DiabloFans

Quote from DAI7ENSHI

I'd like to know what aspects of the game change when more players join.

Very much THIS. In gory details please!

Detailed Stuff like:

• Are all changes linear? (e.g. does going from 2 to 3 players increase monster health by the same % as going from 3 to 4?)
• Any unusual Drop Quality changes? Note: excluding party-MF stats! (e.g. do blues have an increased drop chance, rares and legendaries remain the same?)
• Any changes in item drop quantities?
• Mob changes:
• Increased quantities?
• What % health increase?
• What % damage increase?
• Attack or cast speed increase?
• Altered A.I. behavior? (e.g. cast spells more often)
• EXP gain changes?
• Will grouping generally result in faster leveling?

Need info about Rare/Champion pack spawns:

• Rate of appearance:
• Is there a minimum expected frequency of pack spawns? (e.g. If I don't see one for ~20 minutes of play, its because I 'missed' it in an unexplored area?)
• Can / does a pack ever DE-SPAWN for any reason other than an Act-change or game session ending?
• What factors influence pack spawn rate? (If any?)
• Does the number of players in game affect pack spawn rate/timing
• Does "missing/not-finding/partial-killing" a pack affect spawn rate/timing of a future pack?
• Does completely killing a pack affect spawn rate/timing of a future pack?

• Quality of loot:
• Does loot quality vary based on 'difficulty' of pack abilities?
• What is a pack's loot quality relative to a Resplendent Chest in that area? (e.g. Something like: twice as much loot, but same quality grade?)
• Does killing the last member of a pack have an additional drop/loot bonus, pre-level-60? (Specifically ignoring Nephalem Valor in this question.)
• Does a pack's loot quality vary DIFFERENTLY than other mobs based on quantity of players present in game?

For me? Over 3 months... partly because I'm in no rush. I will have at least 2 (probably 3) different L60 chars before I even try getting past Inferno Act 2.

I played so many stupid hours of Diablo 2, and that was without any real substantial "end game" short of level-grinding. I'm excited to have a challenging "end game" to chew on for a while at my leisure.


For the community in general? 2 weeks to 1 month. Pooled resources and abuse of bugs/exploits will make it fast.
(Players in WoW pooled resources and operated in shifts to get realm firsts on new expacs, I expect this to happen again.)


Now... how about HC Inferno? Well over 3 months I'm guessing, pooled efforts or not, unless there is a huge bug/exploit that doesn't get fixed quickly.

Awesome, give me the game sooner.

Needs a "How the hell should I know?!" option, given that we've only been able to see/play a tiny portion of the game.

I'm guessing they would pilot the AH with F&F before S&E

Pretty sure they can issue a new certificate as they please.

I also I doubt they had a clue about a release date when they had the certificate issued over a year and a half ago...

Quote from Molsterr

Thats why people who preorderd sc2 got into the beta?

Theres nothing wrong with given people who preorder a bonus, its what smart companies do, cause it moves products.

I think he was responding to my "and get to keep character/loot" bit, that was just overly hopeful, unrealistic thinking on my part.

Quote from overneathe

Blizz have always been fair to everyone and has treated all equal when it comes to game releases. There's no "preorder plays earlier". After managing a community of 10s of millions they know that nothing good comes out of letting people that have more money/live in a better country be able to play before others.

I do think its VERY unlikely pre-order = make a character you can keep. (However, I'd be surprised if they didn't offer pre-order = beta with characters that get wiped)

But just for the sake of argument: if Blizzard sets it up so that you can pre-order directly through Blizzard in all regions, then how would that be unfair? People with hefty data caps, but decent bandwidth, need to install off disks I guess? I can't think of much else..

I'm HOPING they will do something weird involving pre-order early-access to the "Beta" content, like maybe allow people to create and play characters pre-release that will persist if you upgrade your account with a D3 key.

I'm not suggesting such a thing would happen until very close to when the game launches. But, it would be a decent way to stress-test the launch hardware/architecture!

(The upcoming invite-only Beta will be running on a single instance of test hardware in one location, which will affect what they end up installing at server farms in various locations across the world for launch)

Quote from calpurnia12

You're complaining about graphics on a game that you haven't played, or a story that you haven't experienced. How about you take a step back and play the game first, then decide.

Woah, woah WOAH, ease off there on the rational thought! This is the internet we're on, here. We don't take kindly to logical reasoning! <_<


Edit:
Sorry, that was kind of rude. I'm just getting irritable with all of the wild fears and crazy conclusions flying around these days. But, I understand people are just wound-up and don't have much else to discuss about D3.

pure-white, golden smoke, silvery... anything but what they have.

Monk resource looks like a swirling orb of semen, and now I can't unsee it.

Quote from Seniri

Starcraft 2 offline was completely seperate from the online. Picture Diablo 3 the same way. There's no reason why Blizzard can't implement this. It may be because they're afraid of piracy, but let's be honest there's nothing they can do to stop it from happening.

You are correct that there's no reason why Blizzard can't implement offline-only Diablo 3.

However, I'll let you in on a little secret: they cut it to ship the game faster. Helping prevent piracy is just a perk.

Let's imagine the meeting Blizzard had over this, in brief:

"We really want to ship this year. What are the big chunks of functionality we can cut to ship faster and still hit the core of what Diablo franchise is? Offline only? Cut it. That'll save a several hundred man-hours better spent on Battle.net 2.0 functionality. There's sufficient market research to suggest that 99.8% of our intended audience has broadband internet. We can add it in later if there's enough demand, but it will probably go the way of Starcraft 2 offline LAN play.

Okay, what else? PvP functionality? Well we can't just cut it wholesale. Let's do a light, simple version and use it to gauge interest. If there's sufficient demand, we'll grow it in future expansions."

/end shackyAak's opinion

Bashiok is trapped in a special hell right now.

Not only are battle.net forums a vast, writhing lake of sewage, the D3 forums only contain people who have active classic battle.net accounts. He's stuck with this audience that does not statistically represent the upcoming Diablo 3 fan-base accurately, at all. But, sadly, the forums will never represent that audience well.