I found this on Diii.net, I thought you guys might want to read it. He goes into detail about the features of the D3 Demo, how he felt, and things like that. It was a nice read.
I am fortunate to be one of the lucky people who played the Diablo III demo showcased at Blizzcon 2008 in Anaheim. Not only was it a pleasure to play it, but left me craving for more. I decided to create a female Wizard. She spawns in the outskirts of the Tristram Woods where Captain Rumford and an armored warrior are piling up a bonfire of corpses. The warrior can be seen transporting the corpses off a wagon and into the bonfire.
Captain Rumford says they are burning the corpses to prevent them from rising as undead. NPCs that have something to say have a black oval with dots hovering above them when you place the cursor over them. A popup window displays the “introduction” option, feature that remains a constant from Diablo II. However, not only does each NPC talk to you. Your very own character talks back, interacting with the NPCs. By saying talk, I mean both: the NPC and your character have voice over actors adding emotion and life to the Action / RPG.
Read below a lengthy preview on various features observed in the Diablo III hands-on demo
I started pressing keys to see what options were available. Pressing (C) opens the Character window, Inventory (I), Quest (Q), Skill trees (S), and mini-map toogle (N), Game Menu (ESCAPE button)
CHARACTER STATS
At level 5, these were the stats I found on my Wizard character. Hope these stats offer you a better scope of how the wizard stats and abilities work: Melee damage: 2-8 | Spell damage: 12-23 | Armor: 34
In Diablo II, you get points after leveling to spend on these four stats. In Diablo III, thus far, these stats increase automatically. You no longer have control over where these points are spent into. At the bottom of the Character (C) window, you can find a table with two columns displaying the following data:
Physical OffenseDefense 1.20 Attacks per second
70% Physical crit chance
150.0% Physical crit damage0.0% Block amount
6.0% Block chance
34.0 Armor
2.5% Physical damage reduction At the bottom left of the Character (C) window you will find your character resistances. These can be determined by icons:
Blue snowflake = Frost
Red Flame = Fire
Purple Thunder = Lightning
Green Skull = Poison
Yellow icon = (unknown, maybe arcane / holy)
INVENTORY
The Inventory window shows a lot of visual information. It has a simple and intuitive UI frame with colorful gradients of orange and dark brown, and stylized symbols that highlight a gothic-like feeling. You can see your character model viewer which allows you to rotate your character. Around the viewer, you have 12 gear slots: helm, medallion, chest, sash, 2 rings, weapon, shield, boots, pants, gloves, and shoulder. Between the weapon and the shield is a strange circle. When clicking it, a new window pops forward. Based on the demo observation and loot, this window with 9 circles resembles the Glyphs window from World of Warcraft. In the case of Diablo 3, these 9 circles are reserved for Runes. Thus far in the Blizzcon demo, only the Wizard can equip runes. (i.e. certain monsters may randomly drop a minor power rune).
Beneath the character viewer and gear slots can be seen the bag inventory—all in the same window. There are 30 slots, but only a few are enabled. You can expand to the full 30 slots by adding bags into the bag slots. On the bottom-right you can see four slots. There is where you drag the bags into. By dropping the bag item into that slot, you increase the amount of slots enabled. Eventually your goal is to enable all 30 slots. Each slot is thin and tall, and certain items can stack in the same slot. Doesn’t look like there is a special slot bar for potions, but mini-health potions have been seen, as well as elixir of dexterity and elixir of vitality which may have durations of up to 300 seconds (5 minutes).
RUNES
Not much was revealed about Runes. Barbarian and Witchdoctor classes don’t have runes enabled in the Blizzcon demo, so it looks like it is something still in the works. In a press panel, Jay Wilson revealed these runes will change the visual effects of your character and its spells/abilities. Imagine your lightning spell increasing its glow making it look more powerful and actually increasing your damage output.
MINI-MAP
You may toggle the mini-map by pressing (N). It is more effective than the old Diablo II map overlay (tab). The mini-map is located on the upper-right corner. It has no frame like the World of Warcraft circle framed mini-map. It has an unframed tall rectangular area. By pressing the arrow keys you can move the mini-map in any direction. To reset simply press (N) twice, or escape.
