Just thought that I would clarify that they will be using a much different form of Runes, such that each Active Skill (Passive Skills are Traits in a different tree with... currently, since it was 1 every other level previously... 1 point earned every 3 levels, up to 20, barring quest rewards) has one exchangeable Rune Slot. While they intend to have one rune maintain the same look as the original skill, albeit with either power increasing or cost-efficiency changing effect, the remaining rune effects will often have a more noticeable effect. There will be five runes total to modify each skill with.

A particular example being...

Wizard spell Hydra: While the name doesn't change(as far as we know), it's for the effect...
-Lightning Hydra: lightning element of course, but also can not miss.
-Poison/Acid Hydra: reminiscent of the acid spitters of Diablo 1, in that they leave a pool of poison/acid upon impact.
-Arcane Hydra: fires miniature Arcane Orbs that do area-of-effect damage upon impact.
...There was also a Cold Hydra, and a Fire Hydra that breathed short-term firewalls, but with only five runes, and at least one retaining the original design, I suspect that one of those two were the axed idea.


Note that many, or perhaps most, spells/abilities will not have the elemental cornucopia that Hydra seems to, but they did apparently design a different effect(and accompanying different visual) for the different runes for each skill.


So, er... yeah. There is quite a bit more that could be said, but I'll leave it there for now. I've generally kept up to date on the information for the game.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSc0agGNJkw

do want

 

Not completely impressed with how it looks.

Hope the story's decent.

 

Maybe so. But if it's even half as addicting as D2, then people are going to be selling their families for items pretty damn quick.

 

Necro, but it's relevant.

News!

To summarize, seem that Blizzard is getting into the real money trading business. You'll be able to utilize the in game auction house to not only sell your unwanted items and gold for more gold, but real money. They take a percentage but you get everything else.

Thoughts?

Edit: Scroll up to read the article.

 

Oh for fuck's sake. It's a cool idea in theory, but do you know what this means?

Instead of people just being straight up addicted to the game... some players are going to try and make a living off of it now too

 

Everyone will be looking to sell for money and buy using gold. It'll be interesting to see how it works out.
As for the other changes, I don't like the lack of customization, no stats or skills, switch skills whenever you want, the only thing that can make your character unique is the runes.

 

Blizzard continue to show that post WoW they have no idea what they are truly doing.

Don't get me wrong, SC2 was pretty damn good, but it still has problems that should have been changed.

I sort of view Blizzard as some sort of abusive spouse that beats (makes annoying decisions like silly DRM, No LAN in SC2, RMT schme) their wife, (customers) who then has to deal with the abuse (play the game anyway because they like the franchise) while Blizzard goes out and gets drunk with their friends (Activision) before coming back to beat their wife even harder at the friends urging. (Bobby Kotcik is the devil)

The analogy got a bit stretched there, but still sums it up. Activision-Blizzard will pull whatever shit they want and customers will have to either deal with it or not play the game, because Blizzard sure as hell aren't changing.

 

You can just create a private game with a password.

 

Constant internet is a bummer, and a problem I had with SCII. I could never get it to work for me offline. That said, most games I play on my desktop and not labtop, so it's usually connected to the internet.

The runes for the skills looks like it could be very interesting. Honestly, the hack and slash and looting were fun, but not the main draw for me in Diablo II. It was the customization of the characters that I really liked. You weren't shoehorned like WoW.

That said, I read in the FAQ from the D3 site they were focusing on balance. That makes me somewhat wary because they make cut down on said customization for the sake of PVP. If true, that will kill some of the excitement. I'm going to read up on the reviews when it releases before buying, but knowing myself, I'll probably give it a spin anyway. I might lose interest like I did in SCII.

 

I highly doubt Diablo 3 will have a prescription. Diablo is not a game I can play regularly for months at a time like most subscription based games, it's a game I come back to every now and again to play. A subscription would kind of ruin that.

