SPF's Thoughts on D3

[Arkardo]

A quick response to a couple of your bullet points:

- + damage seems to be rather limited, but then again the beta covers very early areas and only a fraction of the entire game. There's a vendor that sells rings, and with some luck one or both will have + 2-4 damage mods on them. At one point, equipping two of those on a pretty well kitted out Barbarian added twenty points to his cumulative damage. It made a strong character an unstoppable killing machine. Once we get past the SK in the retail version, I expect to see + damage mods quite frequently. It's all about how large a modifier it'll be that matters most, though.

- I'd heard recently that the SK drops a class-specific rare, but I don't think it's 100%. I did a run last night with a Monk, and the only rare I got were some pants. I'd say there's a good chance, not necessarily a guarantee.

- A new character that's got an empty stash, zero gold available, and untrained artisans? ...Nope. The only one you'll ever have is your very first character. They're intrinsically linked, for good or ill. HC is independent of SC, naturally, but that's the only separation you'll get. If one is desperate, you can always create a new character on a different realm. You'll be fighting potential lag, though.

Ah, it's not 100% then. Still, it feels kinda odd the drops are rigged a little in your favor. Then again, it's not really fun to find items your character cannot use.

There's a vendor that sells rings?? Dammit, I was running around mostly without rings. The only one I found was with my wizard, I believe, right before the SK fight, and I couldn't even equip it due to its level requirement. What's the deal, does he sell rings from a certain clvl?

Sucks about the linked gold and artisans... pure untwinked is pretty much dead, then.

I think its really interesting/funny that people would LOVE a shared stash system in D2, but that one being implemented in D3 is often seen as a negative in this thread!

(I do understand that it is the tournament style play that throws a spanner in the works)

Oh, I really love the shared stash! It's just not big enough to hold all the sets and legendaries in the game. I understand there has to be a limit, of course.

Speaking of sets and legendaries, I'm really looking forward to seeing them! It's one of the important things we haven't seen yet. I hope these will help in creating some unique builds, like some items did in D2 (Wolfhowl, Passion, Kingslayer, Rift, etc.)!

[TheReadMenace]

There's a vendor that sells rings?? Dammit, I was running around mostly without rings. The only one I found was with my wizard, I believe, right before the SK fight, and I couldn't even equip it due to its level requirement. What's the deal, does he sell rings from a certain clvl?

Sucks about the linked gold and artisans... pure untwinked is pretty much dead, then.

Congrats on finding a ring via a drop; I've fought those skeletons just before the SK dozens of times and I've found nothing of use from them (despite seeing higher tiered items, they were always of poor quality).

The ring vendor isn't accessible immediately. You have to progress until you meet the Blacksmith for the first time; the vendor is just north of him, west of the cellar that contains his wife. As much as I've seen, every ring he sells has a clvl6 requirement and costs about 2k.

As for pure untwinked... well, yeah. As I said before, you can always go to a new region and start fresh there, but even if you drop all your gold & stashed items you're still going to be left with the upgraded stash size & artisan progression. I guess the definition will need to be... uh, redefined. Untwinked may mean that you'll never have access to the artisans, or you simply include them regardless because eventually EVERYONE'S gonna have them maxed out. And for gold... that's tougher to sort out. I suppose we'll get it sorted out before too long.

Wolfhowl, Passion, Kingslayer, & Rift-like items: Won't happen, at least not immediately. That's my guess, anyway. Those items that allowed cross-class skills were included late-ish into the lifespan of D2, probably as a means to spice up the standard gameplay after so many years. To allow other classes' skills in the initial release, it'd seem to me like they'd go too far too quickly. If gear like this comes along, I don't expect it for quite some time.

And yes, I love the shared stash, too. The only real issue I have is its size, but that's something I've come to terms with. We'd all like it to be bigger.

...that's what she said...

