Diablo 3

[Vexorg]

The main problem is that I hardly seem to have anything really worth selling in the first place. I tried some of the stuff in the video, and everything I look at would be buried about 50 pages in on most searches. I even got a legendary drop for the first time tonight, and even that is basically vendor trash.

[Aguraki]

diablo hardcore got defeated by kripparian today,world 1st.

vexorg even the crappiest legendary will sell if you underprice it.

[powersoul]

Gotta agree with Blackbird. Just read about how someone lost an item he sold and never got his money wired to him.

[blackoak]

Yeah. And going back to an earlier post Blackbird made, I realize there are players who are into the excitement of a real game economy, but it intrudes upon the escapism and imagination refuge I seek in games. I wouldn't care if there was a true offline mode in which drops and content were not subject to Blizzard's manipulations, which its impossible to believe will not take into account the existence of the RMAH and the need to balance a game economy (not to mention their own economic concern in fees).

Ugh. Just thinking about it annoys me.

[Blackbird]

diablo hardcore got defeated by kripparian today,world 1st.

Correction: Diablo 3 Hardcore was cleared by Kripparian, Krippie, and team No Life for world first. Although Kripp and Krippie were the ones to beat the game, they had a lot of friends help them along the way, too. It's especially exciting because they raced to complete the game hours before Blizzard released patch 1.0.3, which significantly decreases the difficulty of the game. Kripp and Krippie will not only be world first, but also be the only people to complete D3 Hardcore at it's hardest level of difficulty.

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of this game (largely for Blizzard's monetization shenanigans) but this is still a really awesome accomplishment. Grats to them.

[Vexorg]

I think I'm just going to uninstall at this point and be done with it. I'm hearing reports that the repair cost increases are even worse than previously speculated, and combined with decreases in gold drops on top of that.

[CMPXCHG8B]

So the latest patch is out, and now it costs me around 52K gold to repair my level 60 wiz from yellow damaged gear.

I've already blown through my whopping 400K in savings that I'd collected over the past month of casual play, just from repairing my gear with the newly increased repair costs. Eventually I simply ran out of gold and now my character has reverted to the default appearance, because everything I have is broken and useless.

Now I'm being told that I either need to shell out actual cash to buy in-game gold from someone somewhere, or I literally have to "farm to farm"- that is, back peddle on the difficulty level and try to go get gold with no functional equipment, all so that I can afford to inevitably repair my gear while farming for more gear back in Inferno- because Inferno alone doesn't drop enough gold to sustain constant farming on that difficulty anymore (given that environment farming has been nerfed into the ground, and the only things that do drop reasonable amounts of gold are things that fight back).

Is it just me, or is Blizzard basically hell-bent on making this game one of the most monotonous experiences sold on PC game shelves today?

-CMPX

[Vexorg]

Yes, seeing lots of reports on the Monk board that people are having to spend more on repairs than they're taking in. I was in Act 1 Inferno before the patch, now it looks like I'll have to go at least back to Act 3 Hell in order to be viable.

Someone tell Runic to hurry up and release Torchlight 2 already...

[CMPXCHG8B]

I'm done.

The worst possible thing you can do as a game developer is to make your players feel as though they have wasted their time.

And this is exactly what Blizzard has done.

I played for 3 hours each and every night for a month, and it was mostly fun. I didn't get any gear to show for it, but I had a good time with my buddies online- and more importantly, I had something to show for my time invested in the form of in-game gold. I was hoping to buy a nice upgrade off the AH once I hit half a million- just a little something to show for all the time I'd spent playing the game in the evening. A nice reward for a job well done.

Today, though, as I previously said- I burned through 400K in just under two hours on repair costs alone. All my friends had to leave after about 60 minutes, because they simply didn't have the gold to sustain their equipment anymore. I shared the same fate an hour later. We all landed up back in Hell mode under Act I because we couldn't handle anything ranged without equipment, but that became too monotonous after about a half hour and everyone gave up instead.

For all my work, all my time invested- I get absolutely nothing, because Blizzard decided to poorly tweak something that didn't need tweaking. I've read that the repair costs are predominantly calculated server side so they can and will change them at will, but this doesn't change the fact that I feel as though my last month of gameplay has been completely and utterly wasted.

