The Evolution of Diablo III

I think it's well known amongst gamers that when Diablo III first launched, it was far from perfect. At the surface it's a great game but the more you play, the more you realise just how far from perfect it really is.

Launched 12 months ago, the game has since seen several decent sized patches that have made strides to perfecting the game. While it still has a way to go, the patches have made some welcoming changes to the game's core.

This post aims to highlight the best changes (read: highly selected) I personally think we've seen over the last 12 months. With the recent release of version 1.0.8 and the initial release of Diablo III a year ago, this is a great time to take a look back at how the game has slowly evolved.

1.0.2 - May 29th, 2012

- General: The "Select a Hero" menu will now also display the difficulty level for each character

1.0.3 - June 19th, 2012

- Items: High-end items (items level 61-63) will now drop in all Acts of Inferno and Acts III and IV of Hell difficulty
- Crafting: The gold and material crafting costs for all items level 1-59 have been reduced by 50% to 75%
- Jeweler: The gold and material cost to combine gems ranks 2-8 has been reduced. Combinations for these ranks now only require 2 gems, down from 3.
- Monsters: Champions, Rares, and Uniques have had their pathing improved.

1.0.4 - August 21st, 2012

- New System added: Paragon Levels. After a player reaches level 60, killing monsters and completing combat challenge streaks (Killing Blow, Massacre, etc) will begin to award experience towards Paragon levels. There are 100 total Paragon levels to be earned.
- General: Nephalem Valor now grants +15% Bonus Experience per stack, as well as +15% to Magic Find and Gold Find.
- Crafting: A repair tab has been added to the Blacksmith.
- Items: The text color of gems, potions, crafting pages and tomes dropped on the ground has been changed from white to light blue.
- Items: Repair costs have been reduced by up to 25% for item levels between 53 and 63.
- Vendors: Squirt the Peddler has permanently moved from the Caldeum Bazaar up to the Hidden Camp, as she heard people liked buying Health Potions up there.
- Monsters: Experience awarded by level 61-63 monsters has been increased by approximately 60%.
- Monsters: Normal monsters should now drop Magic (blue) items and Rare (yellow) items approximately 4 times more than before.

1.0.5 - October 16th, 2012

- New System: Monster Power.
- New Event: Infernal Machine.
- General: Opening a Resplendent Chest will grant one stack of Nephalem Valor.
- General: Major in-game events will now grant one stack of Nephalem Valor when completed by a level 60 character in Inferno difficulty.
- General: Experience Shrines can now appear in Inferno difficulty.
- General: Two new shrines have been added to all difficulty levels: Empowered Shrine and Fleeting Shrine.
- Crafting: Crafting materials can now stack to 500.
- Items: The location of Legendary items will now be marked by a column of light as well as a ping on the mini-map the first time they drop, and a new sound has been added.
- Items: Class-specific items will now drop more often.
- Items: The chance for Legendary and set items to drop has been doubled.
- Items: The cast time for identifying Rare items has been reduced to 1 second.
- Items: Lore books will now appear light blue instead of green when dropped on the ground.
- Monsters: Treasure Goblins will now play a sound whenever they become aware of a player.
- UI: You can now change the icon for each tab in the shared stash.

1.0.6 - November 26th, 2012

- No real big or significant changes in this patch.

1.0.7 - February 12th, 2013

- New Feature: Brawling. Brawls can be initiated by speaking with Nek the Brawler, a new NPC located in each Act hub
- General: Nephalem Valor stacks will now persist through Acts.
- General: Base pick-up radius for all characters has been increased from 1.5 yards to 3 yards
- General: The resurrection timer will no longer increase if a player is killed multiple times in a row.
- General: The experience bonus rewarded for killing monsters on Monster Power levels 1-10 in Inferno has been increased between 10% and 160%.
- Crafting: A new crafting reagent, Demonic Essence, has been added to the game.
- Crafting: The drop rate for Blacksmithing Plans and Jeweler Designs has been increased by 400%.
- Crafting: Four Rare recipes have been added to the Blacksmith: Archon Spaulders (Shoulders), Archon Gauntlets (Gloves), Archon Armor (Chest Armor), Razorspikes (Bracers). Crafting the item will require 1 Demonic Essence (other reagent costs will vary per recipe).
- Jeweler: A new tier of account-bound gems of has been added to the game: Marquise.
- Jeweler: All ruby gems have had their weapon bonuses increased (these changes will apply to both existing rubies, as well as new rubies).
- Items: Vanishing Dye and All-Soap’s Miraculous Dye Remover can now be used on Legendary items.
- UI: Legendary items now have a new mini-map icon. This icon should now persist properly and be shown on the mini-map so long as the player is in the same zone as the dropped item.

