Explanation of the Reduced Shared Stash Space

Posted February 2nd, 2012 at 2:47am by Astray
Beta testers had noticed with patch 10 that the amount of space available in the shared stash was reduced, and Bashiok chimed in to address the issue. It appears that data storage concerns is the culprit behind this decision as Blizzard projected they could have issues with the influx of players at launch and items they store.

I can vouch for how Bashiok described the technical aspects of items as we're on the tail-end of developing a pretty significant update to D3DB where we were knee deep in their item design. The only common variable on most magical/rare items is the base item. Affixes completely change how each item is stored and I don't even need to do the math to know there are a lot of 0s in the total number of item combinations.

It's not something that's irreversible, the stash space will likely increase in retails patches as they improve their infrastructure.

Blizzard Quote (Source)
We reevaluated average character and account storage space requirements, and found it necessary to ensure we could handle what we anticipate will be a large amount of data very quickly after release.

Diablo III has both the benefit and disadvantage of having completely random items. Pretty much everything can roll up different affixes, if not a range of its benefits. That's obviously great because the item hunt is what it's all about, more randomization means you can keep chasing that perfect item, but that means the amount of data needed to describe an item is much, much larger than say, a World of Warcraft item, which is static and only needs a unique number to identify it. For example: http://www.wowhead.com/item=51003 that number there at the end is that item's unique number. That's all we need to store to identify that item no matter where it is. A Diablo III item first has to say the base item, then each individual affix that it rolled up, then the ranges of each variable, and if it has any sockets. And we have to think about everywhere an item can be, an item on the ground is still an item, and so is an item on the auction house.

We obviously have room to grow if our projections are incorrect, or we just find that we eventually have the space. World of Warcraft definitely grew over the years, and that storage space didn't appear out of nowhere (although it does seem rather magical at times). We find three tabs to be plenty for at least the initial release of the game though. Not counting the items you're wearing (assuming they're the best you have), and assuming worst case scenario of nothing but 2-slot items, you'd be able to hold 405 swords per region. That's a lot. We don't expect people to be storing 405 swords... hopefully ever, because that might indicate you have an obsession with swords, but at the very least there should be enough storage to start and then we can continue to evaluate as we go.

Test Server Maintenance - 1/30

Posted January 30th, 2012 at 12:38pm by Kelthar
Update #2: Added patch 11 notes; maintenance extended until approximately 8:30pm PST.
Update #1: Maintenance was delayed and will now take place between 4:00pm and 7:00pm PST.

The Diablo III test server will once again undergo maintenance this afternoon from 1:30pm to 4:30pm PST followed by a small patch to address a few client-side issues.

Blizzard Quote (Source)
We're in the process of preparing the Diablo III test server for maintenance to deploy the next beta patch. Maintenance should begin around 1:30 p.m. PST and we anticipate that downtime will last approximately 3 hours, until 4:30 p.m. PST.

This is a relatively small patch containing only a few minor crash fixes. As always, though, patch notes will be posted to the launcher and this forum once the patch is live.

Diablo III Beta Patch 11 – v.0.6.1.8350

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a number of game and service crashes

Diablo III Wins User's Choice for "Most Anticipated Game of 2012" at GameTrailers.com

Posted January 28th, 2012 at 7:35am by Astray
40,000 users voted on GameTrailers.com for the "User's Choice: Most Anticipated Game of 2012", and Diablo III has walked away with top honors. Edging games such as Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3, Halo 4 and Guild Wars 2 - Diablo claimed a title that was in doubt after falling short on the same award at the Spike VGAs back in early December. You can watch and/or read the announcement from GameTrailers.com below.

Quote (Source)
While your number 1 pick was not even on our list at all, far be it from us to disparage your selection. We know full well that Diablo III is going to have us in its merciless grip once it's out, and it's unlikely to let go for years after. It's been a long time coming, and the recent news of wholesale changes to fundamental game systems suggests the reason why; Blizzard isn't afraid to delay the game in order to get it right. Few studios can afford to operate this way, and even fewer have fans that will show up in droves to show support. The Blizzard community has spoken, making Diablo III the User's Choice for Most Anticipated Game of 2012.

Test Server Maintenance - 1/27

Posted January 27th, 2012 at 11:54am by Kelthar
Update #2: The beta servers are back up and available for play.
Update #1: The maintenance has been extended to 4:00pm PST.

Diablo III test server is undergoing a brief maintenance from 10:00am to 2:00pm PST to apply some minor hotfixes. Take note that any achievements earned and players added to the friends list will be wiped.

Blizzard Quote (Source)
We will be performing a small maintenance on the Diablo III test server starting at approximately 10:00 a.m. PST. This maintenance will include a variety of minor hotfixes as well as a database storage update; as a result of these changes, please note that your Friends Lists, Achievements, and "Recent Players" will be wiped.

