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Diablo III - Launching May 15


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Well

That is going to be a strange "MP" game...

 

Guild Wars 2 is at least double...sacred was bigger as well...

 

I can deal with anything like playing on line, and however the game is set up...but 4 players on only at once?

 

:blink:

 

gogo

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Well

That is going to be a strange "MP" game...

 

Guild Wars 2 is at least double...sacred was bigger as well...

 

I can deal with anything like playing on line, and however the game is set up...but 4 players on only at once?

 

:blink:

 

gogo

 

maybe they change it with the first addon... Release ~ 20184rofl.gif4rofl.gif4rofl.gif4rofl.gif4rofl.gif

drunkards.gifdrunkards.gifdrunkards.gifdrunkards.gifdrunkards.gif

 

 

 

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I am always a bit at a dilemma with these online roleplay games. I do CRPGs mainly with kids at bad weather. But at bad weather our radio link is very very bad because of swinging antenna. Anyone knowing a nice RPG in LAN playing in an age class starting from 10 years? Currently mainly playing an historical trade simulation with kids: Patrizier.

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Well

That is going to be a strange "MP" game...

 

Guild Wars 2 is at least double...sacred was bigger as well...

 

I can deal with anything like playing on line, and however the game is set up...but 4 players on only at once?

 

:blink:

 

gogo

 

maybe they change it with the first addon... Release ~ 20184rofl.gif4rofl.gif4rofl.gif4rofl.gif4rofl.gif

drunkards.gifdrunkards.gifdrunkards.gifdrunkards.gifdrunkards.gif

 

 

 

 

heh, that'd be great, it's kind of the only thing about Diablo 3 I'm thinking is weak sauce

 

 

I am always a bit at a dilemma with these online roleplay games. I do CRPGs mainly with kids at bad weather. But at bad weather our radio link is very very bad because of swinging antenna. Anyone knowing a nice RPG in LAN playing in an age class starting from 10 years? Currently mainly playing an historical trade simulation with kids: Patrizier.

 

Chattius, role playing in these kinds of games is actually very minimal, almost exactly like Sacred 2... all about builds and game mechanics...just like the sacred series!

 

I don't think it's as much sandbox as sacred, however, sacred has it so that equipment comes quick, sets specially, easy to create with good building blocks.

 

:)

 

gogo

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lol cow_white.gifcow_white.gifcow_white.gifcow_white.gifcow_white.gif

 

http://daeity.blogsp...ayer-limit.html

 

The 4 Player "Limit"

POSTED BY DAEITY ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012 15 COMMENTSIf you weren't already aware, there's been a bug in the Diablo beta that has been around for a long time now that makes it possible for a 5th player to join a party.

 

Incgamers recently made a post about it that shows the actual bug in action. There's a direct link to the video here and you can see it happen immediately at the 2:03:22 mark.

 

I wanted to point out something interesting about this "bug" that most players might not have noticed or understood about video game logic.

 

blxHs.jpgDid you notice that there's a 5th invisible portrait window already in the game? If this were a bug, why are there logical in-game systems in place to support the addition of a 5th player to the party? Not only that, but you can interact with this portrait window and see player information.

 

If this were truly a bug, and the game was not designed for 4+ player parties, none of this would be possible.

 

A fifth person could join the game, but there shouldn't be a fifth portrait window prepared for this user and there shouldn't be other logical systems in place to support more than 4 players. What this means is that the interface was designed for supporting a minimum of 5 players. And, I say "minimum" because there's still plenty of space (and small scaling of player portraits) on the left-hand side to support more than 5 "invisible portrait boxes". :)

 

This isn't a "5th player bug".. it's a bug in their player number restriction system, and players are able to bypass it to get more players (which are actually supported by the game.) Much like the public channels (which have been probably in the game for over a year now), it's really just an on/off switch that Blizzard controls. The game is designed to support more than 4 players, but Blizzard has it switched off for some reason.