So that's it, I'm done. Could I buy gold off the RMAH or from someone online and continue playing? Sure, but I don't pay to win, I play to win- I thought $60 was my fee to have a good time, but apparently I was wrong.

-CMPX

[Op Intensify]

Game's been cracked. I didn't expect this to happen, considering how many of the assets are stored on Blizzard's side. You can do offline single-player and LAN with an emulated BNet server.

Of course the question is whether it's worth your time at any price, and the answer is no.

[Ruldra]

I've already blown through my whopping 400K in savings that I'd collected over the past month of casual play, just from repairing my gear with the newly increased repair costs. Eventually I simply ran out of gold and now my character has reverted to the default appearance, because everything I have is broken and useless.

Now I'm being told that I either need to shell out actual cash to buy in-game gold from someone somewhere, or I literally have to "farm to farm"- that is, back peddle on the difficulty level and try to go get gold with no functional equipment, all so that I can afford to inevitably repair my gear while farming for more gear back in Inferno- because Inferno alone doesn't drop enough gold to sustain constant farming on that difficulty anymore (given that environment farming has been nerfed into the ground, and the only things that do drop reasonable amounts of gold are things that fight back).

This is sounding like a lot of iOS/Android games: free to play, but unwinnable if you don't spend real money. Real shame to see D3 in this situation.

[Blackbird]

Hmmm... on the one hand, I'm surprised it didn't get cracked sooner, and on the other, I'm surprised they were able to crack it at all considering almost all of the code is running server-side.

[CMPXCHG8B]

Game's been cracked. I didn't expect this to happen, considering how many of the assets are stored on Blizzard's side. You can do offline single-player and LAN with an emulated BNet server.

Of course the question is whether it's worth your time at any price, and the answer is no.

The "crack" doesn't work that well, I was messing around with it several days ago. It's actually called "Mooege", and is an open-source project written in C# (you can find it on Github). There's a psuedo-frontend for it called Madcow that will download, compile, and run the latest version off the 'net for you.

The server is basically, uh, a server, backed by a SQL instance and database with some of the client MPQ files. There really isn't much to it, though the server itself is still under heavy development and barely anything is implemented. You can load up a game and run around, maybe even swing your weapon- but I don't think NPC spawns or looting or even crafting is implemented yet since that's all server side logic. So there isn't really much to do other then literally running around, and even then you can't really run that far without encountering a missing world tile (the map will just end and you can't progress any further).

It will be interesting to see how Blizzard reacts to it once they get more working- and if they'll try to squash it like they did to bnetd.

-CMPX

[Aguraki]

my demon hunter took a huge hit with this nerf.
didnt lose dps but neither tantacles are worthless and farming act 3 is now way more difficult.
changed my build to high hp and res and I can survive a few hits so its good.
to still make money you can farm act 1 its guarented cruising through the levels and destroying mobs at lightspeed,then vendor every thing you find cause its mostly crap.
pretty sure you can make 100k to 200k an hour just vendoring items.
occasionnaly you ll find a decent item to sell too.
its not really fun tho.
only good thing is Im using different skills and it change the gameplay a bit.
that was really an insane patch.

[damakable]

I had a great time on Monday night playing through Act II with some friends of mine. They're all glass-cannon ranged classes and I'm a hard-as-nails monk who does basically no damage at all, so it worked out really well. It was really rewarding to tank for them while they did the damage, and I felt like an important part of the team. While it was still really challenging, and we had to skip a couple elite packs, we were progressing through areas that none of us were able to complete solo.

After the patch yesterday, I was able to survive a bit better in Act II on my own, but died to Belial's new enrage. I really need to add some dex to my gear and possibly upgrade my weapon before I do enough damage to continue to progress solo.

So far I'm okay with the change to repair costs. Why the hell would you blow through all your money repairing your stuff once you realized you were losing money? Go back to an earlier act and farm so you can put some more resistance / armor / vitality on. Repair costs were so low before, you could die over and over again and still earn more than enough to pay repair costs and still make a profit. I like there to be consequences for making bad decisions in a game.

