DiabloFans

Quote from PantheraOnca

I'm particularly lacking on inclination towards an explanation right now, but to your points I say this: don't be so sure.

Think all you need to say is patches for the win.

Quote from PantheraOnca

Quote from mindstain

You might argue that the game continually expanded with new content or whatever, but personally I thought the game got worse with every expansion. I ended my subscription before the recent content addition to Cataclysm with no intention of renewing. The more people that played, the more Blizzard started chipping away at the things earlier players enjoyed to accommodate the droves of scrubs and nubs. Therefore, good for Blizzard = bad for the game = I get drunk and troll Diablo III forums wanting a release date before I resort to taking hostages.

See, I tend to want to write this down to plain old burn-out rather than design decisions being bad.

I know I personally burnt-out on the MMO thing maybe a month or two after cataclysm released. Nothing was wrong with the game. I'd just been playing it on and off for something like 6 years.

That is a lot of gameplay hours.

I notice a lot of people have trouble separating an emotion based on experience, and an experience based on emotion.

What I mean is, are you sure you disliked those changes so you stopped playing, or were you getting tired of playing and those changes gave you a "target" for that feeling?

I'm gonna give SW:TOR a shot, but I don't expect to play it for much longer than gaining my last level.

Been playing WoW on and off since its initial release. Whats different? Things are easier but content wise each expansion was an improvement (for its own mechanics and new features of course. Nothing will top classic wow for enjoyability because earning anything was enjoyable and a time sink).

What killed it for me was burn out, in the end it was the same thing... End game, farm rep, farm dailies, farm heroics, farm raids, and get so bored make an alt. Doing this for over six years on and off kinda killed it for me and I finally have quit for good... sadly maybe a bit to early since D3 isn't coming out quick enough.

1) new ideas + change = good for me = good for game = good for blizzard
2) end game redundancy * years = time for a new game
3) new features + expansion - mastering content very fast = equation #2

LMS is so much more competitive, put on defense/speed abilities and run around like a chicken, let everyone else kill each other then kill the last weakened guy standing... huh wait what? Okay TDM is more competitive gang up on one guy then chain the next wait.. hmm I guess there are draw backs to either one... maybe both of them have particular strategies that make them competitive yes?

Quote from Macros

Quote from PantheraOnca

Quote from mindstain

You're right, there isn't any duping in WoW. Hopefully, you are right and the "always online" method will ensure that duping never happens. I only referenced WoW because the items are "controlled" differently and a direct comparison is someone difficult to draw. At least an accurate one is. Unless you reference the "always online" aspect, which you did. I hate the argument that without a subscription fee there is no security vs. duping though.

I wouldn't argue that a subscription fee is necessary to prevent duping. I think that argument is trying to state that blizzard-side servers and character/inventory info are going to cost them (blizzard) money, and since they're a business they don't plan to "let that slide."

I think the RMAH solves that problem elegantly and completely voluntarily.

This. I'm thinking the RMAH solves the need for subscription fees to keep money rolling in to update the game and/or run maintenance/security. The RMAH will already be making them money, and hopefully enough to make it possible to give Diablo 3 constant attention (maybe not to the degree that WoW has, but still enough).

Conservative approach: (250,000 people buy the game X (50% considering using RMAH) X buy & sell one item a week on RMAH) X (potential buying selling fee of 0.50) = $125,000. I'm sure there are additional costs to blizzard such as transaction fees, 3rd party money fee (for controlling ebalance), maintenance fees etc... but really $125,000 of potential generated income a week for buying and selling one item from each user (ignoring the free item placing they are proposing). Not to mention if you cash money out they get a %fee of that as well. I'm thinking D3 will get some attention =D

Up to date I haven't been into PvP very much but I'm willing to check it out in D3. I understand the concepts, advantages, and disadvantages of either PvP setup. I think both forms of PvP should be implemented and I'm sure in time and patches a more elaborate focus on PvP will emerge to maintain player interest.

The only part that is troubling me is people are talking about blowing all their cool-downs... how many are you planning on having? The theory this game has presented is you can't have many abilities and if you choose all big ones you’re going to be useless for awhile unless you have a good gear/ability set up to maintain your resources. I may be drastically wrong here but I think people are looking into the mechanics of PvP a little too much considering only a select few have even seen how the game plays.

My two cents, thanks

Great post, it really puts a lot into perspective in such few paragraphs.

