• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Rumor: Tons And Tons Of Diablo 3 Details

This might deserve a new thread, but alas...

No claims as to the validity of it, but I've copy/pasted the entirety of his Q/A in case it gets taken down. If this is too big or mods determine it's not allowed, delete. It'll take two posts to get everything up here.

http://d3here.wordpress.com/

Introduction:
I have played D3 its in entirety, including the current build.

Ask any question about Diablo 3 below by clicking on “comments” at the bottom of the post, and I will do my best to answer it. Your question will appear on the main post when I answer it.

Rules
- Don’t ask how I know, who I know, how much I know. None of your business.
- Don’t ask sweeping questions like “WHAT ARE ALL THE NEW FEATURES!!?” or “Explain how the entire item system works”. Ask specific questions only. This isn’t an article, and I don’t plan on writing an article.
- I will answer SOME questions about the storyline, but don’t ask for any significant story spoilers. I’m not in the business of spoiling the game.
- Don’t ask for Screenshots, videos or any other media. Don’t assume I can, or would want to simply walk in with a USB stick and start snapping up screenshots.

The comments area is public. You don’t need to register or put your name when posting.

Enjoy.

Q/A

Q: Joe: Is there an auction house? If so, could you summarize how it works??

A: Kind of a sweeping question, but I’ll answer it.

No. The “auction house” is called the “market”. I am unsure if the name is a placeholder. It functions differently to the WoW auction house. To access the market, you need to use the AMM (automated match-making) screen and select the “market”. This automatically queues you (like War3 and SC2 AMM) and loads you into a game world that looks like a small “town-like” area with markets around. There are around 50 players in each market game (i think).The AMM matches you up with people who have similar quality/level items as you, though you can specify which item ranges you want to trade for.

There are no monsters or anything else in this game, only other players and NPC’s. To “display” your items, you click on the NPC and place your items into an inventory. You can close it after your done and the items stay there, even persist into other games. On the other side of the screen, you can browse everyone’s items who are in your game. Its fully catagorized, very much like in WoW. If your interested in an item you can offer them gold or even select an item(s) you have on display and offer them that, or a combination. This sends a notification to the other player that you placed an offer. They can accept this, or more often they can choose to “negotiate”, this starts a one-on-one dialogue with the buyer and seller, and they negotiate the items just like in D2. This only applies to armor and weapons, gems, consumables and other items are not displayable. Though I have heard they are implementing something for those, possibly a wow-style auction-house in-game.

They have not yet implemented the feature to allow you to put your items directly in from Bnet, but its coming apparently.

Q: Is all the trade face to face like d2? What happens when a player leaves the game, do there items stay listed??

A: Its a combination of both. You use the NPC trade window to browse items and when you find the item you want it matches you up with the buyer. If a player leaves the game, their items are removed from the browsing list. They can join another trade game and their items will automatically be on display.

Q: if ur about to die can you leave the game like you can in diablo 2?

A: Nope. Currently if your in trouble you need to run away to the nearest waypoint (there are HEAPS) and restore your health. By default, you get full life automatically if you spend more than 15 seconds in town.

Q: Won’t it be annoying if there are 50 players in the game and 30 of them are AFK? How does it work if you’re trying to get an item and the seller is AFK?

The trade games have a very fast AFK timeouts. I think its around 4 minutes. Moving the mouse clears AFK, so its not that bad. Also, if you timeout of a trade game, you can’t use AMM to join another trade game for 5 minutes. (punishment to stop doing it I guess).

Q: how rare are ujniques? like compared to diablo2

A: In the 2 months I’ve played, there has been 2 Legendary’s (uniques) drop for me and around 20 rares.

Q: whats in act 4??

A: Not posting spoilers. But I will say its unlike the other acts in many ways.

Q: Does the Market carry your items (like the stash) or do you still have to have inventory space to hold them?

A: Once you place your items in the market window via the NPC located in a trade game, they stay there until you take them out. So yes, it can act like a “mini” stash.

Q: Are runes in the current build? Can you describe a few of the nifty ones?

A: Yeah, every ability is available and nearly every rune works with them. (except for a few late wd, dh and monk abilities.)
Some cool ones… I play Wizard so: Indigo in Slow time actually reverses time by a few moments (yes, it undoes the damage you took, but not the damage you inflict), Crimson in Diamond Skin literally turns you into fire and allows you to literally run into a group of mobs, and leaves a trail of fire behind you (like Blaze from D2) and cause massive fire damage (you ignore collision so you can literally run into the middle of a huge pack, and then explode for even more damage. You can’t be hit while its up. There’s a lot of other really cool ones, I might share them later.

Q: what colour are legendary items?

A: Orange. Gold tinge to them in the latest build.

Q: Are town portals still in the game or are those completly pushed away from the game by waypoints?

A: They are currently in the game, but only allow you to enter them when there are no monsters within a certain range of you. Like half a screen length away.

Q: When there is a beta?

A: Its already in Beta. Just not open to the public yet. The devs don’t even know when, but its expected to be August.

Q: do you think D3 is ready for 2011 release? Do you think it will make it this year? Also, is D3 really fun?

A: Its amazing how polished the game already is. I think it can make release this year, which is the plan. Battle.net is getting the most work at the moment. It is easily the best game I’ve played to date. Especially when the Bnet features are fully implemented.

Q: How big is act 4? Is it smaller then the other acts like in D2?

A: Its significantly smaller than the other acts. Smaller than the D2 acts 1-3. They actually don’t have the main quests in there at the moment. They are ready, but they are hidden.

Q: How is match-making done in PvP? Just by character level or is there more to it?

A: Only level at the moment. Though I’m 95% sure this will change when they do more work on Bnet (it has a lot of stuff that is not fully implemented.)

Q: Why there will be no D3 on GamesCom? Because beta will be already online?

A: No idea, sorry.

Q:Why didn’t they just do a normal auction house? Does the market work well?

A: MANY reasons:

- Auction House doesn’t feel very Diablo-ish, and simply doesn’t work for a game where 95% of the items have random stats.
– It initially WAS an Auction House, and it just didn’t work. It did funny things with the economy, you’d have an item on there that had certain stats, and then some other guy would unknowingly post a similar item (remember, the items are mostly random) for a totally different price. The non-static nature of items made it unusable. The market system allows you to browse items for yourself, feels more personal and is far more of the “Diablo feel”, rather than stare at literally thousands random variations of an item.
- It feels kind of retarded simply typing in the name of an item you want, and then simply buying it.

