Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[lamaros]

FFXI.

In some other thread people said that WOW had overland mobs that did that as well, I wouldn't know.

Ah ok, I haven't played FFXI.

At the moment all worthwile non-instanced drops in WoW are BoE. They are not farmable however as they are either on rare monsters with 8 hour respawns, or random low % drops on any mob. Any decent drop you would get outside an instance would be sellable, but getting them is mostly a matter of luck.

If they were farmable but BoP then they would be pointless and/or camped in the same way as a quest mob would be camped. So by making them a low chance they ensure they will continue to be usefull but that no one can try and exploit this usefulness and gain a monopoly. But the lack of monopoly is not caused by the bind, it's caused by the unpredictable drop rate.  They could make them not bind at all and still not run the risk of monopoly.

[Murgos]

They are not farmable however as they are either on rare monsters with 8 hour respawns..

If you're not worried about the legality of hacking the game that mechanic is totally exploitable and farmable.

[lamaros]

They are not farmable however as they are either on rare monsters with 8 hour respawns..

If you're not worried about the legality of hacking the game that mechanic is totally exploitable and farmable.

Oh?

[Margalis]

At the moment all worthwile non-instanced drops in WoW are BoE. They are not farmable however as they are either on rare monsters with 8 hour respawns, or random low % drops on any mob. Any decent drop you would get outside an instance would be sellable, but getting them is mostly a matter of luck.

If they were farmable but BoP then they would be pointless and/or camped in the same way as a quest mob would be camped. So by making them a low chance they ensure they will continue to be usefull but that no one can try and exploit this usefulness and gain a monopoly. But the lack of monopoly is not caused by the bind, it's caused by the unpredictable drop rate.  They could make them not bind at all and still not run the risk of monopoly.

What prevents me from getting 100 of my Chinese friends and camping the mob perpetually? Drop rate does nothing to change this, in FFXI monsters with 2% drop rates and 24 hour spawn times are monopolized.

If the items you are described were hands-down the best in the game this would be a horrible problem. You'd get hundred of people standing around waiting for a mob to pop. And without bind on pickup even if someone got the item they'd be back the next time to try to get it again and sell it.

[lamaros]

What prevents me from getting 100 of my Chinese friends and camping the mob perpetually? Drop rate does nothing to change this, in FFXI monsters with 2% drop rates and 24 hour spawn times are monopolized.

If the items you are described were hands-down the best in the game this would be a horrible problem. You'd get hundred of people standing around waiting for a mob to pop. And without bind on pickup even if someone got the item they'd be back the next time to try to get it again and sell it.

If the items were the best in the game then it woud be an issue. However that's not the case. If the item was one of the best in the game then would it be? That depends really. It depends how many other alternatives there are. It depends how much time and energy would be spent to get them.

If you had two identical items, one BoP in an instance that takes 1hour to run, and one that doesn't bind from a mob in the world that respawns over a certain period of time, then we have a different situation.

The mobs in WoW, to the best of my knowledge, work like this:

They have a 'cooldown' timer. After they are killed the will not respawn for this period. This period if commonly 8 hours.
After that cooldown is up the can respawn, but will not respawn automaticlly. Instead they will do so randomly within a certain time period.
They will not necessarily spawn at a single place but may have a number of places in which they can spawn.

So if you have a mob that does the above, that drops a valuable item 10% of the time, then the value of that item to someone who could go into an instance and get a similar item is low. You wont find 100 people waiting around for an hour in 5 different places hoping to nick the spawn if they need the item because they can go and get it themselves in one hour, however you might find a few people check the place out if they're in the area, or even come over on purpse, hoping to get lucky and sell it for a fair bit or keep it for leveling alts in the future

Now some might have a problem with that because it raises the fear of RMT, but insofar as it relates to other things it's not a big deal. It's an optional monster to try camp in order to make some money. It's elective and doesn't impact on others playing the game. For some people these kinds of things are fun.

The real reasons for binding items seem to me to be RMT fears and forcing players to play content. If items dont decay and we have these unbound items around then eventually there will be so many that you can get one for a smaller investment than doing the instance. I don't think binding has anything to do with fixing monster camping or anything like that; all that stuff can be delt with in other ways if they wanted to.

[Paelos]

Yeah bound items suck.

I honestly think Blizzard missed the boat on making that a mechanic in the game. If the hardcore wanted to be hardcore with the only items, they don't have to sell them or trade them to anyone, but the idea of getting drop after worthless drop off bosses becuase of the random loot mechanic with no possible way to get around it is beyond frustrating.

[K9]

At the moment all worthwile non-instanced drops in WoW are BoE. They are not farmable however as they are either on rare monsters with 8 hour respawns, or random low % drops on any mob. Any decent drop you would get outside an instance would be sellable, but getting them is mostly a matter of luck.

If they were farmable but BoP then they would be pointless and/or camped in the same way as a quest mob would be camped. So by making them a low chance they ensure they will continue to be usefull but that no one can try and exploit this usefulness and gain a monopoly. But the lack of monopoly is not caused by the bind, it's caused by the unpredictable drop rate.  They could make them not bind at all and still not run the risk of monopoly.

I know you're specificlly talking about equippable items, but there's also numerous crafting patterns that are low drop rate BoP world drops from maybe only one or two types of mob. This is a particular aspect of gameplay that I find monumentally retarded. While the world-drop blues and epics seem to be more like an occasional nice treat, without access to sites like wowhead there would be next to no chance that a crafter would "accidentally" stumble on these recipes. In order to get them you are obliged to look for them on 3rd party sites, and then spend hours grinding the same 4 or 5 mobs into oblivion.

