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- Magistrate
- Registered User
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Member for 13 years, 9 months, and 20 days
Last active Tue, Apr, 13 2021 04:22:06
- 54 Followers
- 14,604 Total Posts
- 342 Thanks
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Apr 9, 2021Magistrate posted a message on Multiplayer Alpha Opt-In for Diablo II: Resurrected!Posted in: News
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Oct 16, 2018Magistrate posted a message on Diablo Hopes, Rumors, and Predictions for BlizzCon 2018Posted in: News
The PS is important yall. If I see it one more time I'm gonna claw my eyeballs out.
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Oct 31, 2013Magistrate posted a message on Reaper of Souls First Look: Westmarch Level DesignOMG THIS FEELS SO MUCH AMAZINGPosted in: News
Finally getting back to the Gothic stuff. Vanilla had amazing structures, but this feels much more like the monasteries, cathedrals, churches, and other buildings that made the previous games so memorable and unique.
Thanks for the update -
Sep 19, 2013Magistrate posted a message on Confirmed: D3 Will Stay Online, iOS Update May Reset Authenticators, Clarification on the AH, Paragon 2.0 Q&ASo, I haven't been following much Diablo news since shortly after release. I happened to see this post highlighted in the Facebook feed and... I can't say how happy I am to see the AH going.Posted in: News
Initially, I was really excited about the AH and what it meant--for all the reasons that it was pitched when it was announced. I'll agree that it made gear more accessible, that it saved time and rewarded casual players, that it gave us another mini-game to fool with, and all that other stuff. But for all these little things that it did, it just ripped out the soul of what I found fun for over a decade in 2 and to some degree in 1.
It simply removed the need for any form of communication. You don't need to ask anyone what optimal stats are--overall or for a given goal--because you could just look up the best-selling gear and glean the information from that. You didn't need to barter with anyone, which was a big part of the trading experience in the older games (it has its downs, yes, but it also has its ups).
Because of the brevity of the endgame (which there is basically none of) in this one and the others, trade and PvP became the only real reasons to talk in channels--you know, those things that are basically empty 24/7 on D3. With hardly any PvP to speak of--despite the tantalizing features we glimpsed for a BlizzCon or two before launch--trade is the only real dialog that even has a chance in this game, and that's gone, too.
Yes, this will mean a lot of spamming if no alternative trade route is created. But I don't really look at that as a bad thing, now. No one talks, anyway, so it's not like anything important would be spammed out.
Part of the fun is figuring out what you need, doing everything you can to find a buyer or seller, haggling the price, figuring out the market, and learning the street language. Doing all of this also encourages making friends and actually talking with them regularly. We don't even need to talk to friends, anymore--the game tells us exactly what they're doing and lets us hop in without a thought. Questing and killing is so streamlined, so linear, that nothing needs to be said. It's easy to forget you're playing with people. There's a lot of players that hate that this game is online-only--I can barely tell the difference.
I miss all of that. If it weren't for the bots, I'd probably still be playing Diablo 2. (Arguably, the gameplay is much better in 3, too, but gameplay isn't the only selling point in a game for me.) -
Sep 9, 2012Magistrate posted a message on Interview with AlkaizerHow does it feel*Posted in: News
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Nov 9, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Third Conference Call, Beta Notes You Didn't See, and Battle.net's "Cheat Box"Posted in: NewsQuote from youwillneverknow
The cheat box has already been solved, and Bashiok is trolling you, again not surprisingly. See the tweet by micahwhipple on the @Diablo page. "There is no cow level"
You just need to believe. -
Nov 8, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Third Conference Call, Beta Notes You Didn't See, and Battle.net's "Cheat Box"Posted in: News
Oh, you have no idea. Your thoughts have been earth-shattering in the cryptic puzzleology academic community. -
Nov 4, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Selective Beta 5 Footage, 20th Anniversary Special Article, and More Beta BluesPosted in: BetaQuote from DragonJunkie
Magistrate thank you for the impale video but you didnt put your curser over the skill so we could see how much damage it does now.
Could you please tell us.
