By now you probably noticed that we're almost done deploying the new version of Diablofans, this is still very much a work in progress and we'll keep going around the site and fixing things left and right for the rest of the week. This design has 3 main goals:
- Giving more space to news posts, because tiny tiny news frames don't make anyone happy.
- Allowing users to reach the important parts of the website more easily. News + Forums + Blue Posts can all be easily accessed from the front page without scrolling.
- Cleaning up everything, because the old design was kind of a mess.
We're not completely done yet but we reached a stage where it's good enough to go live and gather feedback and work with the community to make everything nice and pretty, feel free to point out anything missing or stupid we might have did in comments!
Blue Posts
Official Blizzard Quote:
Casters and weapon damage
We have no plans to make it so that Wizard and Witch Doctor spells will scale off of anything but weapon damage at this current point. Previously we did not have a very strong synergy between weapons and the caster classes.
We want everyone to get an awesome feeling whenever they upgrade their weapons. That is why we went in this direction; to ensure that Wizards and Witch Doctors would be greatly pleased about weapon drops, as it was not that exciting in the previous Diablo games for casters. (Official Forums)
RMAH Fees
I don't mind the sensationalism in an article but that graphic is just devoid of any attempt at being truthful. Also they don't seem to understand how percentages work.
In any case, the listing and transaction fees, which are flat fees, are being kept as low as we possibly can keep them. Right now in beta it's 0.80 'Beta Bucks' total if you list and sell an item, and it's possible it'll be around that in USD for North America at launch. We still don't know yet, though, but we're trying to keep it as low as possible. And of course keep in mind that we still intend to offer a number of free listings per week. If someone wants to just use their free listings every week, they're more than welcome to. We anticipate a lot of people will go this route as it's a no-risk situation and no fees are taken if the item doesn't sell.
People selling items beyond those free listing will indeed want to make sure their items are of a quality the market deems is worth more than the flat posting and transaction fees, and in fact the game just won't allow you to post under a certain amount. Otherwise they may want to go the gold route, build up some gold, and then sell that through the currency-based auction house.
If you do decide that your sale is something you want to cash out, a percentage will indeed be taken, but we haven't announced any details regarding what the PayPal cash out fees will be yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Companions
Well, I like to see great discussion and feedback on our forums here, lets provoke to you all a question since I want to see what you all think.
If you had to choose one critter-type creature to have as your companion that only has the purpose of picking up gold in a short area around you, what would you want it to be?
Lets see what you can all come up with! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Need logs for DC on Channel Spells
Hey all, Please use this thread to report disconnects caused by channeled spells post-Beta Patch 8. What I would like you all to please do is reproduce this bug and immediately copy your D3Debug.txt file to your Desktop (it is located in the main Diablo III folder). Then edit out your e-mail address and upload the D3Debug.txt file to pastebin.com. Finally, link your file back to this thread.Thank you! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blizzard Art
Blizzard has put out four pieces of new art!
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Posted Dec 20, 2011Mmm, I'm currently seeing the old one:
This is the old one right?
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Posted Dec 20, 2011i dont remember the old logo, but considering that this one is called 13_logo-old.png, i suspect it is the same as before.
hopefully they have a newer one that they're working on. if not, maybe they should have a logo design contest...... oh wait
/facepalm
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Posted Dec 20, 2011but what is really disturbing and unappropriate are the white borders for the avatars.
Isnt it possible to make them black or something that doesnt compete with the avatar itself?
Cheers
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Posted Dec 20, 2011It's close, but not quite
See here for the old one http://blog.vjeux.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/diablofans_new.jpg
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Posted Dec 20, 2011-
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Posted Dec 20, 2011Layout wise, It does look exactly like mmo-champion now that I went and looked at it, that's a bit odd but, overall a major improvement on the old style as it was just way to cluttered.
Excellent job, cant wait to see the tweeks you make.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011-
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Posted Dec 20, 2011Then contact the Community manager, not BIBI.. there a chain of command, Daemaro is the community manager, all feedback and issue needs to go to him, not bibi. If there is an issue which needs bibi's attention, dae will talk to him... but thats your issue, your not contacting the correct people.
Actually, ive been doing a tally,and more people like the change/will like the change after a few fixes...
if you don't like the site, start posting facts about what you don't like so that devs get an idea. Everyone else is posting things they don't like, for exmaple the biggest issue is the bright red... and we know this because people are saying it, and not just posting "I dont like it, its going down hill...ect" Say exactly whats not good, so things can change, instead of posting incorrect info (aka: More people dont like it).
on a note about looking like mmo-champ. Well, the layout was designed by you know, the same people that made mmo-champ (im not talking about bibi). mmo-champ is the most successful news sites for wow. So saying you don't like it cause it looks like mmo-champ is fine, thats yoru opinion and thats okay, but if you want something change, thats not helpful, why does it looking like mmo-champ mean its bad? what about the mmo-style layout makes it bad for you? give information so things can be fixed/changed.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011I like the new layout, but then again, I don't. This is the only diablo fan site I've ever been to, so I don't know if it looks similar to other sites or not, but there are a few things that I think would really be great to see changed.
Most important first: The thick red bars, specifically the ones that highlight each poster's name, are really uncomfortable to look at. The buttons aren't bad, as they seem to be the same width, but even those could be reduced to be more comfortable for the eyes. The bars are just too much, and it's really annoying to scroll down and see these huge bars all over the screen when the actual posts are so small in comparison. This is a must.
