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This is like comparing ancient greek geometry to modern physics and asking which was more influential.

They both contributed great things to the community and one actually developed from the other, but one of them is too recent for the comparison to make sense.

Quote from sifuedition

You see, that's at the heart of the discussion that keeps getting sidetracked. Well stated on your thoughts. Again, an opinion can't be wrong and that's yours. I disagree with it.

Well, not exactly. It is a fact that gearing yourself entirely from drops is very unlikely to ready you for act3 inferno regardless of class. That isn't an opinion, it's a statistical fact. The drop rates hard coded into the game, combined with the more random loot generation make it clear that Blizzard intended for a higher social/trade benchmark to be met before you could carry on to the latter half of inferno in an efficient manner.

Quote from sifuedition

I played D2 solo/lan and never traded except with my lan friends. I never came anywhere near BiS. You didn't find "godly" pieces easily. I still believe you shouldn't. However, I DID find incremental upgrades frequently, by which I mean about every 6-12 hours of play time.

On a fresh character, that sounds accurate enough an anecdote, but after a few weeks? My sorceress spent ages in less than optimal gear finding non-sorceress loot (single player, she was my first), probably a few months, before I got into bnet, trading games, and group runs which expedited the process.

Quote from sifuedition

For me, ID'ing a piece that I can wear even if it's +10 dps or main stat w/e is necessary. Buying that same piece feels like hex editing a toon and isn't even remotely rewarding or interesting. I understand that not everyone feels the same way. I understand that some people LOVE the idea of being an AH mogul. I'm COMPLETELY ok with that being in the game for them. Why does that have to dictate the way I play? Self found is so ridiculously slow progress-wise that I am feeling like the game I waited 10 years for is a chore instead of fun. Attempting to "play" the AH is even worse than the grind to me. Therefore...there's nothing left to do.

Well, like it or not, "self-found," is certainly not an efficient method of farming your way into act3+ at the moment. Although I haven't heard anything leading me to believe it will always be that way.

Quote from sifuedition

I just wanted to play a game where I leasurely smashed monsters and got to the end in a reasonable time frame (12 hours per drop x 13 drops to up my entire toon to go from one act to another doesn't seem drastic or "legendaries raining from the sky"). From there (meaning after completing Inferno Diablo), I can farm with the LONG odds of a really good piece and get really small upgrades along the way to make it faster and more daring on my runs. I would have my choice of what I felt like farming today or trying out a new build or w/e. Instead, I have one place that I can farm (Act 1 Inferno) no matter how bored I am of it. My other choice is to seriously gimp my chances of finding gear with the only reward being gold...for an AH I don't want to use.

Act1 full clears see you through more variety than baal, meph, or especially pindle runs ever did. As I said though, some use of the AH is clearly expected. If you're purposefully forgoing it for personal reasons, you can expect the difficulty of moving forward to become much higher.

Quote from sifuedition

This Econ 101 is not the game I played in D1, or for me, even the D2 experience and I miss the games I used to play. 10 years of hoping for the update to the game as I played it...and now if I don't play the Econ 101 game, then it leaves me feeling the game cannot be fun for me in the way I like to play, which is ID'ing gear and being excited it might be simply USABLE.

I find lots of "useable," gear. It just isn't gear that I would use. Thus I sell it or pass it to an alt. I am not entirely certain how this diminishes the feeling of identifying items, aside from the chance of it being absolutely amazing falling a bit. The basic process is the same.

Quote from sifuedition

That is the game that I remember from the first two parts of the title. That was the game I bought. That is not the game I have been playing, however.

In fairness, it really isn't the same game re-skinned, nor (as far as I remember) was it promised to be. Perhaps it evolved into something you dislike and that's ok.

----

If I had to guess at exactly what you expected from D3: Level up to 60 with character, kill inferno diablo within a few weeks, and then farm with an almost-guarantee of good/amazing items every few hours/days depending on how lucky you were.

That might have been fun and it would most certainly be more on the difficulty level of d2, but that's not how D3 was built. I think there is more to appreciate in D3 than the frustrating gear/drop situation, but if you don't think so then your mind is made up. Have fun with another game.

Quote from Bilge

I'm not a cynic, I'm a realist.

A realist has empirical evidence to facilitate his outlook. You're operating purely on feeling and anecdote.

