Comicon was held July 21 - 24 and Blizzard was not left out. While talk of the mysterious "Book of Cain" was mentioned, there was also some new upcoming Diablo gear that will be available Soon™ through Jinx. While we know that most DiabloFans would want most if not all of the new items, which one piece is a must have for you? (Also, you'll have to continue to the forum thread to vote in the poll, this will be fixed Soon(TM)!)
- The Barbarian Belt - Inspired by the war belts of the Barbarian
- Mistress of Pain Socks - Designed to make your legs look just like the Mistress of Pain's legs.
- Demon Hunter Coat- Stalk around town in the same mysterious fashion as the Demon Hunter
- Tyrael Hoodie - Dawn the robes of Tyrael
This time around in the DiabloCast, ScyberDragon joins us as we talk about the Auction House and GamesCom. If you missed the twentieth episode, you can check it out here. Otherwise, the twenty-first episode covered the following topics:
If you've missed any previous episodes, check the archive!
Diablo 3's removal of stat points(transferring stat customization exclusively to gear), switching from skill points to skill slots, etc was a way for them to make the game easier for people who are first picking it up without removing any significant amount of meaningful customization. I say meaningful customization in the sense of actualy deep decisions to make that one can make from a role playing standpoint or from a min-maxing standpoint.
Keep in mind that even without skillpoints and stat points we still have more customization than we've ever had before.
Stats: There will be far more diverse items, and the addition of a proper crafting system dramatically increases stat customization. In addition, many passives have stat bonuses attached to them further allowing you to customize your stats. Furthermore, the addition of what, 15 tiers of gems makes stat customization even more long-term and deep.
Skills: Skill-swapping allows people to really choose which skills they like rather than making a guess at it at level 1 and hoping they're right. In addition, passives also act as your synergies did, by improving damage in meaningful ways. In addition to this, runes make such a dramatic difference in your skills - by having 5 different versions of each skill characters effectively have 100-125 skills to choose from. That is a LOT of choice.
Appearance: With more gear available, and different sets by difficulty, we have more appearance choices. Add to that they dye system and you're left with a very diverse appearance system.
And every bit of our customization now will, if done right, be MEANINGFUL. Most of Diablo 2's customization was either heavily restrictive or largely meaningless(like stat points). I think adding much more would just make the game unfriendly - and we all want the game to sell well so Blizzard has more money to put into things like the Diablo universe don't we?