Diablo II ladder reset

One of the things I regret in linux gaming is always being behind.
I never used to miss the resets but using linux I'm WAY out of the loop as probably a lot of us are. the ladder reset on the 25th, We are late.
GODSPEED FIENDS.

*a wild pala bot appears*
Baal run any1?

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  • Diablo III Developer Chat Transcript

    Thanks to everyone who joined us on for the Diablo III Developer Chat today!  We had a great turnout and some even greater questions.  For those of you who weren’t able to make it, here is a transcript of the chat to tide you over until May 15th. 
    Pre-order Diablo III now!
    Developers:
    Jay Wilson, Game Director
    Jason Bender, Senior System Designer
    Jason Regier, Lead Software Engineer
    Kevin Martens, Lead Content Designer
    Transcript for Chat: 'Diablo III Developer Chat', Tue May 08 16:00:00 CDT 2012
    Kyle-BBY: Welcome to the Diablo III Developer Chat new arrivals! We'll be getting started in a few more minutes. Get your questions ready!
    Guest-74: When the option is selected to list things in the auction house for a real dollar value selling price, does that money go to the seller or Blizzard?
    JayWilson: We charge a $1 dollar service fee, or 15% for commodities. The remainder of the sale price goes to the seller.
    Guest-20: With some information out (may or maynot be correct) about how hard monsters hit in Inferno, will WD pets still be viable?
    JayWilson: Yes, pets scale pretty well in inferno. You do have to refresh them, but they are useful for tanking mobs.
    Guest-228: What was the hardest thing you had to cut from the game due to time/prodcution constraints?
    JasonRegier: For me, it was PvP. I had a ton of fun playing it against folks at BlizzCon, but it just wasn't ready for prime time yet.
    Guest-106: Will there be anyway to share the wings I get in the Collector's Edition with friends?
    JasonBender: Those are just for you, but you can apply them to as many of your characters as you like.
    Guest-26: Has anyone from the internal testing found a legendary item yet? Also, when are the stats for the legendaries going to be released?
    JasonRegier: I got one during testing, and when it dropped, I jumped up and cheered. It was awesome!
    Guest-25: Can you explain us about the bossfights? Will they be like Diablo 2 where the bosses had a fixed number of abilities and they just used them, or it will be more like WoW where the bosses have phases with different abilities and the scenery/positioning its crucial in the fight.
    JayWilson: Depends on the boss. Some have a set number of abilities, some have phases. Most are a little more complex than Diablo II.
    Guest-157: I will like to start of by saying the game is looking amazing so far, and I'm new to Diablo. Can you use the WASD keys for movement or just the left click on the mouse?
    JasonRegier: Basic control in Diablo 3 is very simple. Just click to move, and click on monsters to attack them.
    JayWilson: We don't support WASD for movement. We don't think it feels good as a movement scheme from an isometric view.
    tomt610: Will you make inferno difficulty easier if people will start telling you that you made it too hard and they cannot beat it, even that it is beatable at this point? Cause I remember in 90s games required skill to beat them and it would be nice to have at least one that kind of game at this point, without life regenerating itself etc.
    JasonBender: Inferno isn't for everyone. We would like to keep it as challenging as possible. Also, don't forget Hardcore mode. That's retro-hard!
    Guest-70: How many times was the codebase rewritten over the years or was reuse pretty standard?
    KevinMartens: We've spent a lot of time and energy getting the servers to be as prepared as possible. The big stress test during the beta was very helpful (thanks for all who participated). We'll have a big support team standing by at launch.
    Guest-251: What was your inspiration for the Wizard?
    JayWilson: We were inspired by old school pen and paper RPG's. We wanted a magic user who could control time, disentegrate, cast illusions, etc.
    Guest-36: Do you have plans to implement the Necromancer or druid at any point in the future?
    JayWilson: Any future classes we do are shrouded in mystery (insert scary ghost sounds).
    Guest-283: what are the plans for launch day, are the servers prepared for the work load that is coming?
    KevinMartens: We've spent a lot of time and energy getting the servers to be as prepared as possible. The big stress test during the beta was very helpful (thanks for all who participated). We'll have a big support team standing by at launch.
    Guest-728: when you want to play with a friend who is much lower level than you, are you stuck playing the furthest ACT or DIFFICULTY they have achieved?
    JasonBender: They can jump in to your game at a higher level (up to the highest difficulty they've achieved), even though they might miss story points. If the lower level player creates the game you will be limited to their story progress. You're not limited by ACT, but you are limited by DIFFICULTY.
    Guest-253: What was the funniest / most awesome bug you discovered during the development of Diablo 3?
