f13.net

(https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/gallery/I4C8GPYF5I351478284368334.gif)

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20324407/restoring-the-balance-necromancer-overview-11-4-2016

Apparently part of some "character pack" that you'll have to buy. Looks like no more Diablo expansions, only DLC.

Also, next patch is going old school and implementing full Diablo 1 in Diablo 3.

WHOA WHOA diablo 1 in diablo 3? That's fucking rad.

Now do Diablo 2.

Also:
Isn't necromancer already in the game? The fuck they doing?

You are probably thinking of the Witch Doctor.

It's not a thought. I'm outright saying the witch doctor was already the necromancer.

I dunno...if they really capture the D2 Necro experience by letting me have a few dozen skels running around on the screen at the same time, I think it's enough  :grin:

Necro does seem like an odd choice given that Witch Doctor is in the game, but I do like Necro and I will play this. So ok.

Edit: In a year when this has no posts for like 8 months, I'm going to bump this thread.

Too bad I already have a D2 Necromancer in Path of Exile.

But D1?  Fuck yeah.  I haven't played that in YEARS.  Due to a mental problem, related to everyone thinking Survival Mode in Fallout NV+4 is a great idea, I slightly yearn for gold taking up inventory space and learning spells by chance.

Diablo 1 will be a once yearly event where you can play it in game.

Can't tell if the Diablo devs are stupid or super pants on head stupid.

It's not even diablo 1. It's a fucking diablo 1 themed dungeon using the graphics from the area before Adria. Fuck you, Blizzard.

I knew it was too good to be true. Screw that. I'll just go play Diablo!

Yeah, while an ok gimick, just playing themed dungeon is a let down.  Really wanted to see Diablo 1 with updated graphics, spell learning by chance and all.

Sigh.

What, the necro was announced for the 2nd half of 2017?  If it takes them that long to create a new class (that they demonstrated in videos already) then I guess we are looking at another decade until diablo 4 sheesh.

Well, that kills any excitement I would have had for D1 in D3.  Themed dungeon?  Bleh.  Give me D1 with updated graphics.

And necro.  I mean, I liked D2 1.1x necro, but I've played a lot of that necro.  Adding it to D3 is beyond odd, particularly since the witch doctor plays very similarly to the D2 style necro.  I think they even said that back before D3 release that the WD was the D3 necro.

I think this means that they have stats that say not enough people played the D2 1.10 revamped Necromancer.

From the videos I have seen it looks like they are bringing over the class exactly like it exists in D2.

Spread the joy of poison nova.

Yeah. Necro feels like it should be a Fallout Vault style thing, "Download it TODAY!" Instead it's literally a year away. WTF.

I really can't figure out where Blizz is putting their resources these days. They have what, five teams now? They seem to be doing their best to take WoW out of maintenance mode, which is cool, but this Blizzcon really seems like they had nothing new to show.

Poison Nova?  That's literally one of the most useless abilities in D2.

I spent 2 years trying to farm loot to make that playable, and found out that FOrb Sorc would eternally outplay a Poison Nova Necro.

I miss the days of being able to corpse explode screen after screen of mobs... then they nerfed it.

I really wish they'd re-think D1 (and D2) and re-make the game/story in D3 rather than just a tileset... charge me for it sure, it'd keep me happy and willing to buy D4

Good news everyone.


Now you don't even have to play the game to play a maxed out character and run a grift.

What's the point of this game again?

Oh wow.  What is happening.

I can't imagine why they never implemented a rifts as a map loot drop concept like Torchlight and Path of Exile.

... there are no new builds to explore.  That's one of the problems with D3 right now, the game has been static since 2.4.0 for some classes, and 2.4.2 for everyone.

I mean, there may be another bugged build to find, but that's not a positive.

And it's not like the barrier to trying a new build was particularly high in the first place.

Build up character, pick spec, gear up character so you can do GRs, do GRs, get better gear so you can do higher GRs, do more GRs, run some stuff on the side to get keys for GRs, do more GRs, get more gear, then eventually burn out in silence for 4 month.

It appears to be a feature separate from the rest of the game.  Still a bit odd though.

I don't understand the reasoning/fun behind this.

Want to play Diablo but don't want to play any features of Diablo? Here, do a speedrun with no randomization at all and using no items you earned yourself.

It's just another game mode.  A race with skill being the only difference between players seems like an interesting concept to me.

That's true.  One of the main complaints about RPG style games is that equipment can make a greater difference than individual player skill.

Here's a mode that gives you the opportunity to show that your skill matters more than your equipment, and we bitch about it anyway.

We truly are grumpy old people.

If this was a throwaway feature in a new expansion pack, no one would be talking about it. People are complaining because they (we) are overall disappointed with the lack of new Diablo stuff coming.

