Blizzard has posted an official timeline of events for Diablo 3 over the past year! If you still haven't you can also check out our own timeline as well!
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(One year ago this week, we launched Diablo III in over 10 languages and 30 countries around the world. Since then, we've made significant improvements to the game, shipping upwards of 15 patches and implementing numerous hotfixes to make your battle against the forces of the Burning Hells that much more epic.
In celebration of Diablo III's anniversary, we wanted to take a look at the road so far -- recapping some of the major changes made to the game since release and providing players quick access to all the latest updates.
(If you haven't played in a while or are new to the realm of Sanctuary, definitely stay a while and listen.)
For more information on Paragon levels, click here or check out the game guide.
For more information about the Infernal Machine event, click here or check out the game guide.
For more information about these improvements, click here.
For more information about Brawling, click here or check out the game guide.
For more information about Monster Power, click here or check out the game guide.
These changes focused on buffing existing social features, making it easier for players to find one another online, and providing bonuses when playing in our cooperative mode.
For more information about these improvements, click here.
For more information, click here.
Looking for more retrospectives? Head on over to Diablo Fans and Diablo Somepage for their 2012/2013 recaps!
In celebration of Diablo III's anniversary, we wanted to take a look at the road so far -- recapping some of the major changes made to the game since release and providing players quick access to all the latest updates.
(If you haven't played in a while or are new to the realm of Sanctuary, definitely stay a while and listen.)
- PARAGON LEVELS -
When a hero reaches level 60, experience earned from quests, monsters, and massacre bonuses will begin to count toward Paragon levels. There are 100 Paragon levels in total, and each level will reward players with a permanent bonus to Gold Find and Magic Find, as well as core stat increases (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality). For every 10 Paragon levels, players will also earn a new hero portrait border which will display in the in-game party frame. This border will not only become more impressive as you level up, it will also display your Paragon level in any place where your normal hero level is shown.For more information on Paragon levels, click here or check out the game guide.
- INFERNAL MACHINE -
The Infernal Machine is a device that will allow level 60 players to battle "uber" versions of some of Sanctuary’s most nefarious bosses. While the rewards for defeating these bosses will be great, some assembly is required. Only the most powerful Nephalem can unlock the secrets to building the Infernal Machine, but once forged the device can be used to open portals to special encounters featuring not one, but two bosses which have been augmented from their original versions, both in terms of difficulty and appearance. Defeating each boss pair will provide players with extra items and gold, as well as a chance to find components for a new Legendary: the Hellfire Ring!For more information about the Infernal Machine event, click here or check out the game guide.
- LEGENDARY ITEM IMPROVEMENTS -
In patch 1.0.4, we made significant changes to Legendary items to make them more powerful, more memorable, and ultimately more fun to use. Through the addition of spell procs, many Legendary items now have a chance to activate rare and unique abilities, such as summoning an angel to fight with you, conjuring an icy projectile, or igniting the very ground you walk on. Legendary items are also far and away more powerful, possessing higher damage and affix values than their predecessors. In addition, many Legendary items have had visual effects added to their original models, giving them a distinct and detailed flair.For more information about these improvements, click here.
- BRAWLING -
For those who wish to test their mettle against fellow Nephalem, head on over to the Scorched Chapel! This zone can be accessed by speaking with Nek the Brawler in any of the four Act hubs, and supports 2 to 4 players in a Free-For-All format.For more information about Brawling, click here or check out the game guide.
- MONSTER POWER -
Similar to the "Players X" command in Diablo II, Monster Power is a system designed to give players more control over how challenging enemies are in each difficulty. With this system, players can choose to increase the health and damage of monsters according to different "power levels" and in return they'll receive scaling bonuses to experience as well as boosts to Magic Find and Gold Find which will stack above the 300% cap. The option to increase Monster Power is available to all players starting at level 1 in the Quest Selection window, and can be adjusted separately for Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno difficulties.For more information about Monster Power, click here or check out the game guide.
