Month: October 2013

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.

“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’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.

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.

    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.

    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.

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.