Diablo 3 Beta [Beta withdrawal underway!]
- Thread starter maniac-kun
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well the last two announcements of new informations (removal of mystic and rune changes) did fit the definition of "soon" so I would guess two weeks top...
It wouldnt matter. Blizzard isnt normal or come close to average for development times, they are on their own time table.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
This is a Blizzard game, so what Jay said could mean anywhere from two weeks to two years. And no that is not a joke. Until you hear an actual DATE from Blizzard themselves, they only release "when it is ready" and not a day before. And they have very high standards for "ready"...
For normal games though, it's usually a few months to half a year between release date announcements and the actual date.
perfectnight
Banned
I honestly think that being a Blizzard CM must be one of the most mentally taxing jobs in the industry.
I would probably off myself if I had to read that forum daily.
Sad. People really need to get over themselves, Bashiok is the only thing that makes Blizzard's official forums bearable.
Also "Near future" and "Soon" are two very different words for Blizzard. If they say near future, they actually mean business. Expect an announcement within the next month.
I'm sure nobody took Bashiok seriously and had meltdowns.
in other news:
in other news:
Guess that chapter is over.So why not at least give us a choice of what runes to earn while we level, instead of awarding them in the same static order?
Fundamentally we don't think that's a bad idea, but the guided structure has far more value for more players. Instead of building two different UI's, one of which will really only appeal to the hardcore players and require more development time, we go with the guided structure because the hardcore players are only in that guided structure for what will be a short window of their total amount of play time. It's a bang for the buck decision, which aren't always popular but have to be made. We do want you to play this game at some point, and we think you'd rather do that than wait longer but be able to pick rune unlock order while you're leveling.
We're trying to be smart about rune unlocks, and ideally hardcore players (knowing more about the mechanics) wouldn't even want to pick the runes we're not unlocking. Sure you could choose to pick a mana regen variant at level 2... but you wouldn't. Also, it's an awesome way to reward players all the way to 60, and putting some of the more impressive rune effects at the later game could encourage more people to keep playing past Normal.
I do think it's weird that people want to be restricted, but then don't like it when we have restrictions. Obviously not necessarily the same voices, but it is a rather mixed message.I think the answer is of course having restrictions where they make sense... but ... just a slightly interesting observation. Maybe? Im tired.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
We just have differing opinions, it seems, as to which restrictions are good and which are not. It's not weird at all.
What a bunch of crap ... They see the problem, but dont want to fix it, because they think that making UI changes is too expensive?
And by saying that hardcore players wont choose some of higher level runes mean that Blizzard know they are so crappy? So why do even include them in the game?
I though every rune has purpose for building Your char and different play-styles.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
With my five softcore characters I'm really not too concerned about the rune skills during leveling, I'll be taking them all to 60 and inferno so it won't matter to me much for them. But for my hardcore characters, where you are dying and leveling up repetitively, being locked into one rune skill progression becomes a much less interesting way of doing it. I would much rather have some creative freedom to pursue builds I wanted in hardcore, rather than builds I am handheld into making.
Now, the part I bolded above is what really ticks me off. The initial concept of rune skills is that no one is better than the other, they are different styles and options but all should be equal and viable. However when Blizzard says "putting some of the more impressive rune effects at the later game could encourage more people to keep playing past Normal" that goes entirely against what they said the rune skills were going to be. So now they are locking progression of rune skills because the later ones are better than the early ones? I don't like the sound of that, not at all.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Yeah, and that's a horrible example. Not because it's wrong. It's totally true. You probably wouldn't pick that one. But who cares? It might be useful later when the player wants to build a spam character, maybe he could even get a spam character to work at lower levels.
That's still a terrible reason for not just letting the player do it themselves. Gah.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Indeed. And besides that, isn't one of the main points of playing past normal to get the rest of the "70% of items that are past normal difficulty"? And to actually play past Normal to because doing so is actually fun?
Getting people to play past Normal was never really a problem in Diablo II, why are they making such a big deal out if it and trying to solve a non-existent problem?
I'm sure thats just pointless PR.
I think the main point is that the preset runepath is most effective for more people and most cost efficient.
The reason probably trying to be elucidated is that they dont want newer players to pick bad runes
Mengy's point on hardcore characters is a good one though.
UnluckyKate
Member
Received a mail from Blizzard. Got my heart pumping
something something access to your WoW account something somDELETED
Nevermind.
something something access to your WoW account something somDELETED
Nevermind.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I don't see how this is a problem, considering Normal mode is so damn easy. Besides, it's not like they would have permanently fucked themselves like in Diablo II since you eventually get all the skills anyway. Furthermore, if they're so worried about newbs fucking themselves up, they should just have a "newbie mode" option that just picks all the runes and skills for them automatically with a large helping of guided tooltips.
Don't make the hardcore players have to deal with this bullshit just because some players (a very small minority of players, in my opinion) are too damn stupid to think for themselves.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Side note: the battle.net forum interface and coding is horrendous.
Well they only said rune effects so maybe that means they are more impressive looking but not necessarily more powerful. We will be able to find out when the new skill calculator goes online.
I am definitely not a fan if they mean more powerful.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
In the mind of the "simplified tool-tips"-using "I don't know what I'm doing" casual player that Blizzard is supposedly designing for, "impressive-looking" and "more powerful" are the same thing.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
I think the bit about the two UIs is kind of bullshit. UI is probably one of the easier things to at least rapidly create a prototype implementation. Only having to deal with 2D art.