[WayAbvPar]

Drops should work like Diablo- go off a loot table, and any mob over x on the table can drop anything up to its loot value. So big bosses drop the really rare stuff, but rares aren't limited to any particular boss. That would make getting PUGs or even guild groups together to help alts or lowbies finish quests would be that much easier, since anything could conceivably drop.

[Murgos]

They are not farmable however as they are either on rare monsters with 8 hour respawns..

If you're not worried about the legality of hacking the game that mechanic is totally exploitable and farmable.

Oh?

The data on what mobs are where within a certain range of the character is sent to your PC, this is usually one of the first things a haxor program learns to monitor.  So, set a few characters around the area where the mob spawns, preferably so that they have overlapping scan areas, the moment it pops you will get a notification, run over, smash it and repeat, the whole process could easily be automated.  The mob will only be up for moments before the camper-bots get it, so unless someone else just happens to be standing there when the mob spawns you ain't going to get it.

[WayAbvPar]

So- how screwed am I?

I was playing on bnet in Act III. I got to the end (where you kill the council of Zara-something). As council members died, they were dropping magic items like Pacman Jones dropping twenties at a strip club. I was ferrying goodies back to town, and advanced the quest BEFORE I picked up the 4th item (flail). Then I got disconnected and couldn't get back into my game, It was late, so I went to bed.

What will happen when I log in? Will I still be able to go pick up the flail, or am I going to have to join another MP game in the hopes of advancing the plot?

[Ingmar]

So- how screwed am I?

I was playing on bnet in Act III. I got to the end (where you kill the council of Zara-something). As council members died, they were dropping magic items like Pacman Jones dropping twenties at a strip club. I was ferrying goodies back to town, and advanced the quest BEFORE I picked up the 4th item (flail). Then I got disconnected and couldn't get back into my game, It was late, so I went to bed.

What will happen when I log in? Will I still be able to go pick up the flail, or am I going to have to join another MP game in the hopes of advancing the plot?

I don't think it is possible to get permanently screwed on quest advancement in D2, you should be OK. You will have to kill the council again almost certainly though.

[WayAbvPar]

That isn't so bad...they were dropping all kinds of goodies!

[Ironwood]

If your magic find is high enough, the Travincal council is an item pinata.  Two Uniques in one run, both exceptionals.

That said, my wife collects magic find like other women collect shoes.


Ok, serious question :  I now have lots of Immortal Kings, but I've gimped myself kinda with 15 ranks of Frenzy.

Is there an app out there that will allow me a respec ?  I don't wanna hear if you consider it cheating.  I consider it getting out of another 3 weeks of playing a different barb to level 75.

I've googled, of course, but virus filled exes do not pump my nads.

[WayAbvPar]

Bunch of mods for single player. Not sure if any allow respecs or not.

[Lantyssa]

I know there were editors which used to allow this.  I cannot imagine they no longer exist.

[Merusk]

There's still a bunch of D2 trainers out there.  Most folks search for 'mod' or 'hack' while forgetting the "old" trainer term.   

[Ironwood]

I found a really good one called Hero Editor.  Just what I needed.

[Xerapis]

Yeah, Hero Editor rocks. 

++magic find, immunity to being frozen = happiness

[Ironwood]

But that's cheating.

[apocrypha]

But that's cheating.

But if you're playing it as a single-player game... so what?

[Ironwood]

Are you seriously going to argue about cheating with a bloke that just admitted to downloading a mod tool to recreate his barbarian in his own image ?  Or did you fall into the Sarchasm ?

Tick Tock Clarice.

[Lantyssa]

[schild]

Well, the installer from Blizzard.com made everything work and I got the aspect ratio to be all sorts of awesome. So uh, yea, US West or East. Who wants some?

[apocrypha]

Unh I missed this sorry, yeah, I fell :D

[WayAbvPar]

USWest! Let me know when you play and I will try to be on. My sorc is just about ready to finish Act V on normal. Already mopped the floor with Diablo's punk ass.

[schild]

http://www.getdropbox.com/gallery/39720/2/screenshots/diablo%20ii?h=0fb957

Follow my progress! My toon is currently reasonably gimped but I have pretty goddamn good gear. Whatever though! To the gimpmobile!

[Ironwood]

Lol.

I have 3 bank chaps with full stashes of exceptional Uniques.

I also upgraded my Butchers Pupil to and Elite weapon and I'm handing out 1700 damage in a whirlwind :  And that's only counting one hand.

I had forgotten, however, just how fucking annoying Hell and exp loss on death is.

[WayAbvPar]

http://www.getdropbox.com/gallery/39720/2/screenshots/diablo%20ii?h=0fb957

Follow my progress! My toon is currently reasonably gimped but I have pretty goddamn good gear. Whatever though! To the gimpmobile!

Funny- your inventory arrangement is the exact opposite of mine (I have potions on the left, charms/books on the right). Are you left or right handed? I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

[gimpyone]

Anyone playing today?

[WayAbvPar]

There is a distinct possibility that I will be on tonight, probably 8PM or so PDT.

[gimpyone]

I'll be looking for you.

[WayAbvPar]

You can come help me finish Act V and get me some phat lewtz!

[WayAbvPar]

Game on!

USWest
WAP
f13

[Hutch]

Jay Wilson (D3 designer) interview. Topic? D3 Not Enough Liek D2

Found that at Penny Arcade.

Also,
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/6/

[Ironwood]

I still have no idea why he's justifying himself to 'tards.

He's right on all counts when he does tho.