DiabloFans

Quote from Non_Inertial_Frame

I think he meant currently in the beta.

Well, yeah. Sorry, just nice to know that the item page is not the end-all, be-all and that there will be some discovery to be had in game.

Item data we've exposed is by and large placeholder, and we're actually in the process of pulling it down due to a lot of reactions just like this. We thought it'd be cool to show some pre-release items in very temporary states, but it's just a matter of fact that people are going to take it at face value. Not that you or anyone else isn't able to discuss the particulars without assuming it's final content, we don't believe that to be true, but in general we don't think the discourse is healthy when it's going to be largely based on placeholder data.

To comment on your specific points though, the vast majority of affixes are simply not implemented in-game, and as the website directly queries game data, it can't pull something that isn't implemented. I'd say affixes are though one area where we want to do as much as possible by game release, but they are directly limited by when we want to finally get the game out the door. At some point feature creep has to stop, and we have to begin testing what should be (game mechanic-wise) a final product.

As you stated though a lot of the crazier affixes did not ship with Diablo II, but were added later. I don't believe that's because the designers didn't have those ideas, but they simply make more sense to expand and broaden the game featureset post-ship. You could argue that it's something that should be baked into the core experience, that Diablo III should be mechanically more complex than Diablo II at release, and the fact of that matter is that it is substantially more complex than Diablo II was at launch.

Bottom line we want as many affixes as we can get for launch, but with runestones, passives, and the itemization we're shooting for, we're already launching a game with far more diverse build potential than Diablo II.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27832813210&pageNo=1&sid=3000#7

"The vast majority of affixes are simply not implemented in-game"? Interesting.

Quote from Ner1Co

and for those that wanted to see a black/white orb... (Sixen idea)

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2582/u0e.mp4
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/4193/j2d.mp4

And that's exactly why I don't want to see a black orb - becomes much harder to see how much you have left. If I have to stop and squint in the game, that's not a good thing.

Quote from FingolfinGR

Quote from lMarcusl

That's what I'm afraid of though. These 'incentives' of theirs somewhat anger me. 'You are supposed to be killing monsters not looking at the menu screens so we made the menu ugly'...'you are supposed to be fighting and completing quests not listening to lore/dialogue/gossip so we make dialogue continue on the run while you are killing stuff'...I won't even go to automatic skill/stat allocation so you don't have to spend time looking at those either... Hm, looks like I just went there anyway. Point is, I'd rather they dedicate sufficient time and effort to all of this instead of minimizing aspects of the game to make room for MOAR combat. Some people just like to take the game nice and slow, enjoy the art and atmosphere of it, soak in some lore and stuff and not just run around and loot. Though it is the core aspect of the game, it's not just that which makes Diablo great. Other ARPGS kill and loot just like Diablo does...but Diablo always was something more as well. I hope they don't streamline it too much.

Story telling and the overall "feel" of the game have been enhanced. Blizzard took one of the best developers out there for Quests and Lore (has worked in the original Fallout and Vampire: Bloodlines on that department).

Gameplay also seems solid. Combat has become a little more tactical and the new skill system offers variety. Runestones add even more depth to it.

I just won't worry about it. All the things I heared and read make me pretty convinced things will turn out to be great.

I didn't know that. Story elements in both of those games were freaking fantastic.

I'm kind of hoping they slip in something similar to what Titan Quest did with higher difficulty levels - where in certain portions of some acts, there would be a tiny new area available with a new boss monster that you couldn't get into in an earlier difficulty level. Just a little bonus for those playing harder difficulty levels.

Since Inferno is supposed to be a plateau, you could slip in these extra bosses in various places without messing up the plateau, but give players another reason to run through ALL the content in Inferno - to see if they can get the bosses they couldn't get in Normal/Nightmare/Hell.

Path of Exile beta key would be key.

So, Bastion is an ARPG available on XBox Live (and soon coming to PC). It's a fantastic little game, with a fascinating storytelling aspect to it - there's a narrator that chimes in as you do various things in game. But the part that interests me compared to D3 is the "skill" system.

In Bastion, as you progress in game, you gain new weapons which do different types of attack. A hammer that has a medium melee range and does a lot of damage. A short range quick blade that can also be thrown. A flamethrower. Dueling pistols. And so on. By the end there are 10 available weapons, but only two slots available to use for them. You can swap in and out between sections (and sometimes during a section of gameplay). This seems a close parallel to how D3's skills will work, except D3 will have a lot more.

But wait, there's more. Each weapon can be upgraded 5 times by finding a special upgrade piece. And when you upgrade, you can choose between column A and column B for each weapon. So for the flamethrower, for example, upgrade 1 might be a choice between spreading the width of the cone and doing more damage. Upgrade 2 might be between a crit upgrade and getting damage reduction while spraying flame. Feels like a limited version of what runes will do.

And there are also passive skills in Bastion (called spirits) where 1 slot opens up per level and you have around 20 to choose from. You can swap out passives for other passives throughout the game.

So my point is that I think Bastion besides being a very good game in its own right, would be a good precursor for someone to play if they wanted to get a feel for how the very basics of a D3-like skill system will work out. I love being able to swap out skills in Bastion. It creates a lot of flexibility. And it creates a replayability factor that I haven't seen anyone mention. Oftentimes, after playing a part with 2 weapons, I think to myself, "I wonder how that would have played with two different ones." I can see myself in D3 going back to play certain sections with different skills just to see how it would have played differently.

Anyway, Bastion is like $14.99 on XBox Live and totally worth the cash if you need something to play while we wait the long days until the beta releases.