Month: October 2013

Star Citizen expands alpha, D3’s Mystic revealed, and Path of Exile launches

Star Citizen smashed through the $24 million and $25 million crowdfunding barriers this week, unlocking public transportation and expanding the game’s upcoming alpha test. Designs for Diablo III’s upcoming Mystic artisan were revealed, and it was confirmed that the she will be part of the Reaper of Souls expansion. Path of Exile saw a remarkably smooth launch day, with only minor lag and just a few bugs for Steam users.
Blizzard may have run into yet another naming blunder with Heroes of the Storm, as this week it emerged that a Finnish RPG published in July bears the same name. Third-person MOBA SMITE re-introduced Chinese god Sun Wukong this week, compete with shapeshifting abilities, an extendable staff, and a flying cloud. Firefall developer Red 5 Studios revealed details of what players can expect to be released in the next few months, and its parent company The9 has signed a $24 million US investment deal that values the game at $100 million. And Arena of Heroes is offering fans the chance to win an Ouya console and controller in a competition that will end in just a few days.

Diablo III dev diary delves into the history of Westmarch

Diablo III’s upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion will take players to a number of new locales across the world of Sanctum, such as the kingdom of Westmarch, the subject of Blizzard’s latest dev post on the game’s official site. Long-time Diablo fans probably know Westmarch best as the home of the Knights of Westmarch, the order from which Diablo II’s Paladin hails, but there is much more to the realm’s deep lore.
Westmarch’s history is one — as is expected in the Diablo universe — steeped in blood and conquest. The kingdom was founded by the Zakarum zealot Rakkis after a crusade that drove him across the Twin Seas and over the bodies of legions of conquered foes, but there is a second, “secret” history to this place. Near Westmarch is a “sprawl of fetid marshes,” littered with the ruins of an ancient Nephalem civilization said to hold the power to ward against angels and demons alike. It was to these ruins that the now-mortal Tyrael took the Black Soulstone, and it was there that the former archangel Malthael, at that point neither angel nor demon, stole the Black Soulstone from its hiding place. And that, of course, is where the tale of Reaper of Souls begins. If you’re a lore junkie looking for all the details, check out the full post on Diablo III’s official site.

Diablo 3 PvP mode unsatisfactory,needs to be improved

Nearly a year after Blizzard declared that the game mode was not meeting expectations, lead designer Kevin Martens has offered an update of sorts as to why PvP has yet to see the light of day.
Though Blizzard has released Diablo 3 on consoles and is inching closer to completing the Reaper of Souls expansion, the long-delayed PvP mode still appears to be a long way off.
“The reason why it’s difficult to do PvP, is that we made a vast PvE game,” Martens tells AusGamers. “The core fantasy for us was ‘I want to kill lots of monsters in lots of awesome ways.’ You can’t kill lots of players in those awesome ways, or lots of players will get ticked off because they have the exact same fantasy as you, and they want to kill you in vast ways, so essentially, the game is automatically changing.”
Martens adds that each character varies in terms of power and gear and that the Diablo team hasn’t had the experience of balancing players against other players. Because overpowered characters often lead to quick deaths, the team determined that the PvP mode as it was structured was simply not fun.
Martens also rules out the idea of selecting pre-made characters. “People say ‘well, why not make pre-made characters? Give me two different Barbs I can chose from, and that’s my PvP Barb,’ but that’s not your PvP Barb, that’s some random one. If your gear doesn’t matter, and this game is about killing monsters and getting loot, what we’re actually making is a different game.”
That’s not to say that Blizzard has given up on the idea of PvP entirely. Martens says that the team is still working on a PvP mode that utilizes player-built heroes.

Diablo III dev blog demystifies the Mystic

Diablo III’s latest dev blog unveils more tasty information about a new artisan NPC, the Mystic, coming to the game in the Reaper of Souls expansion. As many Diablo III fans are undoubtedly aware, Reaper of Souls will mark the introduction of a set of FFXIV Gil features, known colloquially as Loot 2.0, which aims to rebalance Diablo III’s loot and item systems in an effort to make loot more interesting to players. The Mystic is an integral part of this effort thanks to her unique skills of enchanting and transmogrification.
Through Enchantment, the Mystic is capable of rerolling a single property on a piece of equipment, making her the go-to artisan for those items that are almost-but-not-quite perfect. While you can choose only a single property to reroll on each item, that property can be rerolled as many times as you can afford. Don’t worry about buyer’s remorse, though; if the newly rolled property is worse than the old one, the Mystic can reverse the process. The Mystic is also the number one stylist in Sanctuary thanks to her transmogrification ability which, as World of Warcraft players know, allows players to replace an item’s visual appearance with that of a different item. To get all the arcane details on Myriam the Mystic, you can check out the full post on Diablo III’s official site.

