They're not going to ban for BETA. If something similar happened in retail (say, trial accounts got the full version via some exploit) then they might ban but that's in RETAIL, not BETA. Besides, there were no 3rd-party programs, exploitation of game mechanics or anything even vaguely similar employed to gain some form of advantage in this instance. People simply tried to log in and succeeded. That's a fault of Blizz, not the players.
And now the Beta is down for those of us who had access anyway, :(, lol.
But you can't change to the same BattleTag. So if yours is Generic#6433 it won't let you create a new Generic#xxxx ... has to be different. Also it is definitely just a one-time thing. Tested on a secondary account :/.
Don't want to discourage anyone from going for it, but I have a feeling a hardcore level 60 might not happen for weeks. There will be so many unknowns in the game that can outright kill you, that there will be a HUGE learning curve for playing Hardcore.
/agree with this... well, except perhaps the 'weeks' thing. Regardless of whether or not it is as hard as the developers like to claim it is, going straight at it with a HC character is going to be a tough goal. Rushing blindly in with absolutely zero experience in any of the significant difficulties, and especially doing so with a mindset to get to <insert goal> first, can only lead to a lot of deaths. More than likely some hardcore but more careful players will get there before any who try to rush it straight out of the gates. And if that's not the case, then Blizz is doing something wrong and will most definitely be eating their 'you will die' words. Heh.
Shrug. I guess we'll see how it goes. Shall be interesting. I would have loved to have a shot at this a few years ago, but now there's work and a girl and all that other stuff to think about, :), so going to take it slow (but still play whenever I get a moment free!).
PFT, my bank got compromised and some people cleaned out my checking. ($500) I was in Korea at the time, NOT using my card at all. I was just using it to pay back loans. Got it all back though. $1.67 ain't nothing.
This is why I always take a low-limit CC if I go overseas. Much better to lose $500-1000 than $5000-10000+.
Yeah, I hadn't thought of physical scanners in a store, I guess that could have happened. As for other sites, I don't think I've put my details in for months. It's sounding likely that it's a virus, but I'm a bit worried about what happens if the scan doesn't pick anything up. Just out of curiosity, how many of you use virtual keyboards to type in your bank info?
I should but am too slack (and generally trust my own security). Do Comm bank even offer this? Or do you mean the Windows one? Speaking of which, you gotta love banks that LIMIT your password to 8 chars or 6 chars or something. Not that it really matters with keyloggers, but it's quite hilarious how poor the restrictions on some of those online portals is.
Yeah, this is pretty much guaranteed to be something other than Blizz, sorry to say (or not sorry, as it's probably reassuring that this isn't Blizz! heh).
Also, you say "online recently" which I assume means you've used it online in the past. This would thus mean that any previous vendors you've dealt with could have easily been compromised and your details taken.
And what about at an actual store? I've had my CC card scanned and used without my permission by a random store (can't remember which) in Chinatown when I visited Sydney a year or two ago. This is actually the primary reason I still have a credit card with Commonwealth Bank, like yourself, as they are very good with picking up on this sort of thing... and it's so common these days that you're likely to be hit at some point regardless of how careful you are. I'm more than happy to pay Comm Bank's exorbitant fees for peace of mind.
I remember reading about this a while ago but never actually noticed it in the game itself. I think I must just be too jaded from all those MMORPGs I've played where players happily craft.... anything.... anywhere... without blinking an eye. I especially love LotRO where you just whip out some massive crafting utensil wherever you're standing (also capable of spinning around you at light speed) and go nuts.
Oh, sidetracked... umm, anyway, in the grand scheme of game issues, I'd imagine this is incredibly low on the priority list right now. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were never 'fixed'. Such is life. Maybe in an expansion.
As some others have sort of said, D2 was once per GAME. Meaning, if you're doing Mephisto runs then you can only have 1x SoJ drop per run. If his drop roll ends up landing on a second SoJ, it is then rerolled and a new item is generated. Of course, this situation would be stupidly ridiculously rare regardless.
