Armor Dyes
In Diablo 2 no system existed to let personalize the look of your armor. In fact visually speaking, the only factor that could change your armor's appearance was placing a gem into a socket, to which the outcome wasn't always very appealing.
Armor Dyes, with the buzzword "customization" in mind what better way to personalize your character than to color each armor piece individually. Armor Dyes are items acquired through crafting, buying, or from drops. What supplies needed for crafting them, the rarity of a vendor selling them, and the drop rate of the dyes have yet to be spoken about officially.
The dyes are represented by a rather suiting vile of dye in your inventory, as seen in the pictures to the left and right. Each dye will also have some flavor text describing its existence in the world. Also, it seems dyes will have to be activated via right click, than placed in an armor slot via left click. This will help prevent accidentally dropping your dye into a piece of armor.
It's clear Blizzard brought this system up to par as a viable way to extensively personalize your character through coloring each separate piece of armor. Though they may not just be limited to colors.. More on this later.
As debuted in the
2010 Crafting Sanctuary Blizzcon Panel, 
Christian Lichtner talks about how the system is here to maximize the level of customization available to the player. Using the Wizard as an example, he touches on how some color dyes will be more rare than others. He uses crimson red as an example of one of the more rare Armor Dyes.Advance the video to 5:21 for discussion on Armor Dyes
A better look at the line up of Female Wizards sporting different color Armor Dyes
Armor Dyes may not be just limited to colors though, as Magistrate and I got some interesting Twitter responses on this topic.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Magistrate17 - @Diablo Will any of the dies change anything more than color? Like, apply metallic effects, per se? Or something like textures, like rust?
Diablo - @Magistrate17 What will end up in the final game is still a bit unknown, but we have toyed around with some interesting dye effects.
MultiKillGaming - @Diablo Did we see all the armor dye colors at Blizzcon?
Diablo - @MultiKillGaming No. Most, but not all.
The possibility for special effect Armor Dyes isn't out of the question. We saw must of the dyes at Blizzcon, but not all.
The future of Armor Dyes is not certain though. Not long before Blizzcon Bashiok commented on how the current system isn't set in stone. With the recent cut of the
Talisman, Bashiok's words on this shouldn't be disregarded.Official Blizzard Quote:
I wouldn't take the mechanics of how dyes will be accessed as gospel just yet, there have been many ideas on integrating them with other systems, but for the sake of implementation they're drops. They could stay that way, we'll just have to see.
Q u o t e:
Bashiok, will the dyes be used solely on individual armor pieces or will there be patterns that change the entire scheme of the character's attire as well?
There are specific slots that are able to be dyed, and it's generally the slots where dying them would actually matter (ie they have some surface area to be dyed).
The dye system is also not a tinting system. And by that I mean we don't apply a color shift to the entire piece of armor. Each piece of dyable armor is specifically designed and built with certain areas that can have their color changed. It could be as simple as a strip of cloth running down a chainmail chest piece, or as complex as an entire robe. We hand craft and designate these areas, and in combination with specific colors we've chosen, we can allow players to have a lot of additional visual variety, while maintaining a controlled look and style to the game.
One thing is for sure, Armor Dyes will be yet another valuable way to customize your character in the world of Sanctuary.
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Diablo 3 brings options to this feature allowing the player to choice when they'd like to view item titles, and even what key they'd like to use:
We have a few different options you can pick from to display item names while they're on the ground.
The default option is that names will show for 10 seconds when the item drops, and then the name fades out. You can hit Alt again to show them for another 10 seconds. (Diablo III default)
You can also forego showing item names automatically when they drop and choose to just use Alt to show item names while it's held down. (classic functionality)
You can also choose to always show item names, and hold Alt to hide them. (I'm not sure how useful this is, but it's there)
There's also an option to make Alt toggle showing item names on/off. (my personal favorite)
We're also looking to bring back the /nopickup option from Diablo II, but it's currently a nice-to-have feature and so may not make initial release.
Additionally you can rebind any and all keys in the game, so you can easily make something like the Tab (for example) key show item names instead of Alt, if you prefer.
Good question. I don't know and don't use a mouse with a tilt wheel. I can try to find out.
That's not an option currently and as far as I know we don't have any plans to implement. I think the argument against such a thing could be that since you're able to pick up and immediately salvage/sell any items without going back to town, as well as just having a great deal more storage space, means there's a good reason to pick up everything. I suspect that may not hold true for all levels of play, but we'll see.