- MULTIPLAYER IMPROVEMENTS -
In patch 1.0.8, we made several improvements to the multiplayer experience in Diablo III, including a special bonus for multiplayer games that grants +10% Magic Find, Gold Find, and Experience for each additional player in the party, combat alerts for whenever a player is engaged with an Elite monster or treasure goblin, multi-user conversations (a new chat option that allows players to chat privately with up to 98 of their friends), and matchmaking tags for Public Games.These changes focused on buffing existing social features, making it easier for players to find one another online, and providing bonuses when playing in our cooperative mode.
For more information about these improvements, click here.
- MONSTER DENSITY -
More demons, more fun! As of patch 1.0.8, players in Inferno difficulty at Monster Power 1 and higher will find an increased number of enemies across Acts I, II, and IV. By adjusting density in these areas, all four Acts should now be more comparable in terms of difficulty vs. reward, giving players more options for farming (and more monsters on which to enact their revenge).For more information, click here.
- OFFICIAL PATCH NOTES -
But that's not all! Be sure to check out our official patch notes for updates to Diablo III in all their gory details.Looking for more retrospectives? Head on over to Diablo Fans and Diablo Somepage for their 2012/2013 recaps!
I dont undrestand.. you dont like the game??? or you just dont like progress lines?
It is something to be proud of. to provide so much service globally to every region on earth and provide content/balance/and changes for a whole year.. thats pretty epic. No matter how butthurt you are about w/e ur upset, it is pretty epic.
hats off to diablo3 team and CMs for providing this.
This game has improved since the first day a lot. Your post is meaningless. If you're mad about the game, don't play it. Why are you still on a forum about a game you shouldn't play?
Don't reply to my post, I won't be checking the comments here again.
I can agree with your sarcastic remark, to some extent. But on the other hand, the last two important patches that vastly improved the gameplay experience, 1.0.5 and 1.0.8, came seven months apart. That is just too much time not to lose a whole lot of players, especially with the PvP fiasco that happened in the meantime. 1.0.7 did make crafting semi-relevant again, but MP levels and monster density are both on the whole other level of complexity and importance for the future of the game. Adding a few crafting plans and a new crafting material is really not that big of a change even though it certainly is a welcome one.
With that being said, D3 feels much better than it did a year ago, without a doubt. There is no reason not to look forward to the future and what it holds in store for this game.
I wonder why they rushed the game.What did they get??Except Epic Fail of course.
All these features that have been introduced through patches shoulda been there from the start.
The Rune system was an actual new/improved feature , along the lines of going beyond just the current gem system for d2. It added a stronger economy and customization that was fun and rewarding. If diablo 1 had a gem and rune system (or any game for that matter), then yes your point would be valid. You cant pick out a feature that was actually new to gaming, and use it as a "Burn!" to protect a game that came out 10+ years later with less features than its predecessor.
If Diablo 2 had come out with less features and inspiring mechanics / design than diablo 1 , we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Sure Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 play different aesthetically, but where D2 branched off into its own game it actually inovated and improved on the franchise and gaming as a whole. D3 plays out just like Dungeon Siege 3 did with its franchise, It gutted the core mechanics of the game, added some "pretty graphics" and voiceover / cutscenes , and tanked. You dont go from Dungeon Siege 1 to 2 and then make 3 and play the "its the same game experience" card, just like Diablo 3.
What inspiring features has Diablo 3 introduced in comparison to Diablo 2, or gaming as a whole?
Its multiplayer is worse: less players per game, no real game creation customization (Even just having a naming system works better than having 3-4 static dropdown options that are vague for their intended use), the chat system still isnt on par with Bnet 1.0 standards, and Bnet as a whole still isnt on par with Bnet 1.0 (another example of how they didnt improve or inovate..they just made a glorified sequal).
Its loot system? How often did people find items in Diablo 3 that made them excited? They had to devote an entire patch (praising it as one of the major improvements in their timeline) to improving legendaries, and they still didnt get it right. Game now has weapon lots of fun weapon procs! Diablo 2 did it..and did it better. They have to do the same thing with the entire item system revamp in the future. Have they even mentioned set items yet? No. Dont even get me started on the magic find system for D3, and how they went out of their way to gut it from items and introduce hard caps.
