With Diablo III, many new systems have been put into place to keep the action in ARPG, Waypoint locations have been significantly increased to help minimize any walk time between areas and towns when you needed a quick portal. Checkpoints were also added for a player to respawn at after death. Along with these quick ways of transportation, Health Globes were also added, removing the necessity to constantly go to town to restock on potions. With these three mechanics in place, it appeared as though most of the town portal's uses were covered without any of the disadvantages they caused. However, it appears through Blizzard's constant iteration process, it seems like this still is not enough for the loot heavy, quick-pace game that is Diablo.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We've always been trying to see if we can create a better system than town portals, making waypoints the main travel back to town mechanic. But, it's looking like it's just simply more fun and a quality-of-life-nicety to be able to jump back to town from anywhere even if waypoints are all over the place. Plus it's not really that hard to avoid the few pitfalls that TPs in Diablo II had.
Also I never said you can just use them anywhere anytime as much as you want.
On a related note, it was also mentioned, by a user, about the ability to quickly join others without town portals. In Diablo II, any person joining a game could instantly join their friends in the fight by one of the players opening a portal for them. Without this system, even the closely placed waypoints still seemed to be too much of a hassle for players to go through. In Diablo III, players will still be able to group up instantly when wanting to join the fight.
Official Blizzard Quote:
There is actually a mechanic that allows you to jump from town (one-way) to any other player in the game.
The last bit of news we got included just one more piece of the puzzle that town portals have created. With their official removal, Blizzard also added a new item to the game. The scroll of wealth was an item a player could carry around in their inventory. This scroll could be used on an item and give the player gold in exchange. This helped alleviate the need for players to go back to town to dump off loot without missing out on any potential gold. However, it seems that this item was short lived.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We haven't had those for a while, although we do have another mechanic to sell items while out and about.
With all of these changes still going, it is clear to see that the Diablo III team is still hard at work perfecting the game. However, do not let this trick you into thinking that our coveted Diablo III will never be released or that it is doomed to continuous push-backs. Blizzard always continues progress on their games up until release and then after.
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