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Quote from FoxBatD2

You need to also look carefully at visual design. There are alot of "bridges" both in the dungeon and outdoors. They look open, but as you can't jump off them, they are really nearly as confined as the maggot lair.

There is a definitely different visual approach taken here, and one that is done often now in modern 3D isometric dungeons. Instead of presenting unwalkable space as blackness hiding behind walls, they are instead portrayed as open cliffs to nowhere, with absolutely no "blackness" in sight.

The narrowness of the pathways isn't exactly the same in these 2 situations though. The approach with cliffs and bridges gives a feeling of an expansive underground "cave". The other approach is the small claustrophobic corridors, as if in a narrow mine tunnel.

I understand that people want to see different dungeon designs, and either of these dungeon styles are okay, except if they overdo the bridge/cliff thing on all the dungeons, there won't be much in terms of variety. They can try to change the color scheme of the dungeon from red to blue to green, but in the end, it's still going to be a dungeon that feels too wide open. Variety needs to take the form of differing spatial level designs.

I think the Monk takes on the role of being "quicker to the punch". Someone might swing their weapon first, but the Monk will be able to strike their enemies first, effectively stunning them before the enemy lands a hit on the Monk. Over time, the Monk will wear the enemies out with his swift barrage of punches.

The Barb on the other hand, most likely shines when he is able to time his swings and land a mighty hit on his enemies. And trust me, when those Barb hits land, even though they are few and far between, they're going to hurt.

If you guys remember, in D2, there were such things as Faster Hit Recovery. If you were able to "stunlock" an opponent using fast attacks, your opponent wasn't able to attack you or move anywhere until the stunlock wore off. So perhaps, the Monk is an "in-your-face" type of fighter that deals damage constantly, allowing little or no time in between his attacks for enemies to strike him. The Barb, on the other hand, will swing his mighty weapon, hoping to finish off his opponent in one or a few more blows if he is able to land an attack. Enemies will have a chance to implement hit-run techniques in between the Barb's slowish attacks.

Analogy: Getting hit by a truck if you can't dodge it fast enough (Barb) vs. getting hit by a bunch of small rocks being thrown at you (Monk). Both hurt, just in different ways.

Quote from Gulliver

Couldn't read that...

Excessive exposure to big blocks of text has made me leery of them. Will there be cake if I donate 15 seconds of my life for reading it?

E: my point is that you should keep your post in shape (use that enter button) and express your thoughts maybe in a bit more compact way ;P

Thanks for wasting my time, douche. I'd much rather have spent my time reading the OP's post than having wasted my time reading yours. Next time, have something useful to contribute before posting.

Quote from ElephantGuns

i think that blizzard recognizes the novelty of being able to trade items for other players items in the diablo series. (think d2.) i have a feeling that currencies like gold will be used to buy materials for crafts, enchants, and upgrading your merchants etc etc. i can see a trading post style system.

i.e. i pay 10 gold to put up a lot. in my lot, there is a sword, a chainmail chest, and a couple charms. other players can browse lots by item type/item level, and place offers. i log in after 8 hours of non-play to find 4 offers on my lot, all comprising of various assortments of items. (1 extremely valuable item for my 4 lesser, or 3 items that are more useful to me, along with a small amount of gold.)

you can also create notes on your lot. i.e (caster set FT here found all in act 2. looking for barb appropriate gear, especially a 2H mace. also looking for some gold)

this effectively creates a trade economy based on item demand, which is a ramp-up system and should be quite balanced. Gold would be a secondary currency, not like in wow. What made D2, D2, in my opinion, is the subjective character interactions associated with trade, especially. you don't simply pop open an auction vendor window and see prices in boring plain ol' gold, you can browse goodies that are fit for you, and it gives your barb something genuinely savage and badass in trade for that wimpy mystical wand you found killing beasties... and that wizard will be happy too, knowing that 2H mace is smashing demon's skulls in, instead of sitting in an auction whores hand's, who would just buy everything out and inflate the prices by 300%.




