Diablo 4 Design Discussions

[SirJames]

Yeah, I think I heard something about being able to start on Veteran difficulty then there's a few more you can pick at 50, 60, 70. But the level cap is 100. "Ancestral" tier loot starts dropping on the 70 difficulty but it sounds really hard to find as some dev said "you'll likely only find 1 or 2 per season".

I'll start on the hardest option. I'm even considering starting with a permadeath Hardcore character, but I doubt I'll go through with it.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

The Diablo 4 Beta dates were just announced:
- 17-19 March for the early access weekend (if you preordered)
- 24-26 March for the open access weekend (free for everyone)
I'll be curious to try it out.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Some details regarding the upcoming D4 beta.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/diablo-iv-beta-info-availability-classes-pc-requirements-rewards-more.1653628/#post-267672616

• Early Access to the Open Beta (for those who pre-purchased Diablo IV) begins March 17 at 9 a.m. PST and concludes March 20 at 12 p.m. PST.
• The Open Beta (for everyone) begins March 24 at 9 a.m. PST and concludes March 27 at 12 p.m. PST.
• Progress carries from Early Access Beta to Open Beta
• Progress DOES NOT carry from Beta to Full Game
• You can pre-purchase during Early Beta to get access to it
• Early Access Beta available classes: Barbarian, Sorcerer, Rogue
• Open Beta classes available: ALL: Barbarian, Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, Necromancer
• You can go up to level 25 (you can keep playing as long as you want while beta lasts with this max lvl)
• You can have up to 10 characters slots
• Beta available zones: Prologue and the entirety of Act 1. The first zone, Fractured Peaks, is yours to navigate as you please.
• Beta available on consoles too (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4)
• Couch co-op available on consoles
• You can use a controller on PC
• Rewards from playing the Beta (they carry to full game):
  Initial Casualty Title: earned by reaching Kyovashad with one character.
  Early Voyager Title: earned by reaching Level 20 on one character.
  Beta Wolf Pack Cosmetic Item: earned by reaching Level 20 on one character:

 

[largh]

With so many games to play, it's hard to imagine that someone would want to pay to beta-test Diablo Then again, we are many...

 

[danutz_plusplus]

With so many games to play, it's hard to imagine that someone would want to pay to beta-test Diablo Then again, we are many...

It's just the first weekend that you pre-order for. The second one is open to everyone.
I pre-ordered for it, not necessarily to beta-test it. But that's a nice bonus.
And yeah, I'm aware of the precedent this creates. But I just think we're so way past "voting with our wallets".

This voting with our wallets should've been done years ago when they started to carve up games into small little pieces, and selling them to us piecemeal.
It's pretty impressive if you look at most games on steam. Most of them have 3-5-10 DLC pieces sold separately. It's a real shame what this industry has become.

Anyway, I think D4 looks very solid and I'm actually at least a little bit excited.

 

[largh]

I did not mean that you should vote with your wallet. In my small head, I just could not imagine anyone who would be interested to beta-test Diablo. Nice to have met you who likes it You should definitely do it, if you like the concept.

There's something tempting about Diablo 4, yes, but the requirement to be on their servers constantly is not one of those things. Especially if they work as poorly as 20 years ago when I played Diablo 2 I am hoping that the Microsoft-Activision merger happens and Diablo 4 comes to the Game Pass. Definitely willing to try it. Do you know whether it has cross-play between PC and consoles? This would be a fun game to play with friends. I am the only one who cannot afford constantly upgrading my PC and have settled using those evil consoles that destroyed gaming in the early 2000's

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I did not mean that you should vote with your wallet. In my small head, I just could not imagine anyone who would be interested to beta-test Diablo. Nice to have met you who likes it You should definitely do it, if you like the concept.

There's something tempting about Diablo 4, yes, but the requirement to be on their servers constantly is not one of those things. Especially if they work as poorly as 20 years ago when I played Diablo 2 I am hoping that the Microsoft-Activision merger happens and Diablo 4 comes to the Game Pass. Definitely willing to try it. Do you know whether it has cross-play between PC and consoles? This would be a fun game to play with friends. I am the only one who cannot afford constantly upgrading my PC and have settled using those evil consoles that destroyed gaming in the early 2000's

It does have cross-play and cross-progression between consoles and PC.

They advertise it as a beta-test, but it's mostly just an early demo and a beta-test of the network infrastructure. You don't have serious design beta tests 6 months before release, when there's not very much you can alter right before release.
So I expect it to be in very much functional and done shape. Plus they're always treating these also as a marketing opportunity. No way are they opening it off to everyone if it's not in a solid state, to make a good impression to everyone else.

 

[largh]

Still, your progress doesn't get transferred to the full game...This is for the "specially interested"...

 

[SirJames]

...and those who want an adorable wolf cub in a backpack cosmetic!


