 | Blizzcon Melkor/Jaetch coverage(1) | Category: WizardNovember-7-2013 5:26 PM PST (9 years ago)  |
| Word. So disclaimer first: I'm doing this all from memory. If I say that someone said something, you can't turn around and count that as gospel. Sure, I know what I heard, but that doesn't mean I haven't made an error AND we all know how rapidly the intent of a statement can change based on the utilization of a single word. I promise you all to tell the truth- but I'm NOT a blizzard employee and I'm NOT the press. Also, the quotations used in these posts are for separating who said what, not to be used as a word for word quotation. I'M PARAPHRASING. Now that that's out of the way. 11/7/13 Jaetch and I attended a mixer party where prominent d3 developers, community managers, and influencers of our community were present. Me being the nosy heebro that I am was fortunate enough to strike up a half hour 1 on 1 conversation with Josh Mosqueira, Game Director. Subjects we covered centered on AH removal, the ideology behind it, etc. When asked, "Are you going to give us a replacement system?", Josh bluntly said, "Nope". I then went to ask if we would receive a 'commodity trading house' - at which point Josh said "Nope" but was laughing. He actually said "nope" about 6 more times, because the mood of the conversation was humorous. At the end of the string of "nopes", he stated that there would be no form of trading "hub" at all. He DID NOT HINT AT THE ALTERNATIVE THAT HAS BEEN MENTIONED. A game developer of whom I inquired about the future of CM as a passive told me, "There will always be attack speed breakpoints and you will always be able to use spells like WW to maximize your Procs, but the age of zero cool down will most likely be ending for all classes." I'll add more from this event and more from Blizzcon later. Going out to dinner soon with Jaetch and the ever lovely Ms. Peezey! 11/8/13 - 9:33AM PDT - I am simply blown away. Truly. I will do my best to describe what I'm sure you will find pictures of online. If you wish to see pics now, add me on Facebook. Search Mikey Mayez. Please let me know who you are so I don't just add weirdos that I don't know. Blizzcon is a massive open floor plan. There are HUNDREDS, if not thousands of computers set up, headsets, gaming keyboards and mice - you know the deal. The main stage is surrounded by thousands of seats - several thousand. I hesitate to say 10's of thousands, but it is at least 10. The ceremony begins in 1 hour, 15 minutes and this place is packed within an inch or its life. I'm totally floored. Amazing. The convention is dimly lit, but lit with LED downlighting of all different spectrums. There is trance/club music thumping - this is what happens when geeks decide to have a rave minus the drugs. This is organized and you can tell that it was an expensive set up. There are NOT security guards everywhere but there are security guards everywhere that matters. They are all polite as I can tell. The general atmosphere is friendly. Anyone I talk to - and you know I talk a lot - is so friendly and open to discussion. I know this may sound highly egotistical and I apologize but I have to say - I've been straight up recognized bout 12 times since I'm wearing my hat from CMALS IV. It feels good to have people tell me they loved my music. It's heart warming. Jaetch and I have passes that don't have our names on them and that's unique. He went to get his name put on his but I'm more keen on the position that I'd rather lie about why our passes are so unique. So far, my best answer has been, "I'm not a very secretive person but I can't talk about it and I can't talk about why." I also have crossed major highway intersections without the crosswalks being green and when people yell at me, I simply say, "It's all good! I'm from New York! This is how we do it." Always a troll. 11/8/13- 12:00PM PDT: Opening ceremony concluded. As I'm sure you can imagine, Diablo was a smaller portion of the content. I think it is worth noting that when the CEO of Blizzard announced the removal of the AHs' the crowd's general reaction was...overwhelmingly supportive. I realize that there is a percentage of people here that are supporters of the "big machine" that is Blizzard...but what I experienced was huge cheers and applause. I found that fascinating. 11/8/13 - 12:29PM PDT: Jaetch and I are attending a panel where a team discusses the complexities of the ROS cinematic animation. Not terribly important for us a forum, but very interesting nonetheless. NEXT: WE PLAY ROS! 11/8/13 13:46 PDT - We played ROS! Here are preliminary notes. Give me time and I'll clarify: We only were allowed to play level 33 characters. Melkor: Mistral breeze deals cold damage - seems good for Procing cold blooded. Power hungry is OP. Being healed by a health globe makes your next arcane spender FREE. Stacks 5 times! Tried it with meteor lightning bind. Rained lightning hell down "CM" style. By the time my 5th free meteor landed, I had enough AP to cast another for a total of 6 chained lightning meteors. Insane GLACIAL spike is effective. Froze enemies once every 3-5 shots. Animation VERY similar to d2 ice missile. Many channeling promoting passives. - There was a passive that increases your armor/resists/damage the longer you stand still. (Capped at x time) Spectral blades rune increases all fire damage duration - interesting because certain fire damage skills have 3-5 second durations. Fire spells are def an interesting build choice. Items have primary and secondary stats. Items show range of stats possible. For example - a source has 7-13 damage but next to that damage range there is a parenthetical reference showing you what you COULD have rolled. (Ie: 5-20) Dropped blue boots that had 9% meteor damage bonus... Global waypoints - port anywhere and everywhere. Simple enough. Arcane orb spark uncontrollable but - buffs next lighting damage - you can not control anything other than the direction of the orb. Its range is fixed but all enemies that get hit by the orb buff your next lightning spell by 1% per enemy hit (no cap mentioned) Slow time casts at location - imagine this- cast slow time at location. Lob an above mentioned