The market system works very well. You simply AMM into a trade game, browse the items, and if nothing suits you, you do another AMM search. It automatically cycles you through the other trade games when you click on it again within a few minutes. Its actually VERY fun to shop around.

Q: can you tell us anything about end-game content? Will it be mainly grinding and arena or do you have something like endless dungeons?

A: Bosses are very different. They only recently started working properly. I don’t want to spoil it, but they are unlike D2 bosses. As for the real end-game (aka act 4 hell difficulty), its actually not available yet. So at the moment, the end-game hard to talk about. There are some new AWESOME things that I don’t want to reveal out of courtesy to Blizzard.

Q: How much play time will a casual player need to complete Normal?

A: Depends how casual I guess. Around the same as D2, but imagine your character can actually spend points on being awesome rather than saving for the high-end abilities. You are pretty OP in normal.

Q: Can you tell me if there is any merit or advantage to playing with a mixed 4 player party instead of a party with all barbarians?

A: To be quite honest it doesn’t matter what your group consists off. Barbs/monks are a small exception because they can attract monsters away from the ranged classes, which significantly increases their damage. But I’ve played with 4 wizards and it was just as fun/effective.

Q: Are the classes balanced more or less?

A: Numbers are literally changing weekly. So yes and no. Hard to say since there is so much variety to play with.

Q: In the time you have played, have you discovered multiple character builds that are superior to others?

A: Definitely. But as I said above, the numbers change CONSTANTLY. Especially in the last few months.

Q: Ifso are those diverse or is there just a single “godly” build per character?

A: Too many combo’s to know for sure. And even with that said, no, because the monsters are very different in each area. What might be a great build somewhere might suck big time in others.

Q: SInce you explained the market system, can you say if gold has succeeded in being the main form of currency?

A: Impossible to say, because we are testing. We can get any items we request as its a debug build, so the economy doesn’t exist in a realistic fashion. Though in the last wipe, items are no longer available at will, and we are encouraged to use the economy/markets (now that they work for the most part).

Q: Is the average playtime of completing normal shorter, equal or longer than D2 normal?

A: The pace is faster, but there is more to do. Hard to say to be honest.

Q: How diverse are the items that drop? affix/prefix wise ofcourse)

A: D2 diverse.

Q: You claimed you found 2 legendaries and about 20 rares, how much of them were useful?

A: As said above, the economy is non-existent. However, I equipped like 5-8 of the rares. The Legendaries I found were a Crossbow and an Axe.

Q: Also, you were probably exploring the game instead of focussing on getting good gear, if one were to focus on getting items primarily, how much better would they have done than you?

A: Items are very powerful and enhance your character, it helps a lot to have good gear. You can kill things a lot quicker.

Q: That new to us to wait on BlizzCon 2011?

A: Unsure what they are revealing, but I’m sure the Beta will be available to the public by then, so not much.

Q: About two months ago, there was a supposed ‘leak’ from someone claiming to be an internal game tester. Can you tell us if the information provided in that interview is true or false?

A: I actually read it back then. It was false.

Q: Are there any unique/set/runeword items from D2 that have their item names re-used in D3, ifso: are they similar to the D2 versions?

A: No runewords in D3, and sets are legendaries that can be put together to get a bonus. There are some items that you’ll remember from D2. Different stats, but still familiar stats.

Q: Short q from me : How would you classify the overall size of the acts, together? dissapointing/medium/huge ?

A: There’s a bit more to it than “size”. For example, the actual “terrain” size is similar to D2, but the pacing and quests, and events etc are different. It’s faster paced, but the side quests take up some time (slow you down). So to answer your question, the game is “bigger” in length.

Q: Does auto stats allocation really work better than the D2 system?
How much room for customization is there concerning stats. e.g. Can i make a battle mage for a wizard or are barbs the only ones that can equip heavy armor and be awesome and big? How about defensive builds, damage reduction builds, etcetc.. is this all possible?

A: You have PLENTY of customization. However is different to D2, it’s more about what skills and what runes you WANT to use. *EDIT* misunderstood the question, there is no such thing as “heavy armor, light armor” etc. Wizards don’t have heavy armor compared to a melee class, which have traits and passives that increase how much armor helps you, however you can invest your skills into more defensive spells and runes, such as full points into Teleport with Alabaster rune (Wizard teleports but leaves behind a mirror image that the monsters continue to attack). And there are plenty of them. In other words, there is a HUGE defensive difference between wizard A who invested in defensive spells, and Wizard B who pumped all their points into Hydra, Meteor and Disintegrate.

Q: You mentioned the numbers were being changed constantly, but does there feel like a balance between the classes, both from what you have witnessed pvm and from what you can speculate pvp?

A: They are similar in that they ALL have a few spells that need adjusting because they are probably too much better than the others. But all classes have these, so I guess they are balanced . PvP is getting much more focus later on in testing, I don’t think its a testing focus at the moment.

Q: Follow-up, will all the suspense all these years have been worth it? = D

A: I don’t think its possible for a Diablo fan to not love this game. The amount of awesomeness is immeasurable.

Q: Thanks for answering my question about runes. I have another: Can you go in to how bosses are different now, particularly while solo compared to D2?

A: To be honest I don’t want to ruin any surprises that Blizzard has instore for you, and I think this is one of the big ones. So I’ll only say that the bosses are “of epic proportions”.

Q: In D2, you practically just run up, swing/cast, avoid particular spells if possible, and then collect loot. The Siegebreaker Assault Beast encounter was pretty vague in this regard and was most likely scripted to a degree.

A: They are on a different level to the Siegebreaker in terms of “epicness”. He is just a sub-boss. They are epic. If I was to rate most important unrevealed features, that would be among the top.

Q: How about gear-dependance? Is there a class (like Sorceress in D2) that is more gear independent that the others (like melee classes in D2)? If not, how did Blizzard solve this problem?

A: Casters have +spelldamage% rather than +to skills. Gear is important. I would say they tried extra hard to make all gear very important for all classes.

Q: Is there more to end game than just PvP and item grinding/trading ? Without getting into any spoilers.

A: Yes. As a minor example, the market is the type of place you would find yourself spending hours in. In a good way.

Q: Does the wizard spell disintegrate still turn pink, when focused on a target in the current version?