1.0.8 - May 07th, 2013

- General: Players can now identify all items in their inventory by speaking to Deckard Cain or by using the Book of Cain that can be found near the shared stash in all Acts.
- General: The cooldown incurred by changing skills outside of town on Inferno difficulty has been reduced to 30 seconds (down from 60 seconds).
- Co-op: Players now receive a 10% bonus to Magic Find, Gold Find, and Experience per additional player in a multiplayer game, up to a maximum of 30% in a four-player game. The Magic Find and Gold Find bonuses can exceed their respective 300% caps and The Experience bonus can stack with other bonuses from items and Monster Power (the bonuses will stack multiplicatively).
- Auction House: The stack size for gold sales on the auction house has been increased from 1 million to 10 million.
- Battle.net: Matchmaking "Tags" have been added.  In addition to selecting your Difficulty, Monster Power, and Quest, players will also be able to choose from the following tags when searching for Public Games: Monster Slaying, Brawling, and Key Warden.
- Social: Players can now enter a message that will be broadcast to their friends.
- Crafting: Players can now queue up multiple items and gems at a time within the same tier to be crafted, so long as they possess the necessary materials.
- Crafting: Players can now craft items using materials located in the shared stash.
- Monsters: Players should now encounter more monsters in Acts I, II, and IV in Inferno difficulty when playing at Monster Power 1 or greater.
- Monsters: In multiplayer games, the increase in monster hit points per additional player has been reduced to 50% (down from 70%).
- Monsters: Nekarat the Keywarden now has a chance to drop a random Key (of Destruction, Hate, or Terror) in addition to the Infernal Machine plans.
- Monsters: All Keywardens will now only appear in Inferno difficulty.
- Quests: Experience earned by completing a quest is now granted to players that have reached the level cap.
- UI: A maximum of eight buffs and debuffs will now be displayed on the UI. The maximum number of debuffs that will be displayed is three


Diablo III is slowly, but surely getting there, patch by patch. Another year of patching (and a hopefully near expansion) will surely elevate this game to the level it should be on. Hopefully patches 1.0.9, 1.0.10 and 1.0.11 should bring even more welcomed changes and improvements.

Source: DiabloWiki - this page keeps a complete list of all the patch changes.

Lord Spaceman Gets To Play... DOTA 2 Beta

A week ago I was notified that I was finally eligible for the DOTA 2 beta.  With great joy I accepted the challenge and immediately proceeded to download the 2GB game client on Steam.  I signed up for the beta earlier this year and with much patience I was finally allowed into the beta.  It was great timing due to the fact that I have grown bored with League of Legends and for some reason Heroes of Newerth just didn't gel well with me - I was in the market for a new MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game and Defense of the Ancients 2 is it!

Upon loading it up I was greeted with a slick user interface that looked both good and felt good.  As with all games I tinkered with options, pumped my graphics settings to maximum and not long after that I was on my way to playing my first match.

Since then I've played about 14 games, having invested around 12 hours and so far I'm loving it.  It not only looks good, but it runs really well on my rig despite there being some online lag here and there.  The online lag is partially due to my slow 384kbps line and the fact that there are no South African server in place just yet.  South African players will have to settle with the European server for the time being - it doesn't have terrible lag, but a local server would definitely be appreciated.  Hopefully this gets implemented in the near future.

The game has tons of heroes to choose from which players of the original DOTA will immediately recognize. With each beta update they seem to be adding at least one hero (last week it was the Naga Siren). I've only had the chance to play with a small percentage of the available hero pool, but so far I really enjoy playing the Blood Seeker.

Like Team Fortress 2, you are rewarded random items after a length of time to improve / alter the appearance of your individual heroes.  For now, only certain select heroes can have these equipable items, but eventually all the heroes will be able to be pimped out.  For example, you can equip a sash or hat to your Invoker hero to alter his appearance slightly.  For the time being they seem to be nothing more than cosmetic.  

Various items, new announcer packs, chest keys and hero skins can of course be purchase from the DOTA 2 store using real money (similar to how Team Fortress 2 works).  Prices seem a little steep for my liking - for example you're looking at $29.99 (R255 ZAR) for a DOTA 2 beta invite and up to $8.99 (R76 ZAR) for an armor set for the Dragon Knight hero.  If these prices will change upon final release remains to be seen, but I feel slightly lower pricing is something Valve should look at once it's finally released upon the hungry masses.

DOTA 2 is still in it's beta phase, but I have no doubt that once this game finally launches to the public masses, it will do extremely well.  It's a fun game and is a huge improvement over the original and other MOBA competitors out there.  It's got all the makings of an enjoyable, competitive and well made game.

Valve have stated that DOTA 2 will be released as Free-to-Play on Steam (yes, you don't need to pay a cent) which given the state of League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and the original DOTA is a wise pricing decision to make. Unfortunately there is no release date given yet for DOTA 2, but my prediction would probably be around the late August - early September time frame.

DOTA 2 is an upcoming Free-to-Play MOBA game being developed and published by Valve. It uses a modified version of the Source engine and is being designed by IceFrog, one of the original DOTA for Warcraft III creators. The game will be released on Steam and will run on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.