Diablo 3 Beta First Impressions and a brief tirade on statistics

[Lokishadow]

Hello, everyone,

I was going to stream and comment on my impressions, but as it turns out I just don't have the bandwidth to stream anything watchable (unless you actually want to watch it in 240p). But I still wanted to share my first impressions of D3.

Firstly let me say that I like the game. It's fun, it's very heavy on the action, and the loot drops are a blast as always. Also let me say that I have not completed a run through yet. But I'm already finding some things I have issues with.

The graphics are beautiful. The sounds and music are right on key. The controls are smooth and responsive. But there's something missing.

What? Randomness.

I've run through the first couple of quests with two different classes, the Demon Hunter and the Monk. And here's my first big gripe: the overland map is the same. Is randomness truly necessary? Not really, but it helps add replay value. If you don't know what direction you need to go, it makes exploring that much more interesting.

The only randomness I've found thus far is the mini-dungeons. And when I say mini, I mean micromachines mini, and can be completed in the time it took that super fast announcer to finish the commercial. Like, two rooms with MAYBE a rare monster (read: boss type). Decent loot drops come from these if there actually is a boss, but I didn't encounter many of them. Hopefully this will ramp up in the future, and also (hopefully) the random mini-dungeons won't be so miniaturized and there will be more of them.

Two: Skills. Granted, I haven't leveled up that much, but from what I'm seeing, the skill system automatically unlocks a predefined selection of skills. Equipping these skills causes them to go into a cooldown mode and they aren't available for use OR swapping out for about 20-30 seconds.

What's wrong with this? No skill points. In D1, the challenge was to find the spell books you wanted if you were a wizard, or the weapons/gear you wanted as a rogue or warrior. In D2, we got an awesome skill tree that, at times, demanded very careful consideration of where to put that immensely valuable skill point when you leveled up. But with D3, it appears on first inspection as if all skills will be unlocked and the challenge is more a question of what skills to equip and use, not which ones to improve.

This, in my opinion (and assuming my first impression is correct) will absolutely DESTROY the long-term replayability of D3. There won't be anyone walking about with Defiance equipped in the off-hand and a selection of skills hotkeyed to the primary hand (Vegeance, Sacrifice, etc.) to gain a massive defense boost and tackle hefty bosses with elemental immunity. There won't be any spellcasters specializing in a maxed-out lower-level spell (does anyone remember Sirian's Firebolt ONLY sorceress? Oh, wait, that's right, LoD and patch 1.07 made those characters unplayable with the addition of flat-out IMMUNE bosses. I'm still sore over this because my Level 55 Sorceress who was the first char I got to Hell difficulty was abruptly useless). There won't even be anything along the lines of my (scrapped) weaponless Assassin taking advantage of the charge up feature to power up finishers with a reduced attack speed and then cranking up a selection of finishers. There will just be a bunch of people running around using the same AoE or Multi-hit combo attacks to slaughter hordes of monsters in a difficulty-enhanced multiplayer game, essentially farming gear on boss runs.

In short, there will be no difference between your (insert character class here) and someone else's (insert identical character class here) save for what equipment you have and possibly what skills you currently like the best. And when you remove variety, you remove replayability.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be scripted eventts, or even identical boss areas. Hell, some of these are fond memories for me. For example, I can still remember the thrill of finding Andariel's boss chamber. This chamber was identical every time I got to it, but the path there changed every time, as did some of the monsters.

But could we please have some randomness back? In My Humble Opinion (as a ROFL who played all the other Diablo games so much that he actually burned out a couple of DVD drives) making the game this static is only going to kill the replayability.

Now, what I've said probably sounds very negative, and it should. I'm NOT happy with the lack of randomness thus far. Perhaps (pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease) this is just because it's the beta and Blizz wanted to lock the code down as much as possible. I really, really hope this is the case. But if it's not the case and the map is going to be exactly the same every time I play the game...then the game is only going to be good for 5 playthroughs and a few runs to get the good loot drops. After that, it'll be shelved. And that's just the randomness factor. If the skills operate in the final version the way they are operating in the beta thus far, then I'm going to be even more disappointed.