 

It could be because of console limitations or their design plans for co-op, perhaps they were originally planning on 5 for the current game or as part of the future Diablo 3 X1 expansion (group increases in size with the introduction of new classes), or maybe the developers had problems scaling the monsters and loot so it was easier just to make it 4 players. I think that a lot of players believe the latter.. that it was for scaling purposes.

 

So, something occurred to me. What if the game didn't just support a 5th player portrait window, but also other in-game systems already.. like scaling?

 

Guess what? It does.

 

When a fifth player joins the party, you will actually receive an alert ("A new ally has joined, but the minions of Hell grow stronger") and the monsters properly scale/grow in power with the addition of a fifth player. (There are also other windows/UIs beyond the party menu that demonstrate the in-game logic for supporting 5+ total players.)

 

So, adding a 5th player is not a bug. The only bug is that players can bypass the security lockout that prevents the 5th player from joining.

 

But, it's interesting to know that the game was designed to support a minimum of 5 players, the current game fully supports it, and monsters will scale when the 5th player joins.

 

This begs the question; why is there a 4 player limit? It's not due to scaling issues, it's definitely not an infrastructure or processing problem, the game was DESIGNED to support more than 4 players, it's not for testing purposes, and it's not revenue driven (ie, Blizzard wouldn't create a paid service that "upgrades" the player limit.) Blizzard specifically picked 4 for some reason, even though the game (and gameplay) supports 5 and more. They apparently don't plan on unlocking this (since it's "a bug") for a future Expansion Pack.. so why did they select 4?

 

Although highly unlikely (according to Blizzard), if something in the future is planned, perhaps the 5+ party isn't for "normal parties" but rather a support mechanism for special dungeons (raids) or large scale PVP combat teams.

 

And here's something else to think about: If this bug can be reproduced in the retail (which players will probably find a way), what kind of exploitation potential will there be for 5 player Inferno parties where the monsters and their LOOT DROPS scale in power or rarity. :)

 

Posted by Daeity at 6:55 AM icon18_email.gif

Edited by Chrona
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The game wasn't designed to 4 players as such. I'm sure they have played around with both 5, 8 or 10 players at some point, which is probably why the UI and scaling supports it - also some NPC's might show up on those unitframes in the game. Who knows.

 

In any case their 'reason' for 4 player limit is that things start to get messy with more than 4 people casting spells and attacking at the same screen at once - too much "lightning show" to actually see what is happening on screen, in Blizzards opinion anyway.

It's an arbitrary subjective limit which might as well have been 3, 5 or 8 based on 'what they like'. Not a technical limit - if Blizzard is to be believed (but since the game can apparently handle 5 players, it seems like they aren't lying about).

 

To be fair though, how often did people actually have 8 players together in D2? My experience is that either 1) 8 people rushed to a boss in a minute, killed it and left or 2) 8 players in the game, but everyone doing their own thing far from each other.

Likewise, I rarely saw 16 people running together in Sacred 2. Mostly people slit up in different areas. Granted, I played 99% solo in Sacred 2, so I wont deny that it might have happened a lot :)

 

In any case 4 feels quite low, and it feels a bit weird that you cant even have one of each class in a game.

Since it's a design decision based on 'what feels right' its certainly possible they would change it in an expansion.

Edited by Shadout
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Diablo 3Will Only Support 4-Player Co-op And Won't Have In-game Voice Chat -- CommunityManager Bashiok Explains Why

 

http://www.g4tv.com/...k-explains-why/

 

 

Diablo 3Launching Between April and June

 

http://pc.gamespy.co.../1218390p1.html

 

 

Diablo 3 release date set for Spring

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/02/10/diablo-3-release-date-set-for-spring/

 

 

 

Edited by Chrona
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http://us.battle.net...e-2_9_2012#blog

 

You Will Die. We Promise.

by Kaivax Feb 9, 2012 6:00 PM PST607At BlizzCon 2011, the Diablo III Gameplay panel included this video from 3D Artist Kevin K. Griffith, Environment Artist Nate Bowden, Senior Artist Nick Eberle, and 3D Artist Richie Marella. In the video, they try to answer the question: "How hard is this game going to be in Nightmare difficulty (and above)?"