The economy? Yea, gold use to be worthwhile at the beginning of diablo 2 too, and just like diablo 3 its become a worthless currency. SoJ were no better in that regard, but they were still a great currency because they had a physical space value, you couldnt just store an infinite supply of them on a single character, this curbed inflation quite a bit, and even so there was an actual bartering system in place, where items had actual values and worth. Inflation wasnt an issue after SoJ because you could trade dirrectly with the gear, so it didnt matter how many SoJs they were worth, the worth of a piece of gear never fluctuated to the extremes that we have in Diablo 3 with item revamps, introducing new "uber" item crafts, gems, etc. Like its an MMO.
Did the gameplay improve? It still plays like diablo. I dont see the real issue with having a limited selection of skills in comparison to the previous 2 games. Sure it stiffles creativity a bit and doesnt allow the player to be flexible on the go, but its true that at most points we only ever used a handful of skills at a time. The fluid looking and feel to combat is definitely improved, theres not a single point of inovation to the combat, but i dont feel like we regressed at all either.
How about customization? Yea...thats a pretty dead horse. I wont get into that.
Music...pow pow my ears? Ill be honest, after a while it all rather bleeds together to me because of how atmostpheric it has always been, so it makes great background music. All 3 of the games were good in this regard. No inspiring music that gets stuck in my head all day, and nothing that warrents a plethora of covers to be made on youtube, but that just goes along with blizzard sound scores, very mellow. Although I still can hum the tristram town music on queue, I blame diablo 1 for that.
New features! ...? Monster power was already done in diablo 2 with ' /players x ' as well as automatically via more players in multiplayer. Diablo 3 had part of that system in play at start, minus any bonuses players would recieve, and the ability to control it.
Mob density was never a problem in diablo 1 or two, but that was mostly because the focus was on bosses, cow level, chests and named mobs for loot. XP "sweet spots" was always based on your level, and every mob had its value, ignoring cow lvl powerleveling.
Multiplayer improvements, we're talking about adjusting the game numbers to make it feel more fun, thats just balance work. New chat channel? Go back to Bnet 1.0 example. Drop down menus for game preverences? Same as last sentence, been there done that.
PvP? .........
I mean, we could go on an on about this, but it comes down to blizzard cut out a lot of the game, or didnt have the time to implement/finish it. They had already scrapped the original version before too, and did some drastic changes in beta that were very "questionable / controversial" to players. For the last year they have been playing "catch-up" with the games "release" , that was delayed, delayed, revamped, and delayed. Sure they added quite a bit to the game since last year, but as others have said, this is stuff that SHOULD have been in the game in the beginning before it was released.
This wasnt content that shouldnt have been expected to be there, this isnt entitlement, these are core items that make the game function and even make the game fun. There was no "rune system" likeness introduced in the last year, or any feature for that matter that comes close to an actual inovation, other than the infernal machine and paragon levels, and those are just a different form of crafting with rehashed monsters as hoops and a very boring tacked on newgame+ . Theres nothing inspring about either of those two, but hopefully paragon gets the love that blizzard says it "wants to do" sooner or later. Oh, and speaking of infernal machine, Diablo 2 it it first and better, so i take that back. But hey, i do enjoy the "heirloom" quality of the ring, so theres that.
Oh and before i forget. What was the resolution standard in 2001? Ill give a hint, it wasnt a 4 digit number x 4 digit number. If someone has trouble with that one, think of how the internet looked in those days...and netscape.
I know it's pointless to write to you, but the core of the game is the combat. And it is the most flawless part of the game and the reason so many people still play it and not one of the competitors, which are now a pretty good number. Don't read "no one plays the competitors" or "everyone prefers D3". It's not what I said.
@sketchfactor
No, competitive PvP is in the works with no ETA.
@JoeShmo
You have great arguments many of which I do support, but many others we've discussed on these forums since before the game's beta. I can't give you a proper answer in here because this is not the place (nor do I have the time right now, sadly). Instead, you bringing valid arguments into our forum threads would make the community much better and you'll see the other side of the coin.
