Diablo Gamer

Blizzard has just announced the Patch 1.13 incl Ladder reset, but it reads something to the Battle.net forum, so the story is interesting.

How many of you know, takes a ladder season, usually at least 1 years. Bashiok expressed now in a proposed topic for a possible patch 1.14, would bring more balance changes.

I think it's widely recognized that some new content for end game is a desired addition. It's not something we could include in this patch for many reasons, but we do have plans to continue full point release patches (ie 1.14). What those could contain is still up in the air, but we have plans. Diabolical Plan! MUWAHAHAHAHAHA (source)

Since there are dealing with major changes, should this not be feasible without a ladder reset. Diablo 3 release shortly after a patch Diablo 2 incl reset would be relatively meaningless, so we were in a full season already 1:14 on a release date of 03/2012.

The hope, of course, remains that it is 2 short seasons, which together no later than the 10th age of Lord of Destruction (completed be 29.06.2011). Further information will be available presumably to BlizzCon, allegedly on 22 * - 23 Will take place in October.

*) The webmaster of the Anaheim Convention Center was made some time ago, a premature announcement on the website and shortly thereafter removed.

Patch 1.13 b (or c yet?) Is on its way. Am 23.03. the new ladder season starts and the patch migrates from the Public Test Realm and the game realms.

As always, all your ladder chars to Nonladder-chars. If you are looking for a group for the reset, so please look in the following topic.

Patchlog 1.13b details of her here found. Presumably Blizzard will, however, publish the (still secret) c-version, which may also include new items and quests should.

Enjoy!

We will be resetting the Diablo II ladder on March 23 with the release of patch 1.13. We anticipate all of Diablo II realms to be down for approximately six hours during the reset. More specific information on availability realm on the day of the reset will be posted in the Battle.net Status Forum. When the ladder is reset, all existing ladder characters will be converted to non-ladder. All characters and items being converted to non-ladder will remain intact, but once converted these characters will no longer have access to content such as creating ladder-ladder only rune words. For more information on ladder characters please visit the Arreat Summit Realm Character Types page at http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/charactertypes.shtml (Source: Battle.net forum)

For some time, run the 1.13 on the dedicated test realm and Blizzard has now recorded a new version called 1.13b.

There are some bugfixes been added:

• Auras stack is no longer possible *)
• "TPPK (Kills the City") have been fixed
• It will no longer be thrown out of the game, if a char too many skills "stacks" ( "Drop Barb")
• Mercenaries should no longer an-/ablegen their weapon to turn to resuscitate the auras of objects.
• [....]

*) If so, the Temp-Perm method has been fixed by Dupes, we are unfortunately not yet known. This would, however, interesting effects on the current market in Diablo 2

Here is the complete patch log: (Source: Battle.net forum)

The PTR 1.13b update is now live and available for testing!

Please refer to the original 1:13 PTR FAQ for general testing information - http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=21730644778&sid=3000

-------------------------
- Patch 1.13b
-------------------------

A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Adventurers of Sanctuary are hereby warned once again, that a new challenge
awaits you. Within Diablo's Bosses, spanning across the world from the
Ancient Monastery Catacombs to the Throne of Destruction, is where you'll
find what you seek ...

Major Bugs

- Fixed an item dupe bug.
- Video improvements for Intel machines with Mac OS 10.5 or greater.
- Fixed an issue where some players could kill other players while in town
( "TPPK").
- Fixed an issue where some players could disconnect other players when
they had too many active states.
- Fixed two issues where players could stack auras in an unintended way.

Minor bugs

- Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed
before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).
- The game will no longer stop and then restart the music after The Game
window loses and then regains focus.
- Fixed an issue where The Game would minimize window when running in
windowed mode when it lost focus.
- Fixed an issue where The Game window would not properly center when it
was created.
- Fangskin should now properly drop loot in Hell difficulty.
- Fixed an issue where not re-applied to your auras were mercenary after
it was resurrected.
- Fixed an issue where if you had two items which provided two auras to
a mercenary and you unequipped one, the aura from the remaining
item never became active.
- Fixed an issue where the Paladin class Runeword 'Principle' was not
having all of its stats applied properly.

