Post-BlizzCon Diablo 3 Thoughts

In this blog post, I want to cover the upcoming Diablo 3 changes.  There were a lot of news that are coming to Diablo and some that were not in the panels.  I want to give my thoughts as to what these changes will become once in the game. 

Diablo 1 in Diablo 3

At the opening ceremony, it was revealed that the original Diablo game will now be playable (just for January) in Diablo 3.  This Diablo version will have pixelated graphics and your character will only be able to move in 8 directions (just like the original version).  At first, the Diablo team was thinking of just putting in the soundtrack only but decided to put all 16 levels of the dungeon.  This has been in the PTR for a about a week and the players have mixed reviews about it.  There aren't any cool new items from this event (except for a new legendary gem for the helm) and the 16 levels doesn't seem like the original levels from Diablo 1.  Since this is a seasonal event, I don't think it is worth playing this event for more than a couple hours (much like the "cow" event for the 2 year anniversary for Reaper of Souls).  I think it will be cool just to feel nostalgic for a bit and get some cool rewards along the way.  I am excited to play this event in January since I haven't played it on PTR yet. 

Necromancer
I was real excited when the new Necromancer character was shown at the opening ceremony of BlizzCon 2016.  I got a chance to play the Necromancer at the Diablo test station and it feels really good to play it.  One of the skills that the Necromancer has is called corpse explosion, which triggers a big explosion once you target a dead corpse on the ground.  Another cool skill is called blood rush, which makes you teleport to an area 50 yards away (it has a very short cooldown).  The primary skill is called siphon soul, which drains the enemies' health and restores your resource.  The secondary skill is bone spirit, which is just a projectile skill that does a certain amount of damage.  The Necromancer also has the ability to summon skeletons for you (some which are melee and some that are ranged).  The Necromancer was really fun to play at BlizzCon and I especially like the design and artwork for this character.  I usually play a Witch Doctor so I am bit hesitant about playing another pet based class.  The Necromancer will be playable sometime in the second half of 2017 and will be able to be purchased, along with 2 character slots and 2 more stash space.  Some people feel like that the Necromancer should be free but since Diablo 3 doesn't have any payment model (except for the expansions), I think this is a good idea for Blizzard to monetize their game.  Who knows but if enough people pay for the Necromancer, this could lead to more classes in the future (maybe the Druid comes next?). 

Challenge Rifts
Another cool feature coming to Diablo 3 in the future is Challenge Rifts.  Challenge Rifts is a system that takes an existing player and copies his or her rift run for all players.  The purpose of this is to "challenge" the original players rift time using the exact same gear and stats.  So for example, I run a greater rift 60 in 8 minutes using the Helltooth set, the challenge is for all other players to run the exact the same rift as I did (including the same layout and monsters) with the exact same gear that I had on and try to beat the time of 8 minutes.  I think this will be a cool feature to the game since it will determine who will be the best player of Diablo 3.  The best player currently in Diablo 3 is mostly based on the amount of time a player has put into the game.  This feature will more focus on the "skill" aspect of Diablo 3.  I don't think this feature that is something that I will focus on a lot since it doesn't affect the current characters that you are playing.  I think it will be more focused on the higher skilled players of Diablo 3 (it may even lead to some kind of e-sport mechanism).  I think this feature will become like the "brawl" events in Hearthstone and Overwatch (it will be cool to try). 

Other changes (quality of life changes)
There were other changes coming to Diablo 3.  The first was that seasons were coming to the consoles (PS4 and XBox1).  I don't play on the console so this doesn't affect me.  Another change was that there is going to be a new crafting mats UI.  I think this is a real good change since you won't have all the crafting taking up space in your inventory.  It should make things like Kanai's Cube more manageable and easier to use.  Another change is the new armory system.  The armory system will let you save different builds for your character.  I really like this system because it is very difficult and time consuming to change your build in Diablo 3 right now.  Once you save your different builds, it will be easy to switch from (for example) a greater rift running build to a speed farming build. 

That was all the changes coming to Diablo 3 announced at BlizzCon.  I am sure there are many other changes that the devs at Diablo are thinking of putting into Diablo 3.  While none of these changes will affect the end-game of Diablo 3, I think these changes will bring about more ideas and future changes that can be made to the game.  The more events, classes, features and small quality of life changes there are, the better off the game will be.  One small story from BlizzCon that I wanted to share with you is that there is an easter egg hidden in one of the Diablo shirts.  

The hint that I was given was to use the letters in Caldeum, Stoney Field and Wortham.  I think it really surprised me when I found the easter egg (moo!!). 

My BlizzCon 2016 Review

Just got back from Anaheim, California attending BlizzCon 2016.  It was my fourth time attending BlizzCon and I had a ton of fun there.  I didn't think I would have this much fun since I already went to 3 BlizzCons before but there was a lot of stuff that you could do there.  My original plan was to leave on Wednesday November 2nd but my flight got cancelled on Wednesday so I had to leave on the Tuesday beforehand.  This meant that I had one extra day in Anaheim.  So on Wednesday, I decided to spend the majority of the day at Disneyland.  I went to Disneyland before (I think when I went to my first BlizzCon, which was 4 years ago).  I ended up going on most of the rides since I had a lot of time there.  Unfortunately, some of the rides were closed (like It's a Small World and Splash Mountain).  The coolest rides were the Indiana Jones Adventure, the Matterhorn Bobsleds and the Star Wars Tours.  I bought a Star Wars 3" vinyl figure plus a Funko Pop Stormtrooper.  After Disneyland, I went to dinner at Red Robin and then watched the World Series final game 7 back at my hotel. 