Plus, they'll be making money with the Auction House system regularly, I can't see them having that + Subscription.

 

They're doing this to 'discourage piracy'. And even if it sucks, I'd say it worked, at least for SC2. You can't play skirmish in SC2 if you haven't got a legit battle.net account. People haven been creating AIs and patches and such, but it's not quite the same.

Still, this 'real money' thing is a completely poor move on their part. Wasn't there news a few months ago about a Chinese prison where the warden was forcing the prisoners to play constantly in some online game, making real money from it?

 

For the people that got their interest piqued by this like me: Link

The auction house idea doesn't really appeal to me either but I wont even try denying it; I'll be hawking those prices there every now and then for good deals and certainly will be trying to sell anything good I find for real money.

 

I don't really mind the auction house. It's a clever way to finance battle.net on Blizzards part and is completely optional for the player. The only negative I see, is that people probably won't be giving good items away anymore - not if they could potentially sell it for 2€ in the AH.
Gold farmers will exist either way; in WoW trading against real money is strictly forbidden and you still have lots of chinese gold farmers. Blizzard isn't at fault for the bad working conditions overseas.

I'm a bit annoyed at the requirement to be constantly online, but I can understand where they're coming from and I'd only play on battle.net either way.


The big news for me is the lack of stat points and talent points. I don't mind that all characters will use the same stats, but no customization apart from items?
It's kind of nice to be able to change skills without having to level up a new character, but access to everything, all the time? You just have to go back to camp and switch out the skills? That's like having just a few hotkeys, but all skills available.

Yes, it was frustrating - especially for new players - that you could completely mess up your character and had to start from scratch; but is this the only alternative? There's no reason at all to have a class more than once on your account.
One free talent-reset and after that you'd maybe need to sacrifice a lot of rare gems to do it again. Something like that would be a better alternative to avoid alienating careless players.


But it's not finished yet. They're still debating many of these changes, which makes me think we won't see it before 2012.

 

Are you shitting me? Fuck them. They just made this from a game I'll buy the collectors edition of, to one I'll pirate.

 

Blizzard is dead to me.

 

I do certainly admit that modders and mod-users get shafted. Blizzard's previous policy was simply "Don't try to use mods online, and we're cool with whatever you do." Without an offline mode anymore, well... Either way, I will admit that it doesn't affect me, as I never used any mods, but I can still somewhat sympathize at least.

As for the Real Money portion of the Auction House, that I don't like on principle. I can acknowledge their reasoning somewhat, but as I said, it is against my general principles anyway. It's true that a fair portion of the 'high end PvP crowd', the ones that this would most affect, are the same ones that tended to buy items from sites like jsp anyway, but even so, blech.

That said, for those that do care, they have stated that an account will have a certain number of free postings a week. So in theory, anyone that actually does the playing aspect of the game, can try to benefit off of those that do the paying aspect, without costing any initial investment to build up either funds in your Blizzard 'e-money' account, or simply directly cashing out a few sales a week.

The sad thing, is that most of the truly valuable items will rarely, if ever, see themselves on the Gold Auction House. All said, I never got into the trading scene in Diablo 2 either, greatly preferring to make use of my own discoveries, or those of the specific friends that I played with. In theory, this wouldn't influence my play style in the slightest, except that many people will now have the tendency upon finding a highly valuable item, to try selling it, rather than use it or share it with a friend.

All in all, a decision which maybe, emphasis on 'maybe', was made in good faith, but in practice, the majority of players do not want to see directly in front of them in their regular play.


Oh, and Ayreon, if it's any consolation, here is an interview(more accurately, a question then about a six minute response) of Jay Wilson himself explaining their reasoning behind the changes to their previously implied skill mechanic:
http://youtu.be/NVTVMqtmxPU

It may not be satisfactory for you, but then again, it just might appropriately explain to your satisfaction. That for you to decide, of course. I certainly wouldn't tell you what you must like.