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Diablo 3 Teaser Trailer

Discussion in 'Diablo 3 & 4' started by Taluntain, Feb 11, 2011.

  1. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Last edited: Sep 19, 2015
  2. Barmy Army

    Barmy Army Simple mind, simple pleasures... Adored Veteran

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    Nerdgasm!

    Blizzard really are impressive developers.
     
  3. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    Nerdgasm. What an absolutely awesome term. Thanks for expanding my vocabularly BA!

    Trailer looks cool as well.
     
  4. Atmer

    Atmer Wandering... Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    I love Diablo 2 cinematic. They were made so many years ago and still look sharp, great voice acting helps a lot too.

    It seems that Diablo 3 will follow the same road.
     
  5. Rawgrim Gems: 21/31
    Latest gem: Pearl


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    I like the cinematics too. And especially the dark setting in the games. Too bad I don`t like the gameplay much.
     
  6. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    It seems really dark - even by Diablo standards. And yeah, the cinematics are always great in the Blizzard games.
     
  7. Death Rabbit

    Death Rabbit Straight, no chaser Adored Veteran Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    My favorite part of that trailer is what appears to be Tyrael making an appearance in the game. Which is awesome.
     
  8. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    From what I have read, Tyrael is one of several angels to make appearances in the game. Hadriel is there, who made a brief appearance in D2, as are Auriel, Imperius, Itherael, and Malthael - who I don't know anything about. Deckard Cain is also back. There are also a few baddies that we've seen from prior games. King Leoric is back, as are two more of the lesser evils - Belial and Asmodon.
     
  9. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    As somewhat of an update I saw while surfing the net yesterday - and I apologize for not posting it at that time as I cannot seem to refind the link - a 2011 release date for D3 will be predicated by successful beta testing, which is expected to begin soon.

    Blizzard states that they plan on releasing two games in the next year and a half - D3 and the sequel to Starcraft II Wings of Liberty (I don't know if it's the Zerg or Protoss campaign next). Anyway, the only thing that Blizzard has confirmed is that's the order. They try to do one game release per year, and the plan is:

    D3 - 2011
    SC2 - 2012

    After that, the next three years will feature three expansions in some yet-to-be determined order, that will include one each for D3, SC2, and WoW (again, not necessarily in that order).

    For the topic at hand though, Blizzard will not commit to a 2011 release date for D3 until beta testing is complete. Obviously, they are hoping to not have a lot of fixes that come out of beta testing, and if that is the case, then D3 will be released around November this year. If, however, there is a lot of stuff to fix, then the release date will be pushed back to the first quarter of 2012, and then the plan would be to release two games that year (which would also push the release of the SC2 sequel to 4th quarter 2012, as opposed to the current 3rd quarter 2012 goal.
     
  10. Fly2tHeSkY

    Fly2tHeSkY Southern Comfort Veteran

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    Hopefully they don't turn it into this big epic thing like they did with WoW. Has to be dark.. Looking good at the moment though.

    @ Aldeth, it's the Zerg campaign next - Heart of the Swarm.
     
  11. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    I found this, which has some detail about the game. It's a 17 minute video, so if you want the Cliff Notes version:

    Character and Skill System:
    • Max Character Level 60
    • Each Character Can Pick from up to 30 Skills
    • You can have 7 "active" skills at any given time
    • The maximum allowable skill level is 15
    • Runes (of which there are five types) now enhance skills and/or alter skills, not items
    • Runes can be taken out of skills and placed in new skills that you gain access to later

    Gear:
    • Gear is divided into 18 tiers
    • There willl be six tiers available in Normal, Nightmare, and Hell difficulties
    • Strength and Dexterity Requirements for gear have been removed, and gear is strictly level based
    • As such, Stat point distribution is now done automatically, kind of like WoW, where you gain x strength, y dexterity, etc. for each level up based on the class you picked

    Co-Operative Play is currently limited to 4 players for the following reasons:
    • Difficulty in balancing scaling effects of monsters with more than 4 players. The way the system is set up, an 8 player game would result in many one-shot kills by monsters
    • Initial testing with more than 4 players had so many spell effects going off that it was hard to see what was happening
    • Major complaint in Co-Op play in D2 was more players led to more "leeches" who wouldn't contribute but gain XPs and grab items.

     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 19, 2015
  12. Marceror

    Marceror Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    An interesting watch. Plenty of good details shared.
     
  13. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Update

    Some new stuff I learned recently about the game:

    1. PvP (Player versus Player) will now take place in "arenas" that are separate from the game. Previously, in PvP, you just went to an area (typically the Blood Mor right outside the Rogue camp), cleaned the monsters out, and then had at it. So there will be no PvP in the standard game, and you won't be able to be PKed while questing.

    The arena will also allow teaming in a 2 on 2 setting. In fact, this is what Blizzard is hoping to find out the most about in beta testing (open beta testing set to start in June). It's hard enough to balance the skills in a one on one type setting, but once you go two on two, they are specifically looking to see if certain pairings are overpowered in PvP. However, since PvP is now a separate part of the game, Blizzard claims that they won't hold up the release of the game just to try and make the PvP part perfectly balanced.