However, I'm pleased to report that I cannot trigger a vibrator bug *snicker*.

That's my first impression folks. Bear in mind that I am 100% completionist player, I'm a Really Old Fart Lurker, and that I have not played the beta all the way through. Also bear in mind that (from what I cannot find) Blizzard is being closed-lipped on the topic of whether or not the game will be randomized or even if there will be skill points.

Overall, I still like the game. It's fun, it's satisfying, it's got tons of action and atmosphere. But without an absolutely ridiculous amount of content and/or a return to the randomness of the earlier games and/or the inclusion of a skill point system, I don't see this game being truly worth it's weight in money. Will I still shell out $60 + tax for it? You betcha (go away, Palin)! Will it be worth it? Only if it gets me at least 60 hours of total game play time.

That last bit is based on an analysis of cost/playtime ratios I did in my statistics class whilst getting my bachelor's. I determined that the average movie in my local economy yields a value of approximately $4.50 per hour of entertainment. Therefore, if I buy a video game for $45, it needs to provide me with at least 10 hours of entertainment to match the value of a movie.

Skyrim cost me $63. I've burned 121 hours playing it. That's about 50 cents an hour, and it's got a HELL of a lot more playtime left in it, I'm just burned out at present. Terraria cost me $2.50, and I've got about 80 hours logged on it. that's 3.125 CENTS per hour of entertainment, and renders it that current gold standard for value to entertainment ratio. I figure I burned around 500 hours on D2 and LoD, with a total cost of about $70, which is about 14 cents per hour of entertainment. All of these beat movies hands-down (mathematically). Diablo 3 is going to need a huge stack of stuff to do in order for it to equal the value of the least of these games. Since it's release price is probably going to be about $60, that means the game needs a total of 13.33 hours of entertainment to equal the value of a movie, or 2.66 hours of gametime per character class.

Now, I don't know about you, but if it only took me 2 hours and 40 minutes to beat D3, I'd be sorely disappointed. I would also be very surprised. I seriously doubt that Blizzard will have that little content in the game. I fully expect at least 10-20 hours per character class to complete the game, which would make the game well worth the $60 spent on it. Ergo, because I trust Blizzard on some level and because I'm a Diablo nut, I will buy the game and enjoy it to the fullest.

But I'll still be disappointed if the trends I'm noticing now stay in the final product.

YMMV
-Loki

[Rustweaver]

A very nice opinion piece.

Given my watching of streams, and the information I gathered from various D2 groups I play in... I'm going to agree. I mean I'll have to play the game myself to be absolutely sure, but I'm under the assumption (from what I see) that the replayability of D3 won't be worth talking about.

D2 was my main game for at least 8 years, I was even playing it heavily in groups last year. I finally eased up on it after achieving top 10 in the US-East ladder hardcore. After that goal was reached I pretty much had done everything. After about 2 years of D2 soft core I immediately switched to hardcore, when hardcore became a breeze I began making under powered builds, or playing in groups which set limitations and rules. Even that became rather stale eventually... but after playing probably 1000 + hours over the years it would get to that point.

I tried other games and always ended up going back to D2, just because I could come up with some strange idea that I could fire 50 + hours into perfecting and gathering gear for.

From what I've seen in D3 this intense variability is done differently, but in such a way that one only needs to make one character and they can adjust their builds constantly. So beating the game with one of each class is basically the end. I don't see the open concepts which would allow for some unique unconventional builds. This opinion reminds me a lot about how I felt about Guildwars. I beat each of the areas, had a few characters and after doing so much it felt all the same and I gave my account away.

