DiabloFans

I think my gripe that some other may share is that they are automating YET ANOTHER feature in this game. In my big rant post i made not too long ago, I pointed out how I don't care much for automating stats, automating skills, automating health (health globes, if you think this isn't automation, then whatever you say!) NOW they are automating skill runes. Oh goody. Sounds like SUCH a great idea.

I can point to WoW: Mists of Panderia as a good example as to why I think this is an unnecessary dumbing down of the game. Sure, Blizzard is "simplying" the talent system in WoW, but there will still be unique specs and hurdles for the player to clear (cost for respecs and dual specs) when switching between those specs. People will enjoy themselves with those new specs and there will be varied versions of 33 (11 classes x 3 specs) specs in the game and it will be interesting for those players. I've yet to see any hurdles that the player will need to clear in Diablo 3. Every rune will just be automatically given to you. No pain, no gain. Or in this case, no pain, no fun.

I really have to wonder how many of you that are embracing this new system with wide open arms are truly real Diablo fans. Aren't you the same guys that enjoyed hunting down Diablo 2 runes and making runeword items for your characters in Diablo 2? Do you think you people would have had the same fun if you just received runes or whole runewords at select lv intervals and if Blizzard allowed you to swap or create new runeworded weapons on the fly? Do you really think that would have made Diablo 2 more fun? Really? Really now?

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Quote from jaclashflash

Nah I bought the WoW annual pass, which I regretted almost instantly after getting it....not because of diablo, but because of the direction of WoW.

I'm sure a lot of people do feel this way.. but oh well, pretty naive to think wow would get any better at least, it really only was going to stay the mediocre same or worse at this point.

Imo, WoW isn't a bad game. I felt like when i got the pass I could at least play it on the side, But then I got into Dota 2 beta while I was on vacation in December and that's when I felt like I made a mistake. I even liked Swtor, but Dota 2 is just more fun for me.

WoW might eventually go f2p, but until then, there are just better things out there. If D3 isn't that hot, I'm done buying Blizzard games.

Quote from Corpsie

The game management actively trolling ( Bashiok on twitter this morning, and Jays "9/10" comment knowing it would be interpreted as GDC/CeBit) is the worst display of professionalism i've seen in a long time,

Everyone go buy The Witcher and The Witcher 2 to support a true amazing and caring Development team.

^ I totally agree. I've said this at least once before about the current CM's. If Blizzard went and fired 600 employees recently, it's shame on them for not firing these clowns. Any one of the Diablo Fans forum mods could do a better job.

I'm sure a number of hardcore fans would love an easy job were you just sit in a handful of meetings during the day then post some text filtered by PR and a grammar checker a few times a week. I guarantee you they would do a more professional job.

Doubling mob damage during early levels, probably the most productive change this entire beta. Took them long enough. Maybe normal won't be a several act long tutorial afterall. Diablo willing...

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WkYRUP!Zgf!aaaZaZ

PvE AoE Berserker-type of Barbarian build. You pull multiple mobs in with Ancient Spear, use Frenzy as your main skill, then use the other 3 skills to deal AoE damage and Wrath to buff yourself. The build generates and uses plenty of crit and a couple of self-healing tools. Also, with the passives, you can continue to deal more and more damage to multiple enemies while fighting packs at a time. There's a little bit of extra treasure utility you get from using threatening shout as well.

Quote from Manoluck

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Quote from Manoluck

seems with the direction the game has taken to make 5 lvl 60's and farm inferno that low level uniques and set items was a waste of developement since no one will want to reroll after they get 5 lvl 60's. I remember using my sigons set at low level then switch it out for other gear. Now whats the point? There is none. If your goign to make a game based around everyone staying at lvl 60(not to mention you can just buy lvl 60's on the AH) 95% of the items in this game are useless unless they are inferno quality.

You obviously have never played WoW; any item even low ones are worth something. Someone out there will want to be twinked at level 15 if they can be.

keep thinking you will be able to use a lvl 5 unique to craft your lvl 60 legendary bow...

Let me know when you come back to reality.

Well now that you mention it, it would be awesome if low level uniques yielded a very small amount of materials while letting high lv uniques yeild a very high amount of materials. Different crafted items or skills that consume materials could just be adapted to require high amounts of materials. Think about it. People could recycle crap stuff to give them a itty bit more towards their goal, but they wouldn't farm Act1 for materials, they would obviously hit the final act to yield large amounts of materials.

Just seems like a simple and possible way of going about it.

They might lower the effectiveness of heals in PvP. Either that or they can muck everything up by adding Mortal Strike effects. :/

Balance doesn't really matter for a game like Diablo. I mean honestly, balance didn't even matter as much for a game like WoW either, which was designed to be Everquest's spiritual PvE successor where raiding was the main focus, not PvP. In a game like Diablo, PvE is an even bigger focus, since Diablo 1 and 2 were never really balanced for PvP at all. It's all about monster slaying. It doesn't matter too much if Witch Doctors are a little better at monster slaying than monks at any given time.

If we end up having OP classes every patch or flavor of the month classes, it would probably help replayability. People will reroll a toon that's op at a given time to explore what that class has to offer.

If someone doesn't see the problem with skill builds not having any noticeable costs to changing them or "respecing", then there's no use trying to argue with them.

People with that opinion are basically saying that a game, with systems that are more dumbed down then WoW's systems, somehow has more customization than WoW did. At least in WoW you had respec costs.