A: I can’t say that I noticed it turning pink. I don’t have points in it so I don’t see it super often.

Q: Do bows/crossbows still need ammo?

A: Nope.

Q: Can you tell us about any interesting Traits? Are there any changes to them since we last heard of them?

A: They still function much the same as previously mentioned (though I don’t recall what exactly was mentioned). They are still pretty big bonuses to abilities. In terms of coolness, they aren’t as “epic” as runes, but their bonuses are very big.

Q: How did you experience the automatic stat point allocation? And in relation to that. Is it possible, through gear and gems to make your character focus primarily on a single stat, like I stated earlier: Damage Reduction, Defense, Vitality, Crit, Damage etc..

A: If it wasn’t auto, it would be silly, because everyone would get the same thing. It’s a good system. Gems at the moment are a bit up in the air. At it stands, they add stats (so yes, you can focus on particular stats). Some add more interesting things, such as +lightening damage, resistances etc.

Q: Can hardcore characters trade items and gems with softcore characters, or they remain on separate realms like it was on d2?

A: We can’t actually make hardcore characters. But they will be in the game.

Q: Whats been your favorite class so far?

A: Wizard. I like lights and stuff.

Q: does he have a similar ability to Teleport and is it awesome?

A: Seven Sided Strike. The catch is it requires a mob to be targeted. The good news is, it will demolish the enemy. Unsure if they will add another more escape-ee ability.

Q: Do you realize that any class can equip any type of armor? So the part where you said that the wizard can’t equip heavy armor is false. Moreover there is player collision for enemies, so there you go wrong again…

A: Of course there is collision. If you read what I said properly, you would’ve noticed I was referring to the Diamond Skin runed ability. And no, not all classes can use all types of armor. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Q: How does Magic Find work with gems and are their other stats that can help you find stuff? Also, does MF drop on gear?

A: Haven’t seen any items with MF on them yet, but items are still being worked on heavily. One of the primary things right now actually.

Q: does unique items look different than the normal verisons?(both item icons and on character ingame)

A: Yes. Though there’s a few placeholders at the moment.

Q: What types of armor exist if classes have access to different types?

A: Sorry, I misunderstood the question above that referred to this. There is only one armor, no armor classes. Most classes have traits and passives that increases the effects of your armor. For example one of the barb traits increases your Vitality by a % of your armor.

Q: Is there a Secret Cow Level or something similar?

A: There is no cow level. /wink

Q: lol I like how you didn’t tell us ANYTHING we didn’t already know about traits. That info came straight from Blizzard. Who do you think you’re fooling?

A: What would you like to know, genius?

Q:
A: Haven’t seen any items with MF on them yet, but items are still being worked on heavily. One of the primary things right now actually.
How can you not mention the saphires from the last BlizzCon? Did you somehow forget about them?

A: Haven’t noticed it before. I’ll check next time to see if it still does it.

Q: What’s the new mechanic they have that lets the player sell items while out in the field?

A: Dropping items, or shift clicking them near a waypoint or town-portal automatically sends your items to the town NPC’s. Later on when your back in town, you click on any of them to view what you’ve sent (shows up in the buyback tab) and confirm the sell. You can undo an item by dragging the item back from the vendors inventory back to yours. There is talk about changing this, or removing it all together.

Q:what about special deaths? every monsters got a special death on top of the ragdoll and critical deaths?

A: Not sure I understand your question. Every monster has a bunch of death animations, some have special static ones. Critical hits/deaths make the screen shake harder and the enemies fly off the screen, or explode in epic piles of blood.

Q: Is health globe mecanic fits in to the game good or it’s too arcade’ish?

A: Best way to sum up health globes is pretend they are potions that drop at the rate they anticipate you to be needing a top up at. It works well. If there are times when you have little health and you don’t have one handy it basically means you took too much damage from that encounter, or ate one up before you should have. There is a mechanic that automatically puts you at 30% health if your near death and away from combat for a few secs.

Q: What achievements existed in your current build? Were there more / less than SC2? Can you go into any detail about…. intresting achievments?

A: There are many achievements, but a lot look like tests that won’t make it into the game. My favorite is “Grats, I wonder how many SoJ’s that is worth” when you find your first legendary.

Q: You mentioned that you were surprised at how polished the game was, but you also said weapons are primarily being worked on and numbers are still changing for balance. In your point of view how long do you think beta will be? and WHEN do YOU think the game will be released?

A: The game is very polished in the respect of the actual environments, pace, gameplay, and fun level. The numbers game is constant, and will continue up until release I’d imagine. In my opinion, the game is on its way to making it this year.

Q: How is it you only found 20 rares in 2 months. I found 2 in 15 minutes at blizzcon.

A: The demo versions are purposely “enhanced” so that people can find good loot in a short period of time. Otherwise you’d be running in rags for all your playtime.

Q: How many times could an artisan level up? About how much gold was required?

Artisans can level up to 5 at the moment. I am unsure how gold, as we typically get free gold to dump during test pushes. But as a general figure, its pretty expensive. Not so much in what it costs you in actual gold, but in how much items you have to salvage instead of selling for gold. Some ingredients such as Grim Essence can only be salvaged out of high level rares. So its hard to put a monetary value on it, since that rare may have sold for a lot of cash in the market place.

Q: How about Hell mode, is it harder compared to Diablo 2? And how many times did you die?

A: Hell mode is challanging. Some of the monsters run faster, have abilities that don’t exist in normal/nightmare such as blind (you literally can only see a few feet in any direction, and it can turn very ugly). However, its very satisfying when you use good skills to get out of rough situations. For example the other day I found myself cornered against the wall against some scary Bone Destroyers (they pushed me using their charge abilities). I used my runed Diamond Skin ability (the rune turns you into fire) and ran through them to safety. They proceeded to get burnt following my trail.

Q: Are there parts of the game that are REALLY hard

A: Yes. Hell. (some dungeons are very scary)
 
And the rest:

Q: Is crafting a fun element? How exactly does disassembling items feel ? Is it rewarding sometimes?

A: Like everything, it has a random element to it, which is fun. You can get lucky and find rare essences that are key ingredients to some good crafted stuff. Feels good.

Q: How does farming go? Will we do bossruns or will we do random side-quests?

A: Both, the end-game is under heavy iteration atm. Item’s are being finalised.

