Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[schild]

Hm? I thought I heard a quiet ping when the final mob dropped that lone amulet. All mixed in with all the other noise though.

WHO CARES

WANT

[K9]

It also looks like they'll have allot of classes, sounds great. 

FAQ says there will be 5 classes (well, until the first expansion).  Seems a little weak to me.

Barbarian, Witch Doctor... Amazon, Necro, Paladin?  Let the speculation begin!

Oh and:

D2-style Necro and Witch Doctor seem too similiar to share the line up at release. I'd imagine the last three will be magical/melee (Paladin), Magical Caster (Sorceress) and Physical Ranged (Amazon) for the last three slots. Or some variation of that theme, two reanimation-based pet classes doesn't sound right.

[Ratman_tf]

I FROTH SO NO ONE HAS TO. GAMEPLAY AWESOME. GRAPHICS AREN'T SOME CUT DOWN WOW BULLSHIT.

Still not as beefy as 'cutting edge' games. Wow came out years ago, dudeman.

I bet the sys reqs are pretty friendly.

And it never ceases to amaze me how far Blizz gets on a game without any info leaks. They must have chips in all their employees brains or something. 

[WindupAtheist]

Betcha it's Ranger (or something) and not Amazon, now that gender is independant of class.

[schild]

They better have a rogue/assassin class.

Also, paladin always seemed out of place to me. The only truly "good" class in the franchise.

[Kirth]

I FROTH SO NO ONE HAS TO. GAMEPLAY AWESOME. GRAPHICS AREN'T SOME CUT DOWN WOW BULLSHIT.

Still not as beefy as 'cutting edge' games. Wow came out years ago, dudeman.

I bet the sys reqs are pretty friendly.

And it never ceases to amaze me how far Blizz gets on a game without any info leaks. They must have chips in all their employees brains or something. 

Hehe yeh I think this too. When starcraft was reviled and they had a considerable amount of game play footage, I was like do they let the people working on these game outside ever. I'd love to see what kind of NDA the devs for any game have to sign.

[photek]

I FROTH SO NO ONE HAS TO. GAMEPLAY AWESOME. GRAPHICS AREN'T SOME CUT DOWN WOW BULLSHIT.

Still not as beefy as 'cutting edge' games. Wow came out years ago, dudeman.

I bet the sys reqs are pretty friendly.

And it never ceases to amaze me how far Blizz gets on a game without any info leaks. They must have chips in all their employees brains or something. 

Hehe yeh I think this too. When starcraft was reviled and they had a considerable amount of game play footage, I was like do they let the people working on these game outside ever. I'd love to see what kind of NDA the devs for any game have to sign.

Blizzard gives them an offer they can't refuse. Literally. 

[Merusk]

It's my understanding that Blizzard is THE place to want to work in the industry.  You don't go around even remotely touching on anything that would jeopardize your job there, when you know after that it's all EA or EA-likes for the rest of your professional career.

[bhodi]

And it never ceases to amaze me how far Blizz gets on a game without any info leaks. They must have chips in all their employees brains or something. 

[schild]

I would never ever want to work at Blizzard. For the sole fact that I would want to continue liking their NonWoW games. I mean, that's all there is to it. You work on something like that and all will to play goes out the window.

[MrHat]

So, I'm guessing, free to play on B.net.  B.net has more advertisment then before.

I'm also going out on a limb and saying there will be some sort of microtransactions.  Just not sure which/how.

[Murgos]

For those of you checking the youtube links, the ones on the official site work fine and aren't in that horrible compressed youtube quality.

Game play looked a little slower to me.. somewhat more methodical since they're allowing access to more than 2 abilities at once. From the creature design bits he talked about it sounds like they wanted some more thought put in to how you approached the monsters than just "Fucking hack at them."  Might actually be more interesting to me than the last 2 games.

I'm amazed nobody's bitching they didn't put then *ping* in the gameplay vid at least once.. Just the jewel drop.

