DiabloFans

A survival bonus would be awesome. I really hope it is true.

If it is meaningful it could greatly increase the viability of defensive skills in SC.

What was new if you ignore the datamining? Cant separate the two anymore
Not counting specific skill examples, since it really isn't a game system.

In the end, the issue isn't if the information is new or mot, but it is scary if they don't have a lot more changes planned, for a game that really need those changes.

That was kinda disappointing.. Not so much because of what they said, but how little they said.
Only new thing was the Primary vs Secondary stats.
Which is a fairly bad "solution" anyway, since it just tries to hide the issues rather than fix them.

So nice.
Blizzard is back! (well, maybe not)

Quote from "reform" »

Can't believe they failed at making an increased stash size. Countless mods have achieved this, yet Blizz can't?

They clearly state that the larger stash issue is only on battle.net, while mods are singleplayer. So its not that reasonable to throw 'Others can do it!' back at Blizzard.

What I dont get is why they dont add the larger stash to singleplayer anyway, and just leave it out for multiplayer. Especially if they have already done the actual coding.
It would be better than nothing.

Quote from name="Duckman Drake" »

Do Blizzard not realise that a huge part of the fun of Diablo was the crazed scrambles for loot when something good dropped, or when someone kills something beside you and you just happen to pick up an awesome piece of loot.

I really doubt you are in the majority

Now there are certainly drawbacks to individual loot too, like an item you needed dropping for someone who didnt (but then again, thats what multiple chars and trading are for).
Imo it could be nice if people could see what others got though.

Quote from "sponkey21" »

The problem is no matter what they do everybody will find the skills they think are best and create a formula that promotes the most efficient use of those skills. This means no matter what they do there will be FAQs with people recommending the best optimized builds for many cookie cutter types of characters.

Is that a problem though. Diablo 2 has been like that for 9 years or so?
You can find guides for the most cookie cutter builds available, as well as guides for some of the more experimental 'just because I can' builds. If Diablo 3 can replicate that I would think they have done a great job.
Diablo isnt as competitive (outside of the possible PvP features they will introduce) as MMOs, which means you don't have to use the cookie cutter builds to succeed (although you would cleearly be able to perform better with such a spec). Pretty much no matter what you throw your points in youll be able to succeed, given the right gear, which by itself allows for endless possibilities in talent specs (and this is probably a place where Diablo 2 failed a bit, you had endless spec possibilities, but gear wise there were often a few items which was so much better than anything else around for your class, so in reality, you had cookie cutter gear sets instead of skill sets)

Ah ye true, must admit I haven't had Diablo 2 started up for a while. But the point was that it shouldnt be based on specific skills as it only leads to less choice (e.g. if i take this skill, i really need to take this and this too, to make it useful).

Diablo relies on having lots and lots of options to make your character build (which is why totally free respecs as in WoW would not work, it should be possible, but pretty much cost your left arm to do so, imo), I still have no reason to believe Blizz wont accomplish that though, pretty much no matter how the finer details of the tree setups are, so for now its all good

Not really. Synergies is getting bonuses to 1 skill by taking another, which limits your choices tbh. My idea (and it might very well be terrible :P) would give you the bonus no matter which skills you took in the tree

Quote from "Hells" »

Let's not forget that in Diablo 2 you could have wildly different builds, very unlike WoW. The pre-reqs werent points in a tree before, rather level restriction on skills and a couple of points in pre-req skills, none of this 5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45 skillpoints in a certain tree like WoW.

One reason you only have a few viable builds in WoW is that you gain most of your abilities outside the trees, and the trees mostly (though not always) buff the abilities you already got. You don't do so in Diablo.
That alone should lead to more varied builds.
If Diablo ends up with few interesting builds, its not because of the ideas Blizz has released now at least.

People speak of how WoW is making Diablo 'casual'.
Sorry to say it, but around 10 years has passed since the old Diablo games. This has nothing to to with WoW, but the simple fact that gaming has moved on. You could get by with a lot more 'demanding' (or lacking, depending on point of view) games in the 90's (just as it was perfectly fine to have games even further in the past with no save options, requiring players to get through it on one session).
Releasing a game like Diablo today without some reasonably streamlined interface, player friendly options like respeccing etc. would be quite stupid. Releasing Diablo 2 this very moment would have been a disaster, people would have hated it, also many of us who loves it dearly.
Now you might argue some games do exactly that (Sacred 2 for instance, which in many ways are an old-school A-RPG), but it mostly shows the fact that there are a few stupid game designers still around.
The real challenge is to make a game that speeaks to both those who want a somewhat easy time with their game, and those who want to get obsessed with it.
But this is exactly what Blizzard has been the masters of for 15 years, and Diablo 2 is a prime example. Very easy to play, but still fairly hardcore if you went into creating 100 different builds, magic find chars etc (and its the same with WoW for that matter).
Right now we got no reason to believe it would suddenly change with Diablo 3.

Anyway, back to the Diablo talents. One addition I could imagine to the proposed system, would be some incentive to spend most of your points in 1 tree, sort of a way to off-balance the nice skills you would lose in other trees, by stacking more points in one tree.
Example: Every point you spent in Tree 1 (lets call it the frost tree) gives you 1% more frost dmg. Every 1 point spent in Tree 2 'Fire tree' gives you 1% fire dmg bonus etc. (or whatever else it could be, 1% lower mana cost for fire spells or whatever).
This would accomplish two things (In my head at least). 1) it would add even more possible build options 2) it would bring back some incentive for making 'pure' builds, like a fire sorceress or ice sorceress, which I think should be there.
This way, you would have the option between picking 'all the nice talents from different trees', but it would have a small cost by being less specialized into one tree.

