Welcome to D3 Analyst, a new blog by Stabs.
D3 Analyst is a blog devoted to the game Diablo 3. I picked the word analyst because it has so many connotations and I want to apply most of them to my passion for this game. Financial analyst - how to make gold and real money from the game. Psychological analyst - what makes players behave the way they do? Tactical analyst - theorycrafting the detailed mechanics of the game. PvP analyst - what makes some players win, what builds are good, what gear works.
Diablo 3 is taking gaming to a new and higher level. Difficulty is back in fashion and I for one am delighted to welcome its return. As so many games have become dumbed down Diablo 3 is launching with the intention of providing a hugely challenging end game. What's particularly fun for hardcore gamers is it allows us to differentiate ourselves. Successful Inferno runners will look better than less able players because the gear is designed to look more impressive. Now people will be able to buy into that look and power by spending real money but that just makes us hardcore players some pocket money.
Diablo 3 is also, in my opinion encouraging small friendly groups. Games like WoW encourage faceless anonymous pugs because players are doing heroic dungeons by rote. In D3 the difference between an effective synergistic party and a half-arsed pug will be night and day. So players will be motivated to make friends and join guilds and play with people they know are going to play well.
I started playing Blizzard games with Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, started playing Diablo with the first game, then spent 4 years enthusiastically playing D2. I theorycrafted extensively about it, writing over 5000 posts on my guild's forums, mostly about technical or tactical ideas. I may have received the backhanded compliment of influencing the game's design after a post I wrote about crafted safety gear got featured on the front page of a fan site and crafting got nerfed into the ground next patch.
I am very much looking forward to writing, thinking and discussing Diablo 3 and hope that this blog informs and entertains you.
Gold Guide affiliate
I look forward to seeing your articles. I feel very similarly about the game, especially regarding difficulty. I look forward to playing with friends and family. I also like the fact that the game not an MMO-type and is also easy to just pick up and play while maintaining a high bar to master it.
ReplyDeletePlus, who doesn't love a game where monsters explode into a bloody pulp?
On another note. What do you think about the changes to the way MF/GF is calculated?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteI think shared MF/GF/+exp is brilliant and I think it was needed. The previous scenario would have seen public games full of people who did little except lurk at the back in MF gear while getting better rewards than the people doing the killing.
I also think people over-state the dichotomy between killing and mf. Certain builds kill just fine in MF gear - my untwinked Necro in D2 had negative resists and high mf but didn't die until Act 3 of Hell. He also kills pretty fast.