If anybody is sour about these changes, just realize that the Diablo 3 dev team is just trying to throw something semi-decent together just to get the game out of the door. Just make your peace and realize it needs to be released already. It's been amusing watching them try to reinvent the wheel and also learn basic design lessons over the course of the past 3 years, but the time has come to just get this thing out of the door. The dev team was a bunch of amateurs that didn't have any real game plan going into this and they either don't know what makes a game fun or were unable to understand what fun is.

Seriously, think about this. Let's assume the game and the previous rune systems WERE fun. Are the devs just "fun-deaf" and unable to realize that had something good on their hands? On the flip side, if the game wasn't fun, then we have to assume they are just taking stabs in the dark at this point.

It's hard to stay positive about the game if you think it will get boring fast.

Quote from Laevus

Trying to sum it up for you though: RMAH was added by Blizzard to hopefully reduce (remove) the external item selling shops.

Hmmmmmm. lol

You know that's amuses me? How some players tell me that they played Diablo 2 for years, just solely based on the fact that they somehow loved MF runs and the grind.

You know what I think Diablo 2 boiled down to? Baal Runs. That's basically it. You farmed the end of Act 5 for exp and farmed certain bosses for gear, just to progress to the next difficulty. But, oh wait, once you got to Act 5 Hell, you basically just did more Baal runs. Ok, so later on you had Uber Diablo and all of that, but that's about it?

Still, I enjoyed Diablo 2, because it improved upon an already awesome game, a.k.a. Diablo 1. I also enjoyed it because it was really a god damned game design success and also a game with great artistic direction and great music as well. Of course, I also loved it for the story, even though it didn't have a bit of a cliff hanger ending. Blizzard had a great way of having enjoyable cliff hanger endings. If you don't agree with me that Diablo 2 was just plain better than any of the PC games back then, you are daft. Diablo 2 still holds itself as the king of the genre over 10 years later.

I didn't enjoy Diablo 2 because of the Baal run end-game. I enjoyed it because I had fun making multiple characters and trying new things, seeing if they were viable or not.

To all of those people that tell me that they enjoyed Diablo 2 because of the MF grind, you're probably going to love Diablo 3. You're going to enjoy it, because you seem to enjoy any games with grind and lack of quality content supplemented with actual replayability. Even if Diablo 3 sucks, you're still going to like it as long as Blizzard patches more items for you to grind for! It's a win/win for you!

Maybe I'm reading this article wrong, but now that runes are not items anymore, doesn't that mean they will have less impact on the economy? Not having them as items means that the only way you can have them affect the economy is by being gold sinks. Stuff like costs associated with switching skill runes and throwing your gold at an npc and removing that gold from the economy.

It seems to me that runes have less impact on the economy and in the grand scheme of things, it achieves what a skill tree would achieve in a less interesting way. Even if they did achieve success by giving players customization options, will there still be hurdles to overcome if a player wants to switch specs?

Also...

"Thanks for reading.
Jay Wilson is Game Director for Diablo III and won first place in the team’s chili cook-off competition. Recipe available upon request."

Really...?

Nah, don't give Blizzard a break. They announced the game 3 years ago and ALREADY have a lot of people's money for a game they haven't released yet. You can argue that they don't have the money from the normal and CE preorders yet, but they do legally have a right to the 1 year WoW deal money that's rolling in.

Stop acting like Blizzard owes us anything, just because they say they enjoy making great games. Stop acting like we should give them a break, just because you don't think they owe us anything based on us being emotional fans. Blizzard isn't the same Blizzard anymore. You should start acting like they owe you something, just because you have thrown money at them. It's a business thing now, not a passion thing.

I'll say it once and I'll say it again. If Diablo 3 isn't that great, I just won't buy Heart of the Swarm, Legacy of the Void, Mists of Panderia, and probably not even their new MMO if it comes out. I've given them plenty of money over the years, but that was because their games had insane replay value. Not anymore. If you want to hit them where it hurts, just stop buying their games. That's all there is to it. Why should I spend another $40-60 just to see how Kerrigan's life is going? There are much better games to be played.

I'd blame bad parenting as usual. But whatever, kids will be kids. People can complain when America hands them a few laws on how to act in public, but at least they don't tell you how to act in your own house. I think China handles their country really really well when it comes to law and government handing a population of an enormous size, but Korea? That entire country is a joke. For the better part of a decade, South Korea just plays video games all day and North Korea would just think about making nukes all day. I've had this opinion for more than 5 years.

On an unrelated note, the last time I was in Seoul, the city was god damned freezing. Call me a wuss, but walking around the city in -20 F isn't my idea of fun. I don't know why a foreigner would choose to live there all year round.

I like the Korean people. I have a couple of Korean friends I still keep in touch with from Hawaii, but there are better places to live than Korea.

I don't feel bad for Blizzard. I have to agree with the OP and his colorful text. They just did it for Blizzcon material. If you think they announced it for any other reason, well... yeah.

That first year or so was fun because they gave us actual content to digest. They gave us more back then then they do now. Sometimes I feel like they seriously just kept adding classes till the last possible moment then they didn't have a foundation of skills with some sort of balance to structure the classes on.

Was it a mistake? For improving their brand name it was, for everything else, not really.

Quote from xkillerz

Well this maybe could turn into some funny surprices later on. I also think they will annouce the release date with a good new trailer. So we all know its coming. It should not take very long anymore. But I don't worry to much I know its close. So I will by playing it within 2 mouths +.

I personally hope they supplement the new release date with new wallpaper.

Paris is nice. I hope they have a good time. I really just think it's an excuse for them spending some vacation time. Similar to football players going to the Pro Bowl to play like garbage then spend time on the beach. The only winner is his gf really. Everybody else loses, including us!