In D3, the point of items being called Legendaries rather than Uniques is that there are no longer any "unique" aspects to them. You can wield 2 Legendary weapons at once, you can have 15 of the same Legendary drop per game, etc. I'd imagine they will be rare enough that seeing two of the same item in a single game (unless it was an extremely long game) will be the thing of legends (ho, ho). At least you would hope it'll be that way.
I was testing this with someone else the other day, actually, in an attempt to find a good way to do repeated SK rare runs. It seems the only way to keep the non-host in a game after the host leaves is, indeed, to have the game open for a certain period of time (~5 minute). We never quite confirmed whether this requires the game itself to be open for that amount of time or if it requires the non-host player(s) themselves to be in the game for that amount of time but it is definitely related to time in some way.
That being said, without any way (currently) to create games with names or similar (like in D2), the only point of game permanence will be in allowing non-hosts to keep playing in a partially cleared world.
Ahhh damn, those bring back a lot of memories! I still remember chills of excitement watching the D1 cinematics, hehe.
It's refreshing to see something that's not just a mess of quick cuts attempting to sync to the music (as much as I still enjoy those) but instead follows more of a progression, Nice video mate.
I never understood the appeal of selling rares that aren't identified; wouldn't you have to sell it for less, since the buyer doesn't actually know what the stats will be? Is it more fun to buy an item that will have "surprise" stats? If you ID an item and it turns out to have amazing or even perfect stats, wouldn't you have been able to sell it for a lot more?
Not trying to badmouth or troll about selling unidentified stuff, I just never understood the reasoning; help me!
Basically, the amazing or perfect item would have a ridiculous price tag where the unidentified item of the proper type would have a high price tag but certainly not ridiculous. So you pay the lesser amount (for the un-id'ed item) and hope to get lucky. If you do, you save tonnes of cash... if you don't, you lose some money. Same thing as bidding vs buying out really.
Pay 1 million gold for a guaranteed item.
OR
Pay 200,000 gold for an item that has 1/8 chance of being the thing you want.
The odds are against you, but people will still take them. That's gambling for you!
Edit: Also, on the flip-side, a seller might make more profit from seling un-id'ed items on average as they could sell 8 for a guaranteed 200k each (1.6m profit) rather than id them all and risk none of them being what they want.
And, yeah, as mentioned above... it was also an anti-duping measure in D2. You couldn't dupe un-id'ed items, I believe? This was very popular in D2 Single Player where it was nigh impossible to tell if someone had cheated or not and legit trading was highly enforced.
Blues identify automatically now. Anything higher you still need to identify... but this isn't done by scrolls or similar, you just right click the item and that's it! :). It's like you're taking on the power of Deckard! Heh.
It also means that there will most likely be some market for unidentified legendaries etc as they could either have crap stats or perfect stats. Same with rares of certain types.
Did he have a favourite class of choice? I think it would be a great and fitting tribute to max out a character (say barbarian if he liked barbarians) under his name/avatar on hardcore and get it the best gear and then let it die and forever be deposited in the hall of heroes.
The best gear bit is probably unreasonable, but all the rest is what I would do.
I was initially thinking it was a bit weird to let a character die... but you're right. +1 to this idea for sure. Something that represents him. If you can find gear (doesn't have to be the best, as already mentioned) that you think represents him, get the character to max level (60 should be much, much more obtainable than 99!) and then retire him there as a tribute... that'd be awesome. I'd love to see a screenshot of him when you're done, :D.
Alternatively, if there are any personality quirks or traits you can think of, you could always try to focus on those. i.e. start a cracked/worn item library or similar, heh.
Ok. Big sweeping general reply to everything (coming from an Aussie):
1) There is no D3 Aussie server planned and I'm 95% sure there will never be one. As has been said, this never happened for WoW and if it's not happening for that (with their 110+ realms), then it's highly unlikely to ever happen for D3. Anything is possible, but this is not something to hold out hope for. I actually recall reading something a long time ago about Blizzard negotiating with Telstra (the largest internet provider in AU) about setting up WoW servers but Telstra called off the talks because they didn't agree to Blizzard's terms (I think Telstra wanted to have their name advertised or listed as sponsors where Blizz didn't want to do this). Possible rumour, but yeah... if Telstra aren't playing the game, it's unlikely any other ISP is going to be capable of doing so. Everything that can be said about server locality also relates to Auction House locality (which, due to our current high exchange rate, is good for us if we're buying stuff in the US, but bad if we're selling stuff... relatively speaking, anyway).
