DiabloFans

At this point it seems like 1.13 is a bullshit excuse of a patch that's being throw together by a few Blizzard interns or something. Seriously? If you aren't gonna make a real patch, stop pretending like you're still fully supporting the game. They aren't supporting it anymore, they're just maintaining it. I feel like they spout this crap just to keep people around longer. It's pathetic. If they keep this up, D3 might be the last Blizzard game I bother actually purchasing.

I'm not saying they aren't doing a good job developing their new games or even that they're ignoring the community, they've been doing great on those fronts, but they've also been making these false implications on the pretense that they're actually working hard on the title when they're really just trying to keep more players around until their new games are out. That's just not a smart move on any game developer's part. *cough* L4D *cough*

Well if there is indeed only one class remaining (and not two, which is a theory of mine, they have too much time now not to make two more classes, considering the game probably won't be coming out until late 2011), then it'll probably be a Hunter/Ranger to account for ranged weapons, shape-shifting, and whatnot.

I also think in the first expansion, they'll have the antithesis of a Paladin, perhaps a Blackguard. It would basically be a Paladin/Necro. I could see them building a story about how the Paladin from D2 went crazy and became corrupted by darkness. He would make a cameo in D3, still not fully consumed by darkness, but in the expansion he would come to the heroes, consumed entirely, and desperate to break free and become a holy Paladin once again.

Quote from "OathofChaos" »

You know, I can see your point... but the truth of the matter is that while the upper echelon is allocating resources to this game or that, it's not designed to pull any more or less money out of people's pockets than intended, which is my only point here. They aren't purposely delaying Diablo III to soak up more income through Blizzcon or whatnot.

Yes, while World of Warcraft is their highest profit maker, it would make sense in a business model to allocate more resources to that which nets you the most money. But when people say that the delay is malcious and done for more income... that's where I put my foot down.

[Putting his pants on his head since 1107AD] Oath~

To be honest, I believe the delay was most certainly partially for making more income. Right now the SC2 marketing begins, SC2 comes out Q2 2010. BlizzCon 2010 hits, main focus is on Cataclysm. Focus is also on D3 with the 5th class announced, but D3 will still be second to Cataclysm. Cataclysm marketing begins, Cataclysm comes out holidays 2010. Enter 2011, lots of D3 information begins to be released. A few months in, beta testing begins. BlizzCon 2011 hits, main focus is on D3 now that Cataclysm has kept WoW alive and kicking. D3 marketing begins, and D3 is released holidays 2011. There will certainly be an influx of WoW players flooding into D3, so Cataclysm will make WoW a huge moneymaker for a year while they slowly increase D3 hype until it finally releases. Remember, once SC2 and D3 are out, Blizzard is competing with themselves. WoW is an aging game, and while I'm sure there will be at least one expansion after SC2 and D3 come out, Cataclysm looks to be WoW's last real marketing stand before they start putting heavy resources into WoW2.

This is all speculation of course, but from the CEO of Activision Blizzard's point of view, this would be the smart thing to do, financially.

Quote from "OathofChaos" »

Only four to a room seems a bit low, but with their desire to keep things on B-net, it might help alleviate some lag due to the amount of connections per room, per server. Plus, slower computers will be able to "keep up" if the lag is lower.

Yep, they have to keep the lag as low as possible to make people forget that THERE'S NO LAN SUPPORT. If B-Net has any lag at all, I'm gonna be pretty disappointed.

Quote from "OathofChaos" »

Obvious troll is obvious.

Seriously though, not all companies are evil, not all companies want to drain your wallet to suck the life out of the economy.

How many of you went to Blizzcon? Hmm? How many of you paid for the DirectTV package? Those are optional buys that are based on disposable income. Nobody's forcing you to buy anything from Blizzard. Think as a conscious consumer.

Now, that being said, I'm sure they have a rough deadline for when they want the new Diablo game released, but what sets Blizzard apart from EA, Take Two, Sony, Bethesda, and Microsoft Games is that they don't release a game until they are satisfied with it, release dates be damned. That's why Starcraft: Ghost became vaporware. They weren't satisfied where it was going (after having devoted a lot of financial and labor assets into the production of the game) and dropped the game. If they had any other mindset, we'd see a shitty version of the game out right now.

So please, take all of your "Evil Corperate America" propaganda elsewhere. Take Economics 101 to learn how businesses work, and please stop degrading these forums.

