Official Blizzard Quote:
The runes have really just been renamed to allow us greater flexibility in what they do so we're not creating a weird detachment from what they're called and the effect they provide. For example what was the multi-strike rune going to do for ... say... slow time? And does that match what the name implies, or what you would assume? Probably not.
Also, personally, the newest names [...] are very much in the theme of the world and Diablo. Lethality/multistrike/power were very game-mechanic in approach, and even when they moved to viper/hydra/force they had an odd mysticism attached with them. Now they're very plainly named by interesting sounding materials. Great, very matter of fact and real in their theme, IMO.
Runes still have a general theme though, you'll know that this rune usually increases damage in some way, and this other one usually decreases cost in some way, and this one is a wild-card and usually changes how the skill works in some crazy way. But we have enough freedom now that multi-strike/hydra whatever you know it as, doesn't have this defined perception that it's always going to "multi-strike". Whatever that means to each player.
Soon enough, he replies with the current working names of some runes they're playing with at HQ:
- Crimson
- Indigo
- Obsidian
- Golden
- Alabaster
(A big thanks to Nektu for the wake-up call :P)
Obsidian = chance to open wounds or deadly strike or something with that spell?
Crimson = posibly change any spell into elemental fire damage?
Also, rune effects are not universal and will change so crimson could be either damage or dot and obsidian could be a healing effect on non-attack skills
So Golden has to be something maybe for MF/More gold on drop
...and then we go on about how Golden would just add gold/magic find or other extremely specific (and very boring) changes?
I mean come on. Added mf or gold find is the worst idea of the year on a rune. Also just changing damage into another element makes little sense at all?
Nevermind the fact that this has no versatility whatsoever. Why are we trying to put such specific effects on the runes when we JUST LEARNED of new names given to the runes for flexibility?
And If any runes do make such simple boring changes in the end, I'll be really disappointed. Runes are like, the only special interesting things they have introduced yet and that has lots of potential. But there's no potential or part of runes that I care about if they have such boring changes as "Golden make your skill give more mf/gold find and thats it. How could anyone stand for that? :/
Agreed.
On another note, does anybody know how many runes we are allowed to put in a skill?
Skill: Add deadly strike and open wound effects.
Skill: Add wide range and muliple strike effects.
Skill: Add powerfull effects.
Skill: Add long lasting effects.
Skill: Add fusions with element effects.
But if they pick better names to go consistently with the hard-materials theme it'd be cool. Maybe cooler still is an idea that just crossed my mind with these materials-names, which is that you could create runes that have two categories of names, the rune itself and the material, with different effects depending on how they're combined in specific runes you find. There would have to be only a few of each type of course because the number of combinations could get out of hand in a hurry and be a bitch to balance, but could make for some interesting effects, and it'd be cool to see a new rune and guess what the combination might do based on previous similar ones you've had.
Just some fairly simple and rough elemental-related example ideas off the top of my head (all for attacking skills):
D2's Ort rune added lightning dmg/resist so it will do lightning-ish things:
Golden Ort rune: Attack releases charged bolts when it strikes.
Obsidian Ort rune: Attack gains the additional effect of reducing target's remaining health by a percentage (think Static Field).
Alabaster Ort rune: Attack gains added lightning damage and stun.
D2's Ral rune was all about fire:
Golden Ral rune: Attack sets the ground on fire around the target when it strikes.
Obsidian Ral rune: Attack becomes hot enough to melt armor, reducing target's defense and resistances.
Alabaster Ral rune: Attack gains added fire damage and burn DoT.
Off the top of my head I just brainstormed an AoE theme for Golden, a single-target debuff/boss-killer theme for Obsidian, and a straight plus-damage-and-standard-elemental-effect theme for Alabaster. Rough ideas to illustrate the concept.