How is this new mini-map more effective? Diablo II’s overlay map would take the whole screen, and would interfere your line of sight affecting what you could see on-screen. By placing the overlay map to the upper-right corner, your whole screen is visible for gameplay purposes. Each NPC is displayed as a tiny yellow dot. Place your mouse cursor over the yellow dots, and automatically a window pops up above the dot displaying the name of the NPC. You can see mobs ahead of you not yet within visual range. The mini-map helps you identify monsters before they come into view.
RARE MONSTERS / BOSS
In Diablo II, it was hard sometimes to notice a rare monster among a bunch of mobs. Sometimes you would even get killed before noticing a rare was behind that bunch of mobs. In Diablo III, before the rare monster or boss enters into view, a name tag pops at the top-center with a health bar. The health bar is divided into a few rectangles. The health bar / name tag window displays the special attributes of the monster (i.e. a rare named Head of Grief had three attributes beneath its name tag: Vampiric, Froze, Fast.
QUESTS
While exploring the world, you will find NPCs with a yellow exclamation sign floating above their head. When you accept the quest, the title and objectives are displayed onscreen at the right-center for few seconds, then fades out. You can access the quest window by pressing (Q). It’s very similar to World of Warcraft. After walking away from the bonefire of corpses at the Tristram Woods, you enter the Ruins of Tristram. There are a few destroyed buildings. You can see the Physix engine in action when randomly some debris of the ruins crumble down. Placing your mouse cursor over some of the door signs you will find Griswold’s Blacksmith Shop. While exploring, you find a well. It can be highlighted if you place your cursor on. A quest starts and it is automatically displayed onscreen to the right: Little Girl Lost. Objective: Find a way to free the little girl’s spirit from the old well in Tristram.
When you stand near the well you can hear the girl’s voice over and weeping. She is trapped inside the well. Something funny ... some of her quotes resemble that of the girl in the Poltergeist film. Exploring further into the Tristram ruins you find a female ghost and listen to her voice over which is repeated over and over randomly: Where has gone my girl? She must be so lonely. She never goes away without her doll. She’s lost without it!
Not far from the ghost you will find a chest on the ground. Within lies the doll. Loot it and return to the well. The quest is completed as you return the doll. The spirit of the girl ascends from within the deep well and thank you. A reward is automatically placed in your inventory. You will read a message onscreen saying how much XP (experience) you gained, and the name of the looted item. In my case, a Socketed Boots of Brawn (+9 armor, 1 socket, + 2 strength).
Before reaching the Cathedral of Tristram entrance, you will find zombies kneeled on the ground as if eating from a body. Once you kill them, the body on the ground - tagged
Dying Adventurer - automatically highlights a yellow exclamation sign enabling a new quest: The Return of the Skeleton King.
The voice over says something along these lines: “Please ... listen to me! The fire, somehow ... it awoke him. The Skeleton King’s evil haunts the cathedral once more.”
Your character’s voice over says: “Skeleton King, huh? Sounds interesting. Rest easy. I will show him the err of his ways.”
Enter the cathedral. Eventually you will find an NPC with a yellow sign on his head. Take the quest. Guess who the NPC is? If you have played Diablo 1 or have visited the diablowiki.net the name Lachdanan will ring a bell. He was the loyal friend of King Leoric in Diablo 1. Lachdanan killed King Leoric, who cursed him on his last dying breath.
SCROLLS & BOOKS
This is probably the most lovely lore source feature for players who decide to immerse themselves into the world of Sanctuary. Let’s say you enter a dungeon, and find a pedestal. When you highlight the pedestal, by moving your mouse cursor over it and clicking it, you loot the book. Open your Inventory (I) and click the book or scroll. A sound clip pops up at the bottom-right of the screen. Underneath the clip are three buttons: play, stop, close. It is a voice over recording telling the story within the book.
For example, in the Cathedral of Tristram, the Journal of King Leoric tells his story during the time Diablo possessed his son Albrecht (Diablo I).
BUTTONS
The three buttons to the right of the main UI correspond to the Left Mouse button, Right Mouse button and an alternate Right button that switches those last two by pressing TAB button.
Click the left mouse button to move and attack enemies.
Click right mouse button to use the assigned skill
Press the alt key to show all dropped items
Use the 1-4 keys to activate assigned hot bar skills
Right-click on a hot bar, or mouse button slot to assign a new skill.
Press TAB or scroll the mouse wheel to swap between right mouse and alternate right mouse skills.
