An upcoming 1.08 update for Diablo III — there’s no ETA yet, but it’s available now on the pubic test servers — will recalculate the value of co-op sessions by providing an incentive to team up with other players: extra experience points! This will presumably make up for the inherent inefficiency of multiple players not being able to get their acts together. From technical designer Wyatt Cheng’s developer journal entry:
We’re still working on the details of what that buff is going to be, but at the moment we’re looking at 10% more XP per extra player in the game for a maximum bonus of 30% more XP in a 4-player game. This bonus will be multiplicative with MP bonuses. For example: suppose you are playing on MP10 with an XP bonus in Inferno of 510%. This means a monster is worth 610% of its normal XP (510% more). If you are playing in a 4-player game the monster will be worth 793% as much XP as normal. On top of this, you will also earn a flat 10% Gold Find and 10% Magic Find for each additional player in the game, and this bonus can exceed the 300% Gold Find and Magic Find caps.
Furthermore, when I’ve found something worth attacking, folks will know even though they’re back in town breaking down their blues with Haedrig.
Starting in 1.0.8, when a player deals damage to or takes damage from an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin for the first time, a notification will be sent out to the entire party to let your teammates know what you’ve found. This will be accompanied by a “combat” icon on the mini-map so other players in your group can locate those enemies. On top of that, we’re also going to put a combat icon over your banner in town. This way, players who are in town will know that you’re fighting an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin and be able to quickly determine whose banner to take to get right into the action.
A community manager on Blizzard’s forums explains that the characters I’ve spent dozens of hours playing in Diablo III, with even more dozens of hours potentially ahead, won’t be accessible in the Playstation 4 version.
While we think cross-platform play would be awesome, there are currently no plans to allow connectivity between PlayStation Network and Battle.net (this is pretty standard for most games that have PC and console support). As a result, the characters on your Battle.net account and PlayStation account will also remain separate.
In other words, Valve’s Portal 2 can do what Blizzard can’t.
There’s a certain point where you invest enough in a game that you’re not going to start over just because the developers have adapted it to a gamepad and your couch is comfortable. Diablo III has gone well beyond that point. Still, a Playstation 4 version will be great for people who can’t play Diablo III because they don’t have PCs. If you see any of them, tell them for me.
I’m not sure that any of these games would have made my top ten, but I never got around to trying the Walking Dead series, Mark of the Ninja, Hitman: Absolution, Guardians of Middle Earth, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Natural Selection 2, Last Story, Tokyo Jungle, Yakuza: Dead Souls, or Spec Ops: The Line. So, mea culpa maxima.
But of the games I did play, here are my favorites for the year.
Overrated is a loaded term. It looks good in a headline. It’s often used for no purpose other than to goad a reaction. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. When I call a game overrated, I don’t mean it’s bad, that the reviews were wrong, that the people who liked it were dopes, or even that I didn’t like it. It just means I’m surprised more people weren’t more critical, that the conversation wasn’t more often about ways the game could have been better.
Among the changes coming to Diablo III are completely revamped legendary items. Senior designer Andrew Chambers notes:
In many ways the Legendary items that we released with the game were just Rares with flavor text. You called us on it, and we’ve listened.
The updated legendary items will have new visuals and — more importantly — new custom effects. This will be part of the 1.0.4 update due by the end of August.
In case you’re considering going to hunt down a few legendaries now (i.e. scour the auction house for a good deal before these items get better), hold on a sec.
…these changes will only affect Legendary items that drop after the release of patch 1.0.4. This includes items that haven’t been identified yet (as items are rolled when they drop).
As the staff of Quarter to Three goes home for the long holiday weekend, we’ll leave you with a touch of our own fireworks in the form of an annual half-year list. What are the ten best games of the year so far?
But first, a quick mention for some games that didn’t make the list. I admire Dragon’s Dogma for making all the weird choices that other RPGs are afraid to make, but being different can only get you so far. I ended up preferring some very conventional RPGs. Warlock: Master of the Arcane and Conquest of Elysium 3 have made it a great year for turn-based fantasy. Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion for the PC, Defender Chronicles II for the iPhone, and Resident Evil: Revelations on the Nintendo 3DS are all great. However, each of these games is an iteration of an earlier recent game. Speaking of the Nintendo 3DS, Zen Pinball 3D and Kid Icarus meant the 3DS had more than three times as many must-haves as Sony’s Playstation Vita.
But, after the jump, there are ten games I liked better than any of those.Continue reading →
So how is everyone else playing Diablo III? Blizzard offers some stats:
* On average players have created 3 characters each
* 80% of characters are between levels 1 and 30
* 1.9% of characters have unlocked Inferno difficulty
* 54% of Hardcore players chose a female character
* The majority of Hardcore deaths (35%) occur in Act I Normal
* The most common level 60 build in the game is only used by 0.7% of level 60 characters of that class (not including Passive diversity)
* The most used runes for each class at level 60 are Barbarian: Best Served Cold, Demon Hunter: Lingering Fog, Wizard: Mirror Skin, Monk: Peaceful Repose, Witch Doctor: Numbing Dart
Blizzard’s design update explains what to expect in the next two patches. It also has some comments on tuning inferno difficulty, legendary items, and this tidbit on balancing skills:
If any single skill or rune feels absolutely required to progress, it means that skill is working against our goal of encouraging build diversity — and those “required” skills need to be corrected.
Of course, that’s how I feel about pretty much every skill I’m using, but that changes as soon as I experiment with another skill. I can’t begin to imagine what Diablo III’s balance looks like to Blizzard, from a high level looking down at the reams of data they’ve collected. But from where I’m sitting, down in the trenches of nightmare mode, only starting to scratch the surface of the game’s tougher choices, one of my favorite things about Diablo III is its sense of tuning. From my perspective, the most powerful class is whichever one I just got done playing.
Having recently decided that hardcore is the way to go in Diablo III, I love this video. I think of it as a light-hearted primer to prepare myself for the inevitable moment of my character’s death. Because hardcore Diablo III is like real life in that it’s not a matter of if you will die, but when you will die.
To quote stylist Tyler Durden, you are not your fucking khakis. Neither are you your Socketed Silk Britches of the Bear. With that in mind, let’s try to look our best while we’re fighting the minions of Diablo, lord of whatever he’s lord of. I couldn’t hear when they explained that part because my ensemble was too loud.
I was one of those guys who played the Diabo III beta and decided — harumph — I liked Diablo II better. So I played a little Diablo II. I sulked for a bit. I resolved not to overly care about Diablo III.
Now that Diablo III is out, it turns out Blizzard was right and I was wrong.
After the jump, one of us really knows what they’re doingContinue reading →
After Diablo III’s first twelve hours in the wild, I can safely say this online only experience is not your Battlechest’s Diablo! Think of this as the new Diablo. Diablo 2.0, if you will. It’s a whole other thing. And as such, you might need some help.
After the jump, I bring you the wisdom that can only come from first-hand experienceContinue reading →
This week sees the release of some shooter called John Hurt 3 or something. I think we also get a Throne of Games RPG or some such. Whatever. I can’t really see anything past midnight tonight, when Diablo III goes live.
