a good and safe decision by staying true to the diablo series insofar as not creating another MMO and keeping it a hack and slash action rpg. I've thought long and hard about ways to turn diablo into an MMO... and it really cannot be done without completely destroying the main premise of the story. MMOs require that all the players be equally powerful. Sanctuary is comprised primarily of weaklings in which heroes are a rare occurrence. So a world teeming with thousands of heroes at one time would be a major stretch. Then again the Worldstone was designed to weaken mortals. Upon each new generation of mortals their forces would be further weakened. But now that the Worldstone has been destroyed, mortals might rediscovered their original powers. Mortals are the Nephalem (cross breeds between angels and demons) after all.
But even if they could reshape diablo into an MMO from a story point of view. The gameplay itself would have to deviate significantly from diablo and fans would have difficulty digesting such a makeover. There are just too many ways for an MMO to ruin the authentic Diablo gameplay we've all come to adore.
But I still think we can squeeze in factions without making a big leap in changes. The developers do have plans to fill diablo 3's online facet with features that will set it apart from the single player mode. These features will need to be very compelling because battle.net will be the main incentive for players (and especially piraters) to purchase the game. Piraters will be able to play the single player game easily, only players with a legit serial key will be able to play online. This means that the experience you get online should be far more enriching than the single player version.
So factions could be one such online feature.
Adding things like the diablo event and Uber quest really helped prolongue the populary of diablo 2. Similarly, I think factions and the events that grow around it will help make end game play more fun.
In this genre there tends to be little to do once you've completed the game. You're force to revisit the world over and over again to find loot and duel. I think factions can fill this void and extend the lifespand of the game.