We all want Diablo III to be done, and we all want to be playing it right now. Blizzard wants it to be done too, but they are taking the time to make it a good game. Just when we thought everything was getting finished up, Blizzard is making some drastic changes to a few of Diablo III's system mechanics.
Jay Wilson, the game director for Diablo III, said in a blog post on the Diablo III site that, "We want Diablo III to be the best game it can be when it launches. To get there, we're going to be iterating on designs we've had in place for a long time, making changes to systems you've spent a lot of time theorycrafting, and removing features you may have come to associate with the core of the experience. Our hope is that by embracing our iterative design process in which we question ourselves and our decisions, Diablo III won't just live up to our expectations, but will continue to do so a decade after it's released."
They are making some big changes to the skill and rune systems, but they aren't ready to let us know about those yet. What we do know, is that they are completely removing Scrolls of Identification, one of the quick slot buttons is becoming a dedicated potion button, the Mystic artisan is being removed, they are removing the Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube, Stone of Recall is being renamed to Town Portal and it's being placed right into the UI, Blacksmiths will be able to salvage items, character attributes are getting new benefits, and your stats will be shown right on your inventory screen.
The full post has details on each of these changes, and they really stress how much they want Diablo III to be an amazing game, and that they aren't afraid to take as much time as they need to finish it. It's nice that they are actually taking some feedback from the beta testing and making changes to the game.
If you are in the beta and you have an opinion on these changes, please let us know in the comments!
Systems Changes [us.battle.net]
Contest:
9:00 PM on 01.19.2012 | 
Good to see Joshua posting again.
INB4 "they're ruining the game for the sake of the damn console port!"
I agree with you. Torchlight isn't as big of a franchise yet, BUT it's getting there.
Well said.
If you log into b.net for diablo 2 TODAY, there's a lot of people online, and the game's been out for 11 years. If they continue with this attitude, it just might happen again for D3
I know that's not the point of the article, but still. I don't even pay attention to Blizzard's release dates anymore. It'll come out when it comes out, and it will be amazing when it does. That's all I need to know, baby!
Perhaps I'm overreacting, and I can't exactly not buy it now I'm leashed into that WoW sub deal but yeah, I feel like Blizzard are insulting my intelligence with these changes if anything, and that I need to be spoken to real slowly to understand what the game is.
Simply put, let go of my hand Blizzard, it feels like you're mentally molesting me!
Then again, it IS kinda fun...
I wouldn't say no one is batting an eye. Many of my friends are passing on it (Well they say they are, I know I am).
The gameplay felt good. It was classic Diablo with more modern enhancements. The monk is crazy fun and very powerful.
If this game was nothing more than a bridge to an MMO, I'd be with that. I don't mean an MMO like WoW, but more like the way Guild Wars is structured (towns where you meet people, everything outside town is the instance). That structure is basically Diablo 1 and 2, except the chat rooms are replaced with graphical towns.
I'm not sure how I feel about the removal of the Stone of Jordan and Nephalem Cube. I quite liked the feel of salvaging all of my drops on the go and never really having to return to town, but I can see how this paradigm worked against the "Diablo" notion of many drops being worthless and some drops being great.
Also, as much as I have fun Theorycrafting myself -fuck theorycrafters when all is said and done. If things didn't change then more things couldn't be "crafted" and they'd all be bored. They tend to drag down most games 90% of the time any way (yes, even I have this effect on myself. It pissed me off to no end that I get sucked up into it something -very duality of me.)
10 to 1 they'll take those features they're taking away and find a way to sell them to players in some way, anyway. Aside from that, all the stuff they're adding/removing sounds like stuff they should have thought to add or remove a few years ago.