Specific changes / improvements

- Respecialization is now possible! Completing the 'Den of Evil' quest
will now additionally 1 free respec reward which can be saved. Players
who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in
Hell difficulty.
- Increased the drop rate of high runes.
- Support for scaling blit in windowed mode. The Game can now be
maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).
- Some rare drop items now have an orange color. he Runes and items
required for Uber Tristam.
- Modified the gold bank limit to be not bound by a flat cap level.
- Removed the requirements needed to create a hardcore character.
- Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.
- Uber Uber Mephisto, and Baal's minions summoned no longer give experience.
- Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
- Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.
- Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana
globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.
- When creating a single player game, pressing the 'Enter' key now
automatically creates a Hell difficulty game if possible.
- When creating a game, each difficulty button is now bound to a unique
key: Normal 'R' Nightmare 'N', and Hell 'H'.
- The 'Enter Chat' button in the waiting room is now battle.net
bound to the 'Enter' key.
- Added the windows system window buttons To The Game (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).
- Added new command line parameter '-nofixaspect' which allows users to
not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing windowed mode.
This lets The Game 'stretch' to fill your monitor.
- Added support for '-sndbkg' command line switch. This Enables sound
in the background.
- Added the following aliases for pre-existing command line options,
'-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed'.

Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes

Amazon

- Effect Immolation Arrow - Increased radius of explosion by 33% and
Immolation effect by 50%.
- Immolation Arrow - Explosion Effect damage increased by 20%.
- Immolation Arrow - Increased base duration by 33%.

Assassin
- Dragon Claw - Synergy Receives 4% additional damage per point of Claw Mastery.
- Dragon Talon - The bonus to Attack Rating per point has been increased to 35
- Shadow Master - Increased resistance range from 5-80 to 5-90 per point.
- Combo points awarded by combo moves now last 15 seconds, up from 9th

Barbarian

- Whirlwind - Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.
- Masteries - Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.

Paladin

- Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.

Druid

- Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
- Werebear - point Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per.
- Shockwave - Synergy from foot adds 5% damage per point.

Necromancer

- Blood Golem - Removed shared life negative effect (player no longer
loose life when golem takes damage).
- Corpse Explosion - Increased base damage dealt from 60% - 100%
to 70% - 120% of corpses health.
- Poison Nova - Increased base damage by 15%.

Sorceress

- Firewall - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and
4% per point of Warmth.
- Blaze - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of firewall
and 4% per point of Warmth.
- Hydra - Increased base damage by 15% per rank.
- Projectile Hydra - Increased base speed of Hydra.
- Hydra - Reduced cooldown by 25%.

Already in release note was to be seen that the Dropchance of runes will generally improve.

From the patch files have user "Dazmogan" now read the current values:

• Zod - x4
• Jah and Cham - x3
• Sur & Ber - x2, 3
• Ohms and Lo - x1, 78
• Gul & Vex - x1, 45
• Time is & - x1, 18

This increases the Dropchance somewhat less drastic than many have expected. A big difference will probably find only the most active players among you will find the regular Highrunes.

It remains to be seen whether was now really fixed the last of the realm dupe method. Otherwise, a balance of the runes would drop quickly down the drain.

Bashiok just announced the official forum the details Battle.net Diablo 2 Patch 1.13:

Quote:

-------------------------
- Patch 1.13
-------------------------

Major Bugs

• Dupe is resolved one way
• Videos will be improved for Intel Mac computers (OS 10.5)
  

Minor bugs

• Over-Mephisto is now examining whether over-Baal were killed and over-Diablo, before he invokes his servants
• The game will start the background music is no longer new when the Diablo II window briefly leaves.
• Diablo II is no longer minimized (Occasionally the window) in the Window mode of the game in progress
• The Diablo II window will now always properly centered on the screen

Specific changes / improvements

• The Re-allocation of skills is now possible. We conclude from the "Cave of Evil" quest, we obtain a Respec-point. Even the players have already solved the quest with old chars to get a respec-point (Hell). - Increased the drop rate of high runes.
• The drop rate of "Highrunes" has been improved
• Wide-screen: The game can now be maximized to the greatest possible resolution 4:3
• Some rare items are now dyed orange (eg, runes or organs for ÜTristram)
• The maximum amount of gold in the treasure chest is no longer dependent on the level
• The loss of Champion / Unique "Souls" was reduced to NM / HELL
• There is no requirement (Play through more) to create hardcore chars to
• The explosion damage feuerverzauberten monsters has been drastically reduced
• Übertristram leveling is no longer possible (servant of Meph / Baal be no experience more)
• The "Iron Lady" Pirates of the Oblivion Knights (eg Chaos Sanctuary) was removed
• The chance of a fire storm of hell torch was reduced by 5%
• The display of food and mana bar can now be hidden
• Two mercenaries Akt5 now listen to the name "Clear" and "Tryneus"
• Creates a singleplayer game is, we can with the Enter key will automatically generate a light-Game (if possible)
• Hotkeys for difficulty in the game-creation have been added (R = normal, N = Nightmare, H = Hell)
• The Enter key can now enter the Battle.net chat
• Min / Max / Close buttons were added to the game window
• With the parameter "-nofixaspect" can prevent distortions in widescreen
• With the parameter "-sndbkg" you can select background music
• Other (self) new parameter: '-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed'

Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes

Amazon

-Effect Immolation Arrow - Increased explosion radius of Immolation effect by 33% and by 50%.
-Immolation Arrow - Explosion Effect damage increased by 20%.
-Immolation Arrow - Increased base duration by 33%.

Assassin

-Shadow Master - Increased resistance range from 5-80 to 5-90 per point.

Barbarian

-Whirlwind - Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.
-Masteries - Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.

Paladin

-Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.

Druid

-Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
-Werebear - point Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per.
Shockwave - Synergy from foot adds 5% damage per point.

Necromancer

-Blood Golem - Removed shared life negative effect (player no longer loses life when golem takes damage).
-Corpse Explosion - Increased base damage dealt from 60% - 100% to 70% - 120% of corpses health.
-Poison Nova - Increased base damage by 15%.

Sorceress

Firewall - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and Blaze and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Blaze - Synergy receives 2% damage per point of firewall and 4% per point of Warmth.
Hydra-rank - Increased base damage by 15% per.
Projectile-Hydra - Increased base speed of Hydra.
-Hydra - Reduced cooldown by 25%.
-Lightning Mastery - Reduced overall effect by 15%.

The Battle.net forum user wanted "Afflictionx" know how far the balance has changed from two-handed weapons, and whether it might be possible, without blocking shield. In Diablo 2 2-dealer are still very popular because it eg as a barbarian with two-handed weapons do more damage distributes. Only werewolves and mercenary in Diablo 2 are completely happy with their polearms.
This should change now, if you believe believe Bashiok:

Barbarians will be up to date on 2H much stronger, as skills (yet) to add any damage from the two individual slots and take on many skills as easy to markedly higher of the two-handed weapon damage. Blizzard wants to adjust the balance, however, so that all types of weapons are comparably strong. Other specializations could be made through a Mastery.

Funny enough right now two-handers on the barbarian are much stronger than dual-wielding because most of his skills are based on weapon damage and The Game does not add up the damage on both weapons while dual wielding (yet). So actually we're trying to make dual-wielding better right now, but, of course means that two-handers will probably then fall by the wayside and we're back in Diablo II's shoes. The witch doctor and wizard do not really apply, the monk has specific support for his weapon skill choices, and the ... * mumble mumble mumble *.

Off the top of Wyatt's head there's a few ways it could be addressed. One potential way would be to have passive skills that allow someone to specialize in two-handers or dual wielding, and we can tweak those stat and however we need to make them effective. We could therefore make special affixes that can only be rolled up by two-handers that overcome the innate issue of it only being one item.

Bottom line though is we intend for two handers to be as viable as any other weapon choice and we'll do what we need to to make sure that happens.

[....]

Well affix the idea was more along the lines of having something like the highest strength affix a two-hander could roll would be 100 points, and the highest a one-hander could roll would be 50th So everything would even out. Of course that does not offset things like block, but it's just sort of a half-hatched solution anyway.

A little freedom could be lost, however. Since there currently is no shelf life of goods falls and the complete "essential part" away eventually. A pity, because it might not be so ultra-rare will be weapons that are truly unique in the world. However, nothing is decided yet, since Blizzard does not think on the subject.

It was not removed, it was never in The Game. Whether or not we'll ultimately have durability relies on a lot of factors. We do not have it right now though.

Source: Battle.net Forum

Already a few weeks ago we spoke with Blizzard concerned about the performance problems that might arise from a larger treasure chest. This seems to have been confirmed now because Bashiok announced that they will no longer be part of the new patches.

We've recently completed a revised version of the Diablo II 1:13 patch that removes the increased stash size. A larger stash will unfortunately no longer be a feature included in Patch 1.13 due to the previously mentioned concerns. Higher priority as work continues on Warcraft III, we're hoping to complete our quality assurance tests for the patch at 1:13 the next few weeks. But as always, the types of issues that may appear and take higher priority are rarely foreseeable. We continue to plan a release based on our best intentions.