(if you get to level 20)

System requirements are also looking very resasonable.

Minimum Requirements for PC
Settings to run the Diablo IV Open Beta at 1080p native resolution / 720p render resolution, low graphics settings, 30 fps.

Operating System: 64-bit Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD FX-8100
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon R9 280
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 45 GB available space
Internet: Broadband Connection

Recommended Specifications for PC
Settings to run the Diablo IV Beta at 1080p resolution, medium graphics settings, 60fps.

OS: 64-bit Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K or AMD R3-1300X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 370
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 45 GB available space
Internet: Broadband Connection

*Diablo IV will attempt to run on hardware below minimum specifications, including HDDs, dual-core CPUs, and Integrated GPUs. However, the game experience may be significantly diminished.

Raytracing coming after launch.

 

[SpoonFULL]

Still no offline (single)player?

 

[SirJames]

Never will be any offline mode.

Or, to put it like Blizzard perhaps would, Don't you guys have internet?!

Actually, in the new live steam, they spoke a little bit about when you'd run into people and made a point that to keep the Diablo atmosphere most of the time you won't be able to see other players unless they're invited to your group. However, in town you'll see a lot of people and for world bosses 12 can be loaded in, but mostly you'll be alone and won't have people stealing your mobs or something like you might see in an mmorpg.

 

[Couchpotato]

Pfft...it's simply DRM they'll never admit though. It'll still get cracked just takes longer.

 

[Ripper]

Did Diablo 3 ever get cracked to play offline? I think they actually build those games more like MMOs, where cracking would require emulating the server side.

 

[Couchpotato]

Did Diablo 3 ever get cracked to play offline? I think they actually build those games more like MMOs, where cracking would require emulating the server side.

Partially on PC and fully on consoles as you don't need an internet connection. Hence the quote as above "Don't you guys have internet", only applies to phones and PC's.

As for Diablo 4 I bet the Russian hackers make it happen once again.

 

[SpoonFULL]

Never will be any offline mode.

Or, to put it like Blizzard perhaps would, Don't you guys have internet?!

Thanks SirJames. So this is not a single player game in my opinion, but a service since its online always whether there are other players or not. This has nothing to do with the original Diablo 1 and 2.

 

[SirJames]

It takes more than a crack. You need to reverse engineer a server. People have done it for WoW and D3 so, yeah, it will probably eventually be available for a pirate if you want to jump through a few hoops like download Visual c# and the server emulator and SQLblah and .net framework and whatever else.

But you'll be slow to get updates and since its a live service with new content planned for every three months you're a lot better off just buying it, if you can afford the $110 to 155 AUD they're asking.

 

[Couchpotato]

Thanks SirJames. So this is not a single player game in my opinion, but a service since its online always whether there are other players or not. This has nothing to do with the original Diablo 1 and 2.

Yep I doubt Blizzard will ever develop a fully SP offline game for the PC ever again.

 

[SirJames]

Thanks SirJames. So this is not a single player game in my opinion, but a service since its online always whether there are other players or not. This has nothing to do with the original Diablo 1 and 2.

Yep, definitely a service and one they intend to support for a long time.

It's still a Diablo game, like 1 and 2. Same world and lore and classes and addictive random loot drops and all that stuff.

But I don't think you'll ever see another game from Blizzard that comes zipped on 4 floppy disks like Warcraft.

 

[largh]

It takes more than a crack. You need to reverse engineer a server. People have done it for WoW and D3 so, yeah, it will probably eventually be available for a pirate if you want to jump through a few hoops like download Visual c# and the server emulator and SQLblah and .net framework and whatever else.

But you'll be slow to get updates and since its a live service with new content planned for every three months you're a lot better off just buying it, if you can afford the $110 to 155 AUD they're asking.

It would be interesting so know how much money publishers actually lose to piratism. By googling, I can only find opinion pieces and extrapolated figures that do not take into account the number of people who would not buy the game anyway. Publishers would be wise to order some hard university-level research on this. Download/share numbers can tell about trends, but I doubt that you can directly connect those to money lost. Obvious comparison would be DMR free games and these internet based games. I'd imagine that one could tease the demand and number pirated apart using mixed models...

And no, I don't think you can use TV/videos as comparison.

 

[SirJames]

Yeah, would be interesting to read.

I don't even think its about losing money to pirate copies. It's all about having a place to sell item mall cosmetics and milk the whales. The games that make the most money are all free2play. I think D4 outfits are going to be $60aud, which is insane yet I'm sure they've got it all researched.

In this day and age we should probably consider ourselves lucky that we even get to pay for the full game and have the ongoing content free. Would be much worse off if it were free2play with a nasty f2p item mall like Diablo Immortal.

Look on the bright side and enjoy it while it lasts, I reckon.