 

Check out their answers, accompanied by exclusive gameplay footage, right here:

 

 

 

 

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Been junking up this morning on D3 Beta videos put up by the players. The Demon Hunter is just looking superb. This video here

 

 

Does she actually have amazing ranged AND Area of Effect?

 

:)

 

gogo

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Skill and Rune Changes

 

 

http://us.battle.net...-2_18_2012#blog

 

by Jay Wilson Feb 18, 2012 6:28 PM PST
SHRWOTVJNZ4V1329355082248.jpg

Last August we held a Diablo III press tour, and it was with a small group of fansites that I first revealed significant changes were still in store for the rune system. Since then, we've been hard at work on the rune and skill systems, and today we'd like to share details on the changes you'll see in Beta patch 13. We're confident that these changes will make Diablo III a better game, and to help illustrate why, I'll start with a high-level explanation of our goals for these systems as well as the feedback we were responding to in making these changes.

 

I'll start with the skill system. Our high-level goal with this system has always been to give players a great degree of power to customize their characters. We believe we accomplished that early on by abolishing skill trees and moving toward an open-ended system where skills, rune variants, and passives are chosen at-will by the player in a flexible customization system.

 

That goal and the system have been great successes, but the amount of customization we have available doesn't mean anything if it's not useful in combat situations. Combat depth is another one of our goals; Diablo III is designed to be a modern action game, built on the mantra of "easy to learn, difficult to master." What that means for the player is picking a set of skills and abilities that work together, and then executing them in ways that lead to success: the wholesale slaughter of the demonic invasion. With that combat-depth goal in mind, we've been internally categorizing the skills since the inception of the system. Many of you could probably identify what these categories were if we asked, and some players have even mapped out what they are fairly accurately.

 

For every class we essentially created three common types of abilities, and then a handful of class-specific ability types. All classes have skills that fit into categories we call Primary Attack, Secondary Attack, and Defensive. Primary Attack skills are frequently used abilities that typically generate resources. Secondary Attacks are more powerful attacks that are limited in use through resource cost or cooldown. Defensive abilities are used to escape or control the flow of combat. Beyond that, classes have unique categories, like armor spells for the wizard or mantras for the monk. We used this methodology to help us design the classes and their skills, but we weren't exposing this to the player despite the fact that these categories would give the player, like they did our own team, a better understanding of how the classes work.

 

One of our other goals is to ensure our game controls and interfaces are easy to use so that players spend their time trying to master game mechanics rather than fighting an interface. Giving players complete freedom to choose "anything" with no direction as to how our systems are intended to work was a failure in our design. There was also a detached relationship between the bottom-bar UI and the skill system. We have six skill slots, and six spots to put skills, but the two interfaces didn't really interact, and stocking abilities in your interface felt awkward.

 

To fix these issues, we focused on two core changes: (1) exposing the skill design intent by categorizing the skills and (2) linking skill selection directly to the bottom-bar UI to make assigning skills a clearer process. When viewing the skill screen, you'll be presented with your six skill selection slots; each of these correspond directly to your bottom bar, and each will provide a specific list of skills from which to choose. By providing a clear-cut guide on how to best maximize your build potential, we hope to cover that "easy to learn" half of the mantra.

 

 

 

LICWFYW7RKFJ1329356006243.jpg

(A Nightmare-level monk choosing skills and runes from the specified categories)

 

 

You may already be fuming because you're a "difficult to master" type of person, but before you run to the forums, we have you covered. In the Gameplay options, we've added an 'Elective Mode' for the skill system. With this checkbox ticked you'll be able to place any skill in any skill slot, as freely as you could before. The Elective Mode option is available at any time with no requirements or need to unlock it. We hope the new, more guided interface will give you an in-game heads up as to the intent of each skill -- and maybe even be the way you play through the game in Normal -- but if you eventually have a build that simply can't be accomplished the way we've laid things out, you're free to pop on Elective Mode and take the skills you want.

