Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Malakili]

Looks good.   Just better fill it out and forward it to me so I can verify its legitimacy though. 

[Soulflame]

I hope you're not serious.   

[WayAbvPar]

This made me go try to update my Blizzard account- my authenticator is still on my old phone. Called Blizz and got a new authenticator set up in like 2 minutes. I was SHOCKED by the speed, English skills, and general usefulness of the phone rep. Especially in contrast to the 2 I spoke to last night for Microsoft 

Now I gotta run the beta test setup software..why can't I just send a dxdiag? I have a copy of my home machine's here are work for just such occasions!

[Malakili]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/3435571#blog

Shortly after you begin your adventure, you'll be provided with a useful little artifact: the Cauldron of Jordan. The cauldron allows you to skip trekking back to town when the time comes to sell your loot. After you obtain the Cauldron, you can reduce virtually any item in your inventory to gold, just as if you had sold it to a vendor. Gold can do a lot of things for you in Diablo III, from purchasing artisan services to repairing your damaged gear to buying shared stash slots. There's more than one way to get value from loot though, which brings us to the other handy tool you’ll have at your disposal.

Nephalem Cube
The Nephalem Cube is another very helpful item that you'll encounter over the course of your adventure. It works just like the Cauldron of Jordan, but with an important difference. When you click the Nephalem Cube it allows you to salvage crafting materials from your unwanted weapons, armor, rings, runes, and amulets. The process destroys the original item but yields a variety of materials that grow more powerful as increasingly rare items are salvaged. Thus, common items yield common crafting materials, but more rare and valuable items will yield potent mystical substances that can be used to create correspondingly mighty items and enhancements. You'll want to keep a well-stocked hoard of crafting materials, because there's great potential in those salvaged scraps.

I guess they needed to do something like the Cauldron given that Town Portals are out.  I'm interested in how easy it is to get back to town.  The TP seems like such an integral part of the genre to me, but this seems like it will get rid of the main need for frequent town runs.  I kind of like the pacing of going back to town, but I don't know if I will actually miss it in practice.

[Yegolev]

I think putting your loot into the grinder (DeathSpank, Dungeon Siege III) is the new way.  It does speed up things in the games I have used it in.  I've matured (?) to the point where I want to judge an item's relative worth and then toss it rather than get back to town and try to remember if I wanted to sell it or keep it.  With Torchlight, I handle this by putting garbage on my pet; even if I'm not going to send him to town alone, I know that anything my pet is carrying is vendor trash.

By the way, I like Dragon Age's ability to tag an item as Junk and then later Sell All Junk.  To bad the genius that thought of that only attended the one UI design meeting where that was submitted, could have used him on some of the other bits.

[Stabs]

Greetings from Blizzard Entertainment!
We’re gearing up for the forthcoming launch of Diablo III and would like to extend you an invitation to
participate in the beta test. If you are interested in participating, you need to have a Battle.net
account, which you can create on our Battle.net website.
We will flag you for access to the Diablo III beta test when we begin admitting press. You do not need to
go through the opt-in process.
To secure your place among the first of Sanctuary’s heroes,Please use the following template below to
verify your account and information via email.
* Name:
* Battle.account name:
* Password:
* Country:
* E-mail Address:
Thanks and see you all in the Burning Hells!

This is legit RIGHT!?

The advice I've heard is this:

- unless you're friends and family you can only get into the Beta by registering an interest and letting them scan your system in BNet.

- log into your BNet account and check to see if a download is available.

- no download = you're being phished.

You should never need to click a link in an email to play the Beta.

[Yegolev]

I don't know, Blizzard probably forgot murdoc's password and details, so they can't log in and give him beta access.

[kildorn]

I guess they needed to do something like the Cauldron given that Town Portals are out.  I'm interested in how easy it is to get back to town.  The TP seems like such an integral part of the genre to me, but this seems like it will get rid of the main need for frequent town runs.  I kind of like the pacing of going back to town, but I don't know if I will actually miss it in practice.

From watching videos, there seem to be checkpoints littered about that function as a teleport. Not sure the cost/rules, just saw someone trigger one, click it, and up came a list of places to port to.