    2. Magic find will be incorporated in D3, but in a way very different from D2. In D2, for most characters, loading up on magic finding was usually done at the sacrifice of power. This will not be the case in D3. In the example given, the only way to get magic find in a helm is by socketing a particular gem in it (I think it specifically mentioned a diamond).

    However, in doing so, you're giving up something else. Other gems that could be socketed into helms include gems that increase your life or mana recovery rate, increase the experience gained per monster kill, or increased the amount of gold you find. (It should be noted that gold will function much more like a currency and commodity in D3 than D2. While gold was the official currency in the world of Sanctuary in D2, you couldn't actually use it for trading purposes, and was basically something you collected to gamble with. Conversely, gold is intended to be a valuable resource in D3.)

    The point is, none of these status affects that you can get from socketing your helm is going to change your killing power. Since mf is now going to be on the list of status affects, and not a modifier that can just occur on specific pieces of gear, you won't have to give up power for mf.

    3. Also in the item finding realm, the drop process has been revamped so that even when playing co-operatively, the drops are specific to you. When a monster drops something now, it drops different things for different players, and only the stuff that is for you is visable to you. So if you're playing cooperatively in a group of 4 (the maximum allowed at this point), a monster will drop four different things - one for each player. It is likely that all four will be different items, you'll only see the item assigned for you, and obviously you'll only be able to take that item.

    4. Getting an array of different damage types was always a challenge in D2, and so they have tried to set up the skills such that you can modify them for different damage types. By placing runes on skills, you can completely change the attributes of a skill. In the example given, one of the sorceress' skills is Hydra, which without any rune in it, works pretty much exactly the way it did in D2 - it summons a multi-headed fire creature that spits fireballs at the enemy. However, by inserting certain runes into it, you can instead have it inflict lightning, poison, cold, or magic damage. (Not at once - you can get lightning OR cold OR poison...)
     
  14. Sir Rechet

    Sir Rechet I speak maths and logic, not stupid Veteran

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    I'm pretty undecided about that PvP vs PvE divide. On the other hand, it certainly gives more freedom for Blizzard to tweak the rulesets on their own. They already kind of do that in D2 with the global 1/6 damage penalty in PvP. While on the other, there's a reasonable expectation from players that stuff works about similarly between the two domains, and thus some of the player favorites will be NERFED TO THE GROUND, BABY just because they cause some.. unexpected behaviour in the other domain.

    For example, chain Fearing stuff as a warlock in World of Warcraft was nerfed just because it wasn't "much fun" being at the receiving end of it in PvP - you couldn't control your character, just see it wither away by the curses put on you while running around like a headless chicken. While on the PvE side of things, you could conceivably do that all day long if you wanted to, but that wouldn't be as efficient as just straight taking the mob down and you still couldn't take on large packs of mobs since standard Fear only affected a single target at a time. So, Blizzard added diminishing returns to all forms of crowd control. You get full effect on the first cast, half duration on the second, yet again half on the third and full immunity on the fourth and subsequent ones, until the immunity finally times out after 15 seconds or so.

    It's one thing if stuff gets nerfed due to technical limitations, such as non-timered Firewall in D2 Classic causing massive lag if cast in rapid succession, but I wouldn't want to endure yet another war between PvE vs PvP crowds.
     
  15. Gothmog

    Gothmog Man, a curious beast indeed! ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    I'm interested most of all in PvP aspect and i think PvP and PvE has to be separated. WoW must've proved that beyond a doubt.

    World pvp action was really fun in WoW and completely different from organised PvP such as battlegrounds and arenas.
    But it was also extremely vulnerable to abuses and has always been completely unbalanced. Some classes are simply better suited to it than others. You just cannot balance PvP for 1vs1 without completely leveling grounds, leaving a bland homogenization of classes and skills. That's one difficulty. The other is time invested. If you've ever played on a high population full pvp server, especially on the less represented faction side, you know that often you just cannot do else but logout. Leveling especially, can become impossible due to higher level players strolling about having their way with you. At maximum level, also, the numbers count. How many times have i seen (or assembled) a punitive raid on an unfortunate enemy player who wouldn't lay down and called on his friends instead. It's mobbing.
    Arena and/or battlegrounds allow for even playing field.

    2v2 is also quite difficult to balance. In WoW, which has 10 classes, Blizzard has given up on 2v2 bracket arena. They removed the prestigious rewards from (up till then) by far the most popular bracket, and only allowed them for 3v3 and 5v5.
    Hopefully, with that experience in mind and lesser number of classes in D3, they'll be able to provide reasonable balance in 2v2. I think it's feasible. I'm amazed they haven't mentioned 3v3 bracket. I don't see how or why there shouldn't be one included.