Quote from Bilge

I also know how the business world works and how cutthroat it is. People make their fortunes at successful companies like Blizzard and either retire or move on to greener pastures. The fresh meat that replaces them has to prove themselves capable of filling those shoes.

Not that I have a rosey view of corporate America, but as I said this is entirely your feeling. You dislike corporate greed, therefor you're projecting it onto Blizzard to help explain your disappointment. It may be an opinion shared by others, but that doesn't make it factual. If a few patches from now there is evidence that Blizzard is seeking to milk the game rather than improve it, you could have some hard data to utilize here.

Quote from Bilge

So it's not about whether Blizzard is successful, it's about whether the new executive was able to shave a few million dollars off a budget, or make a few extra million with a new scheme. There's a phenomenon of ever-heightening goalposts within the culture of a successful company. If there wasn't, they wouldn't be successful. But it's a double-edged sword, as it eventually makes them start screwing their customers in the ever-present quest for bigger profits.

Ironically, the same can be said of gamers. They raise the goal-post for every successive title in a genre. Blizzard probably carried the very highest expectations of all time with this one in particular.

Quote from Bilge

By design.

Without a monthly fee, each hour we spend using their server & bandwidth is a small slice into the $60 we paid for the game. Unless we're regularly using the RMAH with Blizzard getting its cut, they'd rather we quit since that would be more profitable for them.

I eat, sleep, and live cynicism but your post still makes me cringe.

Does it hurt?

Quote from Kalenen

This game is beyond fucking horrible. it has absolutley no end game content, All the best items are being directed to RMAH so you cant get the best items. The loot system is beyond idiotic! Ive played most of my time on my DH 450+ hours farming and during that time the only item ive gotten from farming was a pair of gloves that now i cant even get sold for 2 million! ALL of the other gear was from the fucking AH.

Ive personally fucking had enough of this game, if they dont DRASTICLY increase the fucking drop rate from mobs/bosses/champs and add some end game content this game will be stone cold dead in 2-3 months

A rediculous amount of ppl have already thrown this game in the garbage and you can add 1 more to that! = ME,

it took me 2 months of 12+ hours of farming every day to get 1 single fucking item that actually sold for 200+ million


I looked forward to this game for a really dam long time and it has given me nothing but dissapointment

I can barely sell anything on GAH or RMAH anymore since the ppl out there arent playing this piece of shit anymore

I actually had problems selling things last week, but since I stopped trying to wring every last gold out of my auctions and actually undercut by a significant amount things have been moving. I've made close to 10mil since then. It's fairly simple really. The limitation on the AH is slots, which would make one believe the goal was to optomize profit/slot, but in reality you want those slots open. In other words, pricing things to sell and making 500k instead of 1mil will end up netting you more over time unless you're just not finding anything worth selling. Frankly I find that hard to believe. My barb has 0% mf and has three uniques and countless decent rares under his belt. Between those, crafting mats, gems, and the occasional blue worth putting up my slots churn well enough.

Anyhow, hope that wasn't too constructive a reply for your infantile tantrum. Have a nice day!

Quote from Daemaro

Link is used to fighting giant pig demons though, has he ever killed a cow?

I mean.... FOR SHAME GUYS! DERAILING PROLETARIA'S THREAD!

Skipping a lot of posts because i'm tired, but here goes:

Quote from ruksak

Been playin for weeks and I see no reason why I won't play for years. Then again.....I'm not a no-life "pro" that spent every waking hour playing, buying and selling on 5 hours sleep a night (or day).

I come home from work, fire up a couple of smooth bowls and I have a god damn blast running inferno and hustling the GAH.

/end statement

Precisely the approach I have and probably why I still like the game and can't quite grasp the endemic problems a lot of the more enveloped players have run into. I'm closing in on a second lvl 60 character with my barb and having a great time doing it. When I invariably hit a gear blockade with him, i'll probably level another alt. If i'm going to be farming act1-2 inferno for a while, i'd like to have options when it comes to who I make runs with. That makes it a lot more interesting than living and dying on the balance of one class *cough* WD...

Quote from CherubDown

I've made $375 off Diablo 3 so far. Does that mean the game is fun? No, but it does mean I've made some cash from a video game!