[Malakili]

I guess they needed to do something like the Cauldron given that Town Portals are out.  I'm interested in how easy it is to get back to town.  The TP seems like such an integral part of the genre to me, but this seems like it will get rid of the main need for frequent town runs.  I kind of like the pacing of going back to town, but I don't know if I will actually miss it in practice.

From watching videos, there seem to be checkpoints littered about that function as a teleport. Not sure the cost/rules, just saw someone trigger one, click it, and up came a list of places to port to.

Sounds similar to the old Waypoint system.  As long as they are frequent enough it should suffice.

[MuffinMan]

Greetings from Blizzard Entertainment!
We’re gearing up for the forthcoming launch of Diablo III and would like to extend you an invitation to
participate in the beta test. If you are interested in participating, you need to have a Battle.net
account, which you can create on our Battle.net website.
We will flag you for access to the Diablo III beta test when we begin admitting press. You do not need to
go through the opt-in process.
To secure your place among the first of Sanctuary’s heroes,Please use the following template below to
verify your account and information via email.
* Name:
* Battle.account name:
* Password:
* Country:
* E-mail Address:
Thanks and see you all in the Burning Hells!

This is legit RIGHT!?

The advice I've heard is this:

- unless you're friends and family you can only get into the Beta by registering an interest and letting them scan your system in BNet.

- log into your BNet account and check to see if a download is available.

- no download = you're being phished.

You should never need to click a link in an email to play the Beta.

[Ironwood]

I think putting your loot into the grinder (DeathSpank, Dungeon Siege III) is the new way.  It does speed up things in the games I have used it in.  I've matured (?) to the point where I want to judge an item's relative worth and then toss it rather than get back to town and try to remember if I wanted to sell it or keep it.  With Torchlight, I handle this by putting garbage on my pet; even if I'm not going to send him to town alone, I know that anything my pet is carrying is vendor trash.

By the way, I like Dragon Age's ability to tag an item as Junk and then later Sell All Junk.  To bad the genius that thought of that only attended the one UI design meeting where that was submitted, could have used him on some of the other bits.

Bear in mind that we were doing this as far back as System Shock 2.

It's a good thing.

Still not interested in the game though.  It's been soured for me.

[Yegolev]

Not sure how I forgot about that in SS2, maybe because babies need meat.

[Ironwood]

 

[murdoc]

Greetings from Blizzard Entertainment!
We’re gearing up for the forthcoming launch of Diablo III and would like to extend you an invitation to
participate in the beta test. If you are interested in participating, you need to have a Battle.net
account, which you can create on our Battle.net website.
We will flag you for access to the Diablo III beta test when we begin admitting press. You do not need to
go through the opt-in process.
To secure your place among the first of Sanctuary’s heroes,Please use the following template below to
verify your account and information via email.
* Name:
* Battle.account name:
* Password:
* Country:
* E-mail Address:
Thanks and see you all in the Burning Hells!

This is legit RIGHT!?

The advice I've heard is this:

- unless you're friends and family you can only get into the Beta by registering an interest and letting them scan your system in BNet.

- log into your BNet account and check to see if a download is available.

- no download = you're being phished.

You should never need to click a link in an email to play the Beta.

 

[Hutch]

We groan and emote because we're a bunch of hard-bitten, cynical internet warriors here, but fwiw, Blizzard saw fit to post a warning like this on the WoW login screen yesterday. So they must be getting a lot of notifications about it.

The advice I've heard is this:

- unless you're friends and family you can only get into the Beta by registering an interest and letting them scan your system in BNet.

- log into your BNet account and check to see if a download is available.

- no download = you're being phished.

You should never need to click a link in an email to play the Beta.

[Malakili]

We groan and emote because we're a bunch of hard-bitten, cynical internet warriors here, but fwiw, Blizzard saw fit to post a warning like this on the WoW login screen yesterday. So they must be getting a lot of notifications about it.

The advice I've heard is this:

- unless you're friends and family you can only get into the Beta by registering an interest and letting them scan your system in BNet.

- log into your BNet account and check to see if a download is available.

- no download = you're being phished.

You should never need to click a link in an email to play the Beta.

Same warning was on the Starcraft login screen as well. 

[Malakili]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/

Classes all up. Every ability up with runes, Actives and Passives.  Skill calculators up.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

[Hawkbit]

Nice. 

[Sophismata]

The two things I've come to dislike about the game, from watching the various streams and recordings, are:

Character animations.

Most characters lose their weapons (instantly holster them) whenever they perform a special attack or cast a spell (Barbarian is the exception). For classes like the Wizard, seeing their sword/staff/wand/etc constantly teleport around as they constantly cast spells is kinda disheartening. Seeing the monk eschew using his weapons in favour of his fists every time he hits something is sad. Why does he carry a staff? For walking around? I'm all for punching things (his punches are fucking cool), but if you're going to give him other weapons, let him use them.

Also, the Templar (minon/companion character) only has two animations: stand, and run. There is no transition between them.


Sound effects.

They need to dampen sound effects when characters talk, because half the time you cannot hear the journals, quests, soliloquies etc over the sound of magic missiles and lightning punches.

[kildorn]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/

Classes all up. Every ability up with runes, Actives and Passives.  Skill calculators up.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

Damnit. I love the runes. So much. FETISH ARMY, HO!

[El Gallo]

Can anyone point me to a site that has a list of all the skills with the effects of each runestone on each skill on one page? I'm looking to print it out so I can start getting my pathetic need builder on months ahead of time. On the official site, you can only see the effects of the runestones on the page for each individual skill, which makes it impractical to print.

[climbjtree]

I'm looking forward to the Witch Doctor class. Zombie dogs? Yes please.

[kildorn]

Flaming zombie dogs, a small army of fetishes, and a giant zombie. Backed up by zombie fucking bears.

[Malakili]

I want to play all the classes.  Its a shame I have to pick one to play first.

[Tannhauser]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/

Classes all up. Every ability up with runes, Actives and Passives.  Skill calculators up.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

I larfed.  Yeah, that calculator is pretty sweet.  I am really interested in the six active skill idea. 

[Tebonas]

Here I am all but ready to boycott them for the Always Online Part, and then they fill that bitter pill up with awesomeness. Damn you Blizzard!

[RUiN 427]

Is it just me, or is it kind of amazing that just about everything is voice acted in the game?

[Furiously]

I hear you can have romance options with your henchmen too......

[Stabs]

I hear you can have romance options with your henchmen too......

Dibs on the Enchantress.

[Malakili]

Is it just me, or is it kind of amazing that just about everything is voice acted in the game?

Wasn't Diablo 2 even like this for the most part?  Its unimportant to me, but it worked fine then, so I don't see how it'll be much different now.  Just don't make me sit there and listen to Deckard Cain drone on for 4 minutes, I'm in for the mass demon genocide.

Edit, Also:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/latency-no-longer-a-factor-in-d3-combat

According to a few sources playing the F&F Beta, it seems that Blizzard may have found a way to completely remove the delay of character combat actions resulting from network latency. This is further evident in many of the gameplay streams and youtube footage, in which nearly all combat actions appear to be instantaneous as if played in single-player. From what we understand, this only applies to combat actions, and not other gameplay functions, such as looting, chests, salvaging etc. The exception being big lagspikes, which will always cause a delay.

Cautiously optimistic.

[Lantyssa]

Edit, Also:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/latency-no-longer-a-factor-in-d3-combat

Client-side actions with server sanity checking.  Limiting it to combat actions means less that has to be parsed, and that's going to be the most noticeable and important to players.

[Murgos]

Blizzards finally perfected negative ping code?

[Ironwood]

Here I am all but ready to boycott them for the Always Online Part, and then they fill that bitter pill up with awesomeness. Damn you Blizzard!

It's a trap.

[Job601]

Those skill calculators totally sold me on this game.  They are much deeper than I expected and I have no idea where to start.

[Soulflame]

And one skill combination per character will be the way to play the game any further than the first difficulty.