DiabloFans

Good to see the progress (even if it's only small), keep on grindin' guys n gals

Quote from EMTMF

^
He spoiled a lot actually.

No where in the cinematic was there anything to hint to us that one particular character in the cinematic may be a certain Mr X in the game, which was information gotten from cross referencing minute details from the (very fresh) book of Cain... That there is acceptable to those who aren't overly excitable/liberal; but to then tell us that Mr X is a boss in the game, information which was derived from the spoiler warning enshrined post about in-game bosses icons, obtained via datamining... The line was blatantly crossed to even the most conservative of us.

edit - I use conservative/liberal in the terms of statistical perspectives of evidence->conclusions, so it may seem backwards.

yeh i get your point, I apologise too

Quote from EMTMF

to be that guy:

Reword it w/o spoilers thanks...

Yeah, who would've thought an article titled 'A Look Into The Opening Cinematic' would literally be a look into the opening cinematic... sheesh

Yeh I really don't understand why they don't want to integrate both basic and advanced tooltips, they keep saying they don't want to interrupt the flow of the game but are gonna make me leave the game if I want to find out a bit more about a skill, its like the chewbacca defence - It does not make sense!

Good thing that Morhaime clarified that they're really not trying to "rush out" Diablo 3.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.. whoa.. whoa... They're not trying to rush the game?!?!

I find it so funny how people over-analyze everything blizzard does... and by funny I mean annoying!

And for all those saying they feel the cinematic was missing something, yeh it is... the rest of the game!

Personally I thought it was freakin unreal, but like some others have pointed out, leah screaming out UNCLLLLEE at the end was major cheeeeese

phew! so I'm not losing my mind. thanks Jaelz

Quote from Graphics_I

Sorry CherubDown. I guess I'm not as funny as I thought I was

Chin up mate

I'm confused I played d2 alot back in the day and I remember ethereal items not as "indestructible" items but items that had slightly better stats that were unrepairable, so when they broke that was it, you couldn't use it anymore. And I can't even remember coming across any "indestructible" items at all am I wrong?

P.S. damn runewords are sick

Yeh I thought that was all pretty self explainitory.

Quote from Xaviarlol

Secondly, you misquote Bashiok on "but we're not quite comfortable enough with any of them yet to invite you in and see what you think." as "Blizzard has decided that it's not solid enough to be released for testers".

Wait.. how can you misquote a direct quote

No misinformation here, just misinterpretation. Thanks for the update cherub

Quote from CrusaderGT

I'm greatly disappointed with the diablo community right now. So hard to explain to casual (even veterans, sigh) players that it's going to be fine w/o follower past normal or in c-op. I think a lot are still ignorant with what diablo 3 classes has to offer through out the game and still scared of not having followers with them.

I to am greatly disappointed . It really highlights the unwillingness of people to accept change. I'm just grateful that blizzard chose to develop D3, I know they don't owe me anything so I don't expect anything from them.. plus they will always do what's best for their shareholders (and that's to make a popular game), thats the nature of a publicly listed company.

Quote from Daxiongmao87

The game is balanced so that everyone is required to have a mercenary for the intended Hell difficulty. This will diminish the experience of the people that don't like mercenaries.
The game is balanced so that no-one is required to have a mercenary. This will on the other hand make the game "too easy" (i.e. below balanced difficulty) for the people that are using mercenaries.

Easy fix, count mercs as 1 player or 1/2 a player when the game considers the level of difficulty by the amount of players. Like in D2, the more players in the game the stronger the monsters.