Diablo 3 adding transmogrification and enchanting

The upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion will add a new artisan, known as The Mystic, who is capable of transmogrification and enchanting. Enchanting is similar to WoW’s reforging in that it will allow you to reroll a single item property. The Mystic progresses from level 1 to 10 like the Blacksmith and Jeweler.
Enchanting
    Most item properties can be rerolled, but some can’t (no details yet).
    You can reroll that one property as many times as you want, but once you choose one you can only reroll that property.
    Before you replace a property, you can see Buy FFXIV Gil the possible replacements. One of these will be randomly chosen once you complete the enchant.
    If you don’t like your rerolled property, you will have the option of reverting it to the item’s original property.
    Enchanting costs crafting materials and gold.
    Enchanting an item makes it bound to your account and it can no longer be traded to other players.
Transmogrification
    All items will be eligible for transmogrification, including legendaries and set items.
    Once an item appearance is discovered, it is available to all characters on your account.
    Common, magic, and rare item appearances are unlocked as your level The Mystic.
    Legendary and set item appearances are unlocked when you identify them.
    You do not need to keep items in your inventory for their appearance to be used, and once they are unlocked you are safe to get rid of the item.
    Transmogrification costs gold.
    For weapons, you can only transmogrify items of the same animation set, e.g. two-handed swords to two-handed swords.
    Transmogrifying an item binds it to your account.
    Transmogrified items can be dyed.
I really hope they implement a similar system for WoW’s transmogrification. Unlocking an appearance, as I suggested in a previous post, would solve a lot of inventory issues some of us collectors are having. Head on over to the Diablo 3 site to see the full preview of The Mystic.
Source: http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/24/diablo-3-adding-transmogrification-and-enchanting/

Diablo 3 patch caused a loss

Blizzard have announced that they have just closed down the Diablo 3 Auction House due to a game breaking exploit that appeared following the 1.08 patch. The patch went live on Tuesday but it took eagle eyed players only a few hours to discover an exploit, one so bad that is has almost totally destroyed the in-game economy.
According to an official post on Battle-net many players have Runescape Powerleveling earned billions of gold with one individual managing to collect over 300 trillion gold. The exploit was first discovered on Twitch as an individual streamed the exploit and gave thousands the tools they needed to totally destroy the economy. Yet another hole in the sinking ship that is Diablo 3.
Blizzard revealed that a Diablo III exploit all but destroyed the economy after the latest patch. It gave players the opportunity to earn millions of gold and basically exploit the economy to make tons of real cash. The unique auction house in Diablo III allows players to sell in-game items for cash and other items, meaning the players that abused the exploit could easily turn a huge profit from doing so.
Blizzard have announced that all of the proceeds and revenue from the exploit, that has now been fixed, will be donated to charity; instead of the highly feared rollback of servers. 415 players were found to be exploiting and all will be removed before the donations are made.

Diablo III : The PS4 version will be released in 2014

Diablo III’s development team is standing by with open ears. According to the Diablo blog, the development team is offering a behind-the-scenes look at the design of the game’s Legendary class items, by tapping into the knowledge of the Diablo community for help in crafting and perfecting an item it plans to implement into the game.
 
The “Design a Legendary” project, will guide participants through ”all the different design stages behind bringing a single Legendary item to life, from concept to creation to iteration, all the way through animation and implementation.” It will take design feedback from players to help guide the development of the weapon, shield or armor.
Blizzard community manager Stephanie “Lylirra” Johnson went on to state, “that they will be holding global community votes, hosting podcasts, soliciting ideas, and even running a contest or two to ensure that this is truly a worldwide, player-driven initiative.”
Not only will you have a part of creating an item of the game but you will FFXIV Power leveling walk away with a better understanding of everything that goes into designing, thus enhancing your experience with the game.
Diablo III has already released for PC, Xbox 360 and  PS3.  The PS4 version will be released in 2014

Diablo 3:Reaper of Souls to PS4

 Blizzard is now confirming the existence of Reaper of Souls for PS4, and a playable version of the game will be found at Blizzcon this November. The expansion raises level caps, adds a new act and creates one new character class, the Paladin-like Crusader.
 