^that is my ideal system.

I like! Best idea so far.

Definitely agree that there should be item-for-item trading along with gold as a supplement, but have an auction house to organize it all.

Fair points fellas!

I agree that Maggot Lair was one of the worst spots in the entire game, especially when you're not playing as a Sorc or didn't have Enigma yet. Though, I would say Maggot Lair was the extreme, and I wouldn't want that kind of level in D3 either. I think Frozen River/Ancient Tunnels (A5) is the perfect balance between darkness and openness. Since we haven't seen "actual" dungeon levels from the game as you guys have mentioned, I'll reserve my judgment for the final product.

I'm just hoping that the new team at Blizzard can pull off a game that still has that dark medieval feel to it.

Does anyone think that the current videos of D3 gameplay showcasing "dungeons" don't really seem like dungeons at all? I couldn't put my finger on it at first but I've soon come up with a few points as to why I think D3 dungeons aren't as creepy as they were in D2. In fact, I'll go so far as to say, D3 dungeons aren't creepy at all. And here's why:

1) The low Area-of-sight & heavy Fog-of-war in D2: If you don't know what I'm talking about, just think of Act 1 Catacombs (while trying to find Andariel's lair). You'll remember a distinct circle of light around you, and the rest was nearly pitch black, so that you couldn't see much of what was around you, let alone what monster was waiting to attack you just up ahead. I feel like the element of having limited visibility added a very eerie suspense to the game, and is what made D2 so fun to play. There's nothing like entering into the darkness of a dungeon, and having to fight your way out, not knowing when the next ambush is going to be. An example video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrxa4MmGucc

2) The narrow corridors in D2 induce a sense of claustrophobia: After viewing many dungeon gameplay videos of D3, I've come to realize that the dungeons in D3 so far are very very open, allowing you to run around enemies. In D2, dungeons were almost like mazes where you had room for maybe 2-3 people to walk through at the same time, sometimes even only 1 person. You were constantly in a state of worrying that enemies might corner you, so that the only thing you could do was face them head on or retreat. The dungeons were narrow and intruding, giving a true sense of what "catacombs" and dungeons are supposed to be like. In D3 however, I've noticed the opposite. You could easily fit an entire 10 people along the width of many corridors as shown in trailers, and as such, it seems like you can easily kite enemies around large areas, without worrying about if they will corner you or not. Example here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PZCMgX3Kaw

With these 2 things combined, dungeons in D3 really don't seem like dungeons at all. They seem closer to a wide-open parking garage, rather than the winding catacombs feel that they are supposed to represent. In my mind, D2 had the perfect formula for dungeons: dark, narrow, claustrophobic, and ominously eerie. I want to feel like I've stepped into a completely new area when going into dungeons, and not be introduced to more of the same openness already seen in the outside world.

Perhaps, it's just me being used to D2, but if you've realized the same thing, do say something!

You know, I've decided. This Demon Hunter class is going to be my very first character for sure.

I remember in Diablo 2 that after 8 years of playing every single build imaginable, from a Melee Sorc to a Hammerdin, I ended up settling on an Assassin-based build called the 'Ghost'.

The Ghost basically used traps to stunlock enemies, and then teleporting in for a clean Whirlwind kill. I would also have a Widowmaker bow on switch, enchanted with Venom, to take out enemies from range.

Seeing that Blizzard now took the liberty of combining both the Assassin and Amazon class into one, it makes me believe that this will be the absolute ultimate class to play.

I seriously. can. not. wait.

Diablo Forever!!!

The topic title is kind of misleading. I read the title and my first reaction was something along the lines of, "wtf, Blizzcon already started?". Even though most Blizzard fans know that Blizzcon starts in 2 days, I think the title should be rephrased to something like:

"Diablo III's PvP System to be Revealed at Blizzcon"

Anyways, I'm pretty glad that the Diablo team is actually putting substantial effort into making the PvP system work, and not just have PvP be tacked on to the final product. People love their co-op just as much as they love their PvP.