Unfortunately it can't work that way, to balance the game with mercs the devs would have to consider the merc a 'pet' in which case they would have to make the character weaker to compensate for the mercs dmg etc. for example say you have 2 player characters in a game at the same level with relatively the same gear on so they're effectively both rated the same, say 100%. If one decides they want to use a merc that changes their rating. Lets say a merc equals 1/2 a player so 50%, in that case now the character with the merc has a rating of 150% where-as the other guy is still a now less than impressive 100%, if all they do is make diablos minions stronger, this creates a balancing problem for the character w/o the merc. So to balance it effectively you would have to make the character weaker, like 60%, and change the merc to 40% so together they equal 100% and it would turn the merc into a pet (or a dependancy) that the player would have to use all the time. If they do that it's not technically a merc anymore is it, it's a pet (i use the term 'pet' loosely, it doesn't have to be an animal of course :P). Now to effectively implement this there would have to be probably nearly double the balancing required to polish every class with and w/o the use of a merc, and it brings a few other problems with it like balancing different skill combos with different combos of characters/mercs etc etc. To me this sounds like a fairly large logistical problem and the new rune system sounds tough enough to balance as it is.

This is why the merc system in D2 wasn't ideal and I'm guessing thats the main reason why blizzard decided to scrap mercs and designed the followers to only 'add a bit of flavor' in normal difficulty (where perfect balance isn't as critical) plus the other points that the blizzard team have stated.

People keep saying it's so easy to fix, but from a developers stand point it wouldn't be that easy and probably seems unnecessary because they plan on alot of players co-op'ing anyway and this is what they're trying to encourage, so it would be going against one of the things they are trying to achieve with D3. damn that ended up way lengthier then planned, sorry

Here's a possibilty as to how the system ended up the way it is now, maybe blizzard were initially looking at implementing a system more like the hirelings in D2 but after trying it realised that it wasn't working effectively or didn't fit in with their other plans for the game (end-game\other systems etc.) and their only options were to either scrap it completely or restrict it's use like they have done, which imo still works well as it stands. Obviously the ppl who wanted to play through all difficulties with 'hirelings' will be pissed at their decision but at least they still have a chance to play with the followers for a part of the game, and the players who wouldn't be using them are totally unaffected.

Isn't this the best outcome? (trying to look at this positively :P)

I think they would've tried to develop this system to work through the whole game initially but couldn't get something that they were happy with and had to scale it back.

And that's probably the system they're least proud of, which is why it was the first of the unannounced systems to be revealed.

Quote from AcidReign

If the Followers can provide something useful other than speech while sitting idle in town in Nightmare and Hell (and on co-op), then I can see less problems with the system. Even to me, it does seem like a waste of development time if the Followers are only effective in Normal mode on single player, and have no additional features to them that make them useful outside of combat and on higher difficulties.

Honestly, I don't want a Follower in the first place, just to get that same feeling I had in D1, where I was all alone in a dark dungeon seeking treasure and Terror. And hey, that's up to me. I don't have to have a follower if I don't want to. But for my first playthrough, I'll use one. Just to immerse myself in the story, and enjoy everything I can about D3.

Then I'll get down to business.

Coudn't have said it better myself

Well heres some positivity for ya, the time from the start of the D2 beta to release was only roughly 3 months

http://sc.gibybo​.com/blizzdates.php

edit: cherubdown you just killed a kitten

HUZAAHH!!!

I'm going to go with (what seems to be) the majority here and say this is positive news. However, I feel that if they haven't started releasing info on systems/mechanics by the end of this month I will start to get worried. The way I see it these will all have to slot into the game nicely and work quite well for the timeframes to be kept. If 1/some of the systems are found to not work properly or effectively this is what will cause delays.

Of course, the naysayers will keep naysaying and then be all 'like I told you so' if it does get delayed...

When asked specifically about the Monk's armor type, since it has been heavily discussed that it would not be normal for the Monk to be using heavy armor, Wilson responded with an echo from Diablo's past, where all characters were able to wear any kind of armor regardless of their class

So how are they gonna work armor requirements, in the other diablos armor had a lvl requirement and also a str requirement for the heavier types, and since stats are going to be auto now, we won't be able to pump str on say a wizard to use heavier armor. So will armor just have a lvl based requirement or still lvl and str but your wizard just wont be able to use plate mail until he/she reaches a lvl with req. str.
I guess it would make the most sense to just have a str requirment on them, but then theres the way WoW handles it - only have a lvl requirement and then exclude lighter classes from wearing heavier armor.. hmm, i dont think they'll do that... I couldnt find a thread for this so any thoughts and/or info would be greatly appreciated.