Again, the Diablo 2 community must therefore wait for Warcraft. But what is already half a year late?

Diablo 3 community manager Bashiok volunteered to the Battle.net forum once again to speak. Some information is already known for some time. Since Blizzard likes things but rejects / revising, re-confirmations are quite interesting.

Bashiok: Regarding mercenaries, the most we've said is that for Diablo III we have them and we're calling them followers ... and that's all we've said. So I could not comment on what features they would or would not have or speculate on if a feature would work for us or not. You'll just have to wait and see.

We've said since that announcement we want to make sure you can get items to other characters quickly and safely. It could take any number of forms, an account-shared stash is one option we've talked about.

Bashiok also commented on the outstanding 5th Class in Diablo 3

Well The Game was originally announced with the barbarian and witch doctor. BlizzCon '08 saw the announcement of the wizard (at BlizzCon, not three weeks after), and BlizzCon '09 saw the announcement of the monk.

The fifth class was something that was decided early on, but after continuing to work on The Game and the other classes it just was not up to standards any longer. So it's back on the drawing board.

We only have one class left to reveal, it's sort of a major card we can still hold close to the vest. While development does not depend on our plans to reveal it, we definitely are not going to tell everyone what it is just because we know what it's going to be.

Another (not surprisingly) there trifling Bashiok known for shots in Diablo 3:

It's a fixed camera. The Game back when we announced we had our dialogue interaction set up where the camera would zoom in, and you'd see the characters up close and they'd talk to each other in this zoomed in view. We threw that out a long time ago though just because it was too intrusive, it stopped The Game, you pulled out of the action, and just felt like too much. There was also a point where we zoomed in on the character in one of the videos to show some attack animations and switches better item, but that's not a feature of The Game.

The camera does not zoom or tilt or rotate, it's a fixed camera.

It's kind of fun to watch people that have never played a Diablo game before, or it's been a long time. They immediately go for the WASD keys, and when those do nothing they then try holding down the right mouse button to rotate the camera. Sometimes by accident they're reminded it's click to move.

It's just not a control scheme and camera angle that are used a lot these days, there's been maybe a handful of games in the past five years that qualify as isometric ARPG's? So anyway, props to all those games and the developers keeping the style alive. We're continuing the tradition, proudly, because we feel it's the best way to present a sequel in the Diablo franchise.

Sources: [1], [2], [3]

Torchlight The game is now available for several hours.
You can expect a quick singleplayer action RPG in brightly colored cartoon graphics.

The resemblance to Diablo 2 is unmistakable. This does not come by accident, because the developers were around Max and Erich Shaefer used the creative minds at Blizzard North.

After the unsuccessful launch of Hellgate: London (Flagship Studios) was quickly established Runic Games, the vessel was no longer save. However, this time without Diablo II character flagship Bill Roper, who at Cryptic Studios (Star Trek Online, Champions Online, changed ...). Unfortunately, remained alongside the rights to the Hellgate and action-RPG Mythos in Koranic Publisher

Now back to Torchlight:

Time for the release Runic Games is the official YouTube released channel a trailer. Here you will find also some excerpts from the developer diaries.

The 3 playable classes are:

• Destroyer - A mixture of warrior and barbarian. He is particularly characterized by its melee strength. (Gameplay)

• Protector - A classic rangers with balanced skills. (Gameplay)

• Alchemist - The magic class in Torchlight. (Gameplay)

Some Features:

• Randomly generated levels, the maps, monsters, treasures, Itemdrops and some tasks are generated randomly.
• Easily accessible user interface.
• Companion / Pets - Players can choose a pet, which she supported in the fight, and has fulfilled other items useful tasks.
• Fishing - Players can recover from the action-packed battles and move a few fish from a river.
• Editor - You can create your own dungeons with the editor or entire Mods by Torchlight.

A little review of the demo will follow later.

Free Demo: Steam (free Steam account required)

Price: U.S. $ 20 (approx. 14 Euro)

Julian Love (lead technical artist) spoke about his involvement in Planet Diablo Diablo 3 Unfortunately, Julian had to almost anywhere in the interview to emphasize that he too can not go into great detail / may. The interview is roughly at the level of diii.net news from last week - unfortunately, similar questions are asked.

Some more or less interesting points:

• Trade options are improved. External trade forums and trade channel are probably unnecessary.
• Gold will remain and their value continues to be thought of as a trading currency
• Chars can wear trousers (really nothing new ^ ^)
• identical items from different view on the different classes

Source: here