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Blizzcon Begins, Diablo 3 Wizard Class Unveiled
The trailer illustrating the new class showed actual gameplay demonstrating the Wizard's spells and abilities, some of which hearken back to the Sorceress in Diablo 2. Attacks such as Meteor and Chain Lightning seem to be returning, and several new spells were seen, including one invoking a spherical shield that seems to alter the flow of time within it, allowing the Wizard to dodge projectiles and approaching enemies with ease. Another spell sends tornadoes storming through the room. Here's Blizzard description of the class from their press release: "The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time."
While Blizzard throws some new twists on occasion did you expect something far afield from the fantasy trope? So far we have the barbarian, the necromancer, and now the sorceress. Except the last two are a little different from their d2 counterparts. That said as long as the game is as fun to play and as addictive as D2 the next class could be the gold farmer for all I care.
Worlds largest game developer (arguably) throws a convention where they are profiling their biggest titles (starcraft/warcraft/diablo). Yes, this gets attention.
Quick math:
10,000,000 world of warcraft subscriptions equals:
10,000,000 copies of wow @ $40 a pop = $400,000,000
10,000,000 active subscriptions @ $15 a pop = $1,800,000,000 per year.
We're over 2 billion dollars for 1 game for 1 year (it's been out for 4 years now AND has 1 expansion out with another releasing).
This isn't some rinkidink little company, they ARE the mmo scene AND the RTS scene (arguably).
It makes news, sorry.
P.S. Did you not get to go to Blizzcon? If that was just a rant, there is still time to fly down for tomorrows show.
I believe this came up once when someone asked a Blizz person in an interview why they didn't have stat points in WoW. The answer was that the average player apparently has an outrageous tendency to nerf his/her character when allowed such fine control. Perhaps you shall find some quantum of solace in the notion that your suffering might be an extension thereof.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I think you missed the point.
The OP was complaining that the skills are carved up by classes at all. A necromancer can't put points in a sorceress skill, for example. So instead of 7 character "classes", each with 3 skill trees, just give every character 21 skill trees and let the player do as they please.
The multitude of options might be a little overwhelming at first, but with as many players as a Blizzard game will have, I think a few stable, decent builds would emerge fairly quickly, while still giving enough variety for people to come up with viable alternative builds. One thing that disappointed me in D2 was the lack of viable character builds, especially for PvP. If you deviated very much from one of the dozen cookie cutter builds, you could almost count on having to leech in experience runs and getting owned in duels.
The later patches of D2 actually explored it a bit, with runeword items that provided class specific skills, but could be used by any class. The items giving barbarian warcries and paladin auras were particularly popular, but there were a few items that would give necromancer and sorceress skills.
Maybe not