Quote from stampy
I still haven't been able to find footage of the new arcane-enchanted mob effect... would be a good video if the opportunity presents itself
Done!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJMmvFiTRAM
Done!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAIDreH16nA
:3 It would be nice to get some spam from Diablo fans and not penis enlargement pills for once. -
Nov 4, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Selective Beta 5 Footage, 20th Anniversary Special Article, and More Beta Blues@DragonJunkie: That's a good point! I'll be sure to do that in the future. Regrettably, I'm at work right now, so I can't get that information to you just yet. The official patch notes may have percentages or something for that and you could calculate it based on the old information. If no one responds to your question before I get back, I'll post it up as soon as I walk in the door.Posted in: Beta
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Nov 4, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Selective Beta 5 Footage, 20th Anniversary Special Article, and More Beta BluesNote: I'm going to try to get more videos done on the characters this weekend. Sorry for the skimpy supply, folksPosted in: Beta
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Nov 4, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Diablo III Beta Patch 5 Complete NotesPosted in: BetaQuote from Jaelzadeon
Also, anyone know how to change your banner now? They moved around some buttons but I can't seem to find it anywhere. >.>
You click on your banner now. -
Nov 4, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Diablo III Beta Patch 5 Complete NotesI would guess it's a response to not wanting gear to drop as easily as it has been.Posted in: Beta
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Nov 4, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Patch Imminent, Test Server Reset in ProgressHaving some RSS concerns. See the new news post for the patch details. Sorry for all the confusion, everyone!Posted in: News
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/31620-diablo-iii-beta-patch-5-complete-notes/ -
Nov 4, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Patch Imminent, Test Server Reset in ProgressYeah, just noticed it in the beta client. Updating--Posted in: News
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Nov 3, 2011Magistrate posted a message on Patch Imminent, Test Server Reset in ProgressSorry about that. Had a little technical hiccup.Posted in: News
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The funny thing is that part of the franchise's original appeal was the cult appeal of being nonstandard--so much so that it created its own standard, aesthetically and gameplay-wise. If any non-indie company had an IP they wanted to do things like this in, Diablo would be it.
But yes, I really agree that the option for this kind of readability is needed in the game for accessibility, which is very important, but that a toggle seems a very quick/easy thing to add that would probably make everyone happy.
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For some reason, I feel like this was talked about at some point during blizzcon and I feel like they said there's toggles or something. The overall tone is an improvement imo from the last one, but I agree that this looks excessive.
It's probably a tricky balance, too. They could do nothing but rely on gore and that would not read well in a lot of environments (anything dark, or with warm colors). In D2 monsters turned blue, green, red, etc., based on status defects and subtly turned white when you moused over them. Just toning it down in general would probably be the best bet.
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Idk my random thoughts:
1. Could either bee a hood or a sort of templar knight helmet (see these).
2. I could see these being a shaw or that extra bit you see on monastic cloaks overhanging the shoulders (see these shaws/monastic cloak).
3. These could either be the ends of robe sleeves--fantasy games often stylize them overhanging hands a little bit--or gauntlets.
My first guess is that since we already have 3 melee or melee-adjacent classes, that this would be some additional ranged magic class. Maybe like a Vizjerei mage specializing in demon summons and enhancements, or something more generic.
My second guess is that since they go pretty hard on the paladin (or paladin-adjacent) melee/holy magic class every game and in most of the books, it's just going to be that.
I guess that's two obvious answers but meh.
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Regarding your courier system idea:
1. There's definitely big value in adding diverse activities, but I think devs have to be careful that the activities are actually replayable without feeling "oh it's this minigame again."
In WoW, they add a lot of minigame type world quests (they're objectives that spawn across the expansion's entire open world and have 24 hr respawn cycles or smaller, some 2 or 3 hrs). These include puzzles, timed activities, kill x y amount of times, fetch quests, kill rare spawns, etc.
Although I think most people enjoy the varied, new content like puzzles and timed activities at first, they generally avoid them within a couple weeks of a new expansion or patch introducing it, and general chat turns into "ugh this thing again."
Longterm, players always end up maximizing whatever is the quickest and simplest end to efficiently get whatever valuable thing is rewarded. In WoW's case, people basically just do the quick and easy rare spawn kills, then the kill x of y monster quests, then the fetch quests or puzzles, depending on which is quicker.
2. The rewards have to be able to justify the time/effort investment without the content feeling mandatory because the rewards are too good. I'm not informed enough on D4's character progression to make any points here, but I think it's important to think about.
3. You make a good point here, and I think this is worth discussing:
Any world upgrade rewards (like camps that you mention) add the appeal of immersion and visual progression. One of my criticisms of D3's endgame systems is that most of them you just jump in a portal into some random realm and do a thing. It made the game (to me) feel less grounded, more fantastic, and not as rooted as the first two.
I like this idea you bring up of camps being able to degrade, but the camps would have to have a function or value in terms of character progression to make them worth sustaining in an area. Like, when they're maintained, a passive buff to drops in the surrounding overworld area and dungeons, or a buff to xp (ONLY if they're doing something like paragon leveling again--otherwise XP buffs would be useless for endgame), or a passive reduction in certain crafting types while at the camp. (I'll admit here I haven't really kept up with news so this might already be a thing.)