Thank God lol..

This feature should have been added in the many patches of D2 ages ago.

Quote from paroxysm2010

also, I dont know how well they rush proofed the game, but what if a level 24 gets to hell with help, can max certain skills to 15, go back and do what he needs to do in normal/nightmare

Blizzard's already mentioned (can't remember where) that "rushing" is an acceptable form of play. They have no problem with people helping their friends through the game. However, that's not saying that they possibly won't implement quest/skill bonuses that you lose out on if you get "rushed" instead of playing through normally.

Quote from "DesmondTiny" »

Well you can see your own hammers on your screen. Other people cannot though.

Yep, correct!

Quote from "CrazyCapnMorgan" »

Maybe it's me or mabye it's something to do with my comp, but when I used Magic Hammer in conjuction with those skills, my Hammers were never invisible. Though, I've not played on-line D2 so, just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it hasn't happened. My solution to this - maximum speed cap. Make it so at some point, all characters, regardless of speed increases, travel at a certain max speed and fix Charges to a point where they travel at a certain speed.

The whole point of the charge glitch (aka desynching) is that you know where your own position is. But you are going so fast that other people can't keep up, so they are essentially attacking the position that they perceive, but you are long gone by then. =P

Quote from "Ivaron" »

I figured the female barb would look like a dyke, but she looks pretty hot actually - and that without making her unrealistic.

As for the graphics.. seriously, who cares? You still play D2 don't you?

Not entirely..

I play D2 for the trading aspect.
Trade on forums, login to do a quick trade, log back off.

The actual game is pretty worn out by now.

Quote from "Axam" »

I too got in

http://thejayzone.com/axam/SC2.png
http://www.livestream.com/axam

Something to note about an earlier post, I have neither a WWI key not a twitter account. So first wave must extend beyond these categories...

System Specs (as seen by Blizzard tool):

Operating system:Windows 2.6.1.7600 ()
CPU type:Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz
CPU Speed (GHz):2.717
System memory (GB):5.99
Graphics card model:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
Graphics card driver:nvd3dum.dll
Desktop resolution:1366x768
Hard disk size (GB):731.511
Hard disk free space (GB):631.645


Actual Hardware:
CPU: Intel i7 920
GPU: Geforce GTX 275
MOBO: Asus P6T
RAM: 6BG DDR3 Tripple Channel
HDD: 1 TB HDD WD Caviar Black
Audio: X-Fi Extreme Music

Dang, I have nearly the same build,
except I use a HD4870 with 1920x1680 resolution.

Guess I got unlucky

Quote from "maka" »

everybody keeps talking about how shiny new computers are expensive, and blizzard is making mid-level graphics to appeal to a large spectrum, etc etc....

let's be serious for a minute....until last month, i still had a Pentium4, and was able to play all the newest games (settings on 'medium', not even on 'low'), including Dragon Age: Origins and Modern Warfare 2. granted, i have a 9600GT graphics card, which is allright, but not spectacular. but even that wasn't expensive when i bought it, and it's even less now. so, to be honest, to me, that whole argument of "we're going easy on the graphics so you don't need a new PC to play it" sounds like a bit of a cop-out. any low-to-medium-range PC would most probably run D3 if it came out now....since we have at least another year to wait, maybe more, i think they're setting the bar a bit too low on this one. but that's just me....

so, no excuses, blizzard.

VOUCH

Blizzard take note of what this guy said,
we are not all running windows 95 with 128MB RAM and integrated graphics.

This is 2010, take a look at DiRT 2. Now that's a beautiful game.

Mind if I ask you what your system specs are?
Much appreciated if you can reply!!!

Quote from "milanv" »

come on guys I'm late for school