I'd rather actually be playing a game that is supposed to be an ARPG not an economic sim. There are much better examples of the later.

Then we have not been playing the same game. I did not find any traces of economic simulation in it there... However, I did a lot of hacking, slashing, zapping, looting an levelling. Having a good time doing it to boot.

Yeah I heard that they added an enrage timer for all of the act bosses in Inferno. Currently stuck at Wortham myself. I get ~5 FPS there on my laptop so there's no chance I can kill those Berserkers myself, have to wait for a friend to log :(

Got some really good farming done with 5 Nephelem stack though. Got myself a main hand from the AH for 300k, that's certainly helped things a lot. Leveling BS now.


No-one's stopping you from looking for the correct item yourself. At least your drop % is infinitely better than it ever was in D2.

You could also buy items in D2 from certain merchants by gambling or just paying outright.....less items were to be had, sure, and gambling wasn't certain if you went that route.....still, it seemed more challenging to me than how you describe D3's system.

Also the diff is one takes a bit of luck & time while the other is (seemingly) mostly based on how rich one is(Gold as some said in this thread can also be gotten from other players, so time need not be a factor anymore....i'm guessing a friend could give you tons of gold if they so wished, or that one could scam the AH users and make enough gold that way somehow to buy everything they wanted as well.[D2 had some of this as well but the items available to buy after using such tactics were more limited imo and it was more of a challenge to get something that's supposed to be rare or hard to get.].)

In D2 a friend could give you items, no change there...

As FraterPerdurabo says, you are free to grind all items if you so want, and if you want to play the auction house - that's fine if this is the sort of thing that rocks your boat, it is still a game but then it becomes a metagame (I know people who did it in WoW, setting them selves up as traders and playing the AH)

The point is, there is less chance of getting frustrated and feeling that you have wasted your time when there is so much else that needs doing as long as you have a sense of some accomplishment. Compare:

(A) I really need to write those emails right now and finish that report, and I just waisted 3 hours grinding and I did not even get anything I can use. What a waste of time.

(B) I really need to write those emails right now and finish that report, and I just waisted 3 hours grinding and I did not even get anything I can use. At least I got some gold for it so I can buy an item I can use instead.

Just wait til the AH switches over to $ rather than gold.

I can't say I'm one for casual gaming and was hoping Blizzard was going to make Diablo 3 completely different than what it became but nevertheless the end product they made was quite good.

Two keypoints I enjoy but I thought I wasn't going to.

1 ) Skill system. I had tons of fun with builds in Diablo 2 but I was a kid, gaming was new and while spending skills is fun the balance was horrible. Needing to maximize two or three skills and then use one is not an ideal system, far from it. My opinion of course. I don't think the current one is perfect and the runes could be better (as in different and balanced, some do truly suck) but I love the variety it offers. I change skills like very 5 to 10 minutes. :)

2 ) Auction house. I truly hated the trading system in diablo 2, it was boring and didn't make sense. I did have fun with actual trading but not as fun as with the auction house. The only problem is players' choice of prices. Some are way too expensive.

Other than the game was way too short (people finishing Inferno in a week's period is ridiculous..) and too linear (expected I know but still) the game is great especially with friends. It lacks diablo feel though, it doesn't really affect actual gameplay but it sure is a downer. Anyone else that agree?

Once again guys, can we please stay on topic.

Finally some fruition. Grinded A1 Inferno plenty to shop myself some decent gear. Currently doing ~15k DPS (about twice of what I had when I hit 60) with Splinters and raised my HP pool to an acceptable standard. Maxed out BS, JC can wait a little (level 7 atm). Raised Templar and Enchantress to 60 as well. Found my 2nd legendary - it was bollocks as expected. It had some MF on it though, so decked my Enchantress out with MF rings, amulet and weapon. Let's see if that'll be of any use together with a 5x Nephelem stack.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck. Cannot get past that burning town. My FPS drops to about 5 there so cannot kill the Berserkers. Shucks. Also, I cannot solo farm Skeleton King on Inferno. FPS is too low. Cannot do Hell Diablo either. Like wtf... All of those encounters were fine on other difficulty settings. This laptop is spastic.

Can handle most rare packs with relative ease now, though there are obviously certain spawns that give me grief, i.e. mortar + vortex is instagib for WD. Add in fast and invulnerable minions and you get shit that nightmares are made out of.

Thoughts? Progress reports?

The people who finished Inferno are tiresome obsessive progamers. And they had the benefit of imbalanced skills that were subsequently nerfed. It will take months for 95% of the player base to start making any real progress in Inferno.

I forgot about that....still, the AH only makes it that much easier and less challenging to do so, and imo D2 had it about right for easy ways to get rare/high lvl items.
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I'm not really that put off by it...it's just I wanted to express how I feel towards that aspect of D3(from what I heard so far) and how it(seemingly) affects gameplay. I might even use it if I had the game, though I wouldn't go crazy with it or play the "market"(as it were)...but that's just me.
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In the end I guess it all depends on what you value most when you play and how you view each aspect of the game. :)
You said no DRM, not no talk about the game's AH. Or is that not what you we're trying to get at with that line? :\

I've enjoyed my time with it so far. Finished normal with Witch Doctor and Wizard, onto act 2 of the next difficulty with both. Wizard is the character I'm soloing with.

I really like the high score counters, as if I need more encouragement to kill/break stuff, it actually give extra xp for it.

Grey gear is starting to annoy me, it's useless, absolutely useless. I get that it needs to be there to take up some of the drops, but it needs something, any redeeming feature other than it just existing.

Soloed Nightmare Diablo yesterday, I swear he's easier than Belial. Now onto Hell, and my items are seriously lacking, I'm level 51 but wearing level 30+ gear. Zombie at the start does 3000+ dmg on me on one hit but at least I've 16000hp.

Not sure what to think of the AH, they sell level 50+ rare items for only 2000g-10000g, I wonder what's the point of farming if I can just farm gold and get everything off the AH.

How come nobody here is doing hardcore mode?

I could never do hardcore mode myself personally. The chance to lose a character that I took time to build up, gear up and level up is too much for me. I admire people who play hardcore mode and progress far, I could never deal with the stress.

I'm doing hardcore with a monk. It's interesting. Good to see how far I can go.

Cool, I recently started a hardcore monk too. :)