DiabloFans

Quote from NobleNecromancer

@ RokkitSerjun

It is the player's own fault for dieing right before the boss, it usually means that they weren't prepare or were getting overconfident. I just don't see why they should reward you for failing to survive. Death should come with some penalties, and not receiving loot or exp(along with losing some durability.) seems like a good penalty.

Keep in mind that some characters will be more effective "tanks," (honestly hate using that terminology in reference to diablo gaming, but it suits this situation), distractions, or simply first-to-jump-in. Consequently they'll be in more danger. I don't think it would be wise to conclude every death is simply over-confidence or stupidity in a party situation. Many times it may simply be that the room was a death-trap and the stars aligned in a very unfortunate way.

Of course I never had a problem simply running back in D2 (when I was playing softcore and had that option), but this system alleviates a bit of the frustration. I don't see anything inherently wrong or potentially abusive off-hand.

Oh lawdy the ad hominems, what ever shall I do?

Just wanted to thank all the new posters who didnt' read anything the rest of us have posted concerning the RMAH before making their FIRST POST an anti-rmah sperg with zero factual backing and a host of uneducated opinions.

Keep up the good work.

Quote from Crit

Yes. Why can't it be an E-sport? If it even amounted to that. They said they weren't going to be balancing the game for PvP so people knew it wasn't going to be a hardcore PvP game. But with no track of your losses, and no ladder, it's almost pointless to PvP now. You get a kick out of it, you win, yay, you lose, doesn't matter. Can you even choose your team and opponents so you can play with your friends?

I think they were even planning on making a ladder but that all changed when they thought up this RMAH bullshit.

Firstly, quit hogging all the tin-foil. I need to make hats for my bomb-shelter.

Second, players can track their own stats and did so in D2. Your wins and losses actually DO matter, because of the match-making system (it was mentioned in the same video, not sure how you missed it). You also get achievments and banner titles for pvp, so that hardly makes it pointless.

I guess the question is: why do you pvp and what isn't blizzard doing for you?
-Fight equally skilled and geared opponents: Check.
-Recieve a reward that sets you apart from the rest of the population: Check.
-Ability to be ranked by your community if you so desire: Check.
-Ability to play with your friends (that suck at pvp) too without killing your ~awsome mmr~: Check.

I can't think of anything you could be after here except monetary rewards for your elite skill at pvp, which is absolutely silly considering you admit it's ok for Blizzard to eschew balance in favor of a largely pve driven game.

Quote from Brake Failure

I suddenly almost felt bad for Bashiok... Also, I LOLdMyAO at this post...

At the announcement, Diablo III was an RPG. Then, it was ARPG, now it's a Co-op. I've never even heard of a co-op game before. How many genres are ya'll going to make up for this project?

WHAT IS HAPPENING

Seriously? Whoever posted that is making those of us with valid concerns look bad...

Blue tracker link

To be totally fair and honest, almost nothing on those boards is a valid concern. It's simply people who take in what blizzard says and refuse to process it. Instead the chop it into clips and bytes for sig material and make more rant posts.

But you're correct, the few make-sense posts are literally under water at this point.

Quote from Charlondo724

It's not exactly a negative thing towards PvEer's, as ultimately it will make it a better game AND it will bring more players to the scene on release. I have a good 5 or so friends who don't want to buy the game now that the arena system has no looks to be in any way competitive. Of course, there's no way in telling how many people are actually waiting for something big like this, but I think I can fairly say there will be a lot. And more players would just be better all around, for blizzard's income, for the in game queues for player searching, etc..

To try and get away from the "what makes the game better," arguments (since that's 100% opinion and we can do it ad nauseum) i'd like to simply state, expectations don't drive development at this state. Some years ago they had a concept in mind for D3, years later that became a working model where they added design components and postulated about further iteration, and today we have what's essentially the working product with bugs and design kinks to iron out.