In all seriousness, here are my sincere thoughts about the RMAH and it's implications on the game (taken directly from Penny Arcade):

So, as those who have mostly left the bulding already, Diablo 3’s Real Money Auction House is double mysterious and we don’t know what it’s for. Well, okay: we know know. The “moneys.” What I’m saying is that getting new shit actually is the game. For us, anyway. Getting and, crucially, equipping new loot. The whole AH thing short-circuits the entire idea: the game is, functionally speaking, a pinata. Right? Obviously, you could just go buy candy at the store. It’s not about having candy. It’s about getting candy.

Source (I still can't post urls...): penny-arcade.com/2012/06/27

This is the crux of the issue as I understand it and frankly I don't think it's anyone's fault but the people who bought in to their gear. As I said before, there was no question that Diablo 3 was going to be a strait forward dungeon crawler. They said there would be no pvp at launch. They said there would be no ladder at launch. Essentially, there was no good reason to use the RMAH except to ruin the game experience for one's self and in a hurry.

Apparently some people missed the memos or simply got egotistically excited by gearing up so much faster than anyone else. In either case, throwing lumps at Blizzard for trying to generate some money does no good. I look at the current AH situation as Darwinian in nature. Those true to the ARPG genre made sparing use of it or avoided it, and they're still by-in-large enjoying the game or hung up on issues that will be patched in the coming months. Those who ignored the spirit of the game made liberal use of it and essentially made the game revolve around instant acquisition. They burned out just as quickly as they acquired all their shiny stuff and due to the position they put themselves in, nothing can make them happy.

Consider for a moment exactly what blizzard could do about this problem in a rational manner:

1. Remove the RMAH - Not going to happen.
2. Set up more arbitrary restrictions on AH usage. - Will further anger those who use it a lot.
3. Amp up the difficulty of inferno so high that using the RMAH becomes integral to playing in that difficulty at all. - Not entirely impossible given how difficult inferno was slated to be and is to some extent in the later acts, but blizzard realizes that going this completely alienates the bulk of the population who would rather not use the RMAH or game the gold AH endlessly for ideal gear.

Any way you slice it, there are no winners. Blizzard can either disown the average player in favor of this spendy RMAH crowd who desperately need to be challenged even after they spend hundreds of dollars to ~win~ automatically; or they can continue to try and balance the game for everyone else leaving the junkies to make rage posts and video monologues about why they aren't returning to a game they paid to win without actually playing.

First off I'd like to caveat that this is a no-cry zone. So if you happened upon my thread with the intention of spouting your grievance against Jay Wilson, Blizzard, or just want to vent about how disappointing Diablo 3 is to you: stop reading now, see the gif, and follow it's advice.




Now, for the adults still with us, let's get to the topic at hand: Itemization choke points. What do I mean by that? Good question. What i'm referring to are the good-roll rares that we're all after. Primary stat + Vit + some extremely good combination of secondary stats like crit, crit dmg, (formerly) IAS, LoH etc.

As most of us are aware, starting around act2-3 (class dependent) of inferno it simply isn't enough to have your primary stats at a healthy level. At some point you need the major damage scaling of crit or you need the sustain of LoH in order to tackle elites with any consistency. Unfortunately, you soon realize this isn't something you can tack on to your current gear-set. You need those high end items and there is no substitute.

Of course, these items are not a common occurrence. Thus the formation of a choke-point. Presuming (and this is simply hypothetical, do not over-analyze my anecdotes and made-up statistics) for a moment there are 1 million players in act2 inferno and attempting to gear up for act3/4, there is probably enough gear out there to allow 50% of them to progress; however, that figure probably shrinks to around 5-10% if your idea of progression means being able to go back and farm the content without the same level of duress.

All of this brings me to the topic of debate: The way I see it, there are two scenarios which could play out in the coming patches to allay this issue (and I assume one of them will happen given what already happened to IAS):


1. Blizzard continues to down-tune overly effective secondary stats and nerf the later acts of inferno. This addresses the issue by broadening the number of rares which fall into the acceptable range of stats; however, it also waters down the meta-game of itemizing your character to perfection.

2. Blizzard allows these relatively lofty itemization benchmarks to remain mostly untouched, but dramatically increases higher ilvl drop rates such that more of these "good," items come into the economy. This addresses the issue by pushing the later inferno item supply closer to the player demand; however, it also devalues items on the whole and exacerbates natural inflation.