Q: Is there anything interesting to mention about the battle.net UI? Do our character models appear in chat like in D2 or just our display name?

A: I can happily report that D3 bnet has chat channels. At the moment there is no structure in there, its a bit like SC2 (ie your invisible). There is a button that says “channels” but it doesn’t do anything. The most interesting part is the AMM system, which at the moment looks pretty much like you would expect. You tick some boxes on what kind of game your looking for and press search. A few seconds later a game is loading. Other than that, Bnet is still quite primitive. Its clear it is under heavy construction by all the buttons that don’t do anything.

Q: Is there dual spec in the game?

A: No. And I’m pretty sure there won’t be. When you play the game, you’ll understand better at why its not needed.

Q: You said there is no heavy/light armor. Does this mean there is only 1 type of armor? Or is there still: Breast Plate, Ancient Armor, Templar Coat: each having higher defense point values then the other.
Regarding the Wizard question. Could a Wizard equip the highest defense point armor? Am I correct to assume that there is also no speed reduction from wearing a higher defense point armor type?

A: Armors are hard to explain, but I’ll try. There are still “types” of armor, ie Ornate, Quilted etc. The more progressed in the game, the better the armors are, for example, ornate is one of the highest ones in Nightmare, quilted is found in act 1 normal. Everyone can equip the best armor, but depending on its stats you may not want do. At the moment there is no penalty to wearing “heavier” armor, it is simply just better (in terms of ARMOR not stats) and they are found at higher levels.

Q: I would like to know a few rune effects on wizard skills. How does runes effect Magic Missile, Spectral Blade, Arcane Orb, Disintegrate or any other skills… Anything you can tell is great.

A: Not going to list every possibility because I don’t have them on-hand but some off the top of my head…
- disintegrate crimson leaves a trail of fire but you can’t hold it down anymore (becomes like firewall in D2)
- Disintegrate indigo turns it into a cone shaped attack but becomes short range (really powerful AOE).
- I can’t remember which rune, but one turns Meteor into a meteor shower, which drops small comets randomly all over the place.
- Crimson turns Arcane Orb into Frozen Orb from D2. (slowing effect, shoots cycles everywhere etc)

Q: Can you post screenshots of _______?

A: There is absolutely no way I could, nor would post screenshots of anything. Stop assuming I can simply walk in with a USB stick and start snapping up screenshots.

Q: Well, supposedly, you’ve been playing for at least 2 months now. In all that time you’re gonna tell me you didn’t mess with the traits enough to remember a bunch off the top of your head? give us some examples.
Also, how different did the Legendary’s look from normal/rares? do they truly look Legendary? Some people have been saying that Legendary’s won’t have their own unique graphics.

A: Read above, I mentioned some traits. But if you insist…. (and I’m paraphrasing)
– Arcane Might - Arcane spells knock back enemies when you have 25% or lessArcane Power.
– Telekinesis – improves chance to dodge ranged attacks & spells
– Penetrating Spells(?) (or cold?) – Reduces targets resistance to your spells.

The item system is currently being focused on, lower level legendary’s have unique graphics. Higher level ones appear to have placeholder graphics, or no graphic at all.

Q: How do the item tiers work exactly? For example, Can you find a tier one hat in act 4 hell with godly stats, Or tier one only drops in early normal and item tiers get higher with difficulty?

A: Depends on what you mean by Tiers. If I’m right about what I think your saying, than its exactly like how it is in D2, normal items can drop in hell, all qualities (rare, legendary etc) Though you must remember that the item system is still being worked on, very heavily. Its the main focus at the moment.

Q: How does death work? Do you spawn from a random location or back with your party? Are there any disadvantages of dieing? Do you have a body on the ground?

A: Currently, when you die, you re spawn after a few moments with all your items and no corpse, at the nearest Waypoint. There is durability now, and you lose something like 20% if you die. I could be wrong about the % (its new)

Q:do you have any evidence that would prove your information is true?
Also, what parts of game will be in beta version? I guess act1 and arenas, anything else?

A: No, nor will I try.
I have no idea what they are planning on giving you for the Beta, but we have everything that’s ready, apart from Act4 ending quests/bosses.
 
Yeah I've been keeping an eye on that blog for the past hour or so and I'm pretty sure it's all bullshit. He has been wrong several times and has contradicted himself.
 
Kalnos said:
Well, hopefully some of that info isn't true. No using a TP if you have monsters near you? :<

Depends on the game balancing to be honest. Using that to get out of trouble is cheap, and if they avoid situations like lightning beetles in the maggot lair *shudders* you shouldn't have to do that.
 

BigAT

Member
piratepwnsninja said:
Depends on the game balancing to be honest. Using that to get out of trouble is cheap, and if they avoid situations like lightning beetles in the maggot lair *shudders* you shouldn't have to do that.
Multi-shot + Lightning Enchanted mobs still give me nightmares.
 
Kalnos said:
Well, hopefully some of that info isn't true. No using a TP if you have monsters near you? :<

What? That's one thing I HOPE it's true if they are going to bring back TP. TPs (along with pot spamming) completely took out the sense of danger from Diablo 2.
 

Kalnos

Banned
perfectnight said:
What? That's one thing I HOPE it's true if they are going to bring back TP. TPs (along with pot spamming) completely took out the sense of danger from Diablo 2.

Well, I agree with the other poster, in that it depends on how they balance the game. If it's nearly the same game as Diablo 2, which I may be naively assuming after Starcraft 2, then I can't see how it works.

I don't think TPs removed the 'sense of danger' from Diablo 2 at all, considering the penalty of dying didn't really matter in the first place unless you played hardcore.

Also.. pot spamming is the nature of Diablo 2, that is the only real way to heal in the game outside of life-steal and health shrines. I have no idea why you think that takes away from Diablo 2.
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Things like that fascinates me, either he truly is a tester and we've gotten some juicy info or the dude has a great sense of imagination.
 
Kalnos said:
Well, I agree with the other poster, in that it depends on how they balance the game. If it's nearly the same game as Diablo 2, which I may be naively assuming after Starcraft 2, then I can't see how it works.

I don't think TPs removed the 'sense of danger' from Diablo 2 at all, considering the penalty of dying didn't really matter in the first place unless you played hardcore.

Also.. pot spamming is the nature of Diablo 2, that is the only real way to heal in the game outside of life-steal and health shrines. I have no idea why you think that takes away from Diablo 2.