That is my impression at this time, hopefully it will improve or the rest of the game will add the elements I've been wanting. I don't plan on buying D3 at release, I'll get it after I get some more opinions probably after one of my clan mates finish it for the first time. I honestly think that Gw2 will be my next D2 in the way of getting 1000 + hours in a game. This is mainly because I enjoy the PvP element and the single player is secondary.

One thing I haven't heard about D3 is any questions about difficulty, I like hard games. I found D2 extremely easy even on hardcore and only finding my own items. I find Diablo 1 very hard to a point. I have hopes that D3 will be very hard, or at least hardcore will be very hard. Could you perhaps comment on your opinion of the difficulty?

[Lokishadow]

One thing I haven't heard about D3 is any questions about difficulty, I like hard games. I found D2 extremely easy even on hardcore and only finding my own items. I find Diablo 1 very hard to a point. I have hopes that D3 will be very hard, or at least hardcore will be very hard. Could you perhaps comment on your opinion of the difficulty?

Ah, thanks, I knew I left something out.

Difficulty initially felt like a tutorial level. You could accidentally suffer a little damage and not really be concerned about it. Once I hit the cathedral during the search for Deckard Cain the difficulty started to go up a bit, but I didn't have any "whoa, this might kill me" moments. I think part of this is actually a symptom of my hardcore macroing in Starcraft 2. After trying to keeps tabs on around 100 units and a dozen structures that all have their own abilities, Diablo 3 doesn't feel as frenetic or feel like it needs as much of my attention to avoid a loss. This is likely a result of the training I've been putting myself through to try to get up in the leagues, though.

There was a moment when I realized there was real danger: I ran into a room in which I couldn't see anything until I was already in the room and there was a large pack of upgraded zombies (I think they were some sort of adjective + Risen) and a pair of the bloated critters that explode into eels when you kill them. I ran into the pack and started wailing away with my new "get spirit" skill that can pierce enemies for multiple hits. Abruptly, one of the bloateds did some attack that knocked me backwards . . . into the other bloated, who did the same thing, and I ended up in the middle of the pack. I glanced at my health orb and noted that it had dropped under 80% for the first time, and quickly executed a Lashing Tail attack to give me some space and ran out of the mob. I then pummeled Risen to build up my Spirit (mana) and used Lashing Tail (Spirit Spender) to keep the bloateds at bay.

Here I noticed a nice rhythm to playing the monk that reminded me much of the assassin's martial arts from LoD. Hit things with your basic attack and then use a special move. I like this, it feels like setting up a combo and owning things with it. It feels heroic and awesome.

However, I did not feel in serious danger of getting killed. Maybe if I took my hand off my mouse and took a few sips of coffee, but that's about the only way it would've happened at this point. I noted potential danger and reacted accordingly to escape a potentially dangerous situation, but it wasn't anything that pushed my abilities as a gamer. I'm hoping that the difficulty continues to ramp up throughout the game at about the same rate, though. If it does, given that I felt in zero danger at the beginning and actually experienced some danger (read: I could get killed if I don't pay attention) less than an hour later, I would expect that Act 2, or possibly even later in Act 1 the game might begin to push gamers' abilities to analyze a situation and determine a course of action for survival and victory. That would be a good thing, IMHO, but I also like ridiculously hard games like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry.

I will report more as I get farther into the beta. I haven't been able to sit down and play for more than a couple hours, and I was having fun mauling mobs and looking at the pretty scenery.

I did note a graphical issue. There appears to be no Antialaising or Anisotropic filtering, which may be causing this issue. Specifically, when running about, small artifacts and jagged edges will filter from the top of the play area to the bottom if I'm moving towards the top of the screen, or from the bottom to the top if I'm moving towards the bottom of the screen. This is usually a symptom of either poor hardware or a lack of AA or Aniso. It's not a hardware issue (I'm running a Superclocked GTX 570, 8GB of RAM and an i5 2500K processor all with latest drivers), so that leaves software. Hopefully, this is a beta issue due to lack of AA and Aniso and will not be present in the final version.