The whole idea behind Diablo if I remember right was: Oh shit, that guy just crushed everything! What does he have on? (compare), I gotta try that.  Then you go and play the game to get stuff to try that build.

Now it's just....ok, I guess I'll try this new mode twice.  Then I'll get loot bags for....what?

I'll admit, I'm not terribly interested in playing someone with 5% better gear, and finding out that I'm just terrible at GRifting.   :awesome_for_real:

Of course, I'm not that thrilled by a D1 themed dungeon (REALLY?!  REALLY?!?!) or playing a 1.1x Necromancer.

I've been there, done that, with the necro, and would kind of like to see D1 with D3 graphics.  But neither of those is really new content, or a promise for balance changes or item adds that will keep the meta at least somewhat interesting.

I'm taking this to mean there won't be another D3 expansion, if that wasn't clear already.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwxCZrNUkAAaKkc.jpg)

:| Goddamnit, Blizzard.

Wait? What?   I  have been expecting an "orient"  themed one ever since we had a clear idea where the story line with the Jewlcrafter guy was headed, where we travel to his homeland, Duke it out with some of the Thousand and One gods that live there, and eventually re-capture / destroy the big evil thing that was trapped in the gem.   I simply cant see them  leaving that plotline hanging.

I would love another expansion but have they ever released one after releasing a battle chest? Possibly WoW (not sure there)?   Maybe I'm reading too much into it and they just want to print one disk instead of two.

Yes, WoW had an expansion after its Battle Chest which included Burning Crusade. (And hasn't had one since.)  No other game had an expansion after the BC was issued.


That's Diablo 4. They need to replace Deckard with someone and looks like it'll be the JC guy then.

On a second read, this was in Farnsworth's voice.

saw no mention of iron golem or different kinds of curses.

I received a beta invite, but couldn't log in.  Error: 300016 or somesuch.

Best guess on the internets is that code translates to "Our servers are overwhelmed, sorry to hear about your bad luck."

Actually, I think 300016 is the internal code for "please stop playing this game so we can force Blizzard to let us do it again, right this time (maybe).

Played a tiny bit (level 12) until the servers crapped out. Initial impressions are that I am fairly certain they forgot the main thing that made me like D2 necro; having a huge swarm of pets that washed over your enemies like a tide, while you basically had to do nothing but watch and pick up loot.

I'm around 12 or so, and I agree. The best part of necro was wandering behind your army and picking up things.

That's definitely missing here.

Have they added loot crates and sprays yet?

No, but Malthiel is back!  Because he was so awesome the first time.

 :roflcopter:

That's about as welcome as the return of Aunt May.

They better record all the JC lines before James Hong shuffles off this mortal coil. He is 88, ffs. And was born in Minneapolis. Ha, I never would have guessed that.

You were not put on this earth to "guess it"!

 :Love_Letters:

June 27th - $15

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20845159/rise-of-the-necromancer-pack-arrives-june-27-6-20-2017

Real money.  Fuck off.

I'll continue to play my witch.

Yeah that was my reaction, after my initial internal laughter.

I wouldn't mind that much if there was an abundance of content, but that list is fucking Anorexic.

Blizzard usually has their shit together on products. I really have no idea what is going on with this team and I suspect we'll never see a future Diablo game based on the types of games they make now.

I'll probably get it if they start a Season 11.  It's worth about 15 hours to me that way.

I agree though, I'm not sure how they'll make Diablo 4 anything but a "kill hordes of undead" playground.  Which actually sounds awesome, but isn't a Diablo game the way I like Diablo games.

Best bet? Activision buys GGG and Blizzard cuts the unfun parts of PoE while keeping almost all of it.

What is the 'core' Blizzard team even working on right now?  All the games have their content teams (Diablo's seemingly being the smallest) but do they even have anything big announced?  The bulk of Blizzard development can't be working on an HD remaster for Starcraft right?  I guess they are holding it all for BlizzCon.

In that they're only following trends, as always. Money goes to the f2P with p2w games in droves. Why is it any surprise that their latest games are doing exactly that?

D4 would remain a dungeon hack & slash, but with oodles of tack-on paid-for goodies. Skins, classes, abilities, dungeons, extra loot drops, loot boxes, etc.  

Fuck, they'd do it to WoW if they weren't boxed in with the subscription price and knowing their remaining players would dump them if it went F2P because it would make things less elite over time.


Nothing big was announced in the last 2 Blizzcons. 2016 announced a Hearthstone Expansion, Overwatch Leagues, the Necromancer, HoTS characters, and WoW patches.  They've got to be working on something but no clues so far that I'm aware of.

They basically have one game for each genre except a 4x strat game, fighting game or a racer.

