DiabloFans

They're going to reveal it all. They wouldn't call in big press websites like IGN if they wouldn't. Plus, if "internal beta testing" started waaaay back in May, they probably had the "trading system", Demon Hunter resource system, boss encounter system, and pretty much everything else figured out.

They reveal things at a small pace to not create too much hype on stuff that can be removed as development progresses (like the Talysman) and to not throw away all their ace cards.

But this August event is definitely related to a beta starting date, and I'm pretty sure they have all of the game figured out and designed.

Surface/outdoor areas are static.

Just to add, the outline of outdoor areas and the biggest landmark are static. Some stuff is still random. You can come up to a bridge that's broken in one gameplay, and that's intact in another, making you have to follow different paths sometimes (at least that's what I got from watching the gameplay videos from the "desert" act, and from a Blizz quote).

Random quests outside are also going to make it look different. They have stated in one playthrough you might find a guy who has been robbed and need to help him, and in another you might find just a static chest with loot but then get "ambushed" by a lot of skeletons.

As for what they do when you die... well I believe they will simply spawn right beside you at the last checkpoint.

Pretty much this.

It's very similar to the "pet companion" in Torchlight from what we know so far. Can cast a couple spells and be a small help to you, can be equipped with a couple of stat boosting stuff, and stays out of combat for some time when they "die" (which apparently they don't, they're just knocked unconscious, like Pokemon, u'know? =P)

I don't think all of the Barbs skill entries are really that old, I believe they're based off the last Blizzcon 2010 build - or at least I remember seeing the damage on then like that when I attended.

As far as shields go, we've recently heard that every character can use one, even the Monk (which they were still deciding), so going a defensive route is a choice every character has. But I see your concern, other classes (like the Wizard) don't rely on "weapon dmg" for her skill dmg.

I can see this being easily solved by making sure whenever the Barbarian has only 1 "one handed weapon" his "weapon damage" used to calculate the skills is increased by "x%", simple and effective. I don't think we can conclude single handed weapons will deal for sure ~60% of the damage of two-handed weapons or wielding 2 one-handed weapons, we have to wait and see tbh, but even in this case like I said, it could be easily solved with a mechanic that boosts the dmg of the one-handed weapon closer to the dmg of the other 2.

Quote from sithsylar

God i hope we don't cause i hated it in d2...

5 post random guy replying randomly to random stuff that appears on front page to make sure he ups his post count without even reading anything in the thread.

I don't really like the name "stamina" for her resource system, but I also wouldn't hate the class if they choose that as the name. As long as the gameplay of the class is really fun with managing both types of skills/abilities (discipline and hatred), I'm probably going to make a Demon Hunter as one of my first classes.

The correct thread name would be "Hello World" =P looks like somebody missed their first programming class.

Just kidding, welcome to the forums, and enjoy it before this becomes hectic and full of people whining when the game is released =D

Lol, all this discussion about whether bow strings are visible or not, and whether they should be or not, and I clicked into the thread thinking that someone was suggesting that "Bow Strings" to actually be items, like a Legendary "Bow String" that speeds up your arrows.

Came in prepared to blow the idea away, found something completely different.

Since we don't know how rare the drop rate of legendary and sets are compared to diablo 2 i don't see how you can even get close to the assumption that you can get geared in 1/14 of the time of diablo 2, there is very little info when it comes to item drop rate/quality etc...

Pretty much what I thought.

While you can make assumptions based on what's reasonable, it's pretty impossible to say "yay, I got this figured out". Plus in D2, the difficulty increase was merely stats wise, and the amount of DPS you could output with an extra Sorceress or 2 on your team using Static Field on a boss greatly offset that extra HP given you could tank for them with a Paladin or a Barbarian, so in all honesty, D2 had a very weak difficulty increasing feature based on number of players. I believe this will be better on D3 (amount of enemies, their overall dmg), and bosses won't be a cakewalk with 4 players.

Considering items are going to drop separately for each player, I don't see how magic find could affect the whole party. I believe it's going to be an individual stat, affecting only your drops.

Also, I think by now they will have adressed the D2 problem, where MF would only work if you landed the last hit on a boss/enemy.