How is getting out of every potentially dangerous situation in the game by simply clicking on a 100 gold item -not- taking away from the sense of danger? Softcore death (in LoD) took all your equipped items and gold and also took away some exp so you had to do corpse runs with your friends in a room chock full of monsters (which was amazing fun) to get your stuff back. That was meaningful enough.

D2's balance was all out of whack and it encouraged potion spamming which is a lame as hell mechanic. But even in well balanced areas potion spamming just made it easier to mash your way back to the safety of a TP. Thankfully D3 is being balanced with a completely different philosophy and there won't (shouldn't) be a need for pot spam and tp spam in the middle of a boss fight.
 

Kalnos

Banned
perfectnight said:
How is getting out of every potentially dangerous situation in the game by simply clicking on a 100 gold item -not- taking away from the sense of danger? Softcore death (in LoD) took all your equipped items and gold and also took away some exp so you had to do corpse runs with your friends in a room chock full of monsters (which was amazing fun) to get your stuff back. That was meaningful enough.

D2's balance was all out of whack and it encouraged potion spamming which is a lame as hell mechanic. But even in well balanced areas potion spamming just made it easier to mash your way back to the safety of a TP. Thankfully D3 is being balanced with a completely different philosophy and there won't (shouldn't) be a need for pot spam and tp spam in the middle of a boss fight.

Eh, to each his own but running back to your corpse in a room full of monsters and losing 1/4 a level isn't much of a penalty honestly. I still don't get your complaint about potions though, would it be more 'epic' if potion spam is replaced by health globes and potions are a last resort? (essentially the same thing with less control?)

I don't think serious balancing is in the nature of a game like Diablo, it thrives on being ridiculously unbalanced. As far as the bolded, if that shows to be true then I will agree with you to an extent, but after playing Starcraft 2 I expect Diablo 3 to be a retextured Diablo 2 with a few new ideas.
 
Kalnos said:
Eh, to each his own but running back to your corpse in a room full of monsters and losing 1/4 a level isn't much of a penalty honestly. I still don't get your complaint about potions though, would it be more 'epic' if potion spam is replaced by health globes and potions are a last resort? (essentially the same thing with less control?)

I don't think serious balancing is in the nature of a game like Diablo, it thrives on being ridiculously unbalanced. As far as the bolded, if that shows to be true then I will agree with you to an extent, but after playing Starcraft 2 I expect Diablo 3 to be a retextured Diablo 2 with a few new ideas.


Everything I've read is that they are trying to make this much more skill based (not to be read the skills your character gets) than D2. So if you play well (and we assume the game is balanced, which I agree with you in believing it when I see it) none of that would be necessary.
 
New answers:

Q: What can you say about inventory management ? More specifically, we know there is some kind of way to sell stuff out in the field without the need to return to town. How does that work ? Does it feel right ?

A: Inventory is much better than in D2, its easier to manage and less frustrating. As for the selling stuff in the field, I answered that above, and it feels OK, but I think it could be improved, and I think they will. Portals, and selling stuff in the field is a bit up in the air at the moment.

Q: What is your favourite skill out of all the classes? And what is your favourite runed version of that skill?

A: My favorite RUNE effect is the Reverse Time, it literally turns back the clock for any monster inside the bubble, looks awesome and is extremely cool – Indigo rune on Slow time. Favorite spell…. bit hard to answer, lots of them are awesome in certain situations. I’m going to go with Crimson runed Meteor. It turns meteor into Meteor Shower, which bombards the area randomly with small meteors. Its pretty epic.

Q: Is the wizards resource still Arcane Power in the current version? Is there any plans to change it?

A: Yes, its still Arcane Power. I feel that it works fine, but there’s a chance it may change to a Mana-like thing to simplify/balance the amount of spells/combo’s.

Q: How are the item drops currently are they completely random or are they partially relevant? Random being D2 where you have to spend days getting what you want to drop.

A: Random as far as I can tell. Again, items are being worked on heavily right now.

Q: Any knowledge in terms of the game’s system requirements or graphical options?

A: Can’t help you with Sys reqs, but their are a few graphics options that were recently introduced. One lets you define how long corpses stay on the ground for. Others are more standard stuff.

Q: Can you tell us about a few of the high-end skills we haven’t seen yet?

A: “Familiar” is a new spell that got put in to our builds not too long ago. I hesitate to spoil the surprise on this one, its one of the high-tier spells. Its a summable that stays with you, a bit like Valkyrie for the amazon. I don’t want to spoil what she looks like, but she is simply AWESOME. Oh, and there are no working runes for her yet.
 
A couple more new ones. I'm surprised the blog hasn't been taken down yet, that is if its real...

Q: What is the demon hunter resource and how does it work?

A: It’s called Focus and its a yellowish-orangeish substance. It’s a bit like mana – it starts full and regenerates fairly quickly, however it increases much faster when you take melee damage (ie when monsters close in on you). It is fairly new, it has always been Mana before that.

Q: A couple of new Demon Hunter Skills (and more info about the Sentry)
A: I haven’t played the DH and WD, but I’ve played with them and spoke with some. A new high-tier DH ability is called “Strafe”. Fires a barrage of shots at a bunch of monsters. It has a really cool animation, the DH jumps up and does a flip and shoots the volley of arrows very fast while flipping in the air. Its 360 degrees.

Q: Call me old fashioned, but I’d prefer playing a (more traditional) monk without all those crazy-ass fist weapons or staves especially designed for him.
Is it actually possible to play through the whole game without equipping any weapons or off hand items like shields, orbs, shrunken heads, etc.?

A: You could, except you would be hitting everything with your fists for very little damage. However there are fist weapons in the game that almost look like your just punching things with no weapon. (In fact, a good number of them appear like this).

Q: Can you explain how Offline Single Player works? is there any missing features from playing offline? &amp; Does playing Single Player Online require playing on a battlenet server solo or does it just stay connected to battlenet but all play is done clientside(less lag this way)(like SC2)

A: The version we play goes straight into the multiplayer server. There is no single player in our version, but there will be at release (obviously). So the answer is “not sure how it will work”.

Q: placing a rune in to a skill changes the name and description of the skill?

A: It ADDS text to the tooltip description in green, and is titled with a new spell name in green also. So for example, the base spell is still written the same, but below it shows the Runed name and description in green text. Yes, they all have unique names.