I'd bet they are probably cooking up an MMO of some fashion after whatever failed that gave us overwatch.

Rock and Roll Racing 2017!

It will probably be a Rocket League mod any day now.

With the way Rocket League and Twitch are managing branding, ex. Psyonix just announced Mario shit for the Switch version and Twitch just gave away a legendary lootbox in OW, I wouldn't doubt if Blizzard/Activision has feelers out to every god damn brand trying to get co-advertising/branding.

This loot box shit is going to become frequent flyer miles soon.

I can't say I'm terribly enthused about $15 for a class, two character slots, and two stash tabs.

This is about 1.5-2 years too late. Following up a year after Reaper of Souls, I would have paid 15 bucks for more Diablo 3 easy. I'm over it by now.

I might pay $5 for a whole new class.  Not sure.

And yes.  This is years too late.  The game is 5 years old at this point.  I still enjoy playing around with it, but I would only throw money at the game for a sizable content increase.

Not a class I played to death in D2.

I would probably have paid 5$ for this. 15 is dumb.

From a cost/hour viewpoint, my opposition is stupid.  I'd probably play 2-3 necros over 2-3 seasons, and get 100+ hours of play out of it.

My rule of thumb (sort of) is that if I enjoy a game for the same number of hours as dollars I paid for it, then it was worth it.

There's probably zero chance I would play a necro for less than 15 hours.

I'm surprised Blizzard sold it for under $20 personally. They don't do that for anything.

Eh, I'll buy it. I didn't particularly care for D2 (worse arm/elbow issues than I have now), and never really got into it. So, this will be mostly new for me.

I think even my least played class has about 50 hours on it. This will be easily worth it.

I played the shit out of rock and roll racing back in the day I loved that game.

bought it because I had 15 hanging around. Yeah he's fun, toned down from D2 but still a lot of fun. CE makes me giggle in a way that pre-nerf D2 CE was awesome.

No idea on how competitive he is and I don't care

I don't know if this is still possible, but someone told me that during the beta it was possible to clear the "Kill 100 mobs in x time" shiny chests in about 4 seconds using CE.

Yep, I agree.  Frankly, I'm surprised they don't add a character every quarter for $19 +/- ... I'd buy many if not all of them purely for the variety.  Depending on what it costs to add characters and/or sets, I'm more than a little surprised that they don't monetize this game better.  Honestly, I'd play it more if I could pay them to deliver new characters and content.  As it is, I'm pretty much every other patch (er, season) for about 2-weeks... then done for a few months.  Sure, they get $0 from me, so what do they care?  But that's the point... I'd willingly give them $$ over time.

You can say adding Necro is bland/dumb (and I'd kinda agree), but what's blander/dumber is resetting a season with *exactly* the same characters and sets over and over and over again. 

Its a head scratcher to me how that's a better business model than collecting $9 - $19 every 3-months or so for new stuff.

Maybe Mark Jacobs secretly hardcoded all the thing's they'd need to update to add new Characters or Sets... so the time/cost is too prohibitive??

Apparently I didn't save a single Gem of Ease or weapon slotted with one.  :sad_panda:

Fuck.  I am weak.

I will report back later.

lol.

More or less yes (they don't spawn that fast). Corpse Explosion alone is worth $15. I also do not understand how money works.

I read a review from Kotaku this morning that was extremely positive. Even the comments on it were good. I may have to rethink skipping this one. It's not like it's ever going to go on sale, right?

At best it's a toss in with another promotion eventually. It's sub $20, Blizzard doesn't haggle once it gets to be around that range.

$15 is 'fine'.

It doesn't really hurt my wallet, but the class is pretty same-y. We need D4 to happen.

Is it 2025 already?   :awesome_for_real:

D4 is going to be micro transaction hell.  Think PoE, but maybe prettier.  And with a UI that works on a console.

Christ.  I'm angry already.

Deep breaths, Soulflame.

How is POE microtransaction hell? The game is completely playable for free.

I don't think he liked the UI.   :grin:

My 8 year old caught wind of the Necro expansion. So now I have that...

Discussions about time vs. value and me realizing I blew $15 on a "cheap" lunch made me get over my scoffing and buy the necro.  Glad I did, he's fucking fun. Too bad this next season will be necros aplenty, there won't be enough corpses for everyone.

Trying a summoner build, even though the game keeps pushing Trag'oul's shit at me. Not a single piece of Rathma yet. Still fun, though I realize this is because I have 650 paragon points.

Did you start him with some level 70 legendaries that had been cubed into level 1s?

Running a devour/singularity mage build. My buddy is doing some CE build and my son is running a revive build. It appears you don't share corpses. The three of us are able to steam roll through stuff without worrying about corpses.

That's awesome then.  :drill: