DiabloFans

I don't know if i'll be playing WD, but I think it would depend on both of the skills' cooldowns. If they are both the same, then I would just use wrathful during a "burn" phase on a bosses or Restless during normal progression of farming mobs/rares/champs/etc.

(BTW, I realize they are both the same skill, but I'm refering to if they do future tweaks that affect each of the runes' cooldowns)

You guys have to realize that they are designing D3 to be a mix and match game where you pick one or multiple builds that you think are fun and just go with it. Do you want your big guy to do burst damage or do you need your big guy to be a constant companion that compliments your other skills? That's the question.

I think nobody cares about being the first to 60. I think the only thing some people care about is being the first to beat inferno. In WoW, some people were interested in being the first to 60 on a server, but everybody in the entire community could appreciate the guilds that get world firsts and server firsts in raiding content.

If anything, getting to lv 60 first just means you are making the best possible time on your way to beating inferno... either that or you live in Europe.

Actually, now that I think about it, if an American (or any player that gets the game later than 00:01 GMT) beats Inferno first, that could be a hardcore-gaming black eye on the European community.

asfastasican#1959 Americas

Design

• The Health Orbs system comes from the very first game Jay has worked on - Blood.
• One of the lessons that they learned in development was people’s memories of Diablo II were way different than the reality of Diablo II. People remember all kinds of stuff that never actually happened in that game. They remember what it was like in hell difficulty. They don’t remember what it was like in normal difficulty. They remember something that's visually darker than it ever was. They remember a variety and depth of monsters that was never there.
• One of Jay's mantras is, if you’re going to be an M-rated game, don’t be a soft M. Embrace it. Sometimes they had to push people — "you can be gorier than that, you can be grosser than that, go more in!"

As much as I like Dustin Browder or try to respect guys like Wilson, I never really understood why they had to include stupid gimmicky mechanics from their former, much less successful games. It's fine if Blizzard wants to take a feature that actually adds gameplay value to the game and reinterate it, that's cool. That's Blizzard's method. They did a lot of that sort of thing when creating Warcraft III and WoW. Most of their other games just took concepts from their own titles (a.k.a. town portal scrolls from Diablo I being in Warcraft III.)

I disagree with them acting the players that actually played D2 (not the ones that claim a bunch of crap and talk nonsense) have somehow forgotten how their game experience was. They could only get away with saying something like this, because this is a Wall Street Journal article and they have no clue about what manner they should present information about their game in for WSJ. I could argue that a large handful of the D3 devs game simply didn't play D2 enough or didn't take it as seriously. Diablo 2 isn't just DARK because of a shitty brightness level setting. It also had mutilated/tortured/ severed human corpses all over the landscapes and as doodads. Maybe the devs have conveniently forgotten that those existed to make the game more of a "Soft-M" type a game? How ironic. Let's just hope that I just have Beta Syndrome.

As for "underexplored barbarians" and "no evil heroes," I'll just chalk that up to Jay's dev team not understanding Diablo 2 at all. Many players look to the D2 barbarian as extremely bad-ass and will see the D3 as softspoken. Sorry Jay. Moon Physics and partical-effects are a cheap way to show off imaginary strength. Go watch the Avengers a 10th time and maybe you'll see how the Hulk should be portrayed properly. I think it's hilarious how it seems like the devs had a more clearer understanding of how their characters should be portrayed 3 years ago. We went from "characters that exist in a morally grey setting to "this character is a good guy or is a rebel good guy that used to be apart of a larger group of peers." I'd link the youtube where they discuss that several years ago, but I'mpretty sure it was the 2009 Blizzcon Diablo 3 Lore Panel and I couldn't find it on youtube.

Quote from Aerisot

Quote from ausmara

Wasn't PvP 3v3? The early videos showed 3v3 anyway, so 6 players

That is an excellent point.

An excellent point... that Blizzard goofed up on!

I can't imagine how little effort would be needed to just throw in a dueling feature for the sake of PvP. The thought of me makes me feel... well it makes me feel nothing really!

But look on the bright side. You can probably technically sue them for selling misadvertising then get your 60 bucks back, plus monetary compensation for emotional damages and court costs.

Well... not sure what I could say about this situation that hasen't already been said in this thread. I think Inferno will be fine. Still, all of this talk reminds me of when Blizzard threw early raiding stuff like BWL out there as raid content and some high end guilds were straight up calling bullshit on some of the early renditions being actually beatable.

For instance, there was some accusations stating that particular bosses were mathmatically unkillable, as opposed to them being just really challenging. I remember some trash talk going on between a few hardcore WoW guild leaders and Alex Afrasiabi (a.k.a. Furor/Foror/Kalaran/Valnoth) where the guild leaders basically said that Blizzard was cockblocking raid progression on purpose by making it too hard or by delivering bugged content. Furor basically unofficially replied to them by calling them a bunch of pussies, since he's an MMO raiding OG and all.

So in summary, my entire post is completely skippable.

Quote from Targariel

Quote from Kurast

Quote from Maerlimi

Quote from Enty

Book of Cain is astounding. An amazing read.

No it's not. As a book? Poor as hell.
It's good if you're a diablo fan who enjoys lore. I enjoyed it as a sub-part of a fun universe.
The book per si is really freaking bad.

Everyone to thier own mate, I actually enjoyed it to and It filled in lore gaps for me. I have played both d1 and d2 for many years but the only story stuff I gathered was from actually playing the game.

Just one example I didn't even know how sanctuary came to be, which the book of cain heavily informed me on.

