Diablo III Options

[Crushinator]

I was suprised we don't have a thread for this yet, but I guess since blizzard is so stingy with the news its not unexpected.

Anyways, straight outta GamesCom we have details on the crafting system!



Looks fast, slick, and unobtrusive. I love how you can break down the "big loot" into crafting shit so you don't have to TP to town constantly to sell big things like armor.

Update with some details on the caravan:

Diablo III Caravan FAQ
Q: What is the caravan?
A: The caravan is a persistent group that follows the heroes across Sanctuary, providing a centralized hub for players to find quest givers, crafters, and other important NPCs. As your character moves through the world so too will your loyal band, setting up in specific locations to remain close by should you need them.

Q: Who are the artisans?
A: In order to access the professions in Diablo III, you’ll need to gain the loyalty of various artisans through your travels in Sanctuary. The blacksmith, mystic, and jeweler will each provide unique services over the course of the game.

Q: What do the artisans offer?
A: Skilling up your artisans will unlock unique recipes, granting your character access to benefits that may not be found anywhere else in the world. The blacksmith crafts weapons and armor, and can add sockets to some items. The mystic creates scrolls, potions, magical weapons, spell runes, and charms, and can also enchant items. The jeweler crafts gems , amulets, and rings. The jeweler can also remove gems from socketed items and can combine gems to improve their quality.

Q: How do I find the artisans?
A: Finding the artisans will be part of the main quest. Each artisan has been fleshed out to include their own story and quest line.

Q: How do I use the artisans?
A: You’ll collect loot as a reward for slaughtering the forces of the Burning Hells. Unwanted items can be salvaged in your inventory, converting these goods into raw crafting materials—higher-level items are salvaged into higher-level materials. You’ll then take those raw materials and hand them over to the artisans, putting them to work crafting or enchanting for you. Upon returning to the caravan after a lengthy foray, you may also find that the artisans have been hard at work plying their trade for your benefit.

Q: How do I salvage my items?
A: Players will find an item while progressing through the main quest that will allow them to convert unwanted gear into crafting materials from the inventory. This item will not take up any inventory space. This should be a more satisfying option for offloading unwanted loot than the alternative—dropping things on the ground or making frequent trips to a vendor.

Q: Why are you including crafting professions in an action game?
A: Professions add depth to the item collection gameplay that drives the action of Diablo III. We want to provide players with an alternative way to acquire gear, potions, and other randomly found items. We also want to provide additional forms of customization for players—adding jewels, enchants, or sockets to existing gear allows players to further tailor their characters. Many rare crafting recipes and materials are only found as world drops, enhancing the item acquisition process by increasing the diversity of items dropped by monsters.

[Crushinator]

[Scan_Man]

I've played a ton of beta. The game is polish as hell. If you've played a hack and slash in the past 10 years you will immediately notice the "quality of life" improvements. Everything is focused on keeping you hacking and slashing, and not management of things like inventory (inventory tetris) and stats. I have never have to stop and figure out which loot I want to pick up or leave, and what items in my inventory I want to drop. Essentially I never have to go back to town.

Also you can be a loot whore if you want to be a loot whore, since everyone get's their own private loot drops. No more suppressing your loot whoring ways because you are in a multiplayer game that people might get mad and kick you.

The only bad thing I can think of is the requirement of being online. I know it's beta, and server stability is not going to be perfect. But man, blowing shit up then all of a sudden enemies stop attack and my spell stop working is annoying as hell. Same when you want to get your Diablo fix and the servers are over capacity. Not saying it will be this bad at launch, but the chance of it happening will still be there.

Lastly, I hear the game was delayed because Blizzard came up with the 1 year contract on WoW thing. They want to lock as many people in as possible. Then there is also the Real Money Auction House. They have to wait for approval in the Korean market, according to the Korean battle.net Diablo site. So that is a hold up too.

[Crushinator]

I've played a ton of beta. The game is polish as hell.

[Scan_Man]

I meant polished. A simple mistake, but should be easy to figure out since I used polish in the context of a video game and did not capitalize the "p." Or do you read read as read when it should be read?

Since you brought it up. . . . Speaking of games from Poland because, you know, I actually try to discuss gaming and games here. I've been quite impressed by Polish game developers this year. The Witcher 2 > Skyrim in terms of interesting and meaningful quests (I prefer to take quality over quantity). Graphics on the Witcher 2 is still best right now; sorry Battlefield 3. How dialogue choices and consequences are handled is the best I've seen in a Western RPG (actually to my surprise The Old Republic has some quests that almost take it this far). A Polish game developer did Bulletstorm, another favorite game of mine this year. Another one also did Dead Island; really good for a brand new IP.