The patch made it possible to farm Act I for top-tier gear. You have less of a chance for good drops than you do in later acts, but you still have a chance. Once you're in Inferno, this is a farming game. Join a public game, kill the spider queen and butcher, make some money, sell some loot on the AH, possibly even find an upgrade. Gear up and repeat until you're ready for Act II. If you're bored, that's fine (I tend to find farming games dull after a while, too), go play some shmups. But don't bash your head against a brick wall elite pack repeatedly until you run out of gold... that's just silly.

Also the nether tentacles thing apparently was actually a bug. Nether tentacles weren't supposed to hit the same enemy repeatedly the way they did. So that partly explains the huge Demon Hunter nerf, but really, that was a truly over-powered ability.

[Ruldra]

Oh shit son!

So I didn't tell my wife, but I quit my job last week to farm and sell on the RMAH. Without explicitly stating how much I was making a day - we would have lived VERY comfortably.

However, with the introduction of this new patch I will not be able to farm as fast as I used to due to my damage dropping dramatically. Not only that, but if I do fight things that can be sold - the prices are dramatically decreasing because the itemization is really poor right now. Nobody wants to buy on the RMAH right now.

I will not be able to get my job back and I will not be able to live off the RMAH anymore... Blizzard please fix your game or my life is ruined. My wife will probably leave me.

[CloudyMusic]

I'm assuming it's a troll, but it'd be hilarious (in that sad sort of way) if it was true. How stupid would you have to be to do that?

[powersoul]

I would be honest with you, if someone can suggest that, it does mean someone else in this world did it. I actually saw some random posts about Diablo III on random site forums about doing it too.

[Illyrian]

So anyway:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18532670

Would have lolled if his interbutts had died on the Diablo fight.

[BryanM]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18532670

What the flickity fuck. I didn't get a BBC blurb for that time I beat Earthworm Jim.

You guys agree that I deserved one, don't you??

[powersoul]

To all who actually played or still play this game, i have heard of numerous people throwing in the towel on this game over the most recent patch. out of curiosity, what are your takes on this patch?

[njiska]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18532670

What the flickity fuck. I didn't get a BBC blurb for that time I beat Earthworm Jim.

You guys agree that I deserved one, don't you??

Heh, if you deserve one for Jim, I deserve a whole series for my Mega Man endeavors.

Seriously though, how much of a slow news day was this? Or does this constitute interesting news on days when England isn't playing football?

[Necronopticous]

To all who actually played or still play this game, i have heard of numerous people throwing in the towel on this game over the most recent patch. out of curiosity, what are your takes on this patch?

I still "play" a few minutes, but the patch hasn't affected me much because I spend 100% of those minutes buying/selling on the auction house. In the end game, there is nothing left to do but raise gold for better gear, and it is far more efficient and less risky to play the auction house than the actual game. There is really no good reason to actually play the game.

[CloudyMusic]

I'll probably go back to it sometime in the not-too-distant future, but I've been taking a bit of a break since my last Hardcore character died. Haven't played this patch yet, but from what I've heard, most of the complaints wouldn't really apply to me very much.

[Vexorg]

I've uninstalled it from my system for the time being, it's probably more stress than I need at this point anyway. That's not to say I wouldn't go back at some point if they sort out the balance issues, just that it's probably not worth playing for me in its current state.

Ironically, I recall some of the same complaints of disproportionately high repair costs for melee classes compared to others in World of Warcraft back when I was playing that, but at the time I had a hunter so I didn't really pay much attention. Apparently Blizzard never learned their lesson on that one...

[powersoul]

Granted, im pretty peeved over repair costs, but currently im able to manage some low profit on each game. what i cannot understand is the fact my dps dropped 5k despite only having Azurewrath that had any IAS rolls. Nevertheless, at least i can still somewhat solo with my ragtag gears.

[Aguraki]

[powersoul]

LOL server overload.logistical nightmare for the server i guess

[ancestral-knowledge]

i made about 950 EUR from D3 now.... i really can't complain

[CMPXCHG8B]

i made about 950 EUR from D3 now.... i really can't complain

Can't tell if trolling, or really serious.

Pics or it didn't happen?

-CMPX