Q: “I can’t remember which rune, but one turns Meteor into a meteor shower, which drops small comets randomly all over the place.”
Well, the Wizard has a Skill called Arcane Torrent that does exactly the same thing… So why should there be a rune effect that does the exact same thing as a spell for the same class in the first place…

A: Arcane Torrent is totally different to Meteor Shower. Arcane torrent is targeted and bombards a SMALL area accurately. A very small area. Meteor Shower has small meteors dropping all over the screen in random locations. And the effect is awesome, each meteor shakes the screen, so it just feels really powerful and epic.

Q: Is Leah cute?

A: Yes. I could swear that there’s something going on between her and Cain. Really gross.
 

Drakeon

Member
Seven Sided Strike, his favorite skill, is a monk skill, yet he says he plays Wizard. (Friend pointed this out to me) Not saying that means the whole thing is bullshit, but...
 
Drakeon said:
Seven Sided Strike, his favorite skill, is a monk skill, yet he says he plays Wizard. (Friend pointed this out to me) Not saying that means the whole thing is bullshit, but...

He did change the question. It does currently read:

Q: My main question deals with the Monk – does he have a similar ability to Teleport and is it awesome?

A: Seven Sided Strike. The catch is it requires a mob to be targeted. The good news is, it will demolish the enemy. Unsure if they will add another more escape-ee ability.
 
And it keeps on going and going. Part of me is leaning towards this all being fake, because Bashitok (D3 Community Manager) said it was and there hasn't been a C&D yet, however the same argument could be made for it being true as well. If nothing else, this guy has wasted a lot of time to answer question if its fake:

Q: Thanks for taking time to answer these queries. I just wanna check are the systems running D3 high? Can a year ago dated system play the system on high settings?

A: The test machines are powerful as far as I can tell. There are a bunch of specialist ones that are specifically spec’d with certain hardware types, some are really low-spec. I’d say the game will run on older PC’s pretty easily. A year ago system should run on max settings fine.

Q: You mentioned markets had 50 people in them. Does that seem like a lot? Are the market zones the same as normal game? Are there any other instances of large numbers of players in-game?

A: The trade games are in their own “game world”. Its basically a town, and it uses the Caldeum graphic set. There’s a bunch of market buildings around, and a lot of Market NPC’s and players around. It works much better than it sounds, it makes trading fun and interesting. I’ve been finding myself spending hours in them lately. It’s sort of a retreat from killing monsters, and relaxing. I love the system.

Q: What are some dungeon environments we haven’t seen?

A: Many. Nearly every dungeon has its own “look” and feel. The environments in this game are VERY moody and eerie. Its cool.

Q: Oh, and I’m the real grug. The one asking about Rares is a fake.
Yes, tell us about the Demon Hunter resource.

A: Hi Grug. See above. If you want something more specific, feel free to ask.

Q: Is there an option to toggle off certain graphical features eg. Red outlines or ‘not enough mana’ alerts?

A: Not at the moment, but the menu’s are very much unfinished. There is a few standard graphic menu items, and one that let’s you choose how long you want corpses to stay on the ground. Default is forever.

Q: Do you know any spectral blade rune effects?

A: Haven’t played with that spell much to be honest, but I’ve seen someone cast it and it was orange and left fire on the floor where it was casted.

Q: Any word on “thematic” legendary items?
Such as for non-cookie cutter builds. E.G Warcry Barb, Melee Caster (Wizard, Witch Doctor), Melee Demonhunter, Bow Barb etc?

A: Items are under heavy development at the moment so there is really very little Legendary items (and some of the ones that exist have no stats). Characters can be anything – the diversity so far is amazing. There is no one that has the same build as anyone else at the moment, for example I have full points in Meteor (meteor shower runed), slow time (reverse time runed) and a lot of points in Hydra (lightening runed). So when I go running around killing stuff, other Wizards have totally different spells/runes and flavors. They really hit the spot with customization.

Q: What level are you? If you cannot tell, please tell how quick you can go from 1 to 60 or what levels are highest right now. How did leveling character changed in comparison to d2 and d1 (since d1 had 50 levels).

Between level 35 and 50. I don’t want to be specific. Its very hard to say how long it takes, because we are testing and things keep changing. We don’t simply sit there and level like a normal person would. With that said, leveling feels a bit faster than D2. Like you can gain a level at 35+ over a weekend.

Q: Does the Demon Hunter have any summon pet skill? like a panther, a shadow, anything??

A: I haven’t seen one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t. I don’t run into many DH’ers, they are probably the least “developed” class in terms of working skills and flow. Their resource system only came in a few weeks ago.

Q: How do quests work in diablo 3? Are there a lot more quests than in diablo 1/2? Do you have to sit through text+talk or is it more streamlined? I heard you have some sort of bioshock talk+walk thing, how does that work?

A: Not going in to too many specifics, but there are two types of quests. Main quests (story) and side quests. Side quests are both random and static. An example of a static side quest is the Blacksmith artisan quest. An example of a random quest is a quest that shows up in the middle of a dungeon or zone that usually isn’t there. Rewards for main quests are much bigger than random quests/side quests, which have rewards such as XP, gold and random items. Rewards for main quests are bigger and more “permanent”. Side quests are walk/talk generally, main quests are a bit more “in-game cinematic-like”.

Q: Also, any info on different PvP gametypes?

A: Not at the moment. Just 3v3.

Q: How much of a factor do random events play in quests, monster spawning and environments? Are they frequent? Noticeable?

A: Random events are rather frequent. As an example, you might see a stone carving out in the middle of nowhere and that activates a quest. Or you might see a vendor who you click on and he says “You look like you need help carrying that gold”, and 3 guys come out from the background and attempt to kill you. The twist being, the main vendor guy is unattackable and after you kill his buddies he says “please, take everything I have” and you get a bunch of gold. You can then kill him or leave him after that.

Q: what about the music? it’s in?
if it is… in your opinion how good it is compared to D2 music?

A: Music is working everywhere. I’d rate it as very good and similar to the feel of D2. Same style of music, mostly.

Q: Is there a guilds sistem?

A: Not so far.

Q: Do you know if Beta players are going to be converted to the public server when the game is released? (Hoping not, I want character name 1337, and I’m sure some beta tester has it already. Hah.)

A: Highly doubt it.

Q: How significant are the Attributes (attack, precision, vitality, defense, and willpower) to your build’s effectiveness? Also, can you give us examples of some of the higher and skills that haven’t been revealed yet?

