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A ranger can be very sneaky if he wants to be, I bet. I mean, assuming its anything like the Rangers I have imagined, he would have spent a good portion of his life living and thriving off of the woodlands? You would have to learn the ways of the forest if that is the case: "Kill or be killed". I surely wouldn't assume you would kill much in a forest running around going "crunch, crunch" every time you took a few steps.

As a master of survival, he would of coarse know how to use a melee weapon in case he was up against something bigger than himself (such as a bear or what not). Marksmanship would be another well suited quality, as a hunter he would probably hone his archery skills so he didn't have to get as close to creatures he is after for food.

However, passives kinda scare me. The idea of a purely passive tree is kinda pointless now that they are including passives into all of the trees. He should have them, of coarse, but not a tree dedicated to them. Instead, perhaps a stealthy tree, or as some have suggested a focus on minor summoning. Perhaps his third three could be survivability, mixing a few powerful summons, sneaky perks, and maybe a little foresty magic he has picked up along the way.

I'd like to see something like this, but I would have to hear a little more detail about what he would be like, lore and all. I can see myself more worried about the lore of the D3 classes than anything.

From what I hear, we won't even have our body dropping when we die in D3 anyway. When you come back, your shit will all still be with you. Now, idk if that means we will be getting a durability hit (like in WoW) every time we die or not, but people should never be able to take anything from you, except for the possibility of an ear (if that even gets implemented again).

While being cornered is not exactly any thing to plan on (nobody wants to be in that situation), knowing you have a back-up strategy just in case is good tactics. Each class so far has something that could help you get out of a tight jam. Barbs Leap Attack, Wizards Teleport, and WDs Horrify would all do the trick. The first two are obvious, but Horrify is a little more tricky, as once you Horrify you gotta gtfo fast.

As far as Townportal goes, I personally hope they prevent us from just dropping a TP during combat or with monsters too close. That got really stupid on Diablo 2. As if spamming potions like candy wasn't enough, one could just TP out of almost any situation and get away scott free. It taught people NOTHING about real skill, and it really ruined Hardcore 9 times out of 10. I'd personally like to see no TP in boss rooms or while mobs are close by.

Quote from "umtwademel" »

Will Blizzcon 2009 Footage be released for free streaming after the event? The reason that I am asking is that I really want to see new diablo 3 videos and coverage, but don't want to pay 40 bucks just to see it stream live.

Well, chances are you won't be seeing the official streams. However, that does not mean somebody won't video-cam it and put it on the net. That happened at 2008 and nobody really seemed to care much (at least I don't think they did). I personally got the live-stream, will be watching every minute of the footage, and if there is enough time between events will likely be posting interesting info here as I see fit.

Things aren't going to just fly apart because your playing a barbarian. Unique monsters blow apart for kicks and monsters also blow apart if a crit kills them. Basically, later on in the game you won't see quite as much splatter kills, but if your a crit monster you just might get that gratification anyway.

I'd take it if that were an option, however it will be a long time after Battle.net 2.0 launches that we ever see Diablo 3. We will be lucky to even see it in 2010 (really depending on how soon the new WoW expansion is announced), yet SC2 and Battle.net 2.0 should be coming out early 2010.

Idk if people are actually reading the posts or just typing blindly, but it comes again.

The idea of a WoW expansion this early just seems foolish. It just seems WAY too soon, they haven't even released info on the Icecrown (Arthas) content patch yet. Until Arthas gets his socks rocked off we don't NEED another WoW expansion. Not only that, if Blizzard decides to, they may want to create yet another hero class (though I hope they saw how hard it was to balance the first one). That on its own will take a lot of time, because it would be yet another thing to add to developement.

Personally, I think it all comes down to Blizzcon 09. If they announce a major WoW expansion (expansion as in new CD, not content patch), then we will most likely see that by the end of 2010. However, if they don't release this Blizzcon, I got a strong feeling we will see D3 end of 2010. It has to be coming along quite nicely by now, but we will get a better look at that August 21st.

Personally, this is unexpected, but I am not at all surprised. I had a feeling SC2 was happening THIS year judging what we have known in the past, and this new info just proved me right, yet wrong at the same time. SC2 shoulda', coulda', woulda' came out this year, as I had expected, though Battle.net 2.0 isn't going to be up in time. Thats fine with me personally, I would rather see this all done right than done early.

As far as this whole Diablo 3 and WoW expansion thing, a WoW expansion hasn't even been talked about formally yet. They don't NEED a new WoW expansion yet, the fucking one we have still has a lot of work to be done. Ulduar is the big dungeon now, but as we all know we have yet to dethrone Arthas in Icecrown. For all we know, there may be a whole nother raid coming out before Arthas. The LAST thing they need to do at this point is start talking about releasing a new expansion when we haven't even finished the one we have on our plates. "If you can't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you can't eat your meat?!?"

