Some of the guys on the development team talking about the difficulty levels.

[Edited on February 10, 2012 at 11:09 AM. Reason : .]

2/10/2012 11:06:39 AM

Thats good to see I always felt Diablo 2 even on the upper difficulties was fairly easy other than a few parts.

2/10/2012 11:25:14 AM

^^ thats annoying. Blizzard is posting that like its some new content. That video has been around for a long time.

2/10/2012 11:34:42 AM

Taken from MMO-Champion. Looks like a Q2 launch. Given blizzard's track record, we'll be lucky to even see a launch this year. It's fucking laughable this game was announced almost 4 years ago and still isn't out.

2/10/2012 12:38:27 PM

"You will die. we promise" is not the same as "You will get your asses kicked. we promise"... stupid person who made the title...

2/10/2012 12:41:10 PM

anyone tried the revised systems out in beta, yet?

2/21/2012 11:30:24 AM

Its pretty bad. The UI is significantly worse and un-intuitive. They made it far more complex than they needed to. I am a bit baffled by it.

Also any gameplay settings, such as elective mode, always revert to default when I load the game. So I have to turn off tutorials, turn on hp bars, turn on elective etc every time i start the game.

2/21/2012 11:42:02 AM

^Is the UI more intuitive for say... a console?

I heard that they took a new direction with the runes that some people love, some hate.

[Edited on February 21, 2012 at 12:46 PM. Reason : -]

2/21/2012 12:42:43 PM

Haven't played in a couple weeks...are Runes in the beta now?

2/21/2012 1:55:55 PM

Pretty sure we'll hear a release date around the same time GW2 announces their launch date.

2/21/2012 2:01:54 PM

runes are there, but no longer a drop, they unlock for certain skills as you level.

2/21/2012 2:31:09 PM

I like the runes so far, they add some good customizing to different play styles. They seem kind of lame at first, because you only get access to a few on each class in the beta

But when you consider that each class has 6 slots for skills, and each slot has like 4 skills to pick from, and each skill has something like 6 runes.... thats 144 unique skills/attacks per class (this is my guess, not anything official, i may be wrong). I don't know, I'm enjoying it so far... looking forward to release.

2/21/2012 3:18:18 PM

Quote :

"Also any gameplay settings, such as elective mode, always revert to default when I load the game. So I have to turn off tutorials, turn on hp bars, turn on elective etc every time i start the game."

It's a bug, that'll be fixed.

Quote :

"^Is the UI more intuitive for say... a console? "

Bingo. It's pretty obvious they're making UI/gameplay adjustments for console release. This is one of them.

Quote :

"But when you consider that each class has 6 slots for skills, and each slot has like 4 skills to pick from, and each skill has something like 6 runes.... thats 144 unique skills/attacks per class (this is my guess, not anything official, i may be wrong)."

This. But way more variations of runes, somewhere in the 1000s. The blogpost I read from Blizzard said that while the "Runes as items" concept is cool, the sheer # of runes you'd have to keep track of in the higher difficulties took away from the core idea, and sucked up too much player storage space. By integrating runes into the skills themselves, they gave players access to the customization they wanted, minus the headache of item management.

Personally I really like the new system. The runes have already completely changed the Wizard from a class I only kinda liked in Patch 12, to my favorite of this patch. And I like that I didn't have to farm for a drop to enjoy it.

2/21/2012 5:50:46 PM

does anyone know if they plan to release console versions simultaneously, or just pc and mac to start?

2/21/2012 5:54:31 PM

linux only.... OH WE ALL ARE SCREWED!

2/21/2012 6:26:27 PM

Its still a shitty design for a console

2/21/2012 6:28:10 PM

I agree that some classes would be more difficult to play on a console, particularly the ranged classes since you have to aim more. clearly you'd have to use both analog sticks, 1 to move, 1 to aim... which is fine.... but does that mean you are able to run to the left while shooting to the right? I don't know, I guess people could get used to whatever they end up doing.

2/21/2012 8:20:00 PM

Beta Patch 14 came out last night.

Hardcore mode is available for testing, monster damage has been increased.

3/9/2012 7:18:30 AM

^^Dungeon Siege 3 (shudders) seemed to manage just fine using dual analog sticks for all their classes.

The latest rumor that I heard is that they are putting skill modifiers on items... not in the traditional D2 sense that now the skill has a +1 and does slightly more damage but in the sense that it modifies what the skill actually does. I don't know if there's much truth to that rumor but if there is it will be one of the first good things I've heard about this game.

3/9/2012 9:17:35 AM

3/15/2012 9:26:47 AM

It's about damn time. Although once we're in-game, i doubt we'll care anymore how long it took blizzard to finally release it

3/15/2012 9:43:55 AM

Oh snap!