2) From Brisbane my normal nighttime ping is ~200ms on a very average ADSL2+ connection. Spikes bring it up to 350-600 but this is more a side-effect of Patch 14/15 rather than a connection issue. As has also been stated above, this is happening worldwide (even in the USA) and is not a regional issue. Ping was stable at 200ms in Patch 13 at least 95% of the time. My ping to MMOs on the US west coast has always hovered around 150-250ms (sometimes assisted by tunneling services) and has been fine for the majority of activities in those games (which, like D3, treat lag intelligently... more on that in a sec). The only time this can be a slight issue, as I imagine it will be in D3, is PvP, but it remains to be seen how that'll work out.
3) 200ms ping is absolutely fine to play the game without noticeable lag and for it to be a very enjoyable experience. This is not D2. 99% of my D2 playtime was single player or via local LAN due to the agony of the delay on Battle.net. This is not the case anymore. The new methods by which B.net validates client actions allows you to play as if you were doing so locally. In fact, all combat *is* processed locally and then verified by B.net afterwards. You'll see a few weird things, like monster loot dropping in a different place from where it died or slight delays in picking up items or similar things but, overall, any somewhat reasonable ping should be perfectly sufficient for an enjoyable experience. And, most importantly, combat will be fluid and responsive.
Any other AU Beta questions... feel free to ask, :).
And now the Beta is down for those of us who had access anyway, :(, lol.
/agree with this... well, except perhaps the 'weeks' thing. Regardless of whether or not it is as hard as the developers like to claim it is, going straight at it with a HC character is going to be a tough goal. Rushing blindly in with absolutely zero experience in any of the significant difficulties, and especially doing so with a mindset to get to <insert goal> first, can only lead to a lot of deaths. More than likely some hardcore but more careful players will get there before any who try to rush it straight out of the gates. And if that's not the case, then Blizz is doing something wrong and will most definitely be eating their 'you will die' words. Heh.
Shrug. I guess we'll see how it goes. Shall be interesting. I would have loved to have a shot at this a few years ago, but now there's work and a girl and all that other stuff to think about, :), so going to take it slow (but still play whenever I get a moment free!).
G'luck.
This is why I always take a low-limit CC if I go overseas. Much better to lose $500-1000 than $5000-10000+.
I should but am too slack (and generally trust my own security). Do Comm bank even offer this? Or do you mean the Windows one? Speaking of which, you gotta love banks that LIMIT your password to 8 chars or 6 chars or something. Not that it really matters with keyloggers, but it's quite hilarious how poor the restrictions on some of those online portals is.
Also, you say "online recently" which I assume means you've used it online in the past. This would thus mean that any previous vendors you've dealt with could have easily been compromised and your details taken.
And what about at an actual store? I've had my CC card scanned and used without my permission by a random store (can't remember which) in Chinatown when I visited Sydney a year or two ago. This is actually the primary reason I still have a credit card with Commonwealth Bank, like yourself, as they are very good with picking up on this sort of thing... and it's so common these days that you're likely to be hit at some point regardless of how careful you are. I'm more than happy to pay Comm Bank's exorbitant fees for peace of mind.
Oh, sidetracked... umm, anyway, in the grand scheme of game issues, I'd imagine this is incredibly low on the priority list right now. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were never 'fixed'. Such is life. Maybe in an expansion.
In D3, the point of items being called Legendaries rather than Uniques is that there are no longer any "unique" aspects to them. You can wield 2 Legendary weapons at once, you can have 15 of the same Legendary drop per game, etc. I'd imagine they will be rare enough that seeing two of the same item in a single game (unless it was an extremely long game) will be the thing of legends (ho, ho). At least you would hope it'll be that way.