To my mind, a combination of the two seem to be the preferable choice. That being said, I would like to hear the opinions of others on the matter.

People tell me True blood is for fags and yet I don't like the show at all. Quite the disappointment.

The only current show I have watched is Game of Thrones. Everything else on TV is shit.

Quote from darlissa

all I bought were items from gold AH with gold i made on my own, because that's how the game works.

Republican spotted.

Quote from Kooqu

The only thing dead, OP, is the horse you're beating.

The only thing dead, OP, is the horse you're beating.

Step 1: Discover suspicious activity
Step 2: Observe, verify suspicions
Step 3: Determine how bot/hack operates
Step 4: Design and test countermeasures
Step 5: Banwave, enact countermeasures.

Just a quick tip: If you make step 3 a ban, not even in waves, you only tip your hand and the bot/hack folks get the chance to:
Step 1: Determine how bot/hack was detected/tracked
Step 2: Design and test new methods of hooking in to the game process
Step 3: LoL @ blizzard for failing to actually hose you before you could come up with more workarounds because they told you they found your means & methods.

So chill out. They can't just ban willy nilly or they only increase the speed at which bots & hacks evolve, like an arms race.

Hi! My name is LinkX. It's nice to meet you, Demokin.

Quote from TheDemokin

It's quite ironic to see the discussions about astronomical probabilities for other 'intelligent' life out there. If you think about it, in reality the way the common perception of other life forms is right now:
1) he's gotta be white
2) he's gotta be 9 feet tall
3) he's gotta be american
4) he's gotta be named Jimmy
5) he's gotta have 2 legs
etc
If there is no such 'intelligent lifeform' out there then there IS no other life out there...

Only place where white, 9 foot tall bipedal American Aliens named Jimmy are discussed is in the prestigious universities of Holywood and 4chan. >.>

Quote from TheDemokin

I personally find that truly amusing to read from one post to another to another. Earth like planets, the probabilities, the specific range from the sun, the specific star, doesn't that sound like those points above? There has been multiple life-forms even here on earth that defy all of those requirements, microbial life surviving in ice, complex organisms surviving at the bottom of the ocean at the vents without sunlight and hundreds of times higher pressure.

It's funny because NASA already realized what you are saying about a decade ago and started looking at things like Jupiter's Moons for possible life....

Quote from TheDemokin

I think human kind needs to get off the high horse at this point and realize that 'intelligent' life is not defined by humans, i am sorry, but which part of humans exactly, is intelligent? The race that spent thousands of years killing each other while racing towards the inevitable galactic end of the sun and the planet? What is it exactly that can truly be used as a definition of 'intelligent life' that is applicable to humans? Quite frankly, if you wish to speak about intelligent life being present on this planet - surely, but it does NOT come in form or shape of humans by any means, self preservation after all is a sign of intelligence isn't it?

What we view as intelligent would be defined by us. Another species elsewhere may not deem us as intelligent, but that is their definition. It's the same as what I call a biscuit and what a British person calls a biscuit are two different things.

Quote from TheDemokin

Vast majority of people commonly expect our 'intelligent' life form to be superior and to find microbial or bacterial life out there and have a huge celebration about that. A possibility, however there is an infinitely larger possibility of finding a truly intelligent species out there, an even more exciting possibility is that we are being watched, in fact we were placed here by another race, perhaps the entire human kind was 'designed' by another race.
When considering such events we have to keep in mind the fact that space and distance is only one issue. There is that issue of time. Please do consider the fact that on the galactic history, the entire human kind with it's entire evolution from the microbes is nothing but an invisible dot. Yes, our galaxy has an age, so we cannot expect an older race than the age of the galaxy, but our galaxy is one of the INFINITE amounts of galaxies out there, galaxies that are infinitely older than ours. The real probabilities of other intelligent life out there existing and having an extremely advanced civilization and science that is possibly 1 billion years old? If the human kind was able to evolve to this extent in the pathetic few thousand of years, what would that civilization would have evolved to in a billion years? It is an exponential growth isn't it?

Now, when you say a few thousand years, you mean between 150,000 and 250,000 years, right? As for the possibility of a species more intelligent then us reaching out, we will not contact them, they will be the ones to contact us.

