Wow, that was awesome man. Tidbids of information but important information none the less! Thank you very much and I can't help but feel envious that you met Bash!
Edit: did you perhaps... take a picture? :>
I wish. I got to shake his hand though! He actually offered his hand first. What a guy.
I had the pleasure of meeting Bashiok (and his big bushy mustache) at PAX East earlier today and he was nice enough to answer some of my Inferno difficulty related questions. I didn't record our conversation and these are not absolute direct quotes so you'll have to trust me, haha.
-As of now the maximum monster level in Inferno is specifically 64, not just "somewhere around 65(?)" as mentioned in his Inferno post.
Not mindblowing but interesting
-I asked him about how in what I saw of a tiny bit of what looked like Hell or Inferno footage in the Blizzcon 2011 Gameplay & Auction House Panel the monsters moved REALLY fast and would not just attack the player from where they approached but actually run past him/her and sort of do a quick slingshot and attack from an unexpected direction (http://www.youtube.c...JfTfktc#t=3077s is the footage). It took a while for him to process what I was getting at but he did (re)confirm that monsters move faster in later difficulties and that they will have behaviors like 'stop for a bit, then come at you'.
-I mentioned the "internal bets" on how many "months" it would take to beat Inferno. He now believes that it's now a "few weeks"; not months. This was after I pressed him on the whole 'what if the person goes through the auction house and accelerates his gearing that way'.
-He's not aware of any real changes in health globe mechanics (drop rates, heal amounts) across the difficulties. He did mention the passive skills that help with globes- I imagine those will help quite a bit in endgame.
-He reiterated that you need to build up your defenses for Inferno via gear and skill choices. No surprise there.
-I asked him about the whole "bullet hell" mechanics (mentioned at Blizzcon 2010 panel I believe?) where you have to sort of dodge projectiles to avoid damage (I would imagine there would be a lot of them in Inferno). He said there are certainly such things but stressed that it's really more about getting the best gear and building up your defense than that.
-Right now in internal testing he said people are finding endgame solo play more preferable to party play. He attributes this to the scaling of monsters to the amount of players not making things any easier (implying that if one person messes up and dies, it just makes it harder on everyone else). I asked him if he thinks people will make 4 player parties and try to create "roles" with their builds and successfully tackle Inferno that way. He was agreeable to the concept.
I don't think he was totally prepared for the questions I suddenly threw at him but he was great (and patient with me despite all the stuff happening around with the D3 line and a couple other guys who were talking with him)
I also want to mention that the Runic guys (who were standing around on their side of the D3/T2 area)
are awesome and Torchlight II looks and plays great too! It's a great time to be an action RPG fan.
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who's to say this supposed iso won't even be completely busted either
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Please, just tell me everything. EVERYTHING
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I wish. I got to shake his hand though! He actually offered his hand first. What a guy.
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-As of now the maximum monster level in Inferno is specifically 64, not just "somewhere around 65(?)" as mentioned in his Inferno post.
Not mindblowing but interesting
-I asked him about how in what I saw of a tiny bit of what looked like Hell or Inferno footage in the Blizzcon 2011 Gameplay & Auction House Panel the monsters moved REALLY fast and would not just attack the player from where they approached but actually run past him/her and sort of do a quick slingshot and attack from an unexpected direction (http://www.youtube.c...JfTfktc#t=3077s is the footage). It took a while for him to process what I was getting at but he did (re)confirm that monsters move faster in later difficulties and that they will have behaviors like 'stop for a bit, then come at you'.
-I mentioned the "internal bets" on how many "months" it would take to beat Inferno. He now believes that it's now a "few weeks"; not months. This was after I pressed him on the whole 'what if the person goes through the auction house and accelerates his gearing that way'.
-He's not aware of any real changes in health globe mechanics (drop rates, heal amounts) across the difficulties. He did mention the passive skills that help with globes- I imagine those will help quite a bit in endgame.
-He reiterated that you need to build up your defenses for Inferno via gear and skill choices. No surprise there.
-I asked him about the whole "bullet hell" mechanics (mentioned at Blizzcon 2010 panel I believe?) where you have to sort of dodge projectiles to avoid damage (I would imagine there would be a lot of them in Inferno). He said there are certainly such things but stressed that it's really more about getting the best gear and building up your defense than that.
-Right now in internal testing he said people are finding endgame solo play more preferable to party play. He attributes this to the scaling of monsters to the amount of players not making things any easier (implying that if one person messes up and dies, it just makes it harder on everyone else). I asked him if he thinks people will make 4 player parties and try to create "roles" with their builds and successfully tackle Inferno that way. He was agreeable to the concept.
I don't think he was totally prepared for the questions I suddenly threw at him but he was great (and patient with me despite all the stuff happening around with the D3 line and a couple other guys who were talking with him)
I also want to mention that the Runic guys (who were standing around on their side of the D3/T2 area)
are awesome and Torchlight II looks and plays great too! It's a great time to be an action RPG fan.