I'm beginning to have doubts. That article was a cold shower to me. It reinforced the impression Blizzard has given earlier. "...and the core of Diablo is a circle-trading game..." seems to be their position pretty consistently.
Diablo III - It's official
- Thread starter N00b
- Start date
I'm beginning to have doubts. That article was a cold shower to me. It reinforced the impression Blizzard has given earlier. "...and the core of Diablo is a circle-trading game..." seems to be their position pretty consistently.
Its funny, because i've never traded in Diablo 2 and played it probably for about 1000h.
Item trading has always been important, this isn't a new thing. The only way you could complete the high end rune words in D2 was through trading, unless you had some kind of impossible luck to get things like Zod runes more than once every 6 months. During one of the ladder seasons it took me quite a while to find someone to trade a 2 socket wand with +3 to necromancer bone spear.
If you wish to do something like that... Not everyone does. Some of us were fine with strong but not strongest gear because of the sheer insanity required to get the strongest gear.
I never ever ever ever ever saw a single Zod drop in all my years of playing D2. Not in single player, not on battle.net either. And I played D2 A LOT. Far too much in fact.
I never ever ever ever ever saw a single Zod drop in all my years of playing D2. Not in single player, not on battle.net either. And I played D2 A LOT. Far too much in fact.
As I said earlier, I put 1000 or more hours into it over the course of like four years.
I never saw a Zod or anything super duper rare drop.
If Diablo 3 slips to 2012 one small bit of consolation is that Runic announced that Torchlight 2 is a 2011 title and will cost $20 at release.
I never ever ever ever ever saw a single Zod drop in all my years of playing D2. Not in single player, not on battle.net either. And I played D2 A LOT. Far too much in fact.
On ladder you can synthesize runes. One season, I made 3 Ber runes by upping lower level runes in the cube.
I shudder to think at the amount of time it would take though. It takes 8 Ber for one Zod and I played a fair amount the season I had those runes.
No wonder item shops popped up.
Cheers
Yes, and not just on ladder, but it's possible to do that with any battle.net character. It takes an impossibly large amount of runes to transmute a Zod though, you could fill the whole stash with various runes and still not be able to fit all of them; there's just too many variants. Muling would be essential (and incredibly cumbersome to boot.)
The problem is that it takes two runes of level-1 to get a rune of a given level. To get a zod you need :
2 Cham , - or
4 Jah, - or
8 Ber, - or
16 Sur, - or
32 Lo, - or
64 Ohm, - or
128 Vex, - or
256 Gul, - or
512 Ist.
And Ist - runes are not exactly common, so it takes a staggering amount of rune hunting to get a zod.
Cheers
I'm fully expecting Blizzard to pull some cliche Blizzard bullshit and announce the date of the beta during Blizzcon. From what I've seen in the past, they tend to save all the "big" news for those conventions. I'd be surprised if it actually met a 2011 release date, which is why I've started playing the original Torchlight, lately, preparing for the sequel.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/3390853#blog
Here's a pretty interesting tidbit on class resources. One of the things that ALWAYS bothered me about the original Diablo and Torchlight, for that matter, was how melee classes relied on mana. Fury, as explained in the article, in Diablo 3 is similar to Rage in WoW, almost identical. Each class has it's own specific resource, that behaves differently from other classes, which is a nice touch. I always felt that a melee archetype relying on mana kind of broke the concept of the class.
Here's a pretty interesting tidbit on class resources. One of the things that ALWAYS bothered me about the original Diablo and Torchlight, for that matter, was how melee classes relied on mana. Fury, as explained in the article, in Diablo 3 is similar to Rage in WoW, almost identical. Each class has it's own specific resource, that behaves differently from other classes, which is a nice touch. I always felt that a melee archetype relying on mana kind of broke the concept of the class.
Specifically, mana for melee classes broke the game against mana-leeching undead mobs (particularly physically-immune such mobs, of which there were a couple in the later acts), because not only did you not have any mana for attacks, you also couldn't leech back life meaning you'd die very quickly.
On hell difficulty there's these gloam things, invisible - or nearly so anyway - while not attacking, very zippy phys immune, unleechable mobs that shoot lightning bolts every 2 seconds or so that hits for LOTS multiple times per bolt from more than a screen radius away. Awful mobs. Run into 5 of those (or rather, NOT run into them since they start shooting before you even come into view of them) and you can die before you know what the eff hit you.
I hope D3 reduces the huge reliance D2 had on leeching items too. It was hopeless trying to survive on potions alone, you NEEDED tons of health leech, and some mana too of course but not nearly as much.
On hell difficulty there's these gloam things, invisible - or nearly so anyway - while not attacking, very zippy phys immune, unleechable mobs that shoot lightning bolts every 2 seconds or so that hits for LOTS multiple times per bolt from more than a screen radius away. Awful mobs. Run into 5 of those (or rather, NOT run into them since they start shooting before you even come into view of them) and you can die before you know what the eff hit you.
I hope D3 reduces the huge reliance D2 had on leeching items too. It was hopeless trying to survive on potions alone, you NEEDED tons of health leech, and some mana too of course but not nearly as much.
This may sound like a silly comparison, but Warriors in WoW have a handful of abilities that can actually be silenced:
Battle Shout
Challenging Shout
Commanding Shout
Demoralizing Shout
Intimidating Shout
Taunt
Thunder Clap
Having played a Warrior exclusively for an eternity, this always frustrated me. One of the nicest aspects of relying on rage was it's generation depended on successful attacks and damage done to the player which, apparently, is how Fury behaves in D3. Hopefully, Blizzard won't take this into account with D3 and classify less abilities as "spells" which can be silenced. I'm really looking forward to the Barbarian and am thankful they don't rely on mana, anymore, but at the same time, I'm concerned Blizzard will almost match the rage system in every aspect.
In terms of health generation, personally, I think the health globes are a great idea. It allows less dependance on potions, at the same time keep the pace of combat fast, while at the same time doesn't force the player to stack gear with huge amounts of HP, allowing them to focus on other attributes.
Looks like the beta has begun. The forums are rife with posts regarding it, including a beta tech forum and an official introduction by one of the Blizzard reps. Now begins my incessant email checking.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/3430582/
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/3355035/
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/3430582/
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/3355035/