I was never a big fan of Magic Find to be honest. It was such a strange feature. You could never knew if those 10-25% early MF stats that you got were actually affecting the loot being dropped. I felt like more rares were dropping, but they were also kind of useless, and Sets and Uniques weren't dropping.

At the end of the day, even with massive magic finding, you could still have to fight a boss 100 times and never get that Unique shield that only he dropped =/ it's a stat I wouldn't care if they got rid off completely (not that I want it, I just wouldn't mind).

If the midnight launch is anything close to the Starcraft 2 launch, I'll probably be up at midnight buying one of the first few copies (preferably a Collector's Edition one).

Then I'll probably proceed to rush/destroy the story mode in singleplayer with a Wizard as fast as possible just to know the story spoilers (which I'll try to avoid in the "beta" if I get in). Probably finish it before I get any sleep (just like I did with SC2 o.O took me 12 straight hours to finish the campaign on hard, but boy, did it feel good!).

Proceed to multiplayer with awesome self-esteem and tons of gameplay knowledge already to impress people =D

Don't forget now, after tons of experience with Starcraft, Warcraft 3, WoW, seeing mobas like DotA, LoL, HoN, all being balanced in a given "pattern", they're probably 100 times better than they were back when D2 was released.

Back then, "balanced" mean that Fireball had to deal at least 2 times as much dmg as Firebolt, since it was an obvious upgrade.

They even admitted that Teleport wasn't balanced, so the solution was to give all characters teleports with runewords o.O Nowadays they'd solve that through better means.

SC2 balancing is pretty good, despite what the forum trolls and whiners will tell you - and should be an indicator of Blizzard's capacity in balancing stuff out.

It doesn't matter how bad it looks, D2 looked "bad" by critics standards back then, and it still had awesome gameplay for that time.

As long as the Skill usage, overall action and dungeon design, boss fights, and runestones, all live up to the hype they've built, I'm fine with mediocre graphics (which even now I don't consider them to be - you obviously don't want them to put as much time designing armor as the designers of Mass Effect 2 or Unreal Tournament 3, do you?)

I'd rather have 2 min cooldown skills in an awesome game where I can actually use more than 2-3 skills strategically, than "no cooldown" skills like most in D2 and be forced to use the same spell over and over and over again for the whole game (adding maybe 1 more as a debuffer and 1 as a defensive armor spell that would be active all the time - more like a passive that I had to manually cast always).

I'm glad the Barbarian seems actually fun to play right now, with Ground Slam and stuff like that. If calling badass Barbarians to help me for 10-15 seconds and see them smash people's face during that time can't have a symbolic 2 min cooldown, I don't know what can have.

2 mins is barely anything. You could probably use it multiple times in a single dungeon. Back at Blizzcon 2011, an "alpha build" dungeon would take us most of all the 15 minutes of testing (and that was rushing through monsters and not wasting time). It's just to make sure you actually think before wasting that precious time-limited skill on normal Hell monsters, instead of unique ones.

I'd probably use the default option and see how it feels in the beginning. I mean you can judge whether you want to pick an item up on the fly on those "10 seconds" or so when it appears, and then you can always check it back if you're not sure.

Then again, maybe you just wanna keep fighting for 2 minutes in a row, destroy everything in a room, and then come back and check the loot, that would fit my playstyle too (if it doesn't take too long to do it instead of just go picking stuff up) - maybe then I might switch to "toggle" mode.

This is amazing, I'm assuming you're combining what we already know from the D3-wiki and plenty of imagination/creativity.

Some things might be a little off (like the Black Ice Trait, 50% increased dmg from all sources would be sick! Wouldn't it be more like 8-16-24% on lvls 1-2-3?) but most of it is pretty creative/fun.

The Familiar idea specially cool, I'd love to be able to "set" my Wiz's Familiar to be targetable, and once he's no longer too useful in that role (like you said, dies too easily in Hell or in a specific area due to specific dmg/enemies) you can just swap the Runes out and make him a dps increment.

I'd love to see the Monk in the next chapter =D might even write some of it myself.