    JasonBender: Funniest bug? We accidentally had an event that summoned 5 treasure goblins at one time. It was great seeing people scramble to chase them as they ran in different directions. Serious chaos!
    KevinMartens: Perhaps a little less funny than awesome but I had an skeleton summoner with a bug with no limit on the number of skeletons and I went to a meeting, came back an the monitor was entirely filled with skeletons. I killed them all with a leap attack
    Guest-56: Besides PvP, do you have any plans on adding additional content to Diablo?
    JayWilson: To Guest-56 Nothing solid at this point.
    Guest-25: Will the game have support for clans/guilds at release? if not, is something its being considered to be added in the future? I remember in Diablo 2 we had to create new characters to add the clan's tag.
    JayWilson: No plans at this time.
    Guest-23: I have had troubles with the FPS in the beta with my pretty decent upper class notebook, especially when bigger waves of monsters where on the screen? Has the FPS been optimized for notebook users for release since beta?
    JasonRegier: It's hard to say without knowing more about your particular configuration. We work really closely with our hardware compatibility department to make sure that lots of people have a great experience with D3, and we're always looking to make performance better.
    Guest-236: If i am higher level then my freinds and want to play with them, will there be any kind of handicap? for example will they get less exp
    JasonBender: There is an XP penalty for killing monsters too high/low in level relative to your character. It scales based on your level, so at lower levels you can fight a broader range of creatures. This is good because player levels tend to be farther apart earlier in the game.
    Guest-389: In the beta I had a hard time determining how much damage a spell did. I later learned that if I held ctrl and moused over a spell it gave me a percentage. Has any changes been made to make actually spell damage info more accessible?
    JayWilson: You can set more advanced tooltips to permanently display so you don't need to hold down CTRL. I do feel these could be more accurate in displaying the exact damage you're doing, and we may improve it in the future.
    Guest-261: Due to the amount of time it must take to produce the cinematics, how does that influence/affect a more iterative game design process?
    KevinMartens: The cinematics team is very, very good at working with us to identify the moments of a cinematic that are most prone to change and leaving those to the last possible moment. There is seldom an issue that we can't change with a line change or a simple new shot. The process and time limits have not been much of a problem at all.
    Guest-278: I know that Diablo3 is a click-to-move type game, but for sufferers of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, it can be very painful to click that much. Is controller support available in the future, if not, can players use applications such as Xpadder for use with controllers on the computer?
    JasonBender: Right-click drive mode allows you to automatically attack while moving when you hold the right mouse button down instead of clicking. Several of us use this to reduce clicks. (You can imagine how many times we've clicked in the process of making the game!) 
    Guest-217: Are the end of the act bosses still going to be the enemies with the highest drop rates for the most sought after gear resulting in "Baal Runs" being the best way to gear up, or will you encourage players to scour the map looking for rarespawns and giving them a higher drop rate instead
    JayWilson: We have a new system called "Nephalem Valor" that encourages you to kill randomly placed rares and champions. When you do, you get a stacking buff that increases your gold and magic find, and increases the drops on bosses. This makes it most beneficial to play through random content, then go fight bosses.
    Guest-224: Say for example that I am playing a high level character, but I want to play with my friend who only has a low level character. Will me joining his game ruin the experience for him because I could just blast through the content and make it too easy for him?
    JayWilson: You could blast him through the content, but his XP will be greatly diminished to the point that it's not very beneficial for your low level friend...unless he likes spoilers. But that's what Youtube is for.
    Guest-302: In regards to internal testing, did any of you try out a completely ridiculous build and manage to make it work in a later difficulty?
    KevinMartens: We spend a lot of time trying out "wacky" builds like melee Wizards or pet-less Witch Doctors and it is a fun, often challenging way to play. We often find ourselves changing a skill or two when we get stuck on a particular elite monster and sequence. Or more likely, we get tempted into to trying a completely different build when we get some particularly awesome piece of equipment. Melee wizard example above is a good one--I was playing recently with a typical mix of ranged spells and found a big bad-**bleep** sword that had such great stats, I changed my build to a melee wizard just to try out the sword.
    Guest-352: How much does the difficulty and greater item quality drop change when your buddy enters the world to play with you?
    JayWilson: Depends on the difficulty level you are playing in. I can't remember 'exact' numbers, though. It hovers around doubling monster health per player, but there are other variables as well.
    Guest-65: What happeneds after i beat inferno mode? P.S I LOVE YOU GUYS AWESOME JOB WITH THE GAME!
    JasonRegier: I'm pretty sure Jay comes to your house and gives you a big hug.
    Guest-249: Hey guys, what are the best moments you have from development time?