SKELETON KING
The Skeleton King appears at the third level of the Tristram Cathedral. Former King Leoric has a large axe. As told by Jay Wilson in the past, boss events can feel epic without the town portal escape trick or the heal potion spam mechanic. Once the Skeleton King engages in combat, dozens of zombies enter the room to attack you. The boss has an animation that alerts you when he is about to slam his long axe toward you. The idea here is to attack him a few times, and run away before he slams the axe in front of him. It can be avoided. Kill a few mobs for health orbs, and attack the Skeleton King again. Rinse and repeat. I was able to kill King Leoric without dying by doing these steps. Sadly, the Diablo III demo finished after killing this first boss, with a message from Blizzard congratulating me for killing the Skeleton King in this BlizzCon 2008 demo.
THOUGHTS
After playing the demo at Blizzcon, I can only say—hopefully not sounding heretic - that I loved Diablo III, and look forward for the announcement of the remaining two classes. No release date for Diablo III unfortunately, but personally I wish this game was on stores around October 2009. Gameplay mechanics are very similar to Diablo II, except much better. The graphics are vibrant and colorful, without taking away the epic and dark feel of the previous games. The Physix engine honors the Barbarian class pretty well, smashing stuff and debris in all directions.
You can click emblems on the walls, that activate a mechanism that drops a candelabrum. If timed correctly, it could smash onto a group of mobs. If you move your character quickly into the area the candelabrum drops on, your character gains daze effect for a few seconds (funny). It would be cool to interact more with objects and traps using the Physix engine to benefit you on bosses and monster encounters. For those who asked me recently if Stashes and Waypoints are returning in Diablo III, I asked Jay Wilson and the answer is yes. Waypoints however will play a different function this time around. Upon death you respawn at the check point. Check points I observed in the Blizzcon demo happen by the door toward the next catacomb (for example). Some objects spawn near you at the check point. You need to equip them again. This means no more running back to your corpse which is surrounded by 15 monsters. Diablo III is enhancing everything that was broken in Diablo II.
Woot those journals like the ones in d1? That is awesome. Lachadian is back!!!!!!!!!!! Sucks I hoped he would rest in peace after I gave him the potion in the first one.
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
That's great - just that whoever wrote this was a little confused obviously. He exampled how it would be awesome if a skill rune would make your lightning spell look better and do more damage. In fact skill runes do way more than that.
Also, the damage types are likely as follows:
Blue snowflake = Cold
Red Flame = Fire
Purple Thunder = Arcane
Green Skull = Disease/Poison
Yellow icon = Lightning
In the same league as doing away with light radius "because you need to instantly identify all monsters on screen at all times".
Lame.
They said you need to be able to identify one monster from another, more specifically... which makes more sense. However, I'm not sure if I like the idea of monsters showing up on the minimap before they come into sight. It sounds kindof iffy..
Socketed boots..
Are all items socket enabled now?
That popped into my head too.
That's great - just that whoever wrote this was a little confused obviously. He exampled how it would be awesome if a skill rune would make your lightning spell look better and do more damage. In fact skill runes do way more than that.
Also, the damage types are likely as follows:
Blue snowflake = Cold
Red Flame = Fire
Purple Thunder = Arcane
Green Skull = Disease/Poison
Yellow icon = Lightning
Yeah, that's a better way to put it.
Ah! Thanks for putting this here, Jugzor. I was kind of hoping for some type of synopsis on the demo.
In the same league as doing away with light radius "because you need to instantly identify all monsters on screen at all times".
Lame.
mmm well theres a difference there.
when i saw the sor....er wizard video, i noticed that her light radius was highly defined.
at first i thought it was cool, then i just thought that what fun would the game be if i could only see a 5 foot radius around my character.
Socketed boots..
Are all items socket enabled now?
I don't know but the conversations I had with a few of the lads there hinted that they are tossing up the idea of socketable rings and amulets but other then that most things that were socketable in the previous game are in this title as well.
Everything is still up for being changed around at the moment, many if not all the items we fuller items, put there so they are in the game database but not tweaked to function as blizzard wants them to in the end.
I'm still curious about socketable shoulder pieces though, they didn't even want to hint at that when I was talking to them.