Now I'm off to get my Demon Hunter into the Cathedral to see if that dungeon is static or random.

-Loki

[DeeBye]

I did my first playthrough as a Barbarian. I used a shield instead of 2 weapons or a 2-hander. Not once did I ever feel as though I was in any danger of dying, no matter how many enemies were attacking me. I also felt like I was doing massive AoE damage with Cleave and Rend. Stuff was just dying really really fast.

[Chesspiece_face]

I did my first playthrough as a Barbarian. I used a shield instead of 2 weapons or a 2-hander. Not once did I ever feel as though I was in any danger of dying, no matter how many enemies were attacking me. I also felt like I was doing massive AoE damage with Cleave and Rend. Stuff was just dying really really fast.

One thing to note is that the difficulty of the beta is not at all indicative of the final game. In many of the discussions related to difficulty the devs have likened the beta to the first few open areas in D2 on normal. Those areas weren't difficult in any way either.

It's also of note that in D3 there will be an added difficulty level after Hell difficulty. How this all pans out into continued challenges for players is yet to be seen.

Many of the issues that arise when talking about difficulty and replayability won't be fully descernable until we see what they do with items.

[DeeBye]

One thing to note is that the difficulty of the beta is not at all indicative of the final game. In many of the discussions related to difficulty the devs have likened the beta to the first few open areas in D2 on normal. Those areas weren't difficult in any way either.

It's also of note that in D3 there will be an added difficulty level after Hell difficulty. How this all pans out into continued challenges for players is yet to be seen.

Many of the issues that arise when talking about difficulty and replayability won't be fully descernable until we see what they do with items.

I just thought I'd point out that if you want to smash through the beta with an unstoppable juggernaut, go barbarian with Cleave/Rend

I wasn't complaining about the difficulty (or lack of) at all. I was just adding a first impression to a thread about Diablo 3 first impressions.

Here's another impression - I love the visual and sound feedback you get in D3 when you kill things. Dead things fly across the room leaving a trail of weapons/body parts. Dungeon paraphernalia explodes. My speakers emit a lovely tune of "SMASH BOOM BANG!"

It's very rewarding to kill stuff in Diablo 3.

[Chesspiece_face]

I just thought I'd point out that if you want to smash through the beta with an unstoppable juggernaut, go barbarian with Cleave/Rend

I wasn't complaining about the difficulty (or lack of) at all. I was just adding a first impression to a thread about Diablo 3 first impressions.

Here's another impression - I love the visual and sound feedback you get in D3 when you kill things. Dead things fly across the room leaving a trail of weapons/body parts. Dungeon paraphernalia explodes. My speakers emit a lovely tune of "SMASH BOOM BANG!"

It's very rewarding to kill stuff in Diablo 3.

Yeah, I intended to reply to Loki's last post instead of yours. Not sure how I messed that one up.

[Kevin]

Here's another impression - I love the visual and sound feedback you get in D3 when you kill things. Dead things fly across the room leaving a trail of weapons/body parts. Dungeon paraphernalia explodes. My speakers emit a lovely tune of "SMASH BOOM BANG!"

It's very rewarding to kill stuff in Diablo 3.

It is, though it was more impressive on the Barbarian than the Demon Hunter those are the only classes I've run through so far, Barb is beta capped, Demon Hunter still has a couple levels to go.

Of course I don't think the dual wielding barb ever got below 75% health. I did actually see the demon hunter drop down to about 40% once earlier on in her career. I've never drank a healing potion in the game yet. I'm going to just to see how they work after standing and letting some stuff beat on me.

But hearing the thuds and watching the bodies fly around, and even getting rewarded for breaking enough environmental stuff quickly enough is quite fun.


I do have some negative impressions though. I really don't like the limited active skill slots. While I had a few variants in D2 that only used one to four skills at a time, I generally enjoyed being able to use different skills whenever I felt like it. Some of the skills I've only used just because I wanted to see them. The beta being so short there was no point in changing from what was working so well. Of course I've still pulled out the capped barb a few times just because so I'm still having fun, even if I pretty much only use cleave and the increase damage shout on him (by the time he was about L9 I was seeing 100+ damage hits at L13 ninety damage hits are about the smallest I'm getting) and I have fun pretty much one shotting everything.