arcane orb at slow time point, drop a couple of meteors..run in to the fray with DS popped, pick up all those globes...cast nova, chain drop meteors for freeeee. GG. Teleportation animation is amazing...screen doesn't just snap to, moves with you It seems that the percentage damage of spells are off the chart. Time bomb does 1592% weap damage...at level 33 o_O Wave of force...has a rune that states that all enemies affected by WOF buff arcane damage by x%. STILL seems like were gonna hate it but we shall see. 4 passives at level 70 Channeling not only looks focused, it looks viable. Skills that provide shields (animation is much like the shielding affix currently on E's) that increase armor/damage when standing still. Stackable elemental damage bonuses from passive. E had a affix called "poison enchanted" affix. Imagine the molten animation...change color to green) From a dev yesterday regarding THE MYSTIC: Re-rolls are "categorized". So let's say you have a bisecta ring with int/vit/cd/CC and say...cold resist. Just because you wanna re roll that cold resist, you'll find that IAS is NOT in the option list. I won't go as far as to say, "Like for like", but it seems that is the direction of the mystic. From Jaetch: - Archon's AR/armor buff is 50% - Archon's bonus damage (12% sheet DPS boost per kill) seems to be limitless. Reached 5K+ DPS at level 33 with blue items - Archon lasts 20 seconds. All damage boosts wear off as soon as Archon wears off - Sparkflint reduced to 10%, Familiar itself is 110% damage - RoF has a base of 440%+ damage - Black Ice residue is 1100%+ and stacks... OP... - Prism's AP reduction effect snapshots, does anyone know if it did before? - Got Magefist off Ghom. Had a special affix that doubled fire spell durations (Fire spell damage boost unchanged) 11/8/13 17:09 PDT: - In Westmarch, I found a monster was immune to channeled abilities, but it seemed more like a bug because no "immune" message showed - Discovered a legendary amulet that had a chance to "cyclone" enemies within an area of the attack point. Results were similar to how a Cyclone monk vacuums mobs together. And FYI, amulet came with vitality, cooldown reduction and regen. Seems like a decent follower/support class item. 11/8/13 18:35 PDT: - Nephalem Rifts are completely random, as in... you have no idea what's left and right. They're opened by Rift Keys which are obtained through mini-quests in which you hunt for bounties (unique bosses that spawn randomly in different parts of Sanctuary) - You're required to kill X% of total mobs in the Rift before you fight the Rift boss - Within the Nephalem Rift, there are special Rift shrines that last 30 seconds, which include: » Speed Shrine: pretty sure this shrine maxes out your movement speed. You move stupid fast. » Power Shrine: your sheet DPS is increased by 400% » Channeling Shrine: ALL spells cost ZERO resources and have ZERO cooldown » Shield Shrine: your character is invulnerable » some kind of lightning shrine that I can't remember: you constantly shock nearby mobs for huge damage - Nephalem Glory (the same buffing globe from consoles) is now available on PC - CLOSED BETA POSSIBLY BY THE END OF NOVEMBER - OPEN BETA POSSIBLY BEFORE THE END OF THIS YEAR From Melkor: During the ROS panel I asked Josh Mesqueira, "with the removal of the AH, we have heard that Blizzard is potentially going to be giving us an alternative, perhaps even limited model for trading. What, if anything, can you tell us about that?" As BDF pointed out from watching the virtual tour, my question (like everyone else's) was addressed in a somewhat vague, philosophical context. Josh made mention of the conflicting nature of the AH to the spirit of Diablo. He did not directly answer my question. Hey, I tried! Please see above for my one on one with Josv yesterday that produced similar results. I don't personally see any model being developed...not even a commodity exchange. 11/9/13 11:15 PDT: From Jaetch: - It seems Mirror Images inherit the buffs from your wizard. For example, casting Arcane Orbit and then casting Mirror Images give each Image the Arcane Orbs. The Arcane Orbs can detonate on impact, but the number of Orbs do not decrease. - That said, Mirror Images do full damage (I can AFK and have 2x images take out a whole wave of mobs on their own). - Obtained a legendary ring that granted 100% immunity to incoming poison damage and doubles outgoing poison damage (non-CoB WD rejoice or... the return of Venom Hydra? Poison-based main hand weapons?) 11/9/13 12:17 PDT: holy hell. Just attended the gameplay systems. Saw footage of the new skill black hole. Looked cool...everything gets sucked in to the cast point. But that's not what was most interesting: Loot 2.0 - by now we all know the philosophy of loot 2.0 - less is more, what you get is very powerful and should be rewarding/game changing. What we saw today were some items. So you may have read above about the break down of item stats into primary and secondary stats. Primary was classified as damage/life/armor section while section 2 is described as "extra curricular stats" such as MF/GF/PUR, etc. Also, my original deduction about how you will not be able to mystic things like cold resist into say, a socket, is not as "linear" as I originally described. For example, we saw a shot of someone re-rolling life regen for attack speed. This does not mean that I was misinformed...it simply implies that Blizzard's definition of "like for like" is not necessarily the same as ours... Frost burn gauntlets now have a chance for all chilling spells to FREEZE enemies...also had 900 armor and ~850 intel. There is a DH set currently called "ninja set" (slated to be renamed). Jaetch straight up jumped from his seat when he saw it. Saw boots that let you move through enemies. Saw gloves that give you movement speed bonus whenever you destroy a breakable...combined with firewalkers..it was pretty cool. Saw a video of frozen orb. Looks amazing. | ||
 | Blizzcon Melkor/Jaetch coverage(220) | November-12-2013 7:24 PM PST (9 years ago) |
I wouldn't doubt that Vaeflare has skimmed through this thread already. Vaeflare's on vacation, but I've certainly been reading along. ;) | ||