3/15/2012 9:59:09 AM

^^I hope, it seemed like all recent news was that they were doing nothing but removing features... I guess in an attempt to release. Still, most of the news pushed D3 from "buy it at midnight, take a week off work" to "wait and see."

Still, I'll probably only be able to hold out a week, month at most. ...unless the reports are really, really bad.

3/15/2012 10:28:51 AM

so is that a release date up there?

i've gotten apathetic

3/15/2012 10:31:56 AM

official release date of 5/15/12, yes

3/15/2012 12:22:56 PM

fuck yeah

3/15/2012 12:52:50 PM

I have pre-ordered and requested time off of work!

3/15/2012 1:06:03 PM

My fiancee and I are getting married on May 19th. I tried to get her to postpone the wedding for a few weeks or months but she is being completely unreasonable. Women.

3/17/2012 9:06:03 PM

lol. as much as i anticipate some video games, i don't often run immediately to the store to pick it up. for online games, i usually like to give it a few days for the server overload and initial bugs to clear up.

3/17/2012 9:12:28 PM

I've had good experiences with Blizzard & preorders/digital/midnight releases. Gotta register some sweet names bro

3/20/2012 9:40:06 AM

except you dont need to reserve names anymore

3/20/2012 11:14:40 AM

So everyone can have the same character name if they want?

3/20/2012 1:18:38 PM

Prob not playing it till the release pvp

3/20/2012 1:45:35 PM

no pvp?

3/20/2012 1:53:24 PM

No pvp. Its bugged and unbalanced atm so theyre going ahead and releasing the game (so its not delayed further) and patching inpvp at a later date... No thanks

3/20/2012 1:54:45 PM

that's very surprising behavior for blizzard...surely they can't be but so far from correcting it

3/20/2012 1:57:46 PM

Quote :

"So everyone can have the same character name if they want?"

yep, its tied to your battle.net account.

3/20/2012 2:53:51 PM

I was under the impression that it was only the PvP Arena system that wasn't making the release.
AKA we would still have Diablo II style world PvP but not a fully functional Arena like WoW currently has.

If this is the case, then I fully support this decision.

3/20/2012 3:13:58 PM

I don't mind the pvp delay, need the time to farm the higher level content to get the higher gear or am I just dreaming of a 1.09 Diablo II experience. That version lasted what? 3 years?

3/20/2012 3:45:52 PM

I didn't even like the idea of arena style pvp for diablo anyway.

3/20/2012 3:51:43 PM

Quote :

"I was under the impression that it was only the PvP Arena system that wasn't making the release. AKA we would still have Diablo II style world PvP but not a fully functional Arena like WoW currently has. If this is the case, then I fully support this decision."

They removed the ability to go "hostile" against another player in D3.

3/20/2012 5:52:45 PM

i don't mind that, I wasn't a griefer unless someone wronged me. I loved the d2 1.09 pvp though. At the height of my D2 reign, my accts were

278%/22 Ethereal Cruel Ettin Axe of Brutality Zod/Eth

....my e-peen was so big. Melee paladin/druid/amazon pvp was where all the top pvp was at since. If you wanted OP EZ mode you went sosa/baba/hammerdin garbage. You had to be quite wealthy to compete as a melee paladin.

3/20/2012 6:32:51 PM

arena? fuck that. i just want to kill monsters and get loot, that's what diablo is all about.

3/20/2012 6:42:37 PM

Hopefully with all the years since then they have figured out how to eliminate all the hacking and duping and botting and what not so when you actually find something rare it's actually rare.

3/21/2012 9:32:42 AM

Since even single player games are logging into Battle.net, I think they have it covered.

3/21/2012 9:44:30 AM

^^ yeah you must not have followed the development of this game at all

3/21/2012 9:45:47 AM

That was more a comment bitching about how diablo 2 went. I obviously realize things should be much better now. I loaded up d2 a few weeks ago and quickly remembered why I got frustrated and stopped playing haha.

3/21/2012 9:58:44 AM

can't wait. can't wait. can't wait. can't wait. can't wait. can't wait.can't wait. can't wait.

3/21/2012 11:02:22 AM

Blizzard patched the beta this past weekend and upped the difficulty noticably. Playing through is definitely more fun and intense. I was actually running from mobs at one point.

Forum post about it: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4217493475?page=1

3/21/2012 1:40:57 PM

I felt on most of my d2 chars that normal was actually more difficult for a lot of chars than nightmare or hell simply because of the lack of abilities and/or gear.

3/21/2012 3:30:08 PM