DiabloFans

There is little purpose. Pirates will provide offline play regardless of protection, while the standard CD-key system already ensures the security of battle.net

Wow, this makes me look at the barbarian class from a very different angle. They filled in the sword and shield area, which may mean that we won't exactly see another shield-concentrated class. A smart move, in my opinion, paladin and barbarian had too many parallels as far as concept goes.

You guys (under-administration) ever thought of doing your own forum?

I suppose it makes sense in a way. Attribute assignment was very hard to make balanced, or complex, or useful. They got rid of it to rigidly limit certain classes to certain types of equipment, and, possibly, even skills. In my opinion, this would be better than the Diablo II system, but worse than actually upgrading the attribute system into something more complex. I guess they decided that they'd rather sacrifice the stat system than make an unbalanced game again.

I guess it depends on what you want for this country. If you prefer your taxes to go into war and into bailouts, not the education of children or help for the poor, your pick. I am appalled that a rich country such as America cannot give its citizens a college education or healthcare that's not ridiculously expensive. If any of this is socialist to you, you are calling most European countries socialist, and they have much higher life expectancies that we do, among other things. You may want to read up on socialism. Universal healthcare is positive in all directions. But it won't happen, neither under Obama nor McCain. Yes, he wants to tax the rich. What do you want? For the poor to keep getting poorer? Do lawyers, insurance companies, marketing companies, and big businesses are the sort of people you think deserve most money? I thought it was always the middle class that got into most trouble.

The terminology used depends on the author and his vision of the universe; I don't have any preference regarding which is used as long as it is used consistently.

I found this article pretty interesting: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/10/08/notes100808.DTL

Quote from "Morken" »

“The basis of Blizzard's success lies in adopting best ideas from varying games on a the base of their own ideas. I don't see how reusing ideas from their own games is a sign of insecurity, unless those games failed, and no matter how much some people may hate WoW, it has a few million of subscribers.”
Diablo is like VW beetle. Its very “cult” and everything done for for it should be as unique as possible. Do you really like the WOW skill template? Do you think for some reason it was pivotal to the success of WOW? I don’t see anything so great about it.

Diablo is not unique, at all. The way it was invented was somewhat unique (coming up with turning an originally TB game into a real time game), but there were games similar to Diablo way before Diablo was even planned. The reason Diablo became so popular was because it was well done and developed. There was item carrying before, point-and-click combat, potions, etc., in various different games, but it wasn't exactly put together in a nice mesh which is Diablo. Most successful, popular games aren't exactly unique. Unique games do not really get anywhere on the popularity scale, because they are often starting something nobody implemented before, and that's always hard.

WoW's skill system has little to do with their success, but that's besides the point, I don't see how WoW's popularity has anything to do with Diablo at all. WoW's skill template, I don't think I even mentioned it. I prefer when skills are gained through levels instead of being bought but it's not like DIII plans to make skills buyable. If you actually mean WoW's talents' template, I didn't play it much. I'd be better off referencing TQ, which has the same, and on skills, not talents.

As I have said before (in my previous post to you), I support varying caps on skills IF the skill trees are anywhere close to those of Diablo II. I support them because it's easier to balance and allows for more direction. It also prevents issues with 1-point skills such as curses, which are very hard to make useful and not overpowered at the same time using a 20-point system. In addition, skill caps make the points invested into these skills useful. I noticed it in WoW. You don't just throw your points around, while in DII, putting points into skills just because they are pre-reqs was pretty normal.

But, really, I'd change whole DII skill system to something different, I don't like it in many ways, and I hope the developers will get some new exciting ideas for that or, at least, lend them from some other games.

Quote from "Dimebog" »

You can not be sure of ANYTHING as they have not yet even released any info if there will be such thing as skill trees - they said they will announce it in the future.

The gameplay trailer clearly shows the limits on the ranks of skills. That's the one thing we are talking about here. Surely it may change, but that's a different question, we discuss what we can.

"pretty sure" means that I have my own opinion on things. So, yes, I can be sure on it, while you may not, please don't tell me what I may, or may not, be sure of.