Quote from TheDemokin

Right now, we are entering the age of cosmic exploration, we as a species are measly, young and stupid in that scale. We have no understanding of how the universe works or the forces involved, we can only speculate with our earthly based physics as to what there could be, we are like an infant that is trying to get on his feet and is incapable of walking yet.

We have a very good understanding of the four forces that control everything in the universe. It's also a testament to the Universe that the Standard Model works on Earth just as it does everywhere else in the Universe. If it didn't we wouldn't know that another galaxy was headed towards the Milky Way Galaxy, or that other galaxies in the past have already hit us.

Quote from TheDemokin

While you may refer to the scientific research as the basis for many assumptions - we all still have to remember the fact that scientific method is flawed to begin with. Science assumes something right until proven otherwise. Surely it has been tested 1'000'000'000 times for certain ideas, but what is the guarantee that it will still hold true on 1'000'000'001st time? There is no such guarantee. Many laws governing our modern science are based on that exact assumption - that it will hold true in every case. Every case is only, possibly, functional on planet earth, simply because the moment we step out of this limit many things begin to become anomalies that lie outside the defined values of science.

The first thing that a Scientist learns is that his/her sight, sound, and touch lie, and lie badly. We have instruments designed to give us a better understanding that would simply not be possible otherwise. As for assuming it is right until proven otherwise, the moment you say something in the Scientific world, everybody attempts to prove you are wrong. Remember, nobody got famous for agreeing, only for disproving.

Quote from TheDemokin

Science or scientific approach in general, are incapable of dealing with anomalous artifacts or anomalies that defy the laws predicted by science. Heck, lets not venture that far, but something that close to each and everyone of us - the perception. Our minds are socially conditioned to strictly follow the 'guidelines' of what is real and what is not. When our eyes, see something that doesn't fit into the conventional wisdom of reality - our minds quickly dismiss the information only retaining whatever fits into being 'sane'. How well, truly, does one expect science to perform under all these limitations?

When Science finds things that defy a law, it takes to the task of figuring out what is wrong with the law.

As for our eyes, I just said that Scientists are trained to not trust their eyes, not on the micro-level nor on the macro-level.

Quote from TheDemokin

We accept many things in that sense as concrete law. How do findings such as neutrinos change the world? They shatter the defined 'laws' and create new ones, given the probability that the final data on neutrinos research holds true - that would shatter our long held assumption that nothing travels faster than light. Think about the implications of that on the universe as we know. Yes today we assume that traveling from one star to another is going to take 'light years', so tomorrow it's gonna be 'half a neutrino year'?

No... Just...no...

Quote from TheDemokin

The infinitely vast universe? Each of those swirly things visible in the image is not a star, it's not a solar system... it's a GALAXY, much like our own milky way, hosting vast amounts of stars and an even larger amount of planets around each. What we, as human kind, have mapped so far in the universe is nothing bigger than a square inch of terrain on planet earth as a comparison. Other galaxies have not yet been mapped, the millions of stars in each have not yet been named. I do not recall where exactly, but have you seen that image of billions of tiny dots that appear to form sort of 'vessels'? That is the latest compilation of what the universe looks like, with each tiny dot being a galaxy hosting billions of stars. That, in no sense, or way appears to be finite.

The fact that you have an image of the entire universe means that, by definition, it is a finite universe. You...just proved yourself wrong...

Quote from TheDemokin

Expecting our wonderful E=mc² to hold true in every little bit of that space is truly ludicrous.

Why?

Quote from TheDemokin

The human curiosity fueling our quest for knowledge and venturing into vast reaches of space in attempts to 'understand' the bigger picture is rather entertaining given the fact that we know just about nothing about ourselves or our origins or our own history. Certainly history has been re-defined and re-written hundreds of times, and every time there is a drastic change in what we believe or assume to be hold true. Evolution that has been accepted as 'true' has not yet been proven, in fact it's being proven wrong as time goes, Darwin himself said that the 'missing link' needs to be found in the next few years to prove the theory, it has not yet been found, and the famous Lucy is not the missing link...
Human civilization was commonly accepted to be about 8'000 years old, yet recent discoveries in Eastern Europe of advanced civilization dating back 32'000 years is not only shattering, but completely annihilating everything that has been 'assumed' about our history so far.
Given today's 'advanced' technology we would still have trouble moving around 100+ ton rocks, let alone fitting them perfectly to build a megalithic structures that are dated as ancient at 10'000 years.