By the time Reaper of Souls is released some time in 2014 (I’d guess spring), Diablo 3 will have been out for quite a while on PC, and at least a fairly decent amount of time on consoles. With that in mind, if the expansion (on PC) is priced $30 the way Blizzard is implying, I have to imagine they’d come up with some sort of package where both the original game and the expansion could be purchased for $60 total. That would be Buy Runescape Gold a somewhat steep discount on the original, but by the time Reaper of Souls was released, I think it would be both an appropriate price and a good value given how much content players would be getting. Though I feel like I’m one of the only folks still evangelizing about how fun this console port is, so perhaps the game might seem like old news at that point to some.
Reaper of Souls is one of my most anticipated games of 2014, even if it’s just a lowly expansion, and it’s even better news that it’s on the PS4.

Check out Diablo your new Beta version before you would win a PS3 or Xbox 360 copy of Diablo 3

Don’t make the same mistake again by telling players what stat to take.
Just to be super clear, when you earn a Paragon Point, that point will only be restricted to a specific category, NOT to a specific stat. Within each category (Core Stats, Offene, Defense, and Utility), there are four different stats, and you will have the freedom to choose which stat that point will be assigned to.
 
So, for example, if you’ve just earned a point in Offense, you’d have the opportunity to assign it to Attack Speed, Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage, or Cooldown Reduction. If you’ve just earned a point in Utility, you could assign it to Maximum [Resource], Magic Find, Movement Speed, or Gold Pick Up Radius.
Again, the round-robin style only limits which category you earn Paragon Points in; it doesn’t restrict which stat within that category you can assign that particular point to.
The removal of innate doesn’t need to suck. As long as they can provide enough Cheap FFXIV Gil point per level. For example, as we can only put 1 point to MF every 4 lvl, if that point increase the MF by at least 10% then it is OKish. We would still have our MF as now, just a little bit later that is all.
I really wish Lylirra would confirm the details of the change.
The bonus granted by each Paragon Point currently varies per category, and sometimes per stat. For example, all the Core Stats options grant +5 per point and all the Offense options grant +0.20% per point. Meanwhile, the options in Defense and Utility grant different bonuses per point. To use Utility as an example again, each point spent in Maximum [Resource] will grant +1.00, while each point spent in Movement Speed will grant +0.50%.
Keep in mind that, while the bonus increments you’re able to earn through Paragon 2.0 may differ from the current system, we’re also making fairly notable changes to items, monsters, hero skills, and game difficulty. Paragon 2.0 numbers are being balanced with those changes in mind (rather than how the game plays right now), which makes a significant difference.
(Again, none of this is final and totally subject to change before release. We may decide to change what bonuses we give out or how much the bonuses are worth. This is just to give you an idea.)

Why the Obsession with Diablo 3 Treasure Goblins?


A fan asked the forbidden question, presumably typing fast enough to finish the post before lightning struck him down for his heresy. And then he got a blue reply.
Why the obsession with DiabloWikiTreasure Goblins? Why are people so fixated on expanding the game around these little beasts? It really surprises me.
Grimiku: I think people suggest creating new events themed around Treasure Goblins because they incorporate several fun game elements.
You risk getting into a bad situation during the chase
You have a chance at being rewarded
It feels great when you prevent one from escaping
It’s exciting to discover one
Sometimes they require tactical engagement
They’re mischievous and mysterious
This is just to promote discussion, but why do you like or dislike Diablo 3 Treasure Goblins ? Would you like to see them in more events?
I’ve wondered this myself. I’ve been tracking all of my legendary finds for a few months, and in that time I’ve found about 230 legendaries, 2 of which came from Treasure Goblins. And yet… I still want them. They’re so Gobbily!
That said, I can’t resist going after the little shits. I brought FFXIV Gil that up on the last podcast, asking the guests if they chased Gobbies when they were making a new character. And they both said yes. No one can help it.
Gobbies have terrible odds to drop a Leg, but at least in Inferno it might happen and be valuable, plus you get gems and Tomes of Secret. On Normal/NM/Hell though… why bother? They’re worth minimal experience and if you’re leveling fast on a reroll you probably won’t even bother to pick up those Chipped Topazes and Pages of Blacksmithing.
Source:http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/why-the-obsession-with-diablo-3-treasure-goblins