Before, things were more cluttered, but I liked how compact they were. Perhaps they were a little too compact, as the new layout has gone in the other direction. I this the new layout has the opposite problem: it's too stretched out. With a few tweaks, I think the site could be "cozy" without being too crowded or bloated.
Keep the logo; there's nothing wrong with it and I think it looks great. I agree that the white outlines on the avatars are terrible.
Someone else mentioned the huge signature artworks, and I definitely agree. Is it really necessary to have huge signatures when the actual poster's input is ten times smaller and insignificant? Yeah, kids like signatures because it's cool and all that, I understand the fascination with them, but it really degrades the quality of the posts. I like to hear what others have to say about these threads, but if it's a hassle to get through all the clutter just to adequately read what they have to say, I'm not going to bother.
It seems that if you wanted to get rid of clutter, this would be one of the first things that would be dealt with appropriately.
I guess I'll be the first one in here to bring up the pet idea.
The whole pet system, where each player will get a pet to pick up gold for them, sounds good, but they need to be careful. I really, really like the idea for having a small spider or snake, or some other insignificant creature running around and gathering gold for me, but it better not be obstrusive. It could easily become annoying to have a pet if it was too big and interacted with me too much. If it's there to collect gold, that's all it should do, and do it quietly and without me having to see it unless I'm wondering if its doing its job.
I like a little snake or spider would be great, but if they implement something obnoxious, I'll toggle the thing off and do it myself. I'm going to play to kill things, not to play with some adorable or distracting thing.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011Yes very similar...I think I saw the one below the first time I went on the site after the new layout. Can't remember whether it was there for a couple of seconds or an hour...didn't pay much attention, perhaps just a placeholder (top one, or one similar, remember the 3 vertical bars with Diablo peering through):
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Posted Dec 20, 2011You are right, it looking like mmo-champion does not equate to the style is bad, actually mmo-champion looks good.
The only reason I posted and not really a problem per say as they are owned by the same company, but this site is duplicating i.e. copying that sites style, which some may say is cheesy, now with your response, I see the reason, to hopefully do as well as that site. But, that should not be your only reason because simply it seems a little weird as this sites content is completely different in nature other than advertisements.
Again, I think it is a great improvement over the last style.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011yeah, I totally understand your point, and people are allowed not to like it because its similar, who am I to say why someone can and can not like something =P
its just the posting to help improve part, needs exact reasons, else it wont help the devs or anyone. Every negative post is being read for sure.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011This first one (the one in white) looks really great, in my opinion. There's beauty in minimalism, and this one is great. The bottom one is good, but it misses the point of the emphasis on the most recent Diablo game being Diablo III, even though it has the three bars to symbolize that.
The logo isn't a big problem right now, though.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011Avatars...yeah it would be nice if we could use images with transparency. And keep the avatars smaller. People don't come to look at them, they come to read the forum.
I'd quote this 50 times if I could. Please, please cut the allowable signature size down. 600x250 is just too big. As I said about the avatars, people don't come here to look at crappy pictures, they come for the content. When you allow such huge signatures, it does nothing but take away from the content. It is nice to have the option to hide signatures, but it's not on by default. The smaller the better.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011sorry about the confusion i mean this:
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Posted Dec 20, 2011ye.. but my point is, that is original, current logo looks like game's actual logo
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Posted Dec 20, 2011I love the new layout, the old one was so cramped with "stuff" on the right side. Only usfull thing was the poll but you can just put those into the acticle itself.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011What the fuck. Your conspiracy theory is awesome, but your theory where Blizzard "cuts a deal" to get the domain back is slightly ridiculous. They basically asked nicely because Blizzard is actually nice/smart enough to do that before getting the lawyers out, but they wouldn't have to "cut a deal" if they just wanted to take it by force back then. They were just being extra nice by working with the existing fansite, that's about it.
I'm not ignoring anyone, I don't remember getting any PM from you and usually it's better to go through Daemaro for that kind of stuff since he's actually the community manager.
People don't lose their spot for giving feedback, I'm really not known for kicking people out when it comes to work. Sites are mostly ran by volunteers who are only here because they want to help, you don't "kick" free help for disagreeing with you, you try to figure out why they're pissed and work with that.
Nobody's going to go against your post because there's nothing to go against, you're just QQ'ing for no reason while other people actually provide useful feedback ("Oh it looks ok but the red bar is too bright", etc ...), I'm all for serious discussions but you can't expect to be taken seriously if you're going to cover your ears and scream "I DON'T LIKE IT LA LA LA LA LA LA LA"
It doesn't have anything to do with looking like MMO-Champion, it has something to do with building a community and making navigation easier. The old design was extremely cluttered and it's just easier to just have forum posts + blue posts on the front page in a much cleaner layout. Hopefully it will bring back some life into the forums and checking for news regularly will be made much easier.
There is no secret mind trick to make you think that you should come more often because it might look like MMO Champion, this is just silly.
On a sidenote, yes, the smaller avatars are intended, and we will probably ask people to reduce their signature sizes in the future. Having someone posting his a 200 or 300px signature every time he posts one line in a thread is just stupid and eats up a lot of space for no reason.
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Posted Dec 20, 2011