A few ideas of how to save D3

[MongoJerry]

A few ideas of how to save D3

Interesting title, because it assumes that D3 requires saving. The game seems quite successful so far.

1. The game needs to be opened up. None of this follow the quest chains in order for the next area to be available. It needs to be a much more opened world, where all you need to do to progress to the next act is to kill the end boss. Yes, like in D2.

So, in your mind, the best way to make the game last longer for people is to make it so that they can skip all the content?

Are you aware that you can join a friend's game who is farther along than you in your specific difficulty all you want?

2. The gold AH. I don't care about the RMAH. However, the gold AH is defeating Diablo 3's biggest purpose.
That purpose is to look for loot. It takes 10 minutes to find an item on the AH that would normally take weeks or months to find by just killing things.
Item hunting is one of the two most important reasons why D1 and D2 were so popular, the other being smashing mobs. Those two are combined nicely when item hunting. If there is no incentive to item hunt, there is no incentive to kill things. Hunting the AH.... not so addictive.

Nope. Most people item hunted in DII, so that they could *trade* items for the item that they really wanted. It was very rare for someone to find the actual item they wanted by a drop. DII was a trading game for most players-- except that you had to deal with an inefficent bartering economy with no viable currency (stones of jordan? Perfect gems?) and the strong chance of dealing with scammers. The D3 auction house does exactly what most D2 players wanted -- allows people to trade the goods they find for the items that they really want in a secure and efficient way. This is a good thing.

We all know that the AH is here to stay. Therefore, what needs to be done is something like this:
When the new series of Legendaries and Sets come out (and they will, just like they did in D2), they should not be buyable through the AH.

Wonderful! So, if you want to obtain a good legendary or set item, you have to go back to using some sort of trade channel and deal with a bartering system or a 3rd party site to get it -- and deal with all the scammers as well. Good idea. Not.

3. Bnet chat rooms need to be redesigned and recreated. What we have now is a WOW inteface, however in WOW you are already surrounded by people, so this is fine.
In Diablo, the present Bnet interface is stifling and gives you a feeling of being isolated from the community, like you are playing SP instead of MP.
Community is one of the biggest reasons why D2 had so much staying power. This is very important.

You're saying that the D2 chat rooms were why D2 had staying power? Are you kidding me? The only thing good about the D2 chat rooms was the all-powerful Chat Gem.

4. Public games need to be more easily accessable. Period.

I see. So, a single click button that says "Public Games" that lets you instantly join a public game at the same quest phase as you is not accessible enough to you? Or, if you want to back-track a little, you can click on the "Change Quest" button to select an earlier quest and then click on "Public Games."

I suppose that Blizzard could implant a chip in your head that's connected by a wireless connection to your computer that would let you think "Public games" to go to them. That might save you from the hastle of clicking on the button.

5. Runes/runewords/jewels/charms. Yes, they are all from D2. Yes, we need some. As is, the items in the game are too plain. 12 years have spoiled gamers. We expect more than we did when D2 came out.

I believe that runes and jewels are a part of the plan. They have to hold something back for future patches and expansions. God, I hope they never bring back charms to clog up the inventory, however. What a terrible idea that was.

That's just some basic thoughts. There are more issues, of course. This does not take into account the numerous tech problems still plagueing the game. This does not address class balance or game difficulty.

It's funny that you make this statement and yet seem to hold D2 aloft as something idealic. D2 had tech problems that would seem catastrophic compared to the hiccups that D3 has had. And class balance and difficulty? It took years before the developers finally gave up and made every class and every build so powerful that it didn't matter what you played, because you could blow through everything in 8-player mode solo anyway.

D3 needs some tweeking in some places. That's to be expected of any new game. But overall, D3 is far and away a more polished game than D2 ever was even after years of patches that radically changed player skills and items. People are panicking about changes to certain skills that Blizzard has made over the last two weeks, but I'm actually amazed that the changes that have been needed haven't been nearly as drastic as those that constantly plagued D2.

Right now, the only thing that needs to happen is for players to start learning how to play a game that actually has some difficulty associated with it. Yes, I fully expect that in the coming months, Blizzard will start releasing items in Inferno difficulty that will make life there a little less difficult. However, right now, I'm glad that Blizzard actually released a game that has some challenge.