We anticipate that downtime will last for about 4 hours, until 2:00 p.m. PST. Thank you for your patience.

More Simplified Tooltips Discussion

Posted January 26th, 2012 at 11:41am by Kelthar
A post on the official Diablo III forums highlighting a post made by Bashiok a while ago introducing the simplified tooltips has attracted some blue attention in Europe. Vaneras discusses that the community outcry on this topic has not gone unnoticed and that they are looking into solutions to make everyone happy.

Of course a simple solution would be a checkbox you can toggle under options to have the advanced tooltips, while simple would be on by default, like WoW. They are also looking at implementing a feature on the website similar to the Arreat Summit for D2 to help better organize the stats for players that want to min/max.

Blizzard Quote (Source)
As things are right now, advanced tooltips becomes available when pressing down the control button. However, the request for a toggle option between advanced and simple tooltip defaults have been forwarded to the developers, so there is indeed a chance that we might see such an option in the future.

The "easy to learn, hard to master" design philosophy is one we have been happy with for quite a while, and with Diablo III we would like to maintain a strong and immediate focus on getting into the gameplay right from the start.

We feel that the best way to achieve this is to make the game quick to pick up and fun to play straight out of the box, and by offering short and clear descriptions, and not too many numbers, we hope to avoid confusion and irritation. Simplified tooltips are more helpful for the novice player to learn and play the game, and for the more experienced players, they help to quickly differentiate between abilities.

We do of course realise that there are those who prefer the advanced tooltips over the simplified ones, and we are also very much aware that there are those who simply want as much information available as possible without any filters. We acknowledge this, and we do of course want to find good ways to cater to these wishes as well.

In order to present more detailed Diablo III data and information, we are looking into the possibilities for creating a web page similar to what we see with the D2 Arreat Summit (http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/barbarian-combatskills.shtml). Having such a page for Diablo III would allow us to provide more organised content, and it would also allow us to provide more timely content. For an example, if we would make a hotfix, we would be able to get that updated information up on the web page immediately, whereas the game client would require a patch before the tooltip can be updated.

Stealth Removal of Scrolls of Companion & Reforging Explained

Posted January 26th, 2012 at 11:21am by Astray
Blizzard has officially weighed in on the issue of players reporting that Scrolls of Companion weren't dropping for them ever since Patch 10 arrived. As it turns out, they (along with Scrolls of Reforging) were also one of the things given the axe in the patch but were an oversight when they put together the original notes. One of the earliest criticisms since the beta started was how the "cute" critters that you'd summon with the scrolls were very WoW-like and felt out of place in the Diablo universe, and that was a big part of the decision to move forward without them.

Blizzard Quote (Source)
A few more changes have made their way in to Diablo III beta patch 10, including the removal of Scrolls of Companion and Scrolls of Reforging, and we'll be updating the patch notes to reflect that.

In both cases these are features we felt were underdeveloped and just not quite good enough for the game in their current state. The companion pets felt like they were mandatory to maximize play efficiency and some of the pets were too cutesy for the gritty, dark world of Sanctuary. Neither of those are issues we felt like we could solve without a lot of additional work, and we're trying to close in on a solid release date for the game, not move further away. When weighing these systems against releasing the game, we decided to cut these scrolls and stay on track for the game's release.

We think we can make companion pets into a much cooler system (both mechanically and visually), and evolve the reforging scrolls into a more meaningful system at some point in the future. For the time being, they will not be in the initial release of the game.

Over 5000 Bugs Reported Since the Start of the Beta

Posted January 25th, 2012 at 2:57pm by Astray
Vasadan, a well traveled Quality Assurance representative with over 1,000 posts to his name on the Diablo III bug forums announced today that over 5,000 bugs have been reported since the beta began. While this isn't a particularly important feat in and of itself, it's nice to know the introductory experience of the game should be polished and bug-free at launch given how thoroughly it's been tested.

Blizzard Quote (Source)
Hey guys!

I have some really cool news for you. Last night, we passed 5000 bugs reported on the Bug Report forums! This is an incredible milestone for the Diablo III community, and one you should be proud of.

Here are some fun stats about bugs in the Beta:
  • The first bug was reported on 9/6/11 and can be found here
  • The most common bug ever reported was when the Battle.net servers were down during Thanksgiving 2011. It was reported over 200 times.
  • 5092 bugs have been reported since 10 AM PST on 1/25/12
  • Of the 5092 bugs reported on the forums, 856 unique bugs have been sent off to the developers to fix. (Remember, a bug reported on the forums can be a duplicate or not a bug at all).

Thank you again for all of your hard work testing the Diablo III Beta and helping Blizzard make it the best game it can possibly be. Here's to 5000 more!

Sincerely,
Vasadan