Quote from sXing

seriously if it was up to me, I would make every weapon/armor in the game bind to the user account, that way you would be able to use the shared stash for your other chars but couldnt trade with others

THAT would be the right solution, so even 3rd party sites couldn sell stuff anymore

Imagine if it was D2 and all item's were BoP... how crappy would that be (yes not the best application of D3 theory but I think it gets the point across); additionally let’s just roll on our loot too, might make it more fun. BoP/BoA is for WoW and Wow only. There would be no point to the AH, heck this game would probably been released by now if they went that route.

The only aspect that would ever get me to never buy this game is if things were BoP.

Quote from Simpy7

Shouldn't the RMAH fix the issue with 3rd party sites? I mean why go buy stuff from them when you can get it from RMAH with guarantee you won't get scammed etc. and it'll prolly be cheaper aswell

This quote sums it up. If any sites still do exist there won't be many and they probably won't do very well; of course many of the practices presented to us over the months sound great in theory, were just going to have wait and see.

Quote from Roger

I hadn't even thought about taxes. I'm from Brazil, if we get a separated server for us in LA, RMAH will starve, our tax share here is about 40% on average.

So, every NA player who wants to paly without RMAH, come to the LA servers.

I wouldn't worry about it, only a few countries actual have any online tax revenue and like I said it optional to claim (its hard to prove and unless you make A LOT of money it isn't in your personal interest to do so). I think I over analyzed the situation and another user politely informed me that my approach to claiming online revenue was off, but all I wanted to say that its very pointless to worry about claiming revenue from this.

Voted for both, I can't wait!! Mainly be focusing on gold and converting gold into cash when exchange rates are exploitable.

As for taxes not sure how it is in the States but in Canada it has to be a lot before you "SHOULD" claim, key word is SHOULD. Basically unless your raking in a comfortable living there is no point worry about claiming anything. I would also argue the point until you cash out (blizz will get a cut from that) how can you claim anything? To apply tax on income generated you also need to apply tax reductions to losses generated, so unless blizzard provides the necessary tax papers for income gained/lost in a fiscal period based on all your transactions, there is no way to determine actual income unless you cash out.

Honestly if you can make a living from this game props to you cause it sure won't be fun. Item price will vary and likely be inflated for the first year at best. Eventually everything will drop except for the particular items deemed to be rare.

Quote from socialcockroach

ake this food analogy; we have our base item, cooked chicken. Cooked chicken works great with the item barbecue sauce. Barbecue sauce works best with cooked chicken if it has the cooking modifier "grilled" or "fried." If the cooking modifier is "boiled," barbecue sauce can still be used, but it just isn't as good. Perhaps it should be used with soup instead.

Well stated, best explanation I've read all day.

Quote from Dolaiim

I have some thoughts.

Sixth, and finally, it's pretty undeniable that by preventing core stat/skill manipulation, Blizzard is limiting extreme min-maxing. This is good for the game. Why? Because base skill manipulation is very complicated as a practice. While this suits the hardcore gamer, it makes the game as a whole suffer, because everyone who doesn't like core skill number crunching will feel compelled to copycat the extreme min-max builds in order to be viable. Remove that facility, and all gamers will find their own genius and create a much wider variety of viable builds.

All those observations aside, I do sympathize with people who find the lack of core stat/skill options upsetting.

Overall very well put, I agree with your view points, I think the only part to add to the final comment is people may focus on particular stat boosting from their equipment perform their number crunching on certain caps and returning values, once determined of course.

As always, great post.

I'm very happy with the skill point changes, in d2 it was always the same, get prerequisite, put points in this ability for twenty levels, and now put my next twenty levels in my other ability. Most of the time if felt like filler, I feel this a a nice fresh approach.

With the "auto stat distribution" at level up I think this is a chance you might actually feel some power increase at each level; unlike D2 I normally didn't notice much difference unless I finally got the gear upgrade.

I'm very happy with the new theoretical rune approach. Current version = yay I'm uber in my first week... now what? The new approach will allow for more longevity and an opportunity to try some of the other rune abilities I would normally not try. People also seem to be unsettled at the idea that this will be a waste of a rune, but it could enhance one of your other abilities... maybe not your focused skills but I don't think any rune will be a waste.

This would likely be great for early to mid game, end game may be a pain with the greyed out feature but if you actually find the proper abilities and stats you want it will be that much more fulfilling, i.e. if you found a zod every 2 hours of game playing in d2 = flooded market and everyone would be bored in a month. I remember the first time I found a Ber for the first time, I was buzzing for days.

I can understand people's frustration on the unknown rune type, the only two cents I could offer would be keep the rune colors visible but make the "more sought after" runes less likely to drop to compensate. I'm also loving the random stats, adds more flavor for the trade community.