Apparently Darwin also said that Jesus is the son of god, as did Einstein./sarcasm

But on a serious note, the universe was commonly accepted as 8,000 years old because the BIble said so. We have moved past mythology and understand that humans have been around for 150,000 to 250,000 years. That is a fact. Period.

Quote from TheDemokin

It is the human need for 'laws' governing our knowledge that truly hinders our progress. We just absolutely have to have something to rely on, something to believe in, we are completely incapable of looking at anything and studying it without looking for a pattern, which creates order, which creates a 'law'. Yet this very concept has been flawed from the very start, as there is absolutely nothing that follows 'laws' 100% of the time. Be it political, country or traffic laws, be it laws of physics or anything else, there will always be outlying anomalous events or artifacts that not only do not fit into the 'law' but rather completely shatter or disprove it. Yet, as weak humans, we instead of changing the law simply dismiss that artifact or event, file it in the shelf, forget it about and preferably not speak about it, for fear of being labeled 'insane'.

Laws are built around facts that we have found, like the Law of Thermodynamics or the Law of Refraction or the Law of Electromagnetism or etc. These are facts. They have been proven time and time again to work. If you want to disprove them, get a Ph.D., study and understand them, and then disprove them. Otherwise hush.

Quote from TheDemokin

My personal opinion of bible is quite irrelevant, holding the fact that any of such books have been translated over a dozen times, with each translation greatly varying. Not only varying but even opposing one another, in one translation you are allowed to do A, in the next translation you are not. Relying on such 'information' or 'knowledge' or whatever you wish to call it would be extremely irrational.
In my personal view - religion is no different from science. Yes they are both based on drastically different angles, but both follow the exact same principle of giving one something to believe in as a basis for having an 'explanation' to anything else that happens. Apple falls off a tree, religion would say that was caused by A, science would say that was caused by B. Different reasons, yet exact same principle.

Your views that you have been saying have sounded very Biblical to be honest. I can understand why he was curious.

As for Science and Religion being the same, that's akin to saying that an apple is the same as a television... I don't know how else to explain that... I wish I could explain it better, but I can't explain it better then that. It's that simple....

Quote from TheDemokin

I do not wish to engage in a lengthy discussion about scientific methods here, it has been an accepted fact that scientific method is heavily flawed in many senses, not only the ones i've mentioned. As for pursuing a carrier in the field - it is not my calling, i do have a calling for building businesses, which is something i do rather well, irrelevantly of how well i do it - i enjoy doing it to the greatest extent and that satisfies me well enough.

It's been accepted as fact that the Scientific Method is heavily flawed? Got any citations? (No, priests and religious fanatics don't count.)

Quote from TheDemokin

I do not find myself being caught up in semantics of 'right' or 'law', i think i quite clearly expressed my deep disbelief in laws to begin with, and the term 'right' has yet to be defined in such a way that it would be meaningful to more than a single individual, that is just too heavily dependent on circumstance, point of view, action, reaction, etc.

The universe doesn't really care if you believe Gravity exists, the Law of Gravity will continue to work and keep your ass safely on the Earth.

Quote from TheDemokin

I am not expecting fundamental laws of physics to be drastically different in other places in the universe, no they are the same everywhere, the issue is - we have not yet discovered or understood such a law that would not only explain what we are seeing out there, but would also ensure that there is no outlying anomalies that cannot be explained by such a law.

When/If we find such anomalies, we then turn and figure out why Science says otherwise. Are we looking at them wrong, or are our equations wrong? Then we fix shit. That's how Science works.

Quote from TheDemokin

You are stating that the universe is finite, in the physical sense of it, so what is the weight or the size of it?

I don't know the weight or size of the President of the United States, and I doubt you do either, would you say that he is infinite?

Quote from TheDemokin

The science has been driven by anomalous outlying artifacts / events, true and false. What did society do to Galileo? Einstein? Newton? Do i have to name a dozen more? Do you even begin to realize that aside from these names that we all know, there are hundreds of names we do not know, not because they didn't come up with something brilliant, but because they didn't possess the strength of character to endure the ridicule and humiliation from that very 'scientific community' upon them. Given a million scientists, perhaps 10 will be willing to sacrifice their entire life, marriage, happiness, and spell an end to their family tree for 'science'.

Society did jack diddly squat.