I also still find the bright and blurred coloring not as appealing. I feel like I'm playing in a water colored painting. That's OK, but it's not something that is appealing to me, and it doesn't always work for what the setting is supposed to be. Of course they nailed the music and unlike many other games I leave the music on in this one and it can help set the mood that the shiny blurred graphics sometimes fail at.

It is Diablo though. Sure it's not the same as either D1 or D2 but it does feel like Diablo, and it is fun.

Like Loki said I'm a little bothered by lack of randomness, but I've also heard that will be different as you progress in the game. The beta is basically the tutorial portion of the game. If it stays as fixed as that moving forward, then yes it will impact replay. The limited skills are going to impact that more for me though.

But this game is going to be fun to grab a couple of friends with and just go smash things up, and grab some loot. I'm also actually happy that inventory tetris is pretty much gone. I didn't really like that aspect of the older games, and while loot isn't all the same size, you generally only run into needing to move one or two items around. This is a good thing for me as that is something that just slowed me down and added no value in the old games. It was so annoying that inventory mods were often high priority for me if I was making a single player toon. Again to each there own, some might miss it.

Again just a few impressions for me. Though I'm not really saying anything anyone else on the forums hasn't yet, I know it's pretty similar to what Bolty posted months ago.

I do hope the barbarian stays as much fun going forward. I tended to prefer the ranged classes in D2, some of that was due to bugs in some of the skills I liked on melee toons, some of it was just the way targeting worked/didn't work in that game. In D1 the warrior was not as powerful as a rogue or sorc, but did bring a very interesting set of fun and tactical challenges that I enjoyed and the click click click attacks worked fine on that tile based map. I'm liking the melee combat mechancis in D3 much better than D2 and the Barbarian really does feel like a crazed human wrecking ball. Looking forward to trying out the monk (I decided to just go from top to bottom on the classes for the beta) since that looks like it will be a different kind of melee than the barb.

The Demon Hunter has been, eh, so far. Definitely some fun skills and the mechanics of the class aren't bad, perhaps it just doesn't feel as right in the environments available in the beta since you are in confined spaces a fair bit. Or perhaps it's because it's tutorial mode and the nice kiting skills that class has really aren't all that needed, even if you do try and grab way too many mobs. So could end up being a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong I had fun, but I didn't feel nearly as epic on the DH.

[MongoJerry2]

This, in my opinion (and assuming my first impression is correct) will absolutely DESTROY the long-term replayability of D3. There won't be anyone walking about with Defiance equipped in the off-hand and a selection of skills hotkeyed to the primary hand (Vegeance, Sacrifice, etc.) to gain a massive defense boost and tackle hefty bosses with elemental immunity. There won't be any spellcasters specializing in a maxed-out lower-level spell (does anyone remember Sirian's Firebolt ONLY sorceress? Oh, wait, that's right, LoD and patch 1.07 made those characters unplayable with the addition of flat-out IMMUNE bosses. I'm still sore over this because my Level 55 Sorceress who was the first char I got to Hell difficulty was abruptly useless).

Hey, now, Loki. Grizabella (Enchantress), Maldar (Pacifist Necromancer), and Gunther (Barbarian Mage) did just fine after the patch in hell difficulty.

Hi, everybody!

[LavCat]

Hi, everybody!

Wow.

[Bolty]

Wow.

Yep.

[RTM]

Hi, everybody!

Oh snap!

[LochnarITB]

Hi, everybody!

Register and make a first post the same day? Ever heard of netiquette? Hang out and get to know the site before you jump in. Probably just getting the post count up, huh? Get the count up then post some long winded story for folks to enjoy so you can post more and finally lull us into clicking your posts so we click on your links when you first post them? I know how it works. Seen it so many times. The admins here are pretty good though so they'll see through your little ploy really quick!