Second the suggestion to watch the streaming versions on the site, they are excellent quality and plenty of bandwidth.

The jewel drop was nice, so I would think that means at least socketing.  Hopefully the cube is alive, well, and revamped with all kinds of silly new combines.

The gold made that nice clinking noise was win, zillions of baddies was win, Wall of Zombies was pure win, destructible terrain was win,  Male and female of all classes is win, endless stream of loot comment was win, giant baddies was win.

Barbarian is nearly the same, Witchdoctor looks like a souped up necromancer.  I am thinking that Paladin will be back as a class though maybe turned to even more of a group support class, Assassin/Archer will get merged as super DPS and then probably we will see some sort of pure flame blasting, lightning zapping AOE glass canon magic type.

For a first look it had everything I would want to see, I am really impressed with the level of detail already there.  I'm guessing 2010 for release.  

I mean, SC II was announced last year and that's still in the hopper.

Edit:  Although I am hoping they pull a double whammy and their last announcement before closing things down is, "Oh, yeah, SCII on shelves two weeks from Tuesday."   

[Ratman_tf]

So, I'm guessing, free to play on B.net.  B.net has more advertisment then before.

I'm also going out on a limb and saying there will be some sort of microtransactions.  Just not sure which/how.

I'll bet there's no microtrans. Agree that it's going to be free on bnet. The box sales of SC2 and D3, regardless of the WoW money press, I imagine will keep bnet running just fine without nickel and diming consumers.

[Ratman_tf]

Edit:  Although I am hoping they pull a double whammy and their last announcement before closing things down is, "Oh, yeah, SCII on shelves two weeks from Tuesday."   

I would go all capslock on that. 

[ahoythematey]

Pretty sure socketing and/or crafting are back in some form, looking closely in the gameplay video you can see a chipped star topaz on the ground.

[ahoythematey]

NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THE STORYLINE

...

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Am I the only one that saw it like that?

And then agreed?

[Signe]

So.  What's happening in here?  Are there refreshments?

[rk47]

So, I'm guessing, free to play on B.net.  B.net has more advertisment then before.

I'm also going out on a limb and saying there will be some sort of microtransactions.  Just not sure which/how.

I'll bet there's no microtrans. Agree that it's going to be free on bnet. The box sales of SC2 and D3, regardless of the WoW money press, I imagine will keep bnet running just fine without nickel and diming consumers.

RIP Hellgate. Heh. Fuck you Bill Roper. 

[Aez]

I've been waiting for this for....ten years. Hours each day, I spent in my room imagining what the world would look like when D3 finally arrived. I missed out on the prom, on girlfriends, on friends in general, on jobs...and now here it is, revealing itself in three simple words like a fleeting breeze on a moist summer morning. Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'

For the classes, 5 is disappointing.  I tough they could afford more with their development budget...  Speculations are pointless at this point.  Still fun though.   I would have guessed 5 new classes but we already have the barbarian.  The paladin is always a favortie for young boys, I don't think they can remove it.   It's also a great class to fight demons.  Amazon won't come back if we can pick up our gender.  We'll definitely get a wizard and a rogue/archer type. 

Meh, I was hoping for at least 8 classes when I saw the witch doctor, he doesn't look like a "cover the basic class".  They could still be original if they spread the elemental magic line to different classes.  The witch doctor has a fire line. Give the lightning line to a druid class.

An other theory is that they are shooting for 5 distinc visual style.  I know Blizzard love this design philosophy : you have to recognize a class by it's silhouette.  It would eliminate the paladins since the big armor type is covered by the Barbarian.   It would leave some room for original classes.

[Fabricated]

Wow, so Blizzard finally stopped jerking everyone around.

Now to wait 2 years for it to come out!

[Aez]

So, I'm guessing, free to play on B.net.  B.net has more advertisment then before.

I'm also going out on a limb and saying there will be some sort of microtransactions.  Just not sure which/how.