A: Well its relative. Because its automatically assigned, its more noticeable when you try and fight monsters higher level than you. Vitality adds different amounts of HP depending on your traits. In fact, most stats are influenced by traits. As for examples of higher skills, I gave at least 3 so far above.

Q: Is their a mail type system in place? If so can items you find on one character be mailed to another character even if you have already equipped it? Are items boe or bop or usable by all characters?

There are no “armor classes” in D3. There are just better (higher armor, higher level) armors. Chainmail is a high-tier Normal difficulty armor type. No items are BOP or BOE.

Q: You said all classes can’t wear all types of armor. Could you elaborate more on this?

A: It was a misunderstanding with the person who asked the question (english wasn’t he/she’s first language). All classes can wear all Armors, as long as they fit the level requirement.

Q: Are the main quests the same through each difficulty? Are you playing through the exact same story each time?

A: Yes.

Q: i speculate why this is fake: I asked for screenshot to prove this is not fake above

A: Read the rules. There is zero chance I can, or am willing post a screenshot or other media.

Q: Did you play with a follower? Is it interesting?

A: The followers were finalized after I finished normal. So not really. Though I did play with one in normal. They are interesting, but don’t play a major part (probably more major if you’re still in normal).

Q: bashiok just came out and called this blog a ‘super fake’ any comments? or is that expected of from what blizzard will say?

A: As specified already in my legal disclaimer, things posted here are purely speculative and are of my opinion (as its MY blog). Read into that how you wish, though. No more questions/comments on this subject.

Q: Roughly how many traits does each character have? Did they want them all to be unique or are some shared by multiple classes?

A: All characters have their own unique traits, though there are some very similar ones. Wizard has exactly 30 traits.

Q: Thanks for the info! I have one question – do you know if a melee demon hunter is totally viable? Have you tried any similar build(s)? Thanks!

A: I have very limited experience with the DH, but so far I haven’t seen a Melee DH running around.

Q: How is playing in a group working, do we get increased loot/exp or what?

A: When someone joins the game, the monsters get more Hp and there is physically more of them. It is very difficult to go out alone in a full game, unless your higher level. Loot drops about the same per individual person. I think monsters drop the same amount for each player (as you get your own loot). So if your alone you get the same flow of loot as if your with 5 people.

Q: I understand you play a Wizard, is there any way you could reveal some Witch Doctor info that hasn’t been announced yet? Skills, rune effects, etc.

A: I was grouped with a WD a few days back, he used an ability where a bunch of spirits spawned and hammered everything on the screen. Looked OP.

Q: Do spells have dynamic lights like in D2, where you fire lightning bolt lvl 4 and all bolts had a little light radius? Was really effective. If not, do they imtend to implement it?

A: Yes, but only your OWN spells. Other peoples spells are less “visual” on your screen, and vice versa.

Q: Are you experiencing followers? There was a big argument on having them only in Normal. Do you feel they could be useful in Nightmare and Hell solo gaming? Any rumors on changing plans about them?

A: They die in a few hits on Nightmare and get one-shot in hell. Unusable. Personally I don’t mind this, as when I played through normal they weren’t available so I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

Q:is there a group finder in the game? if yes then can u explain how it works?

A: Not as such, the AMM matches you with people of your level and progression. So its kind of assumed that you will group up. Which is the case, especially in NM and Hell.

Q: How does the respec function work?

A: No “official” respecs at the moment. Though we can reset our skills at will using the debug tool.

Q: What’s the mechanic for swapping out runes? Can you do it anywhere or is there some function to remove them? Does it cost anything?

A: You simply grab another rune and put it in the spell slot. This destroys the old rune. Though the jeweler can remove it at artisan level 3 for some gold and salvage mats.

Q: If you had played the game you would know Seven Strike hits random targets on the screen so could not be used as a teleport spell a you can’t predict your final position.
Even a half decent troll would have knwon Dashing Strike is the monks mobility skill.

A: This could be true, I don’t play the Monk. I could easily have gotten the names mixed up, and probably have done it multiple times in this blog.

Q: What the hell, i mean how difficult is it ? xD

A: “Challenging” during the short term. Less difficult as you get Uber gear, which no one really has at the moment.

Q: A question about runes – Can you de-rune a skill without destroying the rune? Since runes can drastically change the way a skill works, it seems like being able to change runes out without losing them is a good way to encourage expirmentation to find what best suits an individual’s playstyle.

A: Read two questions up.

Q: Is there a variation in the difficulties? Or is it like d2 in the sense that its the same game 3 times in a row, just harder

A: Like D2. However the monsters are very different, most are recolored versions with different abilities. There are a few monsters in Hell that have their own art, and as you can imagine they look much more dangerous.

Q: How does the shared stash work?

A: You will have a stash in town, as you did in D2. When you click on it, you see your normal stash (which is currently huge, 25×8). Directly above that, there is an area that is 4×10, and is shaded in a light-gray color. Anything placed in this area can be seen on all characters.

Q: How much of the environment (the destroyable part) will affect playstyle?

A: Dungeons have the most destructibles, and there is lots. Outdoor areas have more cosmetic destrucibles that don’t affect gameplay, while dungeons have plenty that do both. One cool example is a certain area (random event) that blocks you in and monsters come up from the ground. Its slightly terrifying at first, and makes you frantically destroy the walls to escape.

Q: Can you go hostile to players and set up duels like in d2? If not what types of PvP are in the beta?

A: Nope, you can’t attack any players in-game. You need to queue for an Arena game to do that. And it’s 3v3, best of 5 rounds, per game. One slightly interesting thing is the grayed-out (not implemented) button that says “spectate” on the AMM panel.

Q: Obvious troll is obvious. Not really telling us anything we don’t already no, and the when he does he says “It might be changed.” So when it comes out and its not what he said, he can just say ohh it was changed. Nice try dude. 1/10

A: Interesting. I’ve revealed about 60 new things so far.

Q: Is it possible to reset skills like in D2 through quest or dropped items?

A: Not yet. We can reset our spells and a number of other things through the debug screen.

Q: Are there WD’s summons that we haven’t seen yet?

A: Yes. Big monstrous dude. Don’t know what its called. Something like Giant or Gargantuan.

Q: What is your favorite acts and why? Thanks!

A: Act 2. I like egypt-style tombs and such.