[vor_lord]

Hi, everybody!

*looks around for Sirian next*

So what happened to the MongoJerry account? No longer have the email it is registered to?

Or is MongoJerry2 really an impostor...

[Lokishadow]

Please don't start a flame war on my thread, guys. MongoJerry, I don't know you but welcome. Lochnar, I had something similar happen to me and Bolty fixed it for me.

@MongoJerry: my sorcie was all flame specialist. Playable? Yes. Funnable? Not so much since I'm a 100% completionist, which I guess makes it my fault.

FYI, I'm really enjoying the beta. I have problems with it, yes, but I still really like the game. I'm just going to miss the oddball builds that we had in D2.

[MongoJerry2]

*looks around for Sirian next*

So what happened to the MongoJerry account? No longer have the email it is registered to?

Or is MongoJerry2 really an impostor...

Haha! Good reasoning... your first explanation that is. I tried to guess my old password for a few days without any luck, and the e-mail address the account was registered to has long been out of service. I'm hoping Bolty will reset the password to that account for me, but I understandably have to prove I am who I say I am.

I have all of the images and write-ups that I did years ago, and I'm hoping that I can somehow repost or edit the old threads so that the images won't be broken links anymore. My Grizabella avatar hopefully will be familiar.

To answer the unspoken question: I hit a point where I was so unhealthily addicted to WoW that the only way to stop me from playing was to hit the eject button on the CD on my computer and snap the CD in half. I just had to quit cold turkey and get a lot of help. But things are going a lot better now. I'm kind of interested to see how Diablo III is going to be. In the meantime, I think it might be fun to play a Worgen priest a bit -- but there's no way in heck that I'm going to try to get all of those achievements or get back into full scale raiding again. (Although I understand that raiding is a lot easier now with a lot of raids only being 10 person raids). I hear Thousand Needles is under water now. I have to check that out.

[Roland]

The graphics are beautiful. The sounds and music are right on key. The controls are smooth and responsive. But there's something missing.

What? Randomness.

Personally, I find the graphics to be a piss-poor rendition in this modern age, but to each his/her own. I don't find them unappealing, I just think they stopped developing them about... 6 years ago, and never bothered to update them given the advances in hardware. I've ranted about this (and several other things) over at Realms Beyond, but I'll spare you all that for now.

Randomness in the beta is, according to Blizzard, absolutely NOT indicative of the final game. The Beta is akin to the run up through the Den of Evil, and maybe Blood Raven. They've kept the earlier portions of Act 1 (although I have my suspicions that the entirety of Act 1 is going to be like this) non-random to help introduce players to the game.

. . .

Just take a moment to let that sink in. Then imagine me grinding my face off with a belt-sander. That should give you an idea of how much I value Blizzard's "goals" for this game.

MOVING ON!

Two: Skills. Granted, I haven't leveled up that much, but from what I'm seeing, the skill system automatically unlocks a predefined selection of skills. Equipping these skills causes them to go into a cooldown mode and they aren't available for use OR swapping out for about 20-30 seconds.

Belt-sander still in full swing!

Anyway, yeah - no skill points. What you see in Beta is what you get, with the (possible) exception of Runes (if they ever make up their mind as to which "system" they want to use.) Welcome to the cookie-cutter world of Diablo, now with more cookies! Diablo III will almost entirely be driven by items. This fits with their model for the RMAH. Don't you get it?

Yes. I'm a cynical old curmudgeon, to the point I feel the need to resurrect Pete's old name for Blizzard (Buzzard). Whatever hopes I had for DIII, the beta pretty much ended. I see the writing on the walls, and know its meaning. Diablo III will be a blast for me - for a little while. Then, it will be promptly shelved, and even more promptly forgotten

But I'll still be disappointed if the trends I'm noticing now stay in the final product.