My slightly sarcastic remark was mostly because everything that has been done to D3 the negative part of the fanbase dismisses as "should've been there from the start", which is starting to become quite the hook for them. Paragon levels are unique, the way crafting is done is unique, the skill system is quite unique in its design. Yet these are all things that "should've been there from release (even when some were)". If it wasn't for player nostalgia the game would've headed in a completely different direction imo, but fans just can't let go and Blizzard prefers to listen instead of to improvise and innovate. Funny thing innovation. Everyone wants it but no one likes it when its implemented in a sequel. Ruins the franchise.
Anyway. My point was, stick around and maybe you'll see our crowd isn't so bad.
Oh, mob density was never a problem in D2 because 95% of players farmed about 10 mobs. And in D1? That was 20 years ago, come on.
Whether you play it or not, like it or not. and if the game gets to a point that it only has 10k players on SC and HC combined, the game is still being a fun ARPG for those 10k players and its serving the purpose. =)
Yes combat is the most flawless part of the game,but playing the same build again and again does not help.I love Fot:TC for example when playing as monk,but i would really like to give things like deadly reach a try.(And by try i mean something more than using it once every 15 or so seconds just for a dps buff)
Combat is the most flawless part,but it still ain't something exceptional.
And combat isn't the core.Itemization is the core.And you don't make itemization good by adding a few BOA items and targeted legendaries etc etc.
The devs have no idea about itemization.One blue post during the beginning of d3 says that legendaries are not supposed to be the driving force and perfectly rolled rares are supposed to be better while another one before 1.0.4 says that legendaries are in fact supposed to be the driving force.(Which is clearly the case if you look now)And rares are suddenly shit except the super perfect ones of course which are sold in billions.
This only happened because the community made it clear they want Legendaries to be BiS. Initially they weren't supposed to be.
Also, the combat really is exceptional in the game. It is matched by absolutely no other.
I really, really don't like this argument. It encourages mediocrity, and makes excuses for developers that shouldn't be made in the first place. The whole point of making a sequel is to do things better out the gate, the first time. To exaggerate for dramatic effect, this is like suggesting it would be fine for Titan to have 90% of the servers unplayable release day, because World of Warcraft had trouble with it for months, so it's completely fine!
Oh, wait, people do make that argument when Blizzard releases new games and is woefully unprepared for the traffic they know is coming. So... uh... people are ridiculous? I don't know. Go ahead! Embrace mediocrity!
fan/supporter/forum follower/complainer/player/tester. It all sounds like they are playing the game, and keep on playing the game, or be connected to it in some way. That alone is paying too much attention to 1 subject.
What do we call all who post on diablofans/forums/ play the game? Fan? hardcore fan? mediocre fan? they are all supporting the game and the community in a positive and negative way. Might as well help the community of other fellow gamers, than be a docuhe i'd say. =)
Eh,. I play hardcore mate. And I'm farming mp3 right now. sure its not mp10 and i dont do infernal machine runs regularly. but i did finish the game, with what i earned through the game, and with the gold AH.
you CAN resist and be mindful of your actions and choices when you play games. Systems like AH, or RMAH, are there to help people who are already playing to have something other than playing to do ( play the AH game) and for those who really want to accomplish a goal to spend a buck or 2 here and there and get upgrades to play and have fun.
I would like uniques items, as legendary has so many random stats ... , make stats uniques and real good, but with random ranges
Another big issue D3 had at release was poor itemization. When blue items (literally, not even rare, just blue quality items) outclassed legendary gear, something is seriously wrong. Legendary items weren't simply outdone by lucky rolled rares, they were outclassed by literally every other item with stats on it. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, legendary items were a complete joke. - IMO, this is somewhat relevant even today, but it's made a lot of progress since release.
Class balance was a pretty substantial issue. At the time, demon hunters were the god class and everything else paled in comparison. - Of course, class balance has probably seen more adjustment than any other aspect of the game and this is no longer the case, but class balance still seems to be a significant issue when someone comes up with a build that simply outdoes what other classes are capable of.