[Crushinator]

May 15th.

MAY FUCKING FIFTEENTH.

SAVE THE DATE!


http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/201...e-for-diablo-3/

[HC82]

Game over, bros! Time to play some decent action rpg multi-player for a change

[Scan_Man]

Finally! Been going crazy for this game. I have over 150 hours played on the beta, and that is only a very small part of Act 1. I can only imagine how much I will be playing the final game.


Real money auction house is going to be great for everyone to use. Blizzard removed the listing fee requirement, so you can just throw up anything on the auction house without a penalty.

[AC9breaker]

Wehlp, guess it's about time I invest in a serious gaming Laptop. Suggestions?

[Crushinator]

Wehlp, guess it's about time I invest in a serious gaming Laptop. Suggestions?

Yay, new computer hardware!

For a windows gaming Laptop, my first choice is usually Asus ROG. For some reason these are a little hard to track down now, but i'd suggest the 15" G53JW or G53SX. The SX has a beefier graphics card in the GTX 560M, but they're both good.

http://rog.asus.com/notebook/15-inch/g53jw/

http://rog.asus.com/notebook/15-inch/g53sx/

Alienware has actually scaled back the garish case designs on their laptops, and the M11x is an 11" netbook-sized gaming system. If you want ultra-portability there isn't a better choice, but your overall performance will not be as good as with a full sized system. I'd recommend the M14x as the best balance between size (14.1") and power. Make sure to opt for the 1600x900 screen upgrade.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m11x-r3/pd.aspx

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-M14x/pd.aspx

I've never dealt with iBuyPower, but i have used the same hardware they build their systems with, and its solid. They're definitely one of the cheaper options, and I've heard positive things about their customer service. The Battalion 101 CZ-12 -- and the default configuration includes an i7 and 540m graphics card, at $1149, easily the lower price around.

http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Battalion_1...2_Gaming_Laptop

If you want to cross over to Mac, I'd suggest the 15" Macbook Pro. Its actually going to offer the weakest graphics card option of any of these choices, but I am a HUGE fan of the hardware design and tactile feel of Macs. You're limited to two options for graphics, AMD 6750m 512mb or the AMD 6770m 1GB, and you pay quite the fee to jump to the higher one. One thing to keep in mind is that if you DO go Mac, hold off till they announce the new designs for MacBooks (this april?) and the prices of the current models will drop quite a bit, so you can probably snag one for a (comparative) song.

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD318LL/A?

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD322LL/A?

Some general tips as far as customizing goes:

• i5 CPUs are good, i7 is even better if its in your budget. Don't get an i3 on a gaming system or you will be sad.
• Opt for 8GB of ram if possible.
• For your OS, don't splash for Win7 Ultimate, not worth the perks if your'e just gaming. Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit is the best choice.
• Given the choice for a higher res screen, take it.
• Don't get a blu-ray drive on the computer, just use an HD streaming service like Netflix or Hulu (or download HD-rips of your movies ).
• Hard drive size is probably not a concern, but don't go lower than 500 GB, and if given the option get a 7200rpm drive to decrease load times.
• I know that 17"+ screens look badass, but for practical purposes they kill portability and battery life. Thats why all my recommendations have been 14-16".

These suggestions are for powerful but moderately priced ($1100-$1800) specs, if you wanna ball ridiculous you can go crazy and easily spend over $3k to get the best of the best, but you'll see diminishing returns.

[Henge]

Really looking forward to this. Just one month away now, woo~

[Crushinator]

For anyone who didn't get an invite, they are opening up the beta to all battle.net accounts for this weekend for a stress test:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4963739/Di...ekend-4_19_2012

[Crushinator]

Diablo 3 TV Spot:



SO CLOSE!

[Scan_Man]

I'm doing a release party and marathon livestreamed on twitch.tv if anyone is interested. All day Tuesday for completion of Normal mode. Then all that weekend hopefully to get to level 60.

Game is about 15-20 hours to get through normal mode according to the devs. But the marathon is to get people together and find some games and trade items.

[Crushinator]

I'll be doing a straight-run through normal too, all in one sitting. Or at the very least play from midnight until I pass out.

What class is everyone planning on starting with? After playing the beta, I've confirmed that Witch Doctor is my starting class. Way fun to play, and pretty powerful to boot.

[Scan_Man]

I'm doing wizard since I put a ton of time researching abilities. I like the monk too, but more for party purposes.