YMMV
-Loki

I think we need to open up a tavern for all the old Lurkers, so we can sit around drinking and regaling one another of the "good old days of yore" regarding Diablo (and Diablo II).

I did note a graphical issue. There appears to be no Antialaising or Anisotropic filtering, which may be causing this issue.

Actually, there is an option for AF, IIRC. It's in the Graphics menu (limited though it is). Or maybe it was AA? I don't remember. I know it went up to 4x max IIRC, and it wasn't impressive, but then neither are the graphics as a whole. I don't recall seeing any graphical bugs like you're describing, but I'll check it out again tonight and see. Maybe it's new, or maybe I missed it? We'll see.

[MongoJerry2]

Please don't start a flame war on my thread, guys. MongoJerry, I don't know you but welcome. Lochnar, I had something similar happen to me and Bolty fixed it for me.

@MongoJerry: my sorcie was all flame specialist. Playable? Yes. Funnable? Not so much since I'm a 100% completionist, which I guess makes it my fault.

Thanks. Oh, so is this a different Loki? I thought there was a Loki back when I was around. Here are some of my more famous (infamous?) threads:

The Great Onyxia Race - World of Warcraft

Irene, the Infirm -- Diablo II, naked, no skills, hardcore punching sorceress

Maldar, the Magnificent -- Diablo II, pacifist necromancer

Gunter, the Barbarian Mage -- Diablo II, barbarian mage

Grizabella, the Realistic Fighter Mage -- Diablo II, melee enchantress

FYI, I'm really enjoying the beta. I have problems with it, yes, but I still really like the game. I'm just going to miss the oddball builds that we had in D2.

Don't judge too quickly. I'm guessing from the comments and from Blizzard's past practices that you probably can only see like 10% of the game. That would be like judging WoW based on the free up to level 20 version that's available now or Diablo II based on up through Andariel. I trust Blizzard to make it so that people can be quite unique, if they want to be.

[Bolty]

Or is MongoJerry2 really an impostor...

I've been chatting via PMs with him to disprove that. And apparently this is indeed MongoJerry, legendary LL poster, former LL admin, who suddenly one day in 2007 totally disappeared without a trace and was never heard from again.

I literally thought Mongo had died. I'm still in shock that he's back.

Oh, and Loki, Lochnar is completely joking.

[Bolty]

Welcome to the cookie-cutter world of Diablo, now with more cookies! Diablo III will almost entirely be driven by items. This fits with their model for the RMAH. Don't you get it?

Gotta agree with what Roland's saying here; most of the recent changes to the game all seem to be driven towards getting their users into the RMAH. It's easy to be overly cynical about the way the game's structured:

1) No mods allowed, or else users could develop their own item-trading mods,
2) No public chat allowed, or else users could negotiate item trades,
3) Stash size reduced, making it harder to mule gear - so why not just sell it on the AH?
4) Skills totally commoditized, so that items are the pure focus of character development - and where can you go to find the best items?

Like Roland, it's turning me off. When items form the *entire* basis of your character's power, and the game's primary monetary profit force is the RMAH, Blizzard has a crazy high incentive to generate interest in its use - and players have a crazy high incentive to use it. You will never be able to be as powerful as a character who uses the AH to gear up, because the odds of getting the supreme gear in every slot are just nil (we assume). Think of the rarity of some runes in Diablo II. Blizzard can introduce mega-rare items at any time that will essentially force you to shop for to get, because they're so rare that you'll never see one. But someone will, and they'll post it up on the RMAH for purchase. Then Blizzard gets its cut.

The whole scheme is so damn ingenious, though. I wish I thought of it. They're like a casino that gets to play the odds however they like, since they make the odds - but since they never cash in directly from the casino games, they can stay afloat of gambling laws. Blizzard's not selling items at all, but they're creating the system that creates the items that they get to take a cut of a sale from. It's like printing money. They are creating virtual items that turn into real money. Wow.