That being said, I personally think the most Blizzcon 09 might do for WoW is announce said expansion. Let us know its coming, but not happening any time soon. That is no way or form means we won't be getting shit on Diablo 3 (we had better), and it in no way or form means an WoW expansion will be coming out before D3. It could, don't get me wrong, but it is WAY to early to be predicting that crap. The only thing we KNOW for sure right now is that SC2 will be coming in 2010. On top of that, assuming there are no delays, we also may very well see another title released in 2010 (most likely later in the year, before holidays). Its either going to be a WoW expansion or Diablo 3.

At this very point in time, it may not LOOK like Diablo 3 is close to completion. What I really cannot understand is how people can blatantly say that it IS NOT, FOR SURE even close to completion when they have no clue in hell as to whats going on behind closed doors. We have damned Blizzcon 09 THIS MONTH, and still people tend to judge Diablo 3 based on old 08 news? WELCOME TO 2009! Its coming in TWO WEEKS! See what Blizzcon 09 has to offer before you start making unreal judgments. After Blizzcon 09, we will most likely be much more suited to make these kinds of theories. If they don't even announce a new WoW expansion, chances are Diablo 3 will see its way to stores before a WoW expansion ever will, but we don't know that because its not Aug 21st now is it?

Quote from "akse" »

Numbers and odd special letters doesn't fit into a role playing game. You are supposed to figure some kind of name that fits to your characters biography. Like a Barbarian would have a barbaric name etc. Or you could perhaps make up your own story to your barb and figure that he was raised by Amazons and been given and amazon like name.

Anyways I liked how Warhammer had a randomize name feature.. if you couldn't figure out a name for your character or it was already in use.. you just randomized it and it really gave nice RP names for each race. I hope we get something like this to D3 because I always have hard time figuring out a proper name for my characters.

The ability to use numbers in your name has always been there in the Diablo series, ever since 1. Two of my friends in the Diablo 1 days had a small clan we called the Hells 7, very ripped off, be we were like 8 at the time. We each had a name of the prime evils, and tried to get 4 other people to join us with names of lesser evils. We each added the number 7 to the name. I was Baal7, and my local friend was Mephisto7. Diablo7 was a friend of his from out of town. Can't say we got many followers, but it was fun.

Personally, to me my number means as much to me as my names. Morden, being a conjugation of the german word for murder, has always been the first name of my vampiric alter ego. Algheri, the last name (not used in my forum name here) was the last name, and it was pretty much a mispell of Dante Alegheri's last name. My number 79 comes from two things, the original #7 from my Hells7 clan, and 9 being my lucky number. 79 almost means more to me than the name itself, and I would like to be able to use it after EVERY character name I make on Diablo 3, just as I did with Diablo 2. Diablo was never about some stupid RP name (like WoW did), it was about a personal user name to differentiate you from the next player. I really hope they keep it that way.

Also, as far as randomizers, they can be nice, but the biggest problem with them is once enough people have used the feature it starts to get pretty bad. I remember trying this on WoW and finding on one server that pretty much all the random names I liked were taken. Perhaps that randomization system just sucked, idk. Often you had to at least make some modification to that name to get it to work. If they did implement this, yet kept allowing numbers as well you could always just add a number to the end and be done with it. Too many times rerolling on WoW I found it took me longer to get a fucking name that was allowed and worked for me than it did to actually create my character image. Blizzard has already stated they want you to pick your class and pretty much jump into the game. By limiting your name to only letters, that would hurt this gameplay ability a lot, especially once the game has been out for a while.

Quote from "Zhar" »

*nods*

I don't know why people make such a big deal about getting the name they want.
It's just a name.
Several letters on a screen won't ruin your gameplay experience if they aren't the right ones.

Because a name is just a few ways to really tell people who you are. I personally love having a name that fits me, I have been using a set of names since Diablo 1 and 2 that I hope to be able to use again. To some people its just a name, to others that name has meaning.

Just like in real life, some people name their kids different things. One parent may just say "Well, I'm gonna call my child (insert name) because I like the way it sounds." Another parent would say "I want to call my child (insert name) because it means (insert name's meaning)." Other will say "I want to name my child (insert name) because my name is (same name) and my dad's name was (same name)." To some its just a name. To some it has a meaning. To others, its a legacy.

Seriously though, they just had BETTER allow numbers after our names. I have no fucking clue why you couldn't on WoW and it bugged me. Without a number, half these shit kids can steal the names I have been using since I was 7. With number, I can add the number I usually always used with those names (79 obviously) and have the name I want, but with a number that identifies me from Morden12. I got so mad when I had to name my Death Knight M?rden because some shit kid rolled a character, named him Morden, and left him at level 12. I tried to convince myself that the umlauts made it look cooler, but ever time some assholes saw my name they would be like "Oh, I see you stole that name". It was pretty lame.