That being said, without any way (currently) to create games with names or similar (like in D2), the only point of game permanence will be in allowing non-hosts to keep playing in a partially cleared world.
It's refreshing to see something that's not just a mess of quick cuts attempting to sync to the music (as much as I still enjoy those) but instead follows more of a progression, Nice video mate.
Basically, the amazing or perfect item would have a ridiculous price tag where the unidentified item of the proper type would have a high price tag but certainly not ridiculous. So you pay the lesser amount (for the un-id'ed item) and hope to get lucky. If you do, you save tonnes of cash... if you don't, you lose some money. Same thing as bidding vs buying out really.
Pay 1 million gold for a guaranteed item.
OR
Pay 200,000 gold for an item that has 1/8 chance of being the thing you want.
The odds are against you, but people will still take them. That's gambling for you!
Edit: Also, on the flip-side, a seller might make more profit from seling un-id'ed items on average as they could sell 8 for a guaranteed 200k each (1.6m profit) rather than id them all and risk none of them being what they want.
And, yeah, as mentioned above... it was also an anti-duping measure in D2. You couldn't dupe un-id'ed items, I believe? This was very popular in D2 Single Player where it was nigh impossible to tell if someone had cheated or not and legit trading was highly enforced.
It also means that there will most likely be some market for unidentified legendaries etc as they could either have crap stats or perfect stats. Same with rares of certain types.
I was initially thinking it was a bit weird to let a character die... but you're right. +1 to this idea for sure. Something that represents him. If you can find gear (doesn't have to be the best, as already mentioned) that you think represents him, get the character to max level (60 should be much, much more obtainable than 99!) and then retire him there as a tribute... that'd be awesome. I'd love to see a screenshot of him when you're done, :D.
Alternatively, if there are any personality quirks or traits you can think of, you could always try to focus on those. i.e. start a cracked/worn item library or similar, heh.
Best of luck mate.
1) There is no D3 Aussie server planned and I'm 95% sure there will never be one. As has been said, this never happened for WoW and if it's not happening for that (with their 110+ realms), then it's highly unlikely to ever happen for D3. Anything is possible, but this is not something to hold out hope for. I actually recall reading something a long time ago about Blizzard negotiating with Telstra (the largest internet provider in AU) about setting up WoW servers but Telstra called off the talks because they didn't agree to Blizzard's terms (I think Telstra wanted to have their name advertised or listed as sponsors where Blizz didn't want to do this). Possible rumour, but yeah... if Telstra aren't playing the game, it's unlikely any other ISP is going to be capable of doing so. Everything that can be said about server locality also relates to Auction House locality (which, due to our current high exchange rate, is good for us if we're buying stuff in the US, but bad if we're selling stuff... relatively speaking, anyway).
2) From Brisbane my normal nighttime ping is ~200ms on a very average ADSL2+ connection. Spikes bring it up to 350-600 but this is more a side-effect of Patch 14/15 rather than a connection issue. As has also been stated above, this is happening worldwide (even in the USA) and is not a regional issue. Ping was stable at 200ms in Patch 13 at least 95% of the time. My ping to MMOs on the US west coast has always hovered around 150-250ms (sometimes assisted by tunneling services) and has been fine for the majority of activities in those games (which, like D3, treat lag intelligently... more on that in a sec). The only time this can be a slight issue, as I imagine it will be in D3, is PvP, but it remains to be seen how that'll work out.
3) 200ms ping is absolutely fine to play the game without noticeable lag and for it to be a very enjoyable experience. This is not D2. 99% of my D2 playtime was single player or via local LAN due to the agony of the delay on Battle.net. This is not the case anymore. The new methods by which B.net validates client actions allows you to play as if you were doing so locally. In fact, all combat *is* processed locally and then verified by B.net afterwards. You'll see a few weird things, like monster loot dropping in a different place from where it died or slight delays in picking up items or similar things but, overall, any somewhat reasonable ping should be perfectly sufficient for an enjoyable experience. And, most importantly, combat will be fluid and responsive.
Any other AU Beta questions... feel free to ask, :).