Gotta love the rune system they are making for the game but at the same time you have to curse them for taking away skill points control with attributes (skill skill points are still there naturally).
The skill trees are pretty nice as well, I can understand after seeing the rune system why they are cutting back on the number of attacks the wizard has (offence) cause there is freedom with that to change and evolve your play styles dramatically just though it alone.
I never got much time with the witch doctor cause they realized at that point I was going for two playthroughs with different at the same time Almost got away with it.
I looked at his skill tree briefly and its going to be rather "interesting" to say the least when playing him, specially with the rune system attached to his minions and then when you attach one of his minion spells to them, its a triple wammy of uber goodness for your minions.
I'm curious now to see what we get shown next considering were basically only missing a ranged class and hybird class, we've got warrior, mage and minion user already so it isn't to hard to figure out which types are coming next.
thanks for the info....seems like an incredibly short demo. could u go through the demo repeatedly with the same char? or did u have to make a new one each time?
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(this build was before D3 launched... looking back on it now - i had no idea what i was doing)
Is there any mention of a stash system of some type?
Yeah they said they were going to be doing a stash system, as to how they would implemented it they weren't saying.
At the moment it looks like theres going to be a lot of bag space though, look at the screen shots showing off the character inventory to see what I mean, it looks like we are going to have to buy more space later option though so as you progress your going to be able to acquire more space for your inventory.
If you're going to spawn again right there and your items are right next to you, what's the friggin' point? Why don't you just spawn with your items on?
Ooooh, scary, I have to click 2 additional times to get back to the action. What the hell kind of consequence is that for dying...?
It's a little silly to see the same elemental damage types again. I'd imagine that a lot of people are relieved to see this, but i still don't understand how "cold" is an element while water is not. And what about wind? Why is Wind not an element?
Other than that, this looks promising. I'm glad stats have secondary functions like they do in D2 and WoW. I also like how the quests seem to actually have a lot to do with the game, and aren't just something the average D2 player would skip over.
Quote from "Doppelganger" »
- Respec
- Automatic stat placement
- health orbs
- automatic partying
- spawning with items after death
- minimap with dots for enemies
- fully lit actors at all times
- cartoony atmosphere
- extreme mana regeneration
- no tetris inventory
- showing every item on the floor for five minutes after it being dropped
- floating numbers above enemy heads
- auto pickup
Do you see a pattern here?
If you don't then you're probably still a baby and ironically this game will be right up your alley.
What will be next, a giant floating arrow pointing towards the goal of your current quest?
Blizzard better be shitting me cause this isn't what i hoped on getting after years of being a fan of Diablo and routing for a new title in the franchise i enjoyed from day one.
I do see a pattern. They're perfecting a lot of things that were pointless in the others. Seriously, what role did light radius even have? It just limited how much of the graphics you could see. Placing Stats just gave the illusion of character custumization...i mean, if characters were so customizable and different, then why did everyone use the exact same build on their characters? The tetris inventory was simply annoying, and took your mind off the action in the game. It was just distracting. You mentioned health orbs, but neglect that there are no potions. Stockpiling potions is a poor way to make up for having a poorly equipped character.
And lastly, you mentioned cartoony graphics? The graphics almost look like a watercolor painting, which isn't cartoony at all. A lot of people complain that it isn't "dark" enough, which is silly, since D2 wasn't really "dark" either. I mean, you run around in a desert for an entire act - what's dark about that? And almost nothing about act 5 is dark. If you want a dark game, play Silent Hill or Doom 3, as they are dark in both a literal and metaphoric way.
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Stay.
You don't always know where you stand,
'Till you know that you won't run away.
There's something inside me that feels...
Like breathing in sulfur.
with no bags equipped, he has 12 slots available, with a total of 30. is 12 the standard? now theres no way to evenly divide 18 (the closed slots) by 4 (number of bag slots). what will happen with the remaining 2 slots?
also in the announcement gameplay trailer one of the drops was "SMALL bag", this must mean theres other sizes of bags right? what if you have 4 large bags and they each add 5, what happens to the ADITIONAL 2 slots?
did anyone actually find a bag at blizzcon, and if so, how many slots did it add?
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(this build was before D3 launched... looking back on it now - i had no idea what i was doing)
Socketed boots..
Are all items socket enabled now?
Sounds logical. Since when we are not getting to place our own attributes we can modify them _A LOT_ by placing gems that we like to into the big amount of sockets.