The book looks great and gives a lot of important information but it's not Shakespeare :/ It should be written in a more old-fashioned way...since it was Deckard who wrote it.

it's not exactly fan-fiction, butt it's definitely "game-fiction". Just like how Advent Children couldn't stand on its own as an anime, anything diablo-story related probably wouldn't stand on its own as a story. You need to play the games to get into it, seeing as though there's a portion of fan-service shoved into it. You can disagree with me if you like, but even what we know about the Diablo 3 storyline seems to have been victimized in the name of fan-fiction.

Throwing former Diablo names, references and even characters like decard cain into the mix so early just seems like fan service. For instance, did we really need Decard Cain to return in this game? Better yet, did we need him to return during the very start of Act 1? It was interesting saving him in Diablo 2, but it feels like a cliche rerun saving him again, just for the sake of saving him.

Diablo 2 had Decard and Tristram return from Diablo 1, and it had references to the character classes in it's plotline, but nothing else. Every else was unique to the series. Now in Diablo 3, we immediately have Decard, Tristram and the cathredral with Leoric from the older games up front, PLUS other possible settings like Diablo 2's Act 2 and Act 5. Sometimes, revisiting the same old characters and settings multiple times just comes off as corny fan-service when you think about it.

HMMMM. Would you rather have to deal with getting one shot or would you rather have to deal with a random iron maiden destroying you again? HMMMMMMMM!

The misinformation overload in this thread amuses me. Can't we talk about the reasons of going or not going to a midnight release or party? I won't be going to one. The only reason I waited for a retail copy for SC2 was because the pre-order got me into beta.

http://www.diablofans.com/topic/37722-will-d3-bosses-regenerate-health-or-have-timers/

Saw this enrage timer stuff coming two months ago. lol

http://www.diablofan...-enrage-timers/

See? I knew this topic was worth posting 2 months ago. lol

Quote from Nayeen

Quote from RaidenFreeman

Why do people think this is ANYTHING like WoW? It better not be like WoW at all...

Why have enrage timers in a single player/co-op game? Bring sufficient dps? There are no tanks or healers, wth...

It shouldn't be like WoW, but sadly you can already see many similarities between then two...

Why do people like me think they are going to use these mechanics? Because I'm a regular god-damn fortune teller, that's why,

But on a more serious note, did any of you honestly think that you guys would be able to all go hard-core defensive builds and slowly chip away at any bosses' health to guarantee victory? I don't blame Blizzard for deciding on enrage timers. I also don't blame myself for being a forum necromancer, because why have someone post another thread about this?

I like how you guys are pointing out fractions of seconds of images that mean absolutely nothing, when the most important clip was in 00:11-00:12 of the first commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-ZA7NLSRhg&feature=player_embedded#t=10s



As for the monk stuff, these so-called changes are somewhat unnecessary and the animations were fine as they were.

Think about it. Can any of you even remember the differences by memory where your barbarian's bash or hammer of the ancients had a different animations when wielding different weapons? Chances are, you can't. As far as I remember, most (if not all) of the Barbarian skills don't look any different and don't depend on what weapons are equipped. Also, can you remember if your Wizard did something different when casting one spell with different weapons are equipped? Yes? No? Maybe? Can't remember? Why is the monk any different?

Whatever they decide on last-minute doesn't matter too much, as long as the animations are high quality. It makes me shake my head is when I hear news about them changing something insignificant 1-2 weeks before the game is released. It makes them look indecisive and inefficient. I don't think there's any part about this game where they actually had a gameplan from the start and executed it with any sort of confidence. It sounds like it's been 6 years of shooting from the hip.

God bless the programming, art, and cinematic teams though. At least they still create high quality work and maintain a level of consistency that's to be expected from the Blizzard brand.

I'm sure the 100% unlock will be nice, but the commercials certaintly aren't giving me Nerd Chills ™. They are pretty meh to me for a couple of reasons.

1. There's no in-game footage. Sure, Blizzard makes great cinematics just like Squaresoft and some other developers, but why sell a game or even base a game on cinematics? These commercials rely entirely on brand-recognition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTSxUPJtIjQ

For some reason, no matter how tired, sick or jaded I am, either my hair stands on end or my blood starts flowing when i watch this nearly 10 year-old trailer. I have a funny feeling it's because it's a trailer is pretty much 90% in-game footage and also because the narrator saying "Blizzard Entertainment proudly invites you..."

2. A good sign of a bad movie is usually when a commercial or trailer shows you most of the plot in one session. I'm getting alittle bit of that vibe from D3. Even though SC2 had a polished SP experience, it's trailers and reveals were put out their in trailers and even artwork before the game was released. It was a precursor to finding out that the story was pretty meh and that Blizzard is slowly losing their talent at "world-building."

God bless you if you are getting excited over seeing Imperious rendered in a cinematic. I'm a little curious now to see how they would render heaven, if they render heaven, in-game. Stll, personally I know that it's more about what Imperius does and his dialogue that will shape how good the story is, and possibly even some of the gameplay elements.

You forgot a "Not interested" option.

Quote from Ragator

Customization is better than in D2.

D2 :
-Linear talent tree, you end up with 2 - 3 skills.
-Characteristics kind of useless, it's only used to gain more mana, health and be able to wear the best stuff.

D3 :
-A freaking LOT of different skills, with each different runes that can change the whole skill, you have to make a lot of choices, and still be able to use 6 different skills at a time, plus 3 passive skills, and you can still change it whenever you want, try another combination, try every skill to know exactly which is the best for you.
-Characteristics useful, you have to seek for more strenght, dexterity or willpower to be able to deal more damage, gain more evasion and elemental resistances, etc.

D3 is just way better than D2. You can't argue with that.

Easier to understand, but still way more complexe and complete.

By this logic, you and several thousand other people should cancel your order of Diablo 3 right now and just play Guild Wars 2.

You can't argue with that...