 

 

BHZB2TGDFZI21329356013447.jpg

(This screenshot depicts an 'Elective Mode' build made entirely of Primary and Secondary skills. Note that the skill slot names do not accurately reflect from which category a skill is selected in Elective Mode.)

 

 

While the skill system is largely unchanged save for some UI improvements and the helpful new (but optional) skill categories, we've been working to make some rather intense changes to the runestone system. Before we get too far, it's probably best to clarify our terms: First, they're now called skill runes, and they're called skill runes because they're no longer a physical item, but built directly into the skill system. Let's back up, though, and go through some of the problems we were encountering and how this final design is intended to resolve those issues.

 

Our goal with the rune system has always been to provide additional character customization by allowing players to augment or completely alter their skills in new and significant ways. Originally, we tied this in to the itemization system because it felt like a good fit, as Diablo is all about the item drops. But with around 120 base skills, that meant there were around 600 rune variants; on top of that, each variant had five quality levels each, meaning ultimately there would be something like 3,000 different runes in the game… and we knew we were heading toward a problem.

 

Diablo is certainly about the items, but later in the game, having to juggle all of those various runes was not only un-fun, it was a serious and tedious inventory problem. We went through a number of different iterations, some of which we fully implemented and tested, to try to solve these fundamental issues while still keeping the customization intact. Ultimately we developed, implemented, and have been playing and testing a new system which we're confident hits all of the desired mechanics and solves all of the related issues – and that's what I'm going to talk about today and what you'll see in Beta patch 13.

 

 

 

9X42W6CEOJF61329356021057.jpg

(A mid-20's demon hunter choosing a skill and its rune variant)

 

 

With the new skill rune system, you'll be unlocking new skills as you level up just like you always have… but in addition you'll also be unlocking skill runes. Now, when you open the skill window, you'll choose which skills you want in which slots, the skill rune variants you'd like, and your passives. All of this is done directly through the UI, and all of the options from the skill, skill rune, and passive systems are unlocked through character leveling progression, leading to a cleaner overall integration of these systems. Just as we set different skills to unlock at specific levels, skill rune choices unlock at different levels as well.

 

Another thing we strive for in our games is "concentrated coolness," and while rune quality levels made sense when we were attempting to itemize them throughout the game, they make far less sense as runes are unlocked through the UI. We didn't want to get back into a situation where you're clicking a button to pump points into skills. It's far more concentrated (and cool) when your rune choices have a single and powerful benefit to your skill choice. The new skill rune system does not have ranks, and we've instead made each around the equivalent to what the rank 4 or 5 rune was previously. One click, you make your rune choice, and you get an explosive benefit to that skill. That feels a lot cooler.

 

Runes have been by far the biggest design hurdle we've had in the game, and as you know we've been continually iterating on them. We fully expect that some of you will be disappointed that runes won't be part of the itemization system. Internally, it took us a long time to let go of that notion too and stop trying to force them into being items, and instead embrace the intent of the system. Integrating runes with the skill system directly gave us a bunch of great benefits, and even without runes we're launching with more item types than Diablo II had. We knew we were making the right choice by letting go of runes as items and focusing on the core objective of the system: to customize your skills in awesome ways.

 

 

Before I wrap up, I did want to cover that one of the added benefits of the new system is that you'll be unlocking something every level all the way up to the level cap (60). Now, with each level you'll unlock at least one new skill or rune, and in most cases you'll be unlocking three or four. The most immediately exciting part of that system is that skill runes begin unlocking at level 6, which means that players in the beta test will finally be able to play around with some rune variants.

 

 

 

33W72B96T0ZZ1329356028663.jpg

(The above image depicts a potential level 13 witch doctor build in beta with skill rune choices)

 

 

Phew. Well, there you have it -- the new skill and rune systems! We strongly believe that these changes are going to make for a better Diablo III, and we're looking forward to you trying it out in patch 13, which should be live any minute now (if it isn't already). As always, we'd love to hear your feedback on your experiences with these changes. To help center the conversation on these changes to a single location, we're going to lock comments on this blog and encourage you to post in a thread we're specifically making to discuss this: Skill and Rune Changes Discussion.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Jay Wilson is Game Director for Diablo III and won first place in the team's chili cook-off competition. Recipe available upon request.