The developers at Blizzard may not be corrupt but Blizzard is certainly run and owned by a corporation that is no different from EA or any of those companies you listed. The developers don't have ultimate control over the release of the game. I'm sure as GAMERS, the Blizzard devs would love to see Diablo 3 out before Cataclysm, but it's the higher-ups that are calling the shots, and they need to keep WoW marketable since it has been the most economically successful franchise for the company. Even though the games all have separate teams, there are developers that work in between the teams, and resources that are divided differently. I'm sure once SC2 and Cataclysm are out, any leftover work on D3 will wrap up quickly because they can push all their resources into it. I certainly don't think it's the actual developers that couldn't release a completely polished game by holidays 2010, but the higher-ups didn't provide them the resources or the deadline for it.

Quote from "Quimera" »

What worries me is that we still need another ranged class and none of the mellee classes seems to be designed to use shields a lot.

I proposed this idea in the "Official Ranged Class Idea Contest" thread:

Quote from "Krylon" »

The "Guardian" Class

The Guardian is kind of a mix between the Paladin and the Amazon with some Druid-ness thrown into it.
The current D3 classes don't have a lot of weapon variety, but the Guardian could use bows, crossbows, javelins, throwing knives, swords, clubs, shields, etc.
It wouldn't be a very "Holy" class (since we have the Monk now) but a bit of a mix between an armored knight and an archer.

Skill Trees:
Nature: Auras and nature-magic skills, possibly summons
Defense: Shield techniques, traps, and other defensive skills
Range: Bow skills, throwing weapon skills, etc.

The Guardian is a formidable opponent that can quickly adapt to his situation. He has many skills at his disposal while he has distance between him and his enemy, but when his enemies get close he can still protect himself while dealing some serious damage.

While I don't think this EXACT idea will come to fruition, I believe Blizzard is probably toying around with something similar. Although we won't actually know for another year...

The "Guardian" Class

The Guardian is kind of a mix between the Paladin and the Amazon with some Druid-ness thrown into it.
The current D3 classes don't have a lot of weapon variety, but the Guardian could use bows, crossbows, javelins, throwing knives, swords, clubs, shields, etc.
It wouldn't be a very "Holy" class (since we have the Monk now) but a bit of a mix between an armored knight and an archer.

Skill Trees:
Nature: Auras and nature-magic skills, possibly summons
Defense: Shield techniques, traps, and other defensive skills
Range: Bow skills, throwing weapon skills, etc.

The Guardian is a formidable opponent that can quickly adapt to his situation. He has many skills at his disposal while he has distance between him and his enemy, but when his enemies get close he can still protect himself while dealing some serious damage.

Quote from "Cyanide-Tipped" »

But wait folks, in all these posts did we even talk about what they'd do for females? Because all the other classes are male and female, what about female monks (if such a thing, perhaps more like a priestess. Makes me think of Iron Monkey movie)? Or would they only have a male monk and a female only 5th class?

Hmm...

I'm pretty sure they're making all the classes both Male and Female. Just because they did not reveal the Female Monk right away doesn't mean she doesn't exist. The Male Wizard wasn't seen in-game until the gamescom/BlizzCon build.

Heads up guys, the Monk's skill videos are up on Diablo3.com. Thankfully they don't seem as ridiculous as they did in the gameplay video. Also, they definitely have some kind of charge-up like the Assassin.

Quote from "Terror" »

There are already bows in the game, so the final class has to be a ranged or hybrid type of some sort. It will probably not be anything as simple as we are expecting, though

I'm gonna guess a generic "Ranger" class because we've already had Rogue/Amazon/Druid and they need a ranged fighter and a nature-magic user, and "Ranger" covers both of those. Actually, I have a theory they're gonna have 6 classes in the game because at this point the game is mostly likely not coming out until 2011, which gives them more time, and I'm sure they have too many ideas to fit into 5 classes.

One thing I'm concerned about is the effectiveness of the Monk. He just seems a bit overpowered at the moment. I'll hold my judgement until we see REAL gameplay, and not the gameplay trailer which obviously is going to showcase the strength of the Monk and not the weakness of it. Also, I really hope they make some severe gameplay changes for the other classes, to make them more interesting both physically and visually, because I'd hate to see half of all the D3 players playing the Monk.

I'm really hoping they used a high level Monk for that gameplay video because he looks overpowered.