The issue of having a 'very best skill build ever!!' matters a lot less in a game like Diablo, than in a game like WoW.
It doesnt really matter if all possible builds in Diablo are equal or not. As long as they are diverse and interesting, people are going to try them out, because they can and because they want the challenge. Thats what happened in Diablo 2.

Dont know what I should think about the removal of differentiated skill trees, tbh it probably shouldnt matter that much. It makes each class play a bit more like one class, rather than 3 main specs, which is both good and bad.
But in the end it only matters that Blizz manage to throw in enough interesting skills to pick, so people will want to try out different builds, even if they arent the 'optimal spec'.
(which obviously also means that while I think respecs should be possible, it cant be something you can do every other moment, as in WoW, as that will indeed lead to min-maxing of specs rather than different builds).

Blizz said it perfectly back at WWI, in Diablo all skills needs to feel overpowered, all active skills should be crazy enough to want trying them out. Then perfect balance is much less of an issue.

Now the topic mention only PvP and trading ideas, but since everyone else seems to comment on just about anything, I didnt want to break the trend

PVP:
'Battlegrounds' could be interesting for PvP. 'Capture the flag' and such. It would be very different from the usual 'chaotic' pvp of Diablo. This isnt to say the normal chaotic outdoor PVP shouldnt exist, it would be great to have both however.
For the 'outdoor pvp' no matter how that is going to work, it has to be 100% optional. Maybe simply choosing if PvP is allowed when you create a game, with others being able to see this setting before joining.

Customization:
The more the better (as long as the Keep It Simple rule is followed). I guess it shouldnt even have to be mentioned, but anything applies here, sockets, gems, runewords, enchants for items. Even customization of abilities might be an idea (think Inscriptions from WoW Wotlk just without the crafting part of it, for instance, the ability to improve only 1 of your abilities beyond whats doable in the skill trees, having to choose which one you want the most). Anything which adds to the possible ways to make your character should be considered, since its one of the main reasons for Diablo 2s huge replayability (the other being item hunting of course).

1990 vs 2000. The endless hardcore vs. casual debate:
Things have changed in games the last 10 years. Limits which was accepted and even loved in Diablo 2 wont necessarily be great in D3. Specifically the ability to redo your character and your decisions is needed in some ways. E.g. Respeccing your skill trees, your stats, clearing sockets etc. Its a very thin line between making it too hard and too easy to redo mistakes, and clearly it shouldn't be too easy, as rerolling and trying out new things is a great deal of Diablo 2's legacy. I hope you can find this balance.
My preference lis somewhere around this: If you wanted to redo your char 100% then a new character would be your best option. if you mostly wanted to adjust some things (for instance redo your characters skills and stats 75%) then you could do it an easier and faster way through a quest, paying gold or whatever.

Auction House:
Is really a must have. Preferably both having options for buying items with gold (no A-RPG has really managed to make gold stay relevant over time yet however, which leads to the next option.), but definitely also a system where one can offer an item for another through the AH.

BoE vs. BoP items:
Personally, and likely contrary to most others, I dont think it would harm to make some items BoP or even better 'Bound on Account', while item trading is a big part of the game, special items and such which are not tradeable can be used as 'status symbols' to provide rewards for various accomplishments in the game.
Pretty much all dropable items from bosses should be kept BoE for sure, BoP is more suitable for either 1) quest/pvp/event rewards and 2) Cosmetic rewards (so you dont just got awesome gear, but also look awesome in it, for those players who are interested in that... which is quite a few judging from WoW)

Lvling:
Grinding should not really be needed for lvling ever, maybe except the very last few lvls. You are likely going to grind the hell out of the game (literally speaking I guess) for items, no need to make it so for the lvling too. Making new characters should be reasonably fast, so people are encouraged to try out new builds and silly ideas.

Minor stuff:
Shared stash! Please.

Difficulties:
Should have at least two imo. One which is reasonably easy (like it was in Diablo 2), and then one which is balanced for having reasonably good gear. Nightmare in Diablo 2 mostly felt unnecessary, it was often easier than 'Normal' since your char had got access to all its skills at that point, and you just zerged through it to get to 'Hell'.
Having a few bosses which requires exceptionally good gear, builds and execution is great too, however, I would say those should be bosses outside of the main storyline, rather than just the end bosses. It isn't necessarily fun for players to feel they hit a wall in the game where they cant progress further, because its too hard, in the end only the most hardcore players will end up with the best of the best gear etc. Furthermore, making 'Hell* too difficult, also invalids much of the enjoyment of trying different specs and builds than the very best ones.
The most difficult bosses could be a bit like the few bosses which added late in Diablo 2's life cycle which weren't directly a part of the main game. Such bosses would also fit well with the mini-expansion idea below.

Content, the future and you:
It would be nice with smalll downloadable mini-expansions rather than just a big one after a year or two. Downloadable content and mini-transactions seems to be the hot stuff these days, and there certainly are some benefits to it (beside getting the customers to spend more money :D) It would be great with new bosses to fight, new areas to explore, new items to find etc, once in a while. These packages should of course be optional and not subscription based.

One last thing. I realize there are two subgrpups of players when it comes to Diablo and WoW (actually when it comes to WoW and any other RPG). One group want Diablo to copy WoW. The other group hates WoW with a passion and dont want to see any features from it ever. I hope you can balance this, and take out some of the better features in WoW which could work great in Diablo. In many ways WoW is a MMO-A-RPG, and although hopefully Diablo 2 wont be anything like an MMO at all (which is why D3 shouldn't just copy WoW either, which you seem well aware of yourself), but that doesn't mean some of the features wont translate perfectly between the two games.

P.S Strike down hard and swift upon cheaters and those who sell items for money. Then everything will be perfect!