Religion, on the other hand, fucked Galileo up. Newton was a Christian so he was safe. Einstein lived in a time where he could believe in a Spinozan God (not an actual god, fyi) and not be killed by the church.

Quote from TheDemokin

You are clearly stating that science thrives on anomalous events and that they drive progress, but historically is has been shown to be the opposite, lets not travel back to 16th century, lets look at today's 'modern' world - how many thousands of archaeological artifacts are being stashed away right now because they do not fit in 'history' as it is accepted today?There is no research being done on them at all, because anyone that proposes to do so does not get funding.How many physics facts, ideas and theories have been sitting around for decades now in archives because no one touches them? Stephen Hawking recently shown with clear logical and mathematical deduction that god did not create universe, who exactly knows that aside from a few 'fanatics' around the globe? What has that changed?

Citations or you are just making wild speculation.

Quote from TheDemokin

In our monetary society, research can only occur when there is funding. Without any funding no scientist would be able to produce any strong research that would be supported and accepted by the scientific community. Funding does not appear out of the blue sky, quite contrary it is provided by the society, both directly and indirectly. Therefore it is quite safe to conclude that science does not progress, but rather is paid to give certain results in a certain direction. Billions of dollars have been spent on research on how to make bigger boobs, redder lips, stronger condoms, whitening creams and lotions, shampoos that kill dandruff even in rusty skulls of soccer players, etc.

Apply for the right grants and find the people that want what you want and you got funding. It's not as political as you make it out to be.

What exactly was the endgame in D2 then? Pindle runs? Meph runs? Baal runs? Uber Tristram runs?

Why did people do that? Certainly not because fighting Pindleskin for the 50,000th time was super-fun.

Just because some found hunting for items/runes/etc more enjoyable in D2 doesn't mean that the endgame isn't the same for both games. D3 just needs more spice. When Blizzard talks about adding "endgame" to D3 they're talking almost assuredly about implementing things that will make the item hunt more engaging for players, and not about implementing WoW raid bosses.

So, yes, the "endgame" is the same. Even the people here who are highly critical of D3 aren't so stupid as to not have a firm grasp on this, and their complaints generally surround itemization and the fact that they feel many affixes are boring and borderline useless. How you don't have a grasp on this is beyond me.

I get asked this question a lot on my live-stream, so I think I have a pretty good response =)

Crit: It won't work at all unless you have at least 20%, but I would suggest waiting until you have at least 30% (That's when it starts working well)

All Resist: The more the better because it's going to keep your Diamon Skin from falling off. I would suggest having 400 for act 1, 700 for act 2 and 1000 for act 3 (with prismatic). You can do it with less than that, but some elite packs are going to be difficult

Armor: This is the MOST UNDER-VALUED STAT for CM Wizards. Armor does the EXACT same thing as AR, but for some reason no one talks about it. 10 points of armor gives the same reduction as 1 point of AR (keep that in mind when looking for gear). You could even argue that Armor is better than AR, since Energy Armor gives a bigger bonus to Armor than it does to AR. Try to have 8,000 for Act 3 (You'll want a shield)

LoH: You only need enough to fill up your health when Diamon Skin falls off: At least 500, but 1,000 is preferrable (Much more than 1000 is overkill IMO, unless you have a slow attack speed)

Arcane Power on Crit: This is mostly dependant on your Crit chance (for obvious reasons). You want at least 10, but if your Crit chance is low, you probably want more. A good goal would be to have your APoC multiplied by Crit chance equal about 500 (ex. 10 APoC and 50% Crit and you'll hardly ever run out of Arcane Power)

Vitality: Not that important for CM Wizards... at least 20k (If you have less than 25k you might try using Force Armor instead of Prismatic and see how it works for you)

Crit Hit Damage: Not necessary AT ALL for CM to work. However... this is usually the easiest way to add DPS once you have your defense in place

I have a YouTube video that explains it better... but I think it would be bad form to post it on here.

I hope this helps... PM me if you have any specific questions =)

Quote from InfidelMan

Choosing which way you went in the skill tree and how effective you distributed the points in D2 was much more rewarding. You had control on what build to choose, even a hybrid build, there was so many choices. If it was so easy and granny-friendly, why in the hell did people create tutorials and instructions on how to get your favorite build? And it wasn't just skills. Many other in-game factors contributed to bettering your build, like the item variety: Runes, charms, torches, gems(that were actually rewarding and effective). The barter system allowed for a fun way to socialize and better your equipment, same goes to PVP. All those things intertwined into the great complexity that made D2 FUN, not an illusion.