No, we want players to be clicking on items still to pick them up. Gold is auto-pickup because there's never a reason to not pick it up, but creating 'loot vacuum' mechanics for actual items removes several layers of player decision and interaction.
Without any direct clarification, Skill Slots have been somewhat of a blurry topic concerning their limitations. Bashiok helps clear this up with a brief post adding to another member's prompt response:
Q u o t e:
From information I had read, it sounds like you can have all of the "high level / tier" abilities if you save your points, but it has been mentioned that the first tier items have little, to no cooldown, and the "top tier" ones have "lengthy cooldowns."
So take that as you wish, but it would lead me to believe that if you have only high end cooldowns, it might suck when you have nothing to cast
Right, so for example, the three final skills of the barbarian tree all currently have 2 minute cooldowns. There are ways to augment those cooldowns slightly of course, but you're still going to want a mix of skills that complement each other.
We haven't made any announcements yet regarding trade systems, but it's something we'll be prepared to reveal soon™.
I think it's something people are going to be pretty psyched about, if not passionately indifferent.
Q u o t e:
You think only 2 different opinions will come out of the reveal? You should know this community better by now.
No, no, of course not. I totally expect a veritable rainbow of positive reactions. From joy, to elation, to admiration, all the way down to a mild pledging of undying fealty.
In other news Thursday July 21st in San Diego, California Blizzard will be making an appearance at Comic Con 2011. At the event Blizzard, and companies licences with them will likely announce new unseen merchandise for Diablo, Starcraft 2, and World of Warcraft. The entire event runs from the 21st through the 24th, with the 20th being preview day.
Special thanks to Medievaldragon for bringing this Diablo related news to light.
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News from the event is sure to yield footage of Diablo 3. Though by that point we will have already had a wealth of news from the Diablo 3 Beta meeting which Sixen, and Force will be attending the 27th of July. Information from the meeting won't be available to the masses until August 1st, when the embargo is lifted. During this event the Beta will be avalible for playing, alongside news on Bnet 2.0, and questions for the development team. For more information on this meeting view Sixen's article, We're Off to See the Beta. If you have any questions you'd like to be asked at the meeting, post them in the Blizzard Press Event Questions thread.
Force has posted a new episode of Purgatory, where he covers the length of Act 4 in Diablo 3, the return of Town Portals, The Book of Cain, and Blog Shenanigans.
Today Kaivax also commented on how he feels about the Diablo 3 sound track so far.
I have heard some of the music that's coming with Diablo 3, and all I can say is - I'm very excited about it.
It's not to late to vote in this weeks poll The Future of Item Selling, and check out Blizzard's Video Contest Results, where a fellow Diablo follower placed 3rd, winning many prizes. Also if you haven't already, listen to this weeks Diablocast where Town Portals, the Book of Cain, Item Stores / Item Selling, and The Future of Item Selling Poll are all discussed.
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I also recall hearing about this. As farther evidence this is true, in the first gameplay trailer at 7:28, during the pop-up style cut scene (Which are now confirmed not to be in the game) The Barb has his flaming Maul away on his back while talking to Cain. Since the cut scene is just a close up of the character models, graphically it's sound to do so without it looking funny. I'd imagine Blizzard also chose this, "Peaceful Mode
Edit: Doomscream, you're not a Chameleon anymore
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Edit: Okay, came home from work early.. Just for you ;). No I hurt my arm.. X(
Anyway, here's the official word from Blizzcon 2010 Diablo Q&A.
On the PvP Hardcore question, first I'd like to say thank you for asking that because I was really hoping someone would. Yeah, you're going to die, cause it's Hardcore mode. So if you don't want to die, don't go into the Arena.
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Seeing as the macros on the G15 are allowed based on the software for the keyboard, and PC I don't think there's really any way for Blizzard to stop that. That's almost like saying, well using F7 as a hotkey is cheating, so will Blizzard let me? I also plan on using a gaming keyboard with many hotkeys available, that's just an advantage of having gaming gear :P.
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We intend to support the most current consumer level Windows and Mac OS' at time of release.
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Speaking for myself, and myself only, I feel no matter how hard we try we're not going to come to the same conclusion as the D3 team has over the years they've spent developing this unknown trading system. They're some of the most creative, intelligent, and passionate minds in the business, and have been putting their heads together for years over this problem. It's fun to discuss, but come time to see it I think we'll see how far off we all were. That being said, I also feel some great ideas have come up in discussion ;).