Having life gems in all sockets .. gives you loads of life. So I think the fact that we don't get to place the stats on our own isn't such a big deal when we can modify them by a lot with gem and gear choices.
-Extreme mana regeneration
This isn't in D2? There is a big part of players that have the runeword on their merc with meditation aura.. and that is ridiculous.
Those that have not, are potting mana potions like mad.. which is ridiculous also.
I rather have a default good mana regen rate, than drink potions all the time or have to keep an overpowered item.
But in D2 I dont have the runeword or I don't chug mana potions like mad. I always invest 200+ points to energy on my casters. That way I don't ever have to worry about the mana.
But anyways D3 rox so far! Those that don't like it.. go play D2.
I know I'm just nit picking here... But why did they replace the stat Energy with Willpower
Energy just sounds so much cooler I think
I even think that just "Will" would of sounded better than willpower
Is it still called Mana?
Happy they finally added bone/magic type resistance
- Respec
- Automatic stat placement
- health orbs
- automatic partying
- spawning with items after death
- minimap with dots for enemies
- fully lit actors at all times
- cartoony atmosphere
- extreme mana regeneration
- no tetris inventory
- showing every item on the floor for five minutes after it being dropped
- floating numbers above enemy heads
- auto pickup
Do you see a pattern here?
If you don't then you're probably still a baby and ironically this game will be right up your alley.
What will be next, a giant floating arrow pointing towards the goal of your current quest?
Blizzard better be shitting me cause this isn't what i hoped on getting after years of being a fan of Diablo and routing for a new title in the franchise i enjoyed from day one.
I don't know about you, but I was under the impression that most people LOVED D2 because each char they played made them feel powerful without being unbalanced and the item hunting was so damn addicting. All the little nitpicky stuff (tetris inventory, holding alt to show loot, light radius, chat room trading etc.) whether intuitive or not, were just things that came along with it and reminds us of D2. Now this NEW game D3 aims to preserve the core of what made D2 an amazing game (which it is currently doing a great job at from what i've experience), not all the little nuances that "hardcore" fans hold so dearly in their nostalgic minds. If D3 makes the little things that were annoying in D2 (yet grown so used to) better and more intuitive, I don't see how it is a bad thing. People can argue that it is making the game "easier" or "dumbed down" but they refuse to believe that the game might actually be made better and more streamlined by putting focus on the action. I'm sure the hardcore mode will still be thrilling enough for the masachistic crowd out there. So please let Blizzard make the D3 that we're all waiting for, not D2.5.
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Source: http://www.diii.net/blog/comments/blizzcon-2008-diablo-iii-hands-on-gameplay-impressions/
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
I so badly want this right now. I'd quit my job S2G!
Also, the damage types are likely as follows:
Blue snowflake = Cold
Red Flame = Fire
Purple Thunder = Arcane
Green Skull = Disease/Poison
Yellow icon = Lightning
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Are all items socket enabled now?
The mini-map helps you identify monsters before they come into view.
idk. just something about expecting an attack doesnt go well with diablo.
if they choose to leave it, i just wont look
and @ dimebog
i think ur right about the resistances
They said you need to be able to identify one monster from another, more specifically... which makes more sense. However, I'm not sure if I like the idea of monsters showing up on the minimap before they come into sight. It sounds kindof iffy..
That popped into my head too.
Yeah, that's a better way to put it.
Np
mmm well theres a difference there.
when i saw the sor....er wizard video, i noticed that her light radius was highly defined.
at first i thought it was cool, then i just thought that what fun would the game be if i could only see a 5 foot radius around my character.
I don't know but the conversations I had with a few of the lads there hinted that they are tossing up the idea of socketable rings and amulets but other then that most things that were socketable in the previous game are in this title as well.
Everything is still up for being changed around at the moment, many if not all the items we fuller items, put there so they are in the game database but not tweaked to function as blizzard wants them to in the end.
I'm still curious about socketable shoulder pieces though, they didn't even want to hint at that when I was talking to them.
Gotta love the rune system they are making for the game but at the same time you have to curse them for taking away skill points control with attributes (skill skill points are still there naturally).
The skill trees are pretty nice as well, I can understand after seeing the rune system why they are cutting back on the number of attacks the wizard has (offence) cause there is freedom with that to change and evolve your play styles dramatically just though it alone.