Quote from "Dimebog" »

And I don't give a damn who you attacked and what you THINK. I want to see an apology and the original post edited. Including the part about the Cow Level and Barbarian class name as I already explained 15 posts back.

Who I attacked is essential to understanding my points, which, it seems, you are not at all interested in understanding. Fine, then don't reply to me, yet you did, therefore, you get the consequences. If you don't give a damn about the opinions of others, I suggest you never enter another message board again - they were made for public communication, including people posting what they think and believe.

Quote from "Dimebog" »

I just don't see how that has anything to do with imagining some fantastic connections between D3 and WoW as if WoW is the only game with varying caps on things!!!

WoW's skill cap is 70 by the way.

I guess you also missed my post previously that attacked his post? I just think it's foolish to argue with something when you don't even get the person's point, a point that was brought up many times.
I am pretty sure they are using WoW's system, it's WoW they are familiar with.

And it doesn't matter if it's skills or talents. The system is the same yet.

Morken, you need to read my posts as well, since I actually get what you mean. Or you just reply to random people.

Quote from "Dimebog" »

Now read my statement: It is not 5/10/20 - it is 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. In Diablo it MIGHT be 5/10/20 - beside the point that you are comparing talents with skills. Once more. WoW: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Diablo 3: 5/10/20.

Pay close attention to this one:

WoW = talents = 1/2/3/4/5
D3 = skills = 5/10/20

You totally missed Morken's point. It doesn't matter where the maxes are. Even if WoW was 50-100-300, it's still the same SYSTEM. It's called VARYING caps on skills/talents/whatever. It's an analogy...

Diablo's system: 20/20/20, or 30/30/30, or whatever, the cap on every skill is the same. WoW's system: 3/5/7, 10/20/30, 1/2/3/4/5, again, doesn't matter, point is, it's different for every skill...

Diablo 1
Coolest: Nova
Best: Guardian
(never played a Sorcerer)

Diablo II
Coolest: Bone Wall
Best: Teleport

Diablo III
Coolest: Locust Swarm
Best: Whirlwind probably

Quote from "USAFNBC" »

I'd like to say though, that Obama is simple hype, great oratory, but nothing really more.

Same can be said about McCain, and about almost every president excluding a few special ones (FDR). We are to choose the lesser of two evils here...
And, frankly, for myself, it is between the Democrats and Palin. I do not like her very, very much. Are you supporting McCain because you are in the military?

Quote from "Morken" »

Gosh, I wish I could edit these posts rather than just add these messy bits!

What prevents you from editing your posts? You can edit your first post while still adding the "messy bits".

Quote from "Morken" »

Now I dunno all the details but it sounds like they are encouraging the player to just cower a bit after a kill which goes contrary to the spirit of some of what they said in some videos, you know, never ending action blah blah.

Regen for players encourages lame tactics like running around the block.

I don't see that as a bad idea. Characters in Diablo were too unconcerned about their survivability, which eliminates any possibility of tactics and makes people disinterested in non-damaging skills if they never have to worry about their health.

Quote from "Morken" »

Regen for monsters has a nasty side effect: it further encourages high attack characters.
Now that does not need any further encouragement!

I agree, I believe monsters should be more dangerous instead of becoming as beefy as they have been in Diablo II.

Quote from "Morken" »

In any game where you could stand around in a corner and just regen, resource management was a non issue. It kills much of the tension.

Make monsters too fast to just run away from them... this was the case in Diablo II with bosses such as Duriel - running away to regenerate was possible, but there was little room and not enough speed to escape the monster.

Quote from "Morken" »

Just make the globes replenish both mana and life and the game will be a game of real resource management. Also, by making this so, the strange hybrid melee/magic builds who were always punished greatly as suboptimal guys become a bit more viable as they expend both HPs and mana to kill foes and will last a bit better this way.

We have little information on the classes and how they function, perhaps having only health globes has its advantages, it may help diversify the magic and might classes.

Quote from "Morken" »

A boss should only regen when a player runs to town and exploits some cheapo heal.
I don't think there will be any such opportunity by the sound of things.

Agreed. This was implemented in Titan Quest and made running to town absolutely useless.