To say that Blizzard didn't consider it's own revenue (potential) from Diablo3 and simply ignored the issues you're coming up with here is quite silly. They considered it as i'm sure they considered implementing pandas as a race in WoW, or considered making orcs-in-space instead of starcraft. Ultimately they've settled on a design scheme that they like and they clearly feel comfortable saying "this is how it is and this is why we made it like that."

If some potential buyers are turned off for want of serious pvp development I really have no words for them and frankly don't understand how they could have arrived at such expectations. However; all is not lost. As I have mentioned, there are a large number of other titles out there with plenty (if not all) designer development time invested in competitive pvp. Please invest there and show your support for the genre, if you feel that you're not being represented by Blizzard. The market isn't deaf. If you all speak with your wallet and buy a bunch of arena pvp rpg's, i'm sure diablo3's expansion will have all the pvp you could want and then some.

Quote from JCVB

What exactly made buying items for RL money 'bad', why was it illegal, and how does it relate to the gaming of the individual? Now don't get me wrong, I'm not for or against the RMAH, but it would be a good thing to list things to avoid confusion.

Traditionally, the pre-UO ancient online gaming viewpoint was that breaking immersion with cash was wrong just because it broke immersion. There was also a strong corrleation between hacking and cash transfers because of the hard-line stance companies took against all cash-systems. This took many years to soften and only in the last half a dozen years have companies really opened up real-currency markets with both input and outputs that showed success.

Quote from JCVB

1- An advantage in the game without effort being put towards it within the game itself.
2- When someone geared up his character only by trading it with in-game resources/finding it to have people dismiss it as "Pfft, anyone can do that with money." Takes away from achieving by bragging.

1. There's always effort being put in by someone (bots should be a seperate issue/problem): A construction foreman still builds a house, even though he never touches a hammer. He's still proud of what he acconplshed because he "earned," it. Even if the guy using a hammer did the physical act, the foreman still is complicit and enjoys the rewards.

2. Bragging/ePeen wagging are useless and frankly, I could care less about this. Hardcore players, to my mind, have the only rights to brag and they have no RMAH so, moot point.

Quote from JCVB

Why was it illegal in Diablo 1 and 2? I'll post a few arguments here first, then I'll edit the post to add more if/when people post:
1- "I looked in to why it was illegal and found that it was potentially a breading ground for scamming and there was no legal way to punish those who didn't fulfill the trade." -lowl
(Why it was actualy made illegal is unkown to me at the time, but I'm sure you all are happy to help with finding that out.)

See my first paragraph. Diablo is a relatively old series relative to the development of cash-transfer systems as integrated into gaming. This is like asking why there were no hybrid cars in 1950. There were, actually, prototype batter-powered gasoline engine vehicles, but they were not mainstream and there was no presedent for their widespread use. A combination of social, political, and economic realities (as well as technology) caused hybrid cars to become a mainstream concept. [Please don't argue with this anaolgoy, I have no useless green agenda here, it's just to make a point]

Quote from JCVB

How are the people playing the game actualy effected if they don't use the RMAH? I'll post a few arguments here first, then I'll edit the post to add more if/when people post:
1- Depending on the way the GAH and RMAH interact they might not have easy access to all the gear. If the GAH and RMAH currencies are interchangeable then people are likely to put high quality items on the GAH.
2- On the flipside, the best of the best items will only be put on the RMAH if the monetary value far outweighs the value you'd get for it in the GAH.
(The above two points are completely based on speculation and depend heavily upon the value of Gold in the game.)
3- When you meet someone who bought gear from the RMAH. Does meeting someone who spent a lot more time playing with the same gear as the one who bought it actualy effect your own enjoyment? This would boil down to Time = Money.
4- The bragging rights you have when finaly having the best possible gear. People could dismiss you as a "RMAH'er" diminishing the feeling of achievement.
5- "Grinding is now an impractical and illogical use of time (not that it wasn't already) and the only way to feel a secure boasting stance is through pvp; which only seems possible after doing something mundane or spending lots of money to acquire these elite items. The unique specs and techniques are a minor perk in comparison." -lowl

1. There is always going to be a corrolation between gold and money in tandem. Exceptional items wouldn't be on the gold AH anyway (even in a magic world with no RMAH and no black market) because their value would exceed the gold that players could accrue reasonably or use prudently. ie. Items in D2 that were worth greater than X SoJs were terribly hard to barter with early on.