I'll bet there's no microtrans. Agree that it's going to be free on bnet. The box sales of SC2 and D3, regardless of the WoW money press, I imagine will keep bnet running just fine without nickel and diming consumers.

I was hoping for a subscription and regular content update.  I loved Diablo II but the patches and xpac took forever.  There's so much potential for a content patch every 3-4 months.  With out them the game become repetitive too fast - for me at least.

[ahoythematey]

Chat gem on the D3 site.  They're still fucking with us...

[Murgos]

Chat gem on the D3 site.  They're still fucking with us...

Saw that, haven't seen any cows.  Yet...

[Fabricated]

I just noticed that they're using the BLIZZARD DOWNLOADER to distribute the high-res gameplay videos.

Awesome.

Edit: okay the downloader is a worthless piece of shit. Anyone got a mirror?

[Nija]

I know one guy who works at Blizzard. Well, I don't "know him" know him - I played qwtf with him over a decade ago.

He was still in IRC for about 4 months after WOW came out. He worked on mob pathing and spawning and that kind of thing. He's fallen off the face of the planet since that time. I guess he got promoted or something to a position where he could have even less "gamer contact" or something.

Here's a message from my 2 year old:

888888859''
l'o]
]]]\\\]y\lo[g[===i7hi'/j
?poip




yyyypdddddddd_____ook[m'
jk
< \p;[]/\


l][o

[El Gallo]

Yay!

[photek]

Your 2 year old is a troll! Also one of my guildies works at Blizzard as GM at the moment and he plays actively when not working and is still in our Irc / forums, guess a dev has far more devoted role though and requires lots of time.

poip

Your 2 year old nearly wrote poop. The pride I would have if my childs first e-word was poop. That is a natural born forum troll, in a good sense.

[cironian]

That is all I can say right now.

[trias_e]

Sorcer(er/ess) as we know may be gone, considering they are giving fire magic to witch doctor.  Necro is almost certainly replaced by the witch doctor.  There will be likely be either 3 new classes and 2 old classes, or 3 old classes and 2 new classes, at least based on the FAQ:  "Exciting new classes like the witch doctor bring new gameplay options to the table. Returning classes, like the barbarian, have been completely redone with new skills to give them a feel unique to Diablo III."

I'd guess paladin will come back.  Assassin was my favorite class in D2, so I definitely hope that is in. 

[Fabricated]

I'm still looking for a damn mirror for the high-res gameplay vid since Blizzard's downloader doesn't work. At all.

[Merusk]

You've got to open/foreward more ports than just the standard bittorrent ones.  Add the b.net ones as well.

[Fabricated]

You've got to open/foreward more ports than just the standard bittorrent ones.  Add the b.net ones as well.

Did that, nada. Get no problems according to the downloader but it sits at 0%.

[Drai]

NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THE STORYLINE

I WANT TO PLAY IT

PING
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I still get the D2 itch and will play it for a few months out of each year - in addition to this happiest of days with the D3 announcement, today I also got the original ultimate Ping - my first Stone of Jordan drop, ever.  Eight years of on and off playing, and it drops the same day as Diablo 3!

[AcidCat]

God it looks awesome.

I think I've really played too many MMOs the last few years, I kept thinking, how cool is it going to be to have a multiplayer dungeon where there's no tank, no one just healing, and everyone just kicking ass. It's so oldschool it's new again.

[Cheddar]

Multiplayer games will be possible using Blizzard's Battle.net service,[5] with many of the new features being developed for Starcraft II also being available for Diablo III.[3] Players will be able to drop in and out of sessions of co-operative play with others.[4]

An enhanced quest system is stated to work in conjunction with a random level generator to ensure the game provides different experiences when replayed. A random encounter generator is planned to further increase this.[1] Overall, the game will include a mixture of static and randomly generated levels.

Wikipedia has lots of info - the fanboi is rubbing off on me.  Hopefully we get an estimate as to when its release will be!