I never got much time with the witch doctor cause they realized at that point I was going for two playthroughs with different at the same time Almost got away with it.
I looked at his skill tree briefly and its going to be rather "interesting" to say the least when playing him, specially with the rune system attached to his minions and then when you attach one of his minion spells to them, its a triple wammy of uber goodness for your minions.
I'm curious now to see what we get shown next considering were basically only missing a ranged class and hybird class, we've got warrior, mage and minion user already so it isn't to hard to figure out which types are coming next.
At the moment it looks like theres going to be a lot of bag space though, look at the screen shots showing off the character inventory to see what I mean, it looks like we are going to have to buy more space later option though so as you progress your going to be able to acquire more space for your inventory.
Ooooh, scary, I have to click 2 additional times to get back to the action. What the hell kind of consequence is that for dying...?
Other than that, this looks promising. I'm glad stats have secondary functions like they do in D2 and WoW. I also like how the quests seem to actually have a lot to do with the game, and aren't just something the average D2 player would skip over.
I do see a pattern. They're perfecting a lot of things that were pointless in the others. Seriously, what role did light radius even have? It just limited how much of the graphics you could see. Placing Stats just gave the illusion of character custumization...i mean, if characters were so customizable and different, then why did everyone use the exact same build on their characters? The tetris inventory was simply annoying, and took your mind off the action in the game. It was just distracting. You mentioned health orbs, but neglect that there are no potions. Stockpiling potions is a poor way to make up for having a poorly equipped character.
And lastly, you mentioned cartoony graphics? The graphics almost look like a watercolor painting, which isn't cartoony at all. A lot of people complain that it isn't "dark" enough, which is silly, since D2 wasn't really "dark" either. I mean, you run around in a desert for an entire act - what's dark about that? And almost nothing about act 5 is dark. If you want a dark game, play Silent Hill or Doom 3, as they are dark in both a literal and metaphoric way.
You don't always know where you stand,
'Till you know that you won't run away.
There's something inside me that feels...
Like breathing in sulfur.
with no bags equipped, he has 12 slots available, with a total of 30. is 12 the standard? now theres no way to evenly divide 18 (the closed slots) by 4 (number of bag slots). what will happen with the remaining 2 slots?
also in the announcement gameplay trailer one of the drops was "SMALL bag", this must mean theres other sizes of bags right? what if you have 4 large bags and they each add 5, what happens to the ADITIONAL 2 slots?
did anyone actually find a bag at blizzcon, and if so, how many slots did it add?
Having life gems in all sockets .. gives you loads of life. So I think the fact that we don't get to place the stats on our own isn't such a big deal when we can modify them by a lot with gem and gear choices.
This isn't in D2? There is a big part of players that have the runeword on their merc with meditation aura.. and that is ridiculous.
Those that have not, are potting mana potions like mad.. which is ridiculous also.
I rather have a default good mana regen rate, than drink potions all the time or have to keep an overpowered item.
But in D2 I dont have the runeword or I don't chug mana potions like mad. I always invest 200+ points to energy on my casters. That way I don't ever have to worry about the mana.
But anyways D3 rox so far! Those that don't like it.. go play D2.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
Energy just sounds so much cooler I think
I even think that just "Will" would of sounded better than willpower
Is it still called Mana?
Happy they finally added bone/magic type resistance
I don't know about you, but I was under the impression that most people LOVED D2 because each char they played made them feel powerful without being unbalanced and the item hunting was so damn addicting. All the little nitpicky stuff (tetris inventory, holding alt to show loot, light radius, chat room trading etc.) whether intuitive or not, were just things that came along with it and reminds us of D2. Now this NEW game D3 aims to preserve the core of what made D2 an amazing game (which it is currently doing a great job at from what i've experience), not all the little nuances that "hardcore" fans hold so dearly in their nostalgic minds. If D3 makes the little things that were annoying in D2 (yet grown so used to) better and more intuitive, I don't see how it is a bad thing. People can argue that it is making the game "easier" or "dumbed down" but they refuse to believe that the game might actually be made better and more streamlined by putting focus on the action. I'm sure the hardcore mode will still be thrilling enough for the masachistic crowd out there. So please let Blizzard make the D3 that we're all waiting for, not D2.5.