 

 

http://daeity.blogspot.com/

 

And there it is..

 

Just went live less than 10 minutes ago. Diablo 3 Skill and Rune Changes by Jay Wilson (comments are disabled on their blog post by the way.)

 

Here are the important parts:

 

 

First, they're now called skill runes, and they're called skill runes because they're no longer a physical item, but built directly into the skill system.

With the new skill rune system, you'll be unlocking new skills as you level up just like you always have… but in addition you'll also be unlocking skill runes.

Before I wrap up, I did want to cover that one of the added benefits of the new system is that you'll be unlocking something every level all the way up to the level cap (60).

Just as we set different skills to unlock at specific levels, skill rune choices unlock at different levels as well.

Here's a good part about how they were trying to force the skills into items that could be sold on the RMAH. When you're trying to be creative, you shouldn't be "forcing" anything..

We fully expect that some of you will be disappointed that runes won't be part of the itemization system. Internally, it took us a long time to let go of that notion too and stop trying to force them into being items, and instead embrace the intent of the system. Integrating runes with the skill system directly gave us a bunch of great benefits, and even without runes we're launching with more item types than Diablo II had.

My past predictions were just based on public information and potential challenges to itemizing runes. However, there was apparently an internal leak that also appears to be confirmed due to some of the other, very specific, information just announced.

 

That Blizzard Leak

 

Disargeria, from the SomethingAwful forums, had a lot to say on the subject of runes yesterday, claiming that it was inside information from within Blizzard.

 

I do know for a fact that there are a lot of Blizzard employees with registered accounts on SA. I see them visit my blog all the time.

 

This leaked information by Disargeria and "Lammy!" ended up on Reddit and other sites, so Disargeria eventually went back and deleted all of his posts, and asked others to delete their quotes.. so, some members simply decided to repost them even more.

 

Here's what they had to say yesterday:

Runes are no longer items, but are now inherently tied into the skill system. You pick your skill, then your accompanying rune to go with it. Rank 1 runes start unlocking as of level 6 (!!)

Skills are now going to be further divided into categories (defensive, technique, etc.) Initially, unless you specifically tell the game what you want, it's going to lock you into a recommended 'type' of skill for each slot. Presumably this is to keep noobies from making unviable builds, but allows you to do whatever you want once you're comfy with doing so.

My misinterpretation, apparently there are no more "ranks", they've all been normalized to around what rank 4 or 5 used to be. We unlock individual runes as we level. We'll get something new every level.

This leaves open the potential to boost the rune effects through gear. Previously the rune power was tied to the item, but if it's tied to the character, they can bring in stats on items that boost the rune effects.

They've set an internal release date.

I think the release date has an internal release date, too.

I'm surprised he didn't mention the Bola Shot change. DH feel weak at the beginning and one of the first things they did in the recent cycle was change Bola to round up 3 targets and pull them together before exploding. It does the 100% weapon damage to all three targets, making it a lot less frustrating to use. This also sets targets up to be more susceptible to other Area of Effect like grenades and Chakram and gives the DH some needed control.

It's just the way he references +rune effects. I made that up, it wasn't leaked to me. He also isn't sure if you can opt out of it. Everything he posted is included in this thread, and there is more information to go that hasn't been leaked that for some reason he doesn't know about.

They're not moving back to skill trees, no. They're... making a change for them in normal difficulty. And it's well-intentioned but will upset a lot of people until they realize everyone graduates from normal mode.

Runes are now tied to the skills themselves, and you'll "learn" these runes as you level up. Like, at level 20 you learn the alabaster rune for Crippling Wave. I don't know how easy it is to change, but I'm guessing you can change the runes at the alter.