    JasonBender: Blizzcon was super-motivating. Also it's fun when we have hours long discussions about crazy design ideas, then see the exact same arguments happen on the forums.
    JasonRegier: For me, one of the best moments was seeing hundreds of people playing the game for the first time at BlizzCon. The response was fantastic! I can't wait for the public to finally play the full game.
    Guest-347: Bashiok stated that the display of BattleTags in games was a bug. Today Lylirra said that it wasn't. So is this a bug or not? If not then what exactly is the point of character names at all?
    JayWilson: It's not a bug, it is supposed to be displayed in game. We felt showing the Battle Tag was an essential element to identifying your friends and didn't want players displayed with different names in different situations. The purpose of character names is to help the player identify their characters in the case they have multiple of the same class and for extended presence.
    Guest-632: In diablo 2 as you got further into NM and **bleep** the areas became much bigger. Will the same happen with the later difficulties of Diablo 3? I remember Durance of Hate level 3 normal vs **bleep** and having a huge area difference.
    KevinMartens: The areas do not get bigger in later difficulties and it hasn't impacted the fun at all. Bigger does not equal better in level design, in the vast majority of cases. We've concentrated much more on the second-to-second challenge and item rewards for higher difficulty playthroughs.
    Guest-509: Can you keep teleporting if you are under 1 second, using the wormhole rune on the wizard?
    JayWilson: You can teleport as many times as the animation will allow in the time before the cooldown is triggered.
    Guest-351: My question is..... So if inferno has its own gear tiers Act1 - Act4 will all the normal thru **bleep** gear end up being trash or will some items end up being good way past their level unique items?? Thanks in advance .
    JasonBender: You'll need to gear up for a while prior to Inferno, so He|| gear will still be valuable for a while. Inferno ramps harshly, though, so you'll need to farm early inferno to handle late inferno. There is a point where gear becomes useless, but a perfectly rolled rare or legendary item can last a long time if it has the affixes you need. Don't forget crafting components, too. Old items can be used to crafter better ones.
    Guest-519: is there a way to switch weapons quickly on the run? (As we did with Diablo 2 by pressing "W") ?
    JayWilson: No. In polling players this seemed to primarily be used to hot swap to high magic find weapons right before a boss died, which didn't seem like great gameplay to encourage.
    Guest-552: Is there any customization to the character when making a character at the start screen? Also is there any customization later in the the game?
    JayWilson: You can also use dyes to customize gear, and even hide pieces of gear that have good stats that you don't like the look of.
    JasonRegier: At the starting screen, no. But within the game, there's a huge number of combinations of items and skills to choose from. Those choices really make your character unique.
    Guest-367: Was anyone in the internal test team able to beat the fourth difficulty of the game ? If not what is the reason for that ?
    KevinMartens: No one has beaten Inferno.
    Guest-415: Will third party programs that collect data about how much loot/gold is dropped where and when be allowed to use?
    JasonRegier: Using 3rd party programs like those is against the terms of use.
    Talen: Many Beta Testers have conserns about the text size of the user interface being either to small, or to large.Do you have any plans at this time to introduce scaling o accessability options for the User Interface and Item Stat Text ?
    JayWilson: Not at this time. Every feature has development cost. If there is demand for something like this we'll weigh it against other features we could add to the game. We did, however, increase font size late in the Beta.
    Guest-366: For the Witch Doctor, with Zombie Handler and Circle of Life passives, are you able to go well beyond having 4 summoned dogs on the field at once or is there some sort of cap?
    JasonBender:  4 is the max for dogs. You can get up to your max nyumber of dogs with a variety of skills (beyond just summoning them), which is good if they're dying a lot in higher difficulties, but that doesn't break the cap.
    Guest-335: Developers: Which act is your favorite to play through?
    JasonBender: I like Act 3. Because... er... *SPOILERS*!
    KevinMartens: Interesting question as that actually changes for me based on the difficulty. I like Act 3 on normal just because of certain battle sequences (no spoilers!!!) but like Act 2 on Nightmare because the bump in difficulty there is a fun challenge for me.
    JayWilson: Don't ask me to pick my favorite child.
    Guest-248: So I read that we can make a new characters in other regions other than our own, will we be able to copy a character over to that region or will we have to start a new one to play with our overseas friends?
    JasonRegier: You will have to start a new one.
    Guest-617: Did you find it difficult to convince others (Co-Wokers - Players) that a stat system wasn't very fun and just a math game? And also, was it easy to convince others that a skill system that was developed around experimentation would be more fun than a Diablo 2 system of constantly re-rolling? (I love the skill system lets me try whatever I want to try - I feel rewarded for experimenting. I feel more