I personally liked the synergy system in Diablo 2 LoD. This game me the opportunity to create very powerful and specialized characters. Here are my thoughts on synergies and the possibility to gave them in DiabloIII

The Good Thing about synergies in D2

• Very powerful characters
• Specialized builds
• You can become powerful very fast
• Each skill helped another

The Bad Thing about synergies in D2

• Some skills got ignored (Frozen Orb / Hydra ) by the lack of synergies
• HELL mode can become impossible
• A high number of skill points wasted on skills you never use

We can talk all we want about D2 synergies but the main question is: Will they come back in Diablo 3 ?
I personally want them back, i liked them before and i am sure i will like them in the new game also. I do want Blizzard to revise them, to balance them. They are a great source of new character builds, players can make entire strategies based on the synergy skill system.

I want synergies in DiabloIII but in a smarter form and i am sure that Blizzard is considering this possibility. Some say that synergies killed the skill system in Diablo2 but i think it made it better.

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The GREATEST Diablo Wallpaper i come to find online. There is no wallpaper to match this in my opinion, it simply looks awesome in my 24″ monitor

A Diablo3 Church

It is 1920×1200 and looks absolutely stunning

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We know the situation in Diablo2 … there are dozens of sites that are selling D2 items: armors, weapons, amulets, runes.
You can buy everything and use on BattleNET

Also we have to mention the spambots that are selling the items on the BattleNet channels and in the game. People (even me) are tempted to buy items, specially the old gamers that don’t have time to grind and grind for hours. It is easy not to create the perfect character if you have a few $ to spend.

Diablo 2 Item Shops are the PK heaven
For people interested in PKing these shops are the touch of God, D2 online realms are filled with “artificial” characters created like this.

When you look at this situation you know that you don’t have to play the game over and over in order to get the items, no more need for MF items and boss farming.

These shops are killing the online experience!
There used to be a time only when the true hardcore gamers had the best items on the realm, now anyone can have them for a few $. This can be a bad thing because BattleNET is filling up with players that don’t actually know how to really play Diablo2 BUT have godlike characters and rule the PK ring

What about Diablo3 ?
I wonder if Blizzard will allow this in D3 also if they will turn this to their advantage.
I am talking about a “legal” item marketplace created and maintained by Blizzard, we just have to wait and see (although i don’t think they will set one up)

I wonder if this kind of trade will be possible in Diablo3, the new BattleNET (2.0) will have new features and improvements, also the item transfer between characters and accounts will get seriously simplified.

I am against all kinds of item trading outside the actual game, i don’t like buying items I like working for them. The satisfaction you get when you create a good character beats everything.

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As we know from the DiabloIII Gameplay Video, the blood and corpses fade out really fast. That really takes away from the battle feeling and Gore

Blizzard has already confirmed that the corpses will linger more on the map enhancing the after battle feel but what about the blood?

It is all about game physics and how much tweaking will Blizzard bring to the table. The Diablo games have always been accessible to most computers, and we know that Blizzard is trying to optimize D3 to the bone

Here the official position on this matter: corpses
Bashiok:

First, touching on the corpse fade timers as they stand, the tech to have them last longer has been in for a while. Pretty much how it’s working is that there’s an allowed number of physics “actors” that are allowed to remain at a time. These actors could be corpses, but they can also be pieces of destroyed tables, or railings, etc. anything that relies on physics. These are corpses and destructables generally. As you ‘create’ physics actors the oldest ones disappear. So as you’re fighting there are always a number of actors remaining in the world, and it works out pretty well. Obviously how many of them can remain at one time will come down to final performance tweaking, but right now I believe it’s around twenty.

So, it seems it will be a fixed thing, once the game is packed and shipped the time the corpses and blood remain on the map will be set. It would be nice to see something dynamic, set by the user. People have different priorities when playing a game. Some like to sacrifice speed for eye candy and some like the game blazing fast.
I would suggest a setting to control the number of corpses/items/blood and the time on the map. Not sure if Blizzard can or will implement this in Diablo3

The technology to control the time the actors stay on the map already exists in DiabloIII, the number of present physics items on the map at any time is about 20 (Bashiok says).

For example, in an ideal D3 set, you have killed 20 undead, you will have 20 corpses on the map BUT if you kill another Demon you will have 19 undead corpses and one demon corpse.
Blood is handled separately

A nice way to deal with the gore requests 🙂

About the Blood and Special Effects
Bashiok:

On to blood and fading; the “cost” of decals, which include the blood stains, are fairly high. Cost being the relative strain put on the machine running the game. Decals account for blood, but they also account for quite a few other effects, most of which haven’t yet been revealed. In the potential case of a full party creating these decals, blood flowing from creatures, skills that create them, as well as monsters themselves using skills that create them (Wretched vomiting all over the place is a good example), there is the potential to have a large number of decals on screen at any one time. So again, it’s going to come down to final performance tweaks as to how many of them will remain on screen and for how long.

They are handled differently by the game architecture, and they do have a bigger impact on the game performance.
Blizzard wants to make Diablo 3 accessible to everyone, meaning a compromise is necessary. It seems that flowing blood out of those 20 corpses it would be hard on the running PC. I do hope they find a way to keep the blood longer on the map in Diablo III because that is the essence of GORE.

On the same note i wouldn’t want to see performance problems because of an extra blood flowing corpse, they do have a point with those decals
I’m glad to see the Diablo3 officials coming down and talking and listening to the fans

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A new world/map has been haunting me the last couple of days and now i can sleep safe. Here is the Island of Skovos:

Bashiok:

It is Skovos, and I think this piece was something that Leonard showed and discussed at the WWI Lore and Environment Art panel.

It isn’t a location that you’ll visit in Diablo III, but the artwork is a good example of the work and thought going in to fleshing out the world of Sanctuary. It’s already a very complex world with a lot of locations and events, but a lot of it still isn’t visually or contextually realized. As we want to create the feeling of a world outside of your immediate view it’s important to create or expand upon the locations and stories of that world.

As we’re working to create Diablo III we’re also working to create a more visually complete Sanctuary.

It looks absolutely great, a heavy populated world, just what we need in D3. No more 10 house-20 NPC cities !

It is clear now, we will not be able to visit this island in DiabloIII (it would have been nice though) but these words bring me great comfort. We not know that the World will be huge and more dinamic than D2.

Keep up the good work Blizzard crew!

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I love the Diablo community, here are more photos made by fans. All of the wallpapers are high res and awesome.

Click on the thumbnails to open the full size wallpapers

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