2. See #1, correlation of value. Also, I believe the development of gold fauct/sink realtionships in D3 is going to be markedly improved over previous. It is true that blizzard will need to be keen on this, but I feel there's no reason to doubt since they are hell-bent on making this work.

3 and 4. Back to the Smug/ePeen issue. Again, hardcore players have it. Others have no right to it. I feel no pity for the guy who feels cheated in his in-game chest-pounding ability by this on his softcore "look at how much time I spent at the keyboard with absolutely no indication of how good I am at actually playing the game," character.

5. PvP is a touchy subject here, but i'm giving this a go without going on my usual "diablo 3 isn't intended for serious pvp," tangent. Imagine a character is geared all to hell and back and looks to duel someone with less gear. Regardless of how they got it, what do you think of them? They're just looking to bash newbs or get easy kills. No respect there. In either case, it's a personal thing and not to the detriment of someone who wants to be evenly matched.

Secondly, imagine two characters (one who bought his exceptional gear, one who earned it) duel. Who will win that fight? Well, tossing class-balance aside so as not to muddy the waters, I would assume the "earned it," player does. Why? Because he spends more time playing the game. He is familiar with his character more so than the guy who just kitted out his and went on to press buttons. Admittedly, if the buyer is also experienced, this could shift the scales, but then were is the "didn't earn it," argument going? I think there are a lot of unsavory contraditions in these pvp examples.

Primarily though, we have to understand that Blizzard (from being very honest in it's feedback) wants this to be a cooperative arpg and does not feel the need to overly justify RMAH side-effects on pvp. When you build a car to do 0-60 in a few seconds and run a road course effectively, you really can't be bothered with how the tires would handle an off-road expedition. These are two vary diffirent genres of game people are talking about and unfortunately, one of them isn't the current iteration of Diablo 3.

Here are a few pictures I found elsewhere. I have not seen them (after searching around) on this site, and I thought they were good pics, so here ya go.





4th difficulty reveal/confirmed


Below is a Wizard armor spell breaking up...unsure of what it is


Below is the Monk's Blinding Flash skill


Below is the Wizard's Blizzard skill






























Below picture is of 'Slaughtered Calf Inn'

So while passing the time.. I tried somthing kind of fun while playing TorchLight. (Im sure its been done before)

In TL, there are 3 skill trees for each class. There are 5 "active skills" in each tree for each class. That makes 15 active skills per class.

What I just did was level up a Vanquisher to level 30.

I Saved up points to put a new point into each skill when it became available. There are generaly 3 new skills ( 1 in each tree) to grab every 5 levels. In all, there are 15 active skills ( about 8 less than D3 will have per class )

By level 30ish go for somthing like this:
I put 5 points in each of the level one skills (15 total)
4 in each of the level five skills (12 total)
3 in each of the level 10 skills(9 points)
2 in the level 15 and 20 skills (12 points)
and 1 in each of the level 25 points (3 points) TOTAL (51 points)

**Important: make sure you have enough points (at least 3) going into each 5th level. So at level 5, make sure to have 3 unspent points, at level 10 make sure to have 3 unspent points (so you can get all 3 of the new skills). In between, use your fame points to keep the lower level skills viable. Play the game on Hard (instead of very hard) so that the lower level skills stay viable.

Basically I ignored the passives, and it kind of simulated the way the skills will unlock in Diablo 3.
By the time I had all the skills unlocked I started expirimenting trying to find fun combinations and "limited" myself to 6 skills (left, right Mouse Buttons and 1-4).