The lack of permanence is also critical like you point out--if you can just upgrade them all the way and they never degrade, it sort of just becomes an assumed endgame system. Like upgrading vendors in D3--once you do it all on your main (and it doesn't take long) you just never think about it again and most of the vendors don't really have much additional depth beyond itemization quirks.
I don't really know anything about the ancestral system, so I can't comment there.
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Neither games are really accessible to consumers yet, so there's that. But yeah, this site subsisted for years with no news or new game before D3 and had daily new posts and threads, so I see no reason for that to be the sole limiting factor here. Tbh it's probably because social media is more visible and accessible to people.
Imo fansites separated from RL identities and greater socially connected accounts and contexts were an amazing and freeing thing for many, and I think they were good mixing areas for people who would never normally talk to be excited about something. Social media brings in the context of your RL friends, families, and other connections in a way that prevents you from reinventing yourself, or fosters connections that prevent people from really getting to know good intention strangers.
Oh well.
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It could be argued that it's important to look at their products in terms of IPs and not individual installations. For instance, the Warcraft IP making money off a WoW expansion, WC3R (lol), a movie, microtransactions, swag/toys, etc., is all a win. All of it represents either an increase or a continuation of maintaining capital for them as a company.
Investors may or may not see it that way. They might want an individual thing to excel as well as it possibly can. But in the long term, I think this is also something that is considered at quarterly calls because it's more indicative of longterm success. Box sales are just a blip on the radar--if you base all your success on them, you'll just be chasing temporary highs.
This is why I argue BlizzCon and maintaining Blizzard IPs as a lifetime fan/family identity is more important than just selling the next big thing.
Another thing could be argued--I don't think a D2 remaster would ever have the staying power to upset the multi-million dollar box sales of a major new installment. If Blizzard did it, much like the SC remaster, it would probably be either a labor of love or just for existing fans. I don't think any of their remasters have turned huge quarterly profits on the scale of a major release.
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It's a big name game that carries with it multiple generations of gamers. The outlets will all post the press kit assets. That's pretty much how it's always been.
When I want to see more than the same confirmed facts, I usually go to a fansite or reddit. That usually solves it for me since communities around a single topic usually filter this down to unique information/takes or topical reading.
But by all means go for it!
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With regards to a remaster, you guys all hit on several different nail heads. The first is that it was definitely said that essentially all the working parts are all lost to time. There's certain things modders can and do tinker with, but it's not enough to rebuild a game from. That's in that quote above, and I remember back in 2010 or 2011 when I went to Blizzcon this was confirmed by... I can't remember his name. At the time, the legacy "team" was literally 1 full time guy (for all legacy games) and one other guy that was usually at a different campus.
Making the assets "available" like that to anyone isn't likely in their style. They very much went out of their way with WC3R to stipulate that any and all content created with their editor is their property, or at least can't be used in the way that led to a certain moba being born.
I really, really wanted a remake. I remember when I was in line in 2019 before the con doors opened some guys were passing around a blurred screenshot that we all assumed was a D2 remastered character select campfire. I was losing my mind. It turned out it was a leak of the D4 character select campfire.
But honestly, if they really pull through on D4 (and it looks like they will), I'm not sure I need a remaster, anymore. D4 feels to me like what D3 was missing. I know it's silly to rail on cosmetics, but honestly that vibe that the first games gave off are part of the reason for their campy following. D3 just felt like a high fantasy epic. I enjoyed the gameplay and so much else about it, but it didn't feel in the same universe for the most part until ROP.
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Yeah, I had to do something similar to this to get my old account connected to Twitch.
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Diablo3.com actually existed as a blog for a bit before it got the vbulletin treatment. I think mockery said that once. There was an odd subtle tension between mockery's site and... god, I forget that other one. It wasn't medievaldragon's, it was that older one. I think it was founded in 2001. It's still around and dated as hell, lol.
Welcome back Jetrall! Miss those days!
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You don't need to change difficulties to reset the map. You just need to make a new game. Changing the difficulty doesn't affect your quest progress in any other difficulty--it's all tracked separately.
I'm pretty sure once you use it to open the chamber on any difficulty, it remains open regardless of if you've beaten Duriel. But it's been a while.
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Yeah I would bet money on both classes being playable next year at the con. I can't imagine them not having a playable class and having to develop itemization, combat, etc., with only three classes. I feel like it would be like the baseline for moving forward on many fronts.
Also agree with @WishesHeHadBeta on the timeline. Makes sense on many fronts.
It's also usually the case that what we see at BlizzCon is usually a bit behind what they actually have internally. For instance, the next wow raid area they showed off in one of the panels was already datamined showing a lot more progress before the event.
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It was going to be announced last year but they delayed it at last second. It would've been announced regardless, probably.
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They said the game isn't even Blizzard Soon(TM) soon, so...probably like 2022 like most are saying.
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Welcome back