I think it's like, left click has to be a spammable offensive attack or rage builder or something, 2 has to be offensive, 4 is utility, something like that. And after you beat normal that goes away. Maybe even before normal, they might've changed it to something you can opt out of.

Would you guys mind unquoting me please?

 

Uh, and by lies I was referring to the bola shot

Reddit linked to this thread.

 

I'm not trolling, the problem is it's true and I don't want to be connected to it.

Most importantly, this is a very good confirmation now that this information did indeed come from a Blizzard employee and that it's well known internally that there is a Diablo 3 Release Date set.

 

And, they had a release date a mere week after the Q4 2011 call. Given other evidence, it appears that they even had this release date planned before the Shareholders Meeting (Bashiok had said it was discussed during that week, and it was delayed to Q2.)

 

In Other News..

 

Apparently, the RMAH Currency Cap is lower for accounts without Authenticators attached. Meaning that Blizzard will be "strongly motivating" many users to buy the authenticator. Make sure you familiarize yourself with this older post which confirms that Authenticators really do generate revenue for Blizzard.

 

And it appears that another prediction also came true. Blizzard has added a ton of new item affixes. :)

New item affixes have been added!

 

Chance on hit to:

Fear

Stun

Freeze

Immobilize

Chill

Blind

Slow

Knockback

And they have also made some changes to affixes to further increase the variety of randomly generated items:

The following affixes now have a chance to appear twice when crafting items:

 

Min damage

Max damage

All Elemental damage types

Expect more. :)

 

Now, I just need to test Public Chat when I get a chance so see if it's truly trade friendly (ie, it allows item linking.)

Edited by Chrona
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http://www.gamebandi...s-likely-34595/

 

 

Diablo 3: Blizzard Say Early April is Likely

Activision Blizzard has just announced that Diablo 3 won't be coming before April. It said that it will not be releasing anything from Blizzard Entertainment during the first quarter of the year. The second quarter begins on April 1, 2012, which may not be that far removed from Blizzard's announced release window last year, which was "early 2012". Blizzard has previously revealed that it will be releasing two games from Blizzard Entertainment this year. Last November, the company reiterated the same goals but specified that the two game releases will be the "minimum".

 

Activision is planning to release a new offering from the Call of Duty franchise this year. It also aims to expand its Elite online service and to launch a new game called Skylander Giants. Activision is also scheduled to release the Content Collection for Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 3, which puts together all released content for use on the Xbox 360 by Elite premium members.

 

Activision Blizzard's head, Bobby Kotick reminds everyone that the company has been behind some really great games. Blizzard's World of Warcraft remains the worldwide leader in paid MMORPG. MW3 reached number one in sales. Also, Skylanders Spyro's Adventure was hailed as the publisher's biggest new intellectual property (IP) launch. It also looks as if it is going to be a great franchise. Meanwhile, Elite is doing great and growing fast as a provider of premium online services.

 

 

 

 

Activision Publishing as a whole has been doing really well as a top game publisher for both consoles and handheld devices in both the US and Europe. This was apparent during last year's fourth quarter. It was the top publisher for console and handheld in the US for the whole year. By January 31, 2012, Elite has attracted 7 million registrants with 1.5 million of them subscribed to a paid annual membership.

 

In short, things are looking great for Activision but gamers may have to wait for the year's second quarter to get hold of Diablo 3.

 

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I like the way the game is looking after watching that Demon Hunter video gogo posted above.

I also like the way the devs are concentrating on making the UI user friendly.

I have been pretty much neglecting D3 because I have been playing the beta of Path of Exile and I like what I see in that game.

 

However now it will be a race between these two games for me to see which one releases the final version first.

PoE has two major advantages at this stage...free to play so no DRM and a commitment that any payable content will be cosmetic only.

 

Hopefully the guys over at D3 will not wreck D3 with some sort of crippling DRM and a cash shop to buy items that will give you a game advantage. :dry:

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Their DRM will be the "online only" requirement. Which I guess is as strict as DRM can be.