So really not a brilliant idea or anything, but it was alot of fun. I found quite a few fun combinations of skills that made the Vanq play totally differently.

So doing this was a blast, even with just 15 skills to chose from, its alot of fun swaping them in and out. Now, when you think D3 has 23 active skills (instead of 15) and 5 rune changes for each skill.. the same thing that is really interesting / fun in TorchLight is going to be insane in D3. Can't wait.

Doing this from last night till this morning some how (didn't think it was possible) hyped me up even more for D3.

I've got a good idea. Let's all pretend that Diablo 3 is going to be a brand new game that never existed before. Let's pretend for just a second that no one has ever played the complete version. Now we--- oh, wait. I've just been informed that Diablo 3 IS a brand new game that never existed before and no one HAS ever played the complete version. Okay, um...

Alright, um. Okay, let's pretend that players can't "miss" features of a brand new game since a brand new game never had them. Let's pretend (just pretend, mind you) that a brand new game can't really be expected to have every feature that every gamer wants. Let's just PRETEND that if all brand new games were expected to cater to the needs of everyone, then every new game would be the same as every new game. So that means----- oh, no, I've been informed that all that was actually reality as well.


Look, people, Diablo 3 is an online game. I guess if you're not an online gamer, whatever reason may be fueling that, you won't be playing Diablo 3, because it's an online game. The game's architecture isn't so "box-o'-legos" that Blizzard can just slide in an offline mode. It's not like they have an on-off switch. "Okay, D3 team, looks like about 14% of the internet is angry. Better flip the offline mode back on." I daresay that implementing an offline mode would push this game back 3+ months. That's even optimistic. Because aside from rewriting the entire game engine... aside from rewriting the game so that all the important data that is kept server-side can be kept client-side... aside from rewriting their ENTIRE security system to account for the reality that everyone can possibly access every bit of information that they got from their client-side game... Now Blizzard has to atmospherically rework the game so that it accounts for the fact that now everyone is not necessarily part of the D3 world if they're playing D3.

I'm sorry. I understand that you hoped it wouldn't be an online game. But it is. It's a game you must get online to play. I know, I know, reality sucks. I guess a particular video game has been proven once and for all to NOT be an inalienable right of soldiers, people with crappy internet, and people on the go. I don't know about the rest of you, but MY whole world is crumbling in the face of that revelation.

Hardcore isn't for pussies, if you can't handle it, don't play it. HC duels = Loot duels. Anything less than that is unacceptable.


The last thing we need is Blizzard tainting the last piece of diablo we have just because some carebears wants some risk, but not too much risk.

When D2 was released over a decade ago, one of it's cutting edge features was the client-server online protection. At the time of release this was top-shelf security and it took quite some time before any real cracks appeared in it. However, with enough time and effort everything can be cracked and now we have to current botfest of D2.

Now they wish to make D3 as secure as possible at release. If to get a high level of security so that bots/hackers/dupers/asswipes don't ruin my gaming experience I don't care if they force you to breath into a tube to get the program started. If it can keep my playing experience fun for as long as possible I say do it.

Whats even more ironic/moronic is that I bet 90% of the people who played D2 did so online or at best played offline only when forced to. Lets get real, in todays broadbanded world will being connected to play really be a problem? The only time I'm not connected is during a power outage, which tends to cause a serious degrade in gaming experience by itself. Get real and find something realistic to bitch about...

I just love the way the new resource orbs look. They are highly detailed and aren't one solid color. In some videos you can see it swirling within the orb. My favorite is easily Arcane Power. It's simply pure awesome in energy form.

Spirit (Monk)


Fury (Barbarian)


Arcane Power (Wizard)


Mana (Witch Doctor)


Hatred & Discipline (Demon Hunter)


Compare to D1/D2 orbs:

Hi guys

Not sure if you guys have already seen this, but.. yeah

http://pc.ign.com/articles/118/1186681p1.html

IGN interviews Jay Wilson about the 5 classes.