If the game we have today was the game they released last year, I think it would have been much more widely accepted as a great game. Unfortunately, by the time most of these changes came to, it was already too late and the damage had been done. All of my friends and family that bought the game have since quit and haven't even had an urge to pick it back up again. When they hit Inferno and literally couldn't progress past the very first section of Act II and even in a tanky spec was getting 1 shot by flying bugs, they were done and wanted nothing more to do with it. I don't blame them. Even after all these improvements to the game, I've tried to convince them to come back but they're busy with games they actually enjoy and don't frustrate them to no end.
Over time, I have lost most of my interest in the game and basically use it now to play the AH for real money. Hell, I figure if I can get an extra 20 bucks a week or so, that's just money in the bank. The Diablo auction house has paid for so many of my gaming habits now that it's funny, but I rarely actually play the game itself anymore. I still keep up with it though and I do play a gaming session probably once or twice a month for about an hour each, but that's the extent of it. Without people I know to play with, Diablo lost most of it's appeal for me.
I'm not gonna quote the whole thing. But often people think 1 sided.
Its been explained many times that some of the features will no be done/cannot be done atm because of either technical difficulties/amount of work, or even for the better future of the game.
You can write a whole essay of the things YOU want in D3. which proves exactly what Ferret said " in general the expectations for D3 were just completely out of proportion to be realistically achievable."
If you stop worrying about the things that makes you unhappy, and the things that actully make you happy, maybe gaming will become less grim for you.
If you want to daydream about a big box of apples, its completely fine to write and suggest and give feedback on whats the best rout to be taken to get that full box of apples. BUT you are provided a bunch of fresh apples in the meanwhile, eat them, enjoy them and when your appetite is high for apples again you will be given more and more apples. If you are eating the apples too fast however ( going through content too fast- whether u just wanna use 1 feature of the game and ignore others, or ur a hardcore character that plays 10hr+ everyday ) then thats an issue thats been going on in the gaming community for a while now, and its more apparent in wow.
I like the game, I've been playing it with no breaks till I got my hands on it, about a week after release.
I play almost 99,99% alone, I've tried to play with friends at times, but I just love to play solo.
I have 10 characters, all of them levelled at the same time, 2 out of 10 killed Diablo in Inferno
The game has improved.
A lot, I dare say.
But.....this game has some built-in flaws that you cannot fix, at least not without a complete change of some core mechanics.
Some of the decisions they took while developing the game didn't feel like a good choice to me at the time (arrogant of me, I know)
Since before beta I thought they were starting from false premises (example: Blizzard seems to think that solo playing is some sort of weird behaviour they should help you to get rid of....why?) when planning this game, I still think so.
At least I've seen a some steps in what I think is the right direction.
But I'm just a Diablo addicted who still play the game almost each day, so what I know?
^ this is very weird to me as well. I do like to play my games solo. A LOT more enjoyable for me. Its a problem with games these days, is they try to make you forcibly social ( probably the wrong term to use here). Which is bad and good. Of course if im a new player, and there are 3 other people in my party. at some point im going to dare and ask "hey other barb/monk/wd/dh/wiz how do i play my class, or how to do this and that". and others help you out. Or it could be the other way around totally. I join a public game, i see a WD with a bad rune or a weird spec, and i point it out, and explain and they learn and appreciate the help ( most of the time).
Being alienated in a game is never fun. and although thats i do like being left alone, i can say a very high percentage of players are new, and need help.
I'm pretty sure he isn't playing the game. However, like a lot of people, we watch Diablo3 news to see how the game progress and what we noticed is....not much! and we're disappointed. Your comment about "just don't play it" is a childish kind of answer, that's not how things work, people are still interested to see what's going on because they have a legit concern about the current state of the game and want it to be better, is that hard to understand? Oh and your comment about "don't bother replying because I won't check comment" is just another childish and useless comment from you, maybe you should reconsider your attitude.