On Thursday, it was time to pick up my BlizzCon badge.  I knew this might take a bit of time so I went to lineup pretty early on Thursday.  I think I lined up at around 8:00 am, the lineup wasn't too long at that time.  I managed to pick up my badge fairly quickly and lined up for the BlizzCon store.  They were selling lots of cool stuff (most of which I bought beforehand like the Murloc slippers, and the Diablo desk mat).  I bought two t-shirts (one of Diablo and one of Overwatch), a BlizzCon magnet and a Funko Pop golden Soldier 76.  By the time I was finished with the badge pickup and the BlizzCon store, it was around 10:30 am so it wasn't as bad as last year when I ended up finishing around noon time.  Once I dropped off my stuff at my hotel, I had lots of free time so I went to Outlets at Orange, which was big outlet mall with many different outlet shops.  There lots of cheap stuff that the stores were selling.  I went to the Asics sporting goods store and picked up a t-shirt for $12 (wow!).  I also bought some soap for my mom at Bath & Body Works for $3.  One of the stores that I was really interested in was the Nike store.  They were selling lots of cheap shoes there.  I really wanted to buy a pair of running shoes but I knew if I did, it wouldn't fit in my luggage.  I came back to my hotel at like 4pm and ate dinner at Clancy's. 

Friday was the start of BlizzCon and I wanted to arrive there early to get a good seat for the opening ceremonies.  I lined up for BlizzCon at around 7:30 am and the lineup seemed pretty long already.  Usually when I lineup of the start of BlizzCon, I can get to the base of the fountain that is located outside the convention center.  This time when I arrived, I was already several feet further away from the fountain.  At the time, it seemed as though the lineup was super long already but what I didn't know was that the event center was doing something different this year.  Normally, the bag checks would be just inside the convention center leading up to the second set of doors to the convention.  This time around, the bag checks were outside the convention center, meaning that the lineup was being pushed farther than it had been previously.  I think this was a better change but at the time, I was worried that I wouldn't get a good seat for the opening ceremony.  I managed to get a good seat, it was about 2 sections back from the main stage, real close to the center of the stage.  It was hard to see the main stage but fortunately I had a real good view of the video monitors.  The opening ceremony was really cool this year.  There weren't lots of news concerning WoW or StarCraft.  Overwatch announced Sombra with a cool animation, some new maps and the Overwatch e-sports league.  Hearthstone announced it's next card expansion and Heroes of the Storm announced 2 new heroes (Varian Wrynn and Ragnoros).  The best announcement by far was for Diablo 3.  They announced their 20 year anniversary event, which features going back to original Diablo game, the armory, which will help you switch to different builds more easily and the new character, the Necromancer! 

After the opening ceremony, I wanted to play Diablo with new Necromancer but there was already a big lineup there.  So instead I went around the convention getting signatures and some cool posters.  Diablo 3 had lightning talks at 1:30pm so I went to that.  It was really cool hearing about various tools and development strategies the Diablo dev team were using to make their game.  After that I played Diablo 3 Necromancer, played Hearthstone (beat a little kid - sorry!) and also played Overwatch.  At 5:00pm, Diablo 3 had their main presentation in Hall D.  There were showing lots of cool new features coming to the game.  One of the most exciting things were the new crafting materials page.  They also showed a bit more of the Necromancer and how it might be played.  After the Diablo panel, BlizzPro was meeting up so I went to that.  I got to meet Neinball and Leviathan from the Westmarch Workshop again (I also met with Dreadsythe, Miss Cheetah and Lala).  After that, I ate dinner at one of the food trucks outside.  I didn't want to spend my time outside for Blizzard's anniversary event so I went to get my picture taken at the Gif booth and bought some toy capsules at the toy capsule depot.   

On Saturday, one of the first things that I did was visit the Jinx booth.  The Jinx booth was really cool this year.  They had set up two games you could do (2 versus 2).  One was where you had to push a button that had the same name that was on the screen.  Another game was you had to throw bean bags into a hole.  I ended up winning twice, got some Jinx logo pins and some lanyards.  After that I got some signatures for my Book of Cain (people like Nevalistas and Christie Golden).  At 12:30pm, there were some more Diablo lightning talks.  After that, I ate lunch at the Porko Rico food truck (they had a very good pulled pork burger).  Once I ate lunch, I played Hearthstone again where I ended up winning again.  At 4:00pm, the Diablo 3 dev talk and Q&A was in Hall A.  They went through challenge rifts and took questions from the fans.  After the Diablo 3 panel, I went to eat dinner and came back to the convention center.  I played another round of Overwatch and then went to play some Diablo 2.  After that, I met with Neinball and Leviathan again.  They were talking to some of Diablo 3 developers and I just listened in.  I ended up following the Westmarch Workshops guys and listened in on Wyatt's story time (I also ended up meeting Rhykker there as well).  That was pretty much it for BlizzCon 2016. 

BlizzCon 2016 was really fun.  I ended up doing most of things that I wanted to do there.  I was real worried that there weren't going to be any news for Diablo 3 but I was really pleasantly surprised.  I will cover more of my thoughts about the Diablo news in a different blog post.  One of the things that I kind of missed at BlizzCon this year was all the e-sport events.  I normally like to watch the e-sport events but I really didn't have the time to watch any of it.  I only managed to watch the final game of the StarCraft 2 tournament.  I was more concerned about Diablo and any news concerning that game.  Maybe next time, there will be a better chance I can catch some e-sport action.  I also missed watching the costume contest and the closing ceremony but hopefully with the virtual ticket, I can watch those events later.  That is it for now, see you later.