For those people who mostly dislike DRM because of the malware it often installs on your PC, then this is better of course. Not so nice for those without a reliable internet connection however.

 

Blizzard quote of the day:

Just about everything is set as it will be at release.

The release really does seem close now.

 

I won myself a D3 beta key a few days ago and tried out the Demon Hunter (among others), and it is certainly fun to play. I have read a lot of negative impressions about the DH so I was positively surprised.

It starts out very weak compared to Wizard (it sounds like all classes start weak compared to that one...), but it gets some nice skills fast, and even the ones which seem weak got potential. Everything in the beta dies so fast that most skills doesn't even have time to work, which makes them harder to judge - for example the Demon Hunter got a "Bola Shot", which explode on a target after 1 second. But since most mobs die in 1 sec, it feels ineffective :D

Obviously that will change when you level up further.

Edited by Shadout
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Diablo III In-Development -- Class Skills -> http://us.battle.net...-2_24_2012#blog

 

 

 

Public Chat But Not Trade Chat

 

A couple weeks ago, users were celebrating an awesome winfor getting Blizzard to finally implement public chat in the game. (Though manybelieve Bashiok's claim that it was just a mistake.) Whatever the case may be,it's considered a win. "Blizzard listened to us! We get public chat! Now I cantrade items with other players and I don't have to worry about using theRMAH!"

 

Is this really the case though? What if it's just simplePublic Chat, but not intended for Trade Chat? What if trading between playerswill actually be discouraged or difficult?

 

If I were Blizzard and I wanted to encourage as much use ofthe RMAH as possible, I would restrict loot linking or make trading aschallenging as possible (for example, poor trading security.) Using a"Trade Chat" system outside of the game (ie, in the lobby room),without the ability to link items, is a great way to do it. And, I would alsomake it so that players couldn't create public games with customized titles(like how trading could be done in D2).

 

The average player will always travel the soft path. Ifthere are two services available, but one has accessibility or functionalissues, they'll go with the easier one. If character-to-character trading isavailable (and secure), but public chat is limited so that it doesn't supportloot linking or gear sharing, it's not a very good service. If public chat hasloot linking, but item trading is insecure, it's not a very good service. Inboth cases it's "bad service" planned in advanced to encouragecustomers to use a better service.

 

So, which is the better service.. player-to-player tradingor the Auction House?

 

We really don't know anything about the future Trade Chatfeatures, though. It could go either way. Bashiok had promised details in thenear future, so it remains to be seen what Blizzard has in mind. If the chat ortrading features are still limited by retail, then we have our answer. If not,then Blizzard will act accordingly to their customer's needs.

 

Nothing is set in stone at this point. In it's currentdisappointing state, it requires more forum outrage and complaining, andhopefully Blizzard will eventually implement chat the way players want. Ifthey, however, are looking for every little way to squeeze as much use out ofthe RMAH as possible, then don't expect loot linking or any other kind of tradingmechanisms (like customized public games) in the initial retail version.Besides, if Blizzard won't implement these changes, someone else will alwaysfind a way, like that alternative "trade chat" website.

 

Just as an added note, too, Bashiok happened to make acomment about the Chat system recently as well. Basically, it's not to expectany changes before release. So, this is something I might re-examine 6 monthsafter release (as well how or if players can even engage in some form of publictrading without an external website service). But atleast you can understandsome of the motivations behind keeping the chat system the way it is. Andjudging by the SC2 Chat System, I'm not really expecting Blizzard to make anysignificant changes.

 

I hope that D3XCHANGE.COM webpage was still being worked onthough. :)

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This is interesting. Just a few days ago, I was actually thinking to seeing if if should make a new section for our clan and darkmatters community to post item trades on, just so that they don`t have to use the auction house if they don`t want to

 

:)

 

gogo

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I don't mind the changes made to skills/runes, but the UI for it is an abomination (unwieldy would be the polite term), you need to use far too many clicks to choose what skill you want to go into what slot (with Elective mode clicked) as you need to click through the various skill groupings, etc.

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