Diablo 3

[Crazydog7]

Actually it more like not wanting to deal with the problems of making it work and not be incredibly slow. The farther a server is from you the slower the connection will be. (AFAIK at least I could be wrong)

Yes of course that's the logical explanation. Blizzard is one of the few companies that has a wide enough customer base to do that.

[kungtotte]

Actually it more like not wanting to deal with the problems of making it work and not be incredibly slow. The farther a server is from you the slower the connection will be. (AFAIK at least I could be wrong)

Which is a bullshit reason.

No FPS on the market right now enforces region-locking, and they are significantly more dependent on responsiveness and low latency than most other games. There's no additional coding required to let a game be region-free, in fact the restriction isn't even in the game in the case of Diablo 3, it's in the Battle.net 2.0 service.

And yes, you're (mostly) correct about latency. When we're talking North America to Europe, or Europe to Oceania, the primary factor is distance. I mean, Stockholm to Sydney introduces 51 milliseconds of latency purely based on the distance, and that's disregarding any additional latency added each time the packet is routed and assuming it travels in a straight line (which it definitely doesn't). And routing plays a large part in latency when you're talking shorter distances. Two people who live one kilometer from each other could experience very different latencies to the same server located a couple of hundred kilometers away, based on how their individual packets are routed.

This hilarious story illustrates some of the pitfalls of routing and latency :)

[oneeye]

They should add international option to bnet.

[Poobah]

Latency is total bullshit.

The entire WoW beta is hosted in the US. My ping is only 250 average, on one the beta server flagged as (US) I might add. Euro one is too overcrowded since we get one server and the US gets two. Also I still play D2 LoD with friends of mine on the US servers. I used to play SC:BW with friends of mine on the US servers and in fact not being able to play with them has in essence killed SC2 for me and I rarely log on more than once a month now. I played a free trial of SC2 on another battle.net account to get access to the US servers for 7 hours, I had no lag whatsoever.

Hell is being stuck playing with a bunch of retarded strangers.

Also the facts that 1)it pretty much took them no to add an option allowing Aussies to select to be able to chose which server to play on and 2)latency clearly isn't a problem mean that the only thing keeping region-locking is Activision-Blizzard. Personally I think it's a money thing. They want US players to be able only to buy a US copy of the game and Europeans to only be able to buy a European copy of the game. It's like the region thing on DVDs. They don't want me buying a (cheap for me) Korean copy of SC2 and still being able to play with my friends, and they want people who want to play in multiple regions to have to buy multiple copies of the game - I know many (semi)pro players already have.

[WhiteHaven]

According to a German source ( http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfonews/Allgemein/0/2038513/index.html ) the Skill Tree is dead, cause it's too complicated. Well..yeah.

[jurble]

lol@

http://i.imgur.com/6ezZZ.jpg

Dustin Browder, Blizz Dev with two dudes bearing Bnet 2 sucks shirts

[Solmyr]

Diablo Q&A today were kinda great.

Fav part: Hardcore arenas - you die, you're dead :). Now that's truly hardcore.

[TerraPrime]

Looks like they split the assassin class in two, with the first weapons and unarmed melee going to the monks, and the traps/grenades going to the amazons.

Well, I know I'll be rolling a demon hunter. :)

Also, in the monk's info page, they have two pieces of concept art: male and female models. So, there's still a chance that you can choose the gender?

[Rhom]

Also, in the monk's info page, they have two pieces of concept art: male and female models. So, there's still a chance that you can choose the gender?

Wait... What??? Did they take out the gender option?

[TerraPrime]

Wait... What??? Did they take out the gender option?

Oops, no, I just noticed it. Demon Hunter is the only class that doesn't have the gender option yet.

[oneeye]

hmm no skill tree, sounds very undiablo like

[Durckad]

hmm no skill tree, sounds very undiablo like

There was no skill tree in Diablo 1.

[Rhom]

There was no skill tree in Diablo 1.

True, but there were no skills in Diablo either. Warriors hacked at stuff, rogues shot stuff, and mages bonked with their staff... Unless you had a high enough magic stat, which allowed every class to learn whatever spell they wanted.

I highly doubt that a witch doctor with high enough agility will learn Fan of Knives from a tome.

So how do they plan to make for unique characters? Obviously they won't have a rigid system of skills that only come with levels.

[The hairy bear]

I agree: one of the best things in Diablo 2 was that, with the skill three, you could customize your character in three different branches of magic per class, thus obtaining 15 different possible "themes" to play.

I'm a little disapointed that they take this out, specially when the reason provided is that "it was too complicated". Why everything is being "dumbed down" these days? Why wasting efforts in cosmetic aspects like the gender while losing deeper diferenciations?

Let's hope that good things they're adding will compensate the ones they eliminate.

[Kalbear]

There's a lot of other customization that you can do; don't worry about it too much.

[Rhom]

Cosmetic customization is nice (and has been lacking from previous Diablo games) but the truly deep customization was in the skills available.

It led to tongue-twisters like "Hammerdin" and "Javazon.". It also led to people trying oddball combos like a Paladin who used bows. Layer upon layer of different ways to play is why people still pick up the game 10 years later.

If the skill trees were too complex at first glance... Make it possible to respec! That was always a gripe of mine with D2, you had to plan your character from creation to plan for max level.

[Kalbear]

You can have customizing skills. You just don't have the skill tree like you did. And you can respec. The skills are based on your level, and you can choose up to 7 skills to have based on the level. It's sort of like a tiered concept. Then you can get talismans (which are like charms but don't take up bag space) and runes (which modify the effects of your skills depending on what you do). Then there are traits, which are passive bonuses to your character that don't take up skill bonuses. All of these can be increased in power via levels.

There's a lot of customizability. Barbarians aren't just barbarians. You can have a trap-specializing demon hunter or a battle master barbarian or a poison witch doctor if you want, and even within those you can boost certain skills over others. What you won't be able to do is be the bone missile necro or the fade assassin and spend stupid amounts of points on a completely useless ability.

[TerraPrime]

There's also the crafting, which seems like a hybrid between the old cube recipes and mercenary.

Speaking of, will there be mercenaries? None of the gameplay videos so far have featured them.

[jurble]

From what it sounds like, the skills now work like Never Winter Nights.

[Shryke]

You can have customizing skills. You just don't have the skill tree like you did. And you can respec. The skills are based on your level, and you can choose up to 7 skills to have based on the level. It's sort of like a tiered concept. Then you can get talismans (which are like charms but don't take up bag space) and runes (which modify the effects of your skills depending on what you do). Then there are traits, which are passive bonuses to your character that don't take up skill bonuses. All of these can be increased in power via levels.

There's a lot of customizability. Barbarians aren't just barbarians. You can have a trap-specializing demon hunter or a battle master barbarian or a poison witch doctor if you want, and even within those you can boost certain skills over others. What you won't be able to do is be the bone missile necro or the fade assassin and spend stupid amounts of points on a completely useless ability.

Exactly. Skill Trees were never the be all and end all and aren't even super Diablo-esque considering they only appear in 1 of the 2 games of the series.

The new system sounds like Guild Wars (which was a good system, especially for a Diablo-esque game) and then with some WoW stuff like Glyphs added on.