What Blizzard seems to fail to understand in recent years is that the hardcore crowd is the one that will keep your game alive for years. Sure, broadening appeal is a fine thing, but there is going to be much more user turnover there, and while you'll have fresh blood for some time, it's the old guard that keeps the lights on indefinitely.
Displeasing the fans who crave something with more depth is a mistake.
What Blizzard seems to fail to understand in recent years is that the hardcore crowd is the one that will keep your game alive for years. Sure, broadening appeal is a fine thing, but there is going to be much more user turnover there, and while you'll have fresh blood for some time, it's the old guard that keeps the lights on indefinitely.
Displeasing the fans who crave something with more depth is a mistake.
But as long as it's not "more powerful" its ok.
I think most of the WoW subs are casual players. At the end of the day though, we will be spending most of our time during end game and the depth is the same. So I can't say I'm displeased, I'm just envious of the preferential treatment our retarded brother, the casual gets.
Well, in all honesty, I think this is good news in the end.
Why?
It means they actively pushing towards release now. Which is freakin' awesome.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
But years from now--hell, probably weeks from release, hardcore players will have maxed out their five classes and will never have to run through Normal again. Isn't that Blizzard's philosophy for this? Getting players to max level quickly, once, and then letting the vast majority of play be gear runs through higher difficulties? Arguably their philosophy isn't just to make it "more casual" but to turn more casual players into hardcore players.
As I said a while back, I was a relatively casual D2 player, I doubt I even looked at Hell. But was the primary appeal for hardcore D2 players in leveling up and investing, or gear runs? It seems like Blizzard is banking on the latter, and getting as many people into that "mode" as possible.
maniac-kun
Member
A Left 4 Dead RTS.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
If gear runs are the primary appeal and not leveling up, then what's with this statement?
When some people could get to the kill screen in pacman and others couldn't.
Fallout-NL
Member
The question is whether you're a gamer of discerning taste, I guess.
Yeah, I care more about whether your support good moral business practices as opposed to mindlessly soaking up content that is monetized to shit.
It's bit disheartening to know that there won't be any chance on us getting the ability to select which runes we want when leveling. At the same time all these posts are starting to surround the fact that a release date will be announced shortly and the game is approaching, if not already in, its final state.
At this point, if Blizzard decides to launch the game in its current state(bugs aside) then that would be fine by me. I don't know about all of you, but even knowing how finite the beta is I keep coming back to it to level another character, or do another dungeon run to possibly find another piece of gear. Playing with other GAFers in co-op has been a blast and it keeps me wanting to play more. If a game that is in beta can make me want to keep playing it so much and for so many hours with such little content in its current state, I cannot fathom how much time I'll be sinking into the final product. That just hows me the core of the game, the part that really makes that "one more run" feeling happen, is still there.
For all the bitching about the current rune system, the only thing about that actually annoys me, personally, is the UI and how rigid it is in hotbar placement. Something that, even if launched in the same condition, can easily be patched in to fix at a later date. Of which Blizzard will most likely be doing a lot of with Diablo 3.
At this point, if Blizzard decides to launch the game in its current state(bugs aside) then that would be fine by me. I don't know about all of you, but even knowing how finite the beta is I keep coming back to it to level another character, or do another dungeon run to possibly find another piece of gear. Playing with other GAFers in co-op has been a blast and it keeps me wanting to play more. If a game that is in beta can make me want to keep playing it so much and for so many hours with such little content in its current state, I cannot fathom how much time I'll be sinking into the final product. That just hows me the core of the game, the part that really makes that "one more run" feeling happen, is still there.
For all the bitching about the current rune system, the only thing about that actually annoys me, personally, is the UI and how rigid it is in hotbar placement. Something that, even if launched in the same condition, can easily be patched in to fix at a later date. Of which Blizzard will most likely be doing a lot of with Diablo 3.
New videos showing off some skills and the new skill calculator has gone up on the official D3 site: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4488897/Diablo_III_In-Development_--_Class_Skills_-2_24_2012#blog
perfectnight
Banned
Awesome. They show off the snowy areas and some of the higher level skills. Rain of Vengeance looks really damn cool. Can't wait.
IDK if it's just my imagination or not, but the physics and such seem...better somehow in those videos. The video of the Barbarian's furious charge is especially impressive with the way the blood spatters in the direction he charged in. Quite a bit bloodier than anything we've seen in beta.
AppleSmack
Banned
Disintegrate is cooler!
mysteriousmage09
Member
New videos were good. Game looks really nice now.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Hydra is limited to only one hydra at a time now? One?? Really???
So a hydra wizard will be impossible in Diablo III. Well, there goes the first build I wanted to make....I really enjoyed hydra sorceress in D2.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
nvm
perfectnight
Banned
Wizard if you are new to these types of games.
I like this.
Furious Charge
Generate: 15 Fury
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Rush forward knocking back enemies and inflicting 195% weapon damage to enemies along the path of the charge.
+
Merciless Assault
Cooldown is reduced by 2 second for every target hit. This effect can reduce the cooldown by up to 10 seconds.
Furious Charge
Generate: 15 Fury
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Rush forward knocking back enemies and inflicting 195% weapon damage to enemies along the path of the charge.
+
Merciless Assault
Cooldown is reduced by 2 second for every target hit. This effect can reduce the cooldown by up to 10 seconds.
Anything. Pick what you like.
Peaceful Repose
When activated, Serenity heals you for 35587 - 41518 Life.
Does that seems a bit much?
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