We have some new information from the Fansite Mixer we posted about yesterday. This time there is a lot of new stuff about the Console version of Diablo 3. Some of it quite interesting.
Development
- Development of the PC and Console version of the game split close to PC launch
- There were radical changes to the code in order for the game to translate properly to Console
- Battle.net had to be completely ripped out of the game and replaced with Xbox Live and PSN integrations
- The first pass for the Console translation was implementing everything that existed in Diablo 3 on day 1. Since then the team has been hard at work making Diablo 3 a good Console game. All the PC patches were implemented over time
- Diablo 3 runs at full 60 FPS during most of the game. The exception being when, for example, "4 Witch Doctors all play Zombie Dog builds and constantly explode them"
- Crafted items now tailor their stats more to the class that has crafted them. Developers feel this is one of the more important changes coming to Consoles
- White and Blue items drop far less
- Artisan upgrades cost less gold
- Vendors are much more likely to sell Rare gear
- Class items are far more likely to drop for the class being played
- Some monsters have had their health and damage adjusted for Console. For example the Withermoth's damage has been increased by 500%, as you only get to meet a few of them during the entire game
- The itemization changes on Console are not what we're going to see in the future itemization patch. Instead they've been what the Console team came up with to streamline the flow of items
- The 5-6 fansite attendees at Blizzard HQ managed to find a total of 3-4 items Legendary items on Act 1 Nightmare in one hour
- Initially the Console version was also supposed to be online-only, but Blizzard's research showed a huge part of the Console population didn't have an Internet connection
- There are anti-dupe mechanisms in place, but Blizzard knows they'll eventually be overcome
- There are some concerns about Trading in the Console version, because of the lack of Auction House
- Not a single part of the PC interface was kept. All is changed
- When looting items icons appear that compare the loot you got to what you have equipped. Instead of showing the full numbers like the PC version, the Console icons simply point out if the item is better or not in terms of Life/DPS/Protection
- You can still view a full comparison between the items in your inventory, where all stats are compared
- When you play with a friend on the same screen if you move too far away from your coop partner you'll yank him towards yourself in a pretty intuitive manner. This helps a lot with AFK players
- You can play on a single screen or online with up to 3 other players and also do a combination of both
I farmed mp 10 normal for the leoric's signet ring with 500% magic find... got 1 legendary in like 4 runs... they were on act 1 nightmare prolly lvl 30ish so I doubt thay had even 50% magic find and yet they got 3-4 items in one hour...
Obviously this is a bit anecdotal because it was such a limited sample size (and it is still subject to a little bit of change before release probably).
3 of the legendaries happened on a single console, and it seemed to surprise the devs themselves that those two players got so lucky. Still, in Nightmare Act 1, even a single legendary is absurdly rare on PC, so 4 in an hour is a lot even if we were getting lucky.
Could mean the player just flat-out got lucky, or the Blizzard bumped up the base MF for sub-Inferno difficulties, or they added a ton of sub-60 legendaries. Relaaaaax.
The lack of information on the PC front is almost certainly because they're working on the expansion.
Having been there and met them, I can say the teams are definitely separate. For example, the four people playing the game in last week's E3 video are exclusively working on consoles (actually, it's almost the entire console team in that video - missing one other woman whose name I can't recall), while people like Wyatt Cheng (who came on Archon's stream recently) are definitely exclusively working on PC.
That said, I am curious what the console team will be doing after D3 console ships, especially considering that D3's expansion for PC obviously isn't ready for them to start porting to console. Maybe they'll just give them all a few months vacation and then bring them back when the expansion is closer to done or something.
The biggest problem I think Blizzard faces with anti-duping is that even if they stay on top of it as fast as possible, they won't be fast enough to implement the solutions. Sony/MS certification for patches + distribution takes quite a while, and Blizzard's personal patching process is already extremely lengthy. We'll see, but I think that implementing hotfixes in a timely manner is going to be the most challenging part of staying on top of dupes.
And yes, it sounded like something involving save files was at least in place (somebody mentioned "well couldn't you just copy your save file" and that was when they said they had measures in place).
Truthfully, there are no items which require you to think. It's either green or it's red, I don't even know why they bothered including affix text when it doesn't mean anything.
Maka.. just....shush...
You act like someone walked into your living room and shit on the floor (puns intended).
Seriously though.... stop being such a negative Nancy.
What is "it"?
Hold the hell up!!!
Whats this nonsense about Split-Screen??
The only reason I decided I'll by this game is because they sold me on the shared Screen Couch Experience, so tell me this is a typo please!!
Yeah, that's a typo - it is a shared screen game when played with local coop. I don't think there are even options for split screen.
Indeed.
Steam sale's coming up real soon, so TBH probably won't be D3ing much for a while anyway