You needed build guides to warn new players of all the skills that were a total waste of points (until they released synergies almost every skill was a waste! And that took them 3 years!). But you could build heaps of different builds because Hell difficulty was piss easy and you could beat it without any "grinding" at all. Everything is viable when nothing is difficult. Remember the pacifist? Beat the whole game without killing anything lol. People used to do runs to see how far they could get with no gear or skill points used.

Runes pretty much replaced gems, making them junk. Charms were horrible, you'd have to lose all your bag space to carry all this junk which each had a pitiful amount of stats on it but it added up so you had to carry them anyway. Runewords made items so strong that everything else you found was junk. Bartering social? LOL, about as much as you socialise with your local crack dealer. You join the game make the trade and leave, that's not social.

If you like D2 so much, guess what its servers are still up, go play it. Me I'm going to go back to enjoying all the things they made better in D3. It's not perfect but I can't think of a single thing I preferred about D2.

Quote from Irrational

Haha what? Don't you mean you have to living underneath a rock to overplay this game to the point of hating it? Sorry bud, try again

It's a known fact? Decent? -____- You can hate on it as much as you want, but your thesis kind of sucks without some supporting arguments.

He's probably referring to all the cut out material such as the mystic, death scenes, and no initial PvP etc... A lot of people live in a dream world of LoD 1.10 where everything was duped and easy to obtain OP gear that face rolled an easy game and expected the same experience.

Inferno was then announced they promised it was hard and only the elite could complete it, now everyone complains that it isn't as farmable as it should be. Inferno obviously wasn't tested and the "end game content" does not allow very much flexibility in character builds. Most of these fixes will come out in future patches but people expect it from release even though no Blizzard game has been perfect from day 1 in over 15 years.

Itemization is terrible and the problem is this game purely revolves around items, again this should be addressed. The carrot on the stick incentive is bad because uniques dropped like candy (whether they were godly or not) in D2 and in D3 legendaries suck the big one (again fix in future patch). The itemization approach for D3 has made all low level uniques and sets useless which makes me sad.

Most people didn't know about 3rd party sites and now the fact the AH has made it a common practice people have "gear progressed" quickly and are wondering why farming has become useless. Overall farming in D2 also took forever but again most people are used to the LoD days of rune-words. People also don't realize that trade channels are now a simple click on the AH.

Economy and inflation are an issue but they were in D2 as well, the only saving grace was a ladder. In D3 the economy check is hardcore mode, beyond that there is nothing else.

People expected a fully finished game that compared to a product of multiple years of patches, fixes, and an expansion. D2 vanilla vs. D3 vanilla = D3 wins easy. The most butthurt people are PvPer’s / greifers and I agree that since there is no PvP at the moment there is a lot less to do at “end game”. Griefing will never happen in this get over it and move on (yay). It’s hard to tell where PvP will go, arena’s is an okay approach but player dictation of PvP rules is always most exciting.

Since there is no mindless grinding to out-level content people again don’t know what else to do. Leveling may have been “trivial” but it’s a tangible aspect for people to feel like they are progressing. It also seems a lot of players are WoW players and have no idea what the Diablo series is about. People also seem to have the idea of WTF game dying but every Diablo has a massive decrease in activity considering 90% of sales are usually casuals. Every patch and or content update always brings people back; there is no dying (just temporary inactiveness).

Random maps are terrible; the game is missing some old nostalgic sounds, the socket system is simplistic and boring, cow level (ponies) is just plain sad, and overall I think the music is not as good. Over the game has improved on so many aspects but people are negative and bitch. Many of us are guilty of nostalgic aspects no game will influence you more than when you were kid/teenager (influential age) compared to be a rational adult who has experienced many things. A lot of people are also burnt out of 2 weeks to 2 months of 600+ hours of doing the same thing... and your surprised?

TL;DR

A lot of people wanted Diablo 2.5; this isn’t it (thank god). Blizzard never puts out a finished product from release and they drastically improve the game over time. Usually to the point of being an epic game, every release has been like this. People forget things over time, it will be fine.