So at that I pray they don't change this to WoW and remove the numbers.

I am in total agreement with SFJake here. They surely haven't been in full production of Diablo 3 for the last 6 years, its been talked about, thought about, and looked at. If they wanted Diablo 3 to be out earlier, it would have been out by now, but they had other priorities for a new type of game to their company (WoW as an MMO). To be honest, while I am not a big MMO fan (as I discovered only after having a lvl 80 DK decked out with Naxx 25 tank gear), I do think there is a lot to love about WoW if MMOs are your kind of game. Sure they have had some balance issues, but they were new to MMOs, and its coming along quite nicely if you ask me.

As far as this whole "Nothing new in Starcraft 2" crap is rediculous. What exactly did you expect? They have come up with a LOT of new concepts for different units and upgrades. Never once in SC1 do I recall there being a drop pod system. How about the ability to get resources faster (with things such as the MULEs and Dark Pylons)? Limited high resource mineral fields to ACTUALLY give you something on the field worth fighting over. Destructables? Units capable of scaling ledges without a dropship? Warp-ins? There are a TON of new things for the basic game alone, and the campaign is TOTALLY revamped now. Have you even watched any of the SC2 panels from Blizzcon 08 or are you just guessing? Not to mention they are adding on to the story line, something I have been DYING to know more about since I finished Brood War. As it stands now, SC2 looks like its going to be a major success.

And SFJake makes a very good point, how many damned good gaming companies are still around? I rented TONS of console games this summer from Blockbuster (since they have that deal where you can rent games and swap them out before their due, not to mention you can cheat their services and keep games an extra week) and I have been completely floored at how bad video games are becoming. Ghostbusters: such a brilliant game to create now that they have the proper tech for it, and they couldn't even fix half of the stupid bugs. Half the game is WAY too easy until you get the final level and then its just WHOA. Then you come to the last boss and he is piss poor simple. Rainbow 6 Vegas? That game didn't stay in my house for more than 2 days. I mainly rented it because it looked cool and it had coop (I play a lot with my friends). The coop was so piss poor shitty: you don't even get the story in coop mode its just you killing people... Force Unleashed? Its as if they didn't even test half of that game... The only two games I have played this summer that were anywhere near worth it have been Gears 2 and Prototype... I remember the days where a good number of good games existed, now half of those games that still exist have been changed so much its not even fun anymore. Blizzard is one of the last few gaming companies in existance that still bring hope of good games for this generation. I'm not even sure if I am excited about the games that we will see in the next decade when I look at the crap thats coming out any more...

That being said, let Blizzard make their damn games and be happy that Blizzard is even still around! Out of my two favorite gaming companies from my childhood (Blizzard and Bullfrog), only one of them still exists to even make good games, and I am very grateful for it.

I personally would rather see a forest based ranger than a desert one myself. There is a lot of forest based area around Westmarch and New Tristram that would bring forth a powerful ranger. I can see it now, surviving off the land and the already twisted forests when all of a sudden something bigger invades and makes him decide to take it to Diablo to get his old life back, or something like that. The forest has made him fast and agile in order to survive, and now he uses these abilities to fight the hordes of hell.

As for the other class, I personally would love to see a class similar to the D2 Act 2 mercs. Spear wielding desert warriors with the capability of boasting their party's abilities through a new variation of the Paladin's auras, much like those Act 2 mercs. Now, however, instead of having holy magic like auras, his auras could come from leadership ability. Elite warrior with leadership skills that has lead many partys into the desert to fight the things that threaten his city.

But hey, who knows, only time will tell. COME ON BLIZZCON.

On a better note, I personally think Starcraft 2 is pretty well along. The whole mulitplayer experience is pretty much there, they probably just need more work on campaign, map making, and balance. Its going to need much more testing and balance than it will art, lore, and animation at this point. This will leave a lot of room for them to work on certain aspects of Diablo 3.

Yes, but every character has the same restrictions pretty much. Everybody has special moves based off some sort of usable force. In D2 EVERYONE had mana, now its getting modified. Sure, a barbarian can go in swords swinging without mana and be fine, but a Wizard or WD definitely could not. Mana leech while using a wand would just be an extra means of picking up some mana faster than the standard regeneration rate, and I don't see anything wrong with that as long as Bliz keeps it balanced.

No, we don't want Wizards or WD turning to their wands instead of their primary skills because its so powerful. No, we don't want to shoot 3 wand blasts and have full mana. Its just a matter of balance. Keep the wand damage low and mana leech won't be bringing that much back anyway. It will still, however, be more mana than you would have had just standing there like an idiot.