[Lord_Vega]

Dropping by to say hi, and letting you guys know I will be there at launch day, 00:01 ready to go
LordVega#2371 is the GamerTag, for anyone that still remembers me

[Grisu]

Lord_Vega!?!? quick, get some handcuffs, duct tape and ropes!

Seriously: When have you last visited the SPF and posted? Even I don't recall such an event, and it's already >5 years I'm here...good to see you joining the D3 fray though! SC or HC?

[Shagsbeard]

Sad to hear that there's no clean reset, and that gold is shared automatically with all characters... I don't like that one bit.

[Grisu]

Sad to hear that there's no clean reset, and that gold is shared automatically with all characters... I don't like that one bit.

Well, you could still do your finances old-school style: with pen and paper i.e. write down your gold amount at start and end of session plus character played. So the sharing of gold is something that isn't bothering me too much. It's rather the shared stash (you have to choose to discard item X from tourney char X if you want to keep item Y from tourney char Y) and the artisans...clearly, those harvesting a lot of gold in twinked play will have higher level artisans than those who only play untwinked.

A solution for tourneys could be to "unlock" higher artisan levels with the amount of gold found with one certain character. Example: even if your artisan is level 5, you could only use apprentice crafts till you collected 20k gold, then journeyman crafts till collecting 40k etc.

Or we don't give a d*** about artisan levels and everyone can freely use their artisan, but only crafting materials found with that tournament characters can be used. A slight disbalance, but I guess we'll have to see and try as to how crafting will affect tournament play.

[Fast Eddie]

I'll be getting D3. Hopefully playing with TRM and maybe one or two RL friends on release day. I got very disappointed with the game around the end of the last year, which is when all the 'this didn't make it in' articles came out, but I watched a Let's Play of the beta and it's given me new enthusiasm for the game.

I don't mind being online all the time as my slow internet is relatively stable, and I'm a big user of Steam. I will avoid the auction house, though I did once spend £3 on credits for a Facebook game, so I may be convinced. I'm quite a social gamer, and a lot of the staying power after 4-5 months will be if people I like playing with still play, but the people I mentioned earlier seem enthused, and likewise socially-inclined. Plus one for an D3 SPF section of the forum, it'll be nice to keep it seperate from the rest of the forum as a whole, but also from the SPFers that aren't making the transition for their own reasons. I'm worried about the lack of character diversity, but it'll take some time before I figure that out with my available play time.

Pijus and I are trying to Guardian a duo before D3 comes out, which has reignited my love of D2, so I'll come crawling back if both D3 and TL2 fail to impress.

[Drystan]

Anyone willing to make an SPF Let's Play/walkthrough, or some side-commentary on some of the more exciting/dark quest/bosses for us who can't get it? I'm sure there will be a few put up anyway, but probably none with the SP/untwinked style of play. More that will probably be rushing through the game with a full team (which will be interesting to watch anyway.) Or maybe a small untwinked SPF D3 tourney? Something that encourages exploring the world map, so as not to detract from the enjoyment of exploration to begin with.

How many players in a game can there be? I saw a slight possible reference saying only 4 in D3? Is that true? If so, interesting that they're going back to D1 style MP.

Edit: Head still isn't functioning properly. That quote didn't belong there.

[RobbyD]

Steam is now offering pre-orders of Torchight 2, and offering Torchlight 1 as a free bonus for pre-ordering ($19.95 in the US). I've got my order for T2 in already.

[Lord_Vega]

Lord_Vega!?!? quick, get some handcuffs, duct tape and ropes!

Seriously: When have you last visited the SPF and posted? Even I don't recall such an event, and it's already >5 years I'm here...good to see you joining the D3 fray though! SC or HC?

Grisu, old friend! You still hanging around these parts of the World?
I've been rather active here on incgamers for the past year
since getting into the beta, and I am now 100% ready to embark
on a new, addicting adventure of diablocrack!

My poison will be SC for the first few months/years, so feel free
to add me as a friend