Q: Does that Familiar have hit points or is it on a timer or what? And what kind of attacks does it use? Also, aside from the mongrel dogs can you tell us of any other Witch Doctor pets?

A: The Familiar is invulnerable and unattackable. It’s got really badass models (you get a different one each time, I’ve noticed 5 variations) No runes work with it yet. See above re WD pet.

Q: I’d like to do a summoner type build but actually dislike the “zombie dogs”, so what I’d like to know:
Is there a rune that changes the dogs into something different? How about the other pure summons like Gargantuan/Fetish army, do they have some freaky rune that changes them significantly?

A: There is a rune that “merges” each dog you summon. So basically you end up with a 3-4-5 headed dog that follows you around and attacks in all directions. At first I didn’t know what the hell it was, until I saw him resummon a dog and it jumped into the “fiend”.

Q: At the start of the game, how is the interface? Is it similar to StarCraft II? Is there a login screen like World Of Warcraft? Can you also tell us about the system for creating multiplayer games on Battle.net. Is there a password? Thanks !

A: The game goes into a login screen when you first open it. When you login, you go straight into Bnet, exactly like SC2. From there, you can use the AMM, or do custom games. Bnet is under heavy construction at the moment, most of it doesn’t work.

Q: What limits items from being worn? Is it strictly a level requirement? Are there stat requriements? Or is there a new requirement to equip items?

A: Level only. Weapon types are restricted to certain class types, ie a wizard can’t equip a spear or axe.

Q: What all can we place in sockets? Is it just gems? Is there anything like Jewels in D3?

A: Gems only at the moment. They are more powerful then D2 gems though. They are a cross between jewels and gems from D2.

Q: Do rares work like D2 where they can have up to 3 prefixes and 3 suffixes? How big is the pool of preffixes and suffixes?

A: Rares can have between 3 and 7 bonuses, though this could be wrong because some prefixes/suffixes have multiple bonuses. Item system is still being worked on.

Q: Tell me something about DH. Better with bows or with crossobows?

A: No idea which is better. Only quite recently have I seen Bows make it in the game. They are 2-handed (you can’t dual wield them like you can most xbows).

Q: Are the environments scary/have that dark foreboding element too them, reminiscent of D1?

A: The environments are awesome and very moody. More moody than anything you’ve seen in a Blizzard game. So many people are going to feel like retards for the art controversy saga.

Q: What are recipes like? How do you read them?

A: You don’t. Your Artisan does. You right click on it when you are in dialogue with your artisan.

Q: If you say it takes a whole weekend to gain a level at 35+ than that is very slow, much slower dan in D2. Also Bashiok has stated a few times the goal is to make sure ppl are max level around completion of hell difficulity. Does this mean you have not completed hell yet since ur are not over 50?

A: I didn’t mean a full 24hour a day weekend. I meant a weekend of like 4-8 hours of playtime all up. Hell cannot be completed in the build.

Q: Can you tell me what the runestones does on Seismic Slam? I can’t wait…

A: I’ve only noticed one because it was hard to miss: It shatters the terrain in a straight line and makes the terrain stick up and impassible for about 5 seconds for monsters. Players can walk over it though. The barb was using it defensively. Good escape combo with Leap attack.

Q: did you see any of the cinematics? are they AWeSoME???

A: None available in the build.

Q: you said that “leak” from another gametester was fake. so the main storyline does not involve tyrael as an enemy? also… tell us at least a little bit about the first boss. do we fight him in different stages? what are the first two stages? do the stages require different tactics?

A: I can assure you that the “leaked storyline” is incorrect. I have a no story spoiler policy, so I can’t answer your question.

Q: Assuming you can use WSAD or any other key combination to move, can you move “North” and shoot a spell “South” if it allows you to cast it while moving or does your character stop and face South?

A: There is no WSAD keys, its click to move, but yes, you can shoot “backwards” if your really quick at moving the cursor behind you after going forward. The quickbar (numbered) abilities target based on where your cursor is.

Q:Are they working on console versions of D3, and if so which consoles are being targeted?

Unsure. But there is no test console version that I’m aware of.

Q: How does the random map generator work? Better or inferior to D2?

A: What you would expect, except there are random quests and events.

Q: Are some chests locked?

A: No.

Q: You are saying that in the current build that DH uses Focus as the source of power and just mana before, are you referring to beginning of your beta test or all the way back? Since we knew that DH had a two part resource system, hatred and discipline.

A: It was mana for as long as I was testing.

Q: For the market, are there multiple NPCs that you have to check to see everything in the market, or will a single NPC provide a listing of everything in that market?

A: There are multiple NPC’s (many), but they all do the same thing, which is open up the trade market, and all the items are linked no matter which NPC you use. And there’s a bunch of stashes around too. There is a lot of functionality missing with the Market, for example they are planning on allowing you to display your items out of the game world, inside Bnet.

Q: ok, I know we get our personal loot when we kill monsters. what happens say if you pick up that loot then decide you dont want it and drop it, will your other party members be able to see it then?

A: Yes.
 

FGMPR

Banned
If this guy is full of shit, he should be a game designer, because that's some intricate detailing of game mechanics.
 

raphier

Banned
Regen health upto 30% away from monsters? I don't know...even the sublimicality of intention makes my skin sore. I need to see how it feels like myself.

FGMPR said:
If this guy is full of shit, he should be a game designer, because that's some intricate detailing of game mechanics.
He might just be a member of Friends & Family Beta. He's breaking NDA in that case.
 
raphier said:
Regen health upto 30% away from monsters? I don't know...even the sublimicality of intention makes my skin sore. I need to see how it feels like myself.


I'm going to guess there is a cooldown that has to activate that checks against monsters that are following you so that it doesn't become a "oh noes, I'm getting hurt run away to heal" type thing.

Gromph said:


piratepwnsninja said:
And it keeps on going and going. Part of me is leaning towards this all being fake, because Bashitok (D3 Community Manager) said it was and there hasn't been a C&D yet, however the same argument could be made for it being true as well. If nothing else, this guy has wasted a lot of time to answer question if its fake:
 

KorrZ

Member
Don't know if this is fake or real. Looking through it I don't see anything too out there that screams "THIS IS FAKE". One thing this has made me realize though...
I am so fucking hyped for Diablo 3. I want it all to be true just to feed my hunger for info.
 
Top Bottom