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June Site Update: Naxxramas Deckbuilder
Hero Rotation Update - June 17, Alpha Opt-Ins: Large Australia Wave as Early as Next Week
Gorgrond Zone Preview, June 17 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, WoD Pre-Purchase, Blizzard Art

REMINDER: Patch 2.1 Preview // Upcoming Change - Preparation (Punishment) // Upcoming Change - One With Everything

Auction House Closure Reminder

Less than a week to go before we completely stop seeing that button!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As a reminder, the Diablo® III gold and real-money auction houses will be closing for good on Tuesday, June 24. If you still have unclaimed items or gold in the Completed tab, please retrieve them before next week—or they'll be gone forever!

For more information, read on below or visit our Diablo III Auction House Update FAQ.

Q. I thought the gold and real-money auction houses were already shut down. What's up?
Answer: The ability to Bid, Buyout, and list new auctions in the gold and real-money auction houses was indeed disabled on March 18, 2014. However, the auction house window remained active following the shutdown and will be available until June 24, 2014. This was to allow players adequate time to retrieve their items and gold from the Completed tab. 

Q. Okay. But now that the gold and real-money auction houses are shut down, how do I access my Completed tab?
Answer: To access the Completed tab, simply click on the standard gavel icon and select which auction house (gold or real-money) you wish to access. The Completed tab will appear in its normal location on the far right of the auction house window. 

Q. I think my Completed tab was full when the auction houses shut down. What happened to all those extra items?
Answer: Each Completed tab can display up to 50 items at a time. If a player has more than 50 items to claim from the gold or real-money auction house, those outstanding items (including unclaimed gold) will remain in the Completed tab "backlog." As items are removed from the Completed tab and additional space is made available in the UI, items in the backlog will begin to appear and can be claimed as normal.

Please note that items and gold in the backlog will be removed permanently from the game after June 24, 2014.

2.1 PTR Likely This Month

Lylirra mentioned in a thread on the official forums that they expect to be able to test 2.1 on the PTR servers this month.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Is PTR dropping today?

Nope!

when should we expect it?

No date to share at this time. In fact, I'll go ahead and say right now that we won't reveal the release date ahead of time. At present, however, we are currently looking to launch the 2.1.0 PTR sometime this month (but that of course may change depending on our development schedule). 

Once the PTR is available, we'll provide our standard "PTR Now Available" messaging on the front page as well as the current set of PTR patch notes. 

the forum post about 2.1 didnt include a release date?

Correct! See above answer.

More Information on Leaderboards

Lylirra made quite a few posts clearing up some confusion on how leaderboards currently work. Some interesting information came up, like Hardcore having as many "Conquests" (exclusive to the mode) as Softcore, and how they don't intend (for now, at least) to have a Paragon Leaderboard. Check them out below!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Greater Rift leaderboards will indeed be separated by class for solo play. 

Greater Rift leaderboards will be split between both Hardcore and Normal gameplay modes as well as Seasonal and Non-Seasonal characters. To help encourage a variety of play styles and allow you to measure yourself against similar competitors, we've also broken up Greater Rift leaderboards into the following categories:

• Solo play for each class (e.g. top players for Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Crusader, etc.)
• 2-Player Groups
• 3-Player Groups
• 4-Player Groups

Season-Only Leaderboards will not, since the relevant data will be tracked at the account level rather than at the character level. 

Some Leaderboards will be Season-only. For example, Conquests are only tracked on Seasonal characters, so these Leaderboards won't have a non-Season equivalent. The same will be true for Seasonal achievement points. In addition, because Conquests and achievements are account-wide, their associated Leaderboards will not be split between Normal and Hardcore (even though some tasks may require playing a particular mode).

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/14244559/

Note that this is currently how Leaderboards function in 2.1.0, but that the functionality is subject to change before patch ships.

Limiting rewards to 1000 players of any class is a terrible idea. Whatever class is strongest will have a huge advantage. And, unlike the current game (where balance doesn't really matter), it WILL affect other people negatively.

That's definitely feedback we can take into consideration and, of course, will be mindful of (if not actively looking for) during the public testing phase.

Can't you figure out a way to reward hardcore conquests vs normal separately?

As noted in the preview, some Conquests will require your character to be in Hardcore mode to achieve. In fact, we intend to have the number of Conquests per Season split evenly between both Hardcore and Normal game modes.

The goal with Conquests in general is to encourage different styles of play, or at least target those different styles to some degree. That's under our current philosophy, at least; Conquests are still development and may see some iteration during the PTR.

So there is no Paragon-leaderboards ?

Nope, not currently. There are no Leaderboards planned at this time that would track Paragon levels (or even total experience gained) within a Season. It was a conscious choice on our end to shift Leaderboards for Seasonal characters away from a pure level grind towards more objective-based (or even skill-based) goals like Greater Rifts, Seasonal achievement points, and Conquests. 

Standard caveat: This is all according to current design. Details and functionality subject to change pending testing and feedback.

Devs Not "Done" With Monks

Official Forum MVP Druin made a thread some days ago with an in-depth analysis to the changes made to the Monk Sets. Grimiku droppped in the thread to reassure everyone that the developers are not yet "done" with the Monk changes, and that they're listening to the feedback given.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

For context, these changes are highly appreciated relative to no changes ... they are simply not enough to put us on par with the other classes.

I'll definitely be keeping a close eye on feedback while the 2.1 PTR is going on, and see where things are after that set of changes. We're not done yet, that's for sure.

I will make a video for sure!

Nice. I'm looking forward to it, and I've been catching up on this thread as promised. It's a really good discussion, everyone. Thanks for all of the constructive conversation, and feedback.