    Now to the main point... I think game/skills rules should differ between PvE and PvP aspects.
    As Baronius pointed out, WoW has ever had problems with skills being overpowered or underpowered in either area. Even with all the balancing Blizzard has done (and there has been much), it was ever a rope-walk. And the changes were, in a lot of cases, sneaked in. Then next major content patch came and yet another thing got broken and started a whole chain reaction in PvP. Which, if it was too extreme, made Blizzard change something, which impacted PvE side and so forth. An eternal ping pong game of balance.
    Now, in WoW, PvE balance has always been a priority. PvP thus suffered the brunt of the balancing stick, and it has been a major impact. That's why it never really got to live as an e-sport, which i think is a tremendous shame. With having such a massive audience (what, 12 million subscribers or so) it should be a massive competitive scene. It tried, but the constant balancing (and equally unbalancing) changes to the game made it a joke. Also, the relentless catering to casual players made the skill of the player less than a major factor that would be desired for competitive play.

    If D3 doesn't completely separate PvP and PvE environments, making each an independent aspect of the game, the whole thing will just keep repeating itself.
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2011
  16. Sir Rechet

    Sir Rechet I speak maths and logic, not stupid Veteran

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    Competetive PvP is what you do with something seemingly simple yet deviously complex. Learning the ropes in, say, Starcraft is easy enough even for a RTS failure such as myself, but getting good at it takes actual skill.

    WoW pretty much tried it the other way around - something seemingly complex that boiled down to a few simple things. Healing reduction debuff, bubble or other anti-crowd control, heal over time spells and crowd control of your own and you were set, apart from the few flavor of the month overpowered combinations here and there.

    I'd hate if Blizz has to design stuff with a thought at the back of their mind: "How are we going to make this <new cool ability/spell> make any sense if used against another player?" and risk ditching ideas just because you sometimes just can't.

    There's a world of a difference between having pretty close to zero use for Find Item (Barbarian ability) in a Diablo 2 duel and having to admit that anything that even remotely resembles good ol' BFG9000 and/or Rocket Launcher from Doom only causes quick degeneration into madness if allowed in PvP.
     
  17. Gothmog

    Gothmog Man, a curious beast indeed! ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    Interesting, i've never thought of it that way. You are quite correct, WoW tried going the reverse way. Hard to tell whether that's why it failed to be popular. I think probably not. There were several times where PvP arena was almost balanced, or at least, you stood a chance if you weren't playing one of the fotm (flavor of the month) comps. But this always happened a few months before a new expansion. Which when it came, rattled things so badly it was a nightmare to play something that wasn't OP at the moment.
    Cataclysm tried to prevent this by homogenization of classes... and it succeeded. But i know loads of people (including myself) that found the new gameplay downright boring. Every melee has in interrupt ability, every class has a low-cd CC ability,...

    This would prove to be worst case scenario IMO. In WoW, at least they chose PvE and gave priority to balancing that, so it was almost always well polished - at least for most players, don't get me started on top progress guilds being test rabbits for Blizz.
    If they try to satisfy both spheres equally, it can't but turn to yawnville. That's why they should just separate them completely, giving each team enough freedom to scale numbers and adjust skills properly.

    So yea, you'd basically have 2 skills for eachskill. Perhaps even more with rune combinations in it. It'd require more class knowledge from the player to compete in both PvE and PvP. From my experience, players tend to choose one sphere of the game over another. Rare are the players with time and patience to spread their effort equally. Grand majority in WoW (which actually tries quite hard to encourage dabbling in both PvE and PvP) does one only, dipping in the other just as a chore to benefit their primary choice.
    There wouldn't be much lost with making a clean cut between the two.
     
  18. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    I can only speculate that it's because they built the engine for D3 to accomodate 4 players in any given game. D2 allowed 8-player parties, but one of the complaints was that in those games there were so many leeches that would get the experience points while contributing nothing. Also, they said that monster scaling was an issue - in the current engine, if you actually had 8 players in a game, there would be many monster one-hit kills, so four is the maximum. (And thus 2v2 is the maximum in PvP.)
     
  19. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Beta date is July 1!

    The beta for D3 is scheduled for release on July 1st. As Blizzard keeps saying, they plan on releasing D3 this calendar year, and since the Beta is hoped to be completed within 6 months, a July 1st beta still puts us in that timeframe.

    The good news is that there is the possibility of the beta not taking 6 months. Blizzard is stating 6 months because that's how long SC2 took to beta test. However, SC2 required more beta testing than D3 is expected to take due to so many balance issues associated with SC2.

    As previously stated, the primary focus of D3 will be the PvM side, and Blizzard has said that they will not let PvP balance issues (which is where testing is most needed), delay the release of the game. Blizzard expects that there will be a few early patches needed to correct PvP issues in the early going, and as that's thought to be unavoidable, they won't hold up the release date for the game itself, as PvP no longer occurs in the game world.
     
  20. Sir Rechet

    Sir Rechet I speak maths and logic, not stupid Veteran

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    PvE first, PvP as an afterthought?

    I guess Blizz just made +1 customer.

    Okay, technically they avoided minus one, but you know.. :)

    Edit: I'm not against PvP as such, but I guess I rather see my opponent IRL. Doing it via a computer seems rather pointless. Or am I just strange?
     
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