DiabloFans

Quote from OneTwoSC

Thanks for your support again, guys. I actually added the public games one yesterday because that feature means the most to me. Of course it'd be nice to have more social chat features... but I think a big part of Diablo 2's success was named games, 8 player max, and dueling. That way, the game becomes a hangout. You're always meeting people and that keeps you coming back. Who knows if they actually planned that or not, but back then, no one was complaining about Battle.net the way that we are now.

Putting aside itemization (or w/e other) issues with Diablo 3 that may exist, if your only public interaction is auto-matching quest runs, that puts a lot of pressure on the game itself to be endlessly entertaining, rather than people creating their own entertainment. It also seems to lead to "zero talk" runs. Games like Super Mario, Half-Life, or even mobile games like Tiny Wings, are games that you go nuts on for a while, and then stop. However, games like Diablo 2, Counter Strike, and Warcraft 3 keep you coming back because of the community (in the latter 2 cases, custom maps did it for me!).

The auction house has also had profound effects. I think it's very cool having one, but man, the one time (in D3) I had to do a real trade with someone made me realize how much I miss that interaction.

My conclusion is that all of these slick technologies and efficiencies have made the game so streamlined that it hampered the community/social aspect, and so the game didn't build as much culture around it, in the same way older Blizz games (including WoW) did. But these are just my opinions... maybe I'm becoming a cynical grumpy 24 year old lol.

Quote from Babu

That DH costume and photo is freeking cool! <3

Quote from BigEd781

Quote from Bilge

Didn't Blizzard say that you're guaranteed a legendary drop every 500 elite packs, or am I just imagining things?

You know, I could have sworn that they did, but I looked for a blue post saying as much a week or so ago and couldn't find it.

Quote from Bilge

Edit: On killing faster, it strikes me that many players play in a manner which is very inefficient. They may shoot every barrel and bone pile, or they may fully explore every map, or they may use builds which don't do very good damage. Watching videos and doing a little bit of research in the class forums section can help out quite a bit.

Yeah, it sucks that they decided to make anything but killing elite packs as fast as possible a complete waste of time.

*MF swapping made obsolete. Your MF rises 'slowly' to its max equipped value ie over ~120 seconds from you equipping a piece, its MF bonus is added to your character sheet - cant swap just before final blow, unless you want to kite around last mob for 120 secs.

*Levels of Excellence added. Gain a temporary 'level of excellence' on each elite kill. This number is tracked on your character perpetualy and you dont lose it if you change games/acts etc.

*Every time you kill your 500th elite, a guranteed Legendary drops (ilvl and affix rolls depending on Act and MF Gear as usual). This resets your 'Level of Excellence' to zero.

*This Legendary is BindOnEquip, so now while a certain amount of farming gurantees everyone a legendary drop, you need to make a choice - use it/save it for alt OR put it on AH/Trade. Cant use and pass on. This will provide the much needed item sink, else a guranteed Legendary drop will eventually flood the economy.

*This LoE system was favored for its simplicity and effectiveness. Its pretty much the WoW 'token' system, which essentially gurantees end game gear progression, as long as youre running the content, even if youre missing out on drops.

*Theyve spend a lot of time and effort making Legendaries cool. Needed to strike a balance between them being too common and too rare. Hence this system, as well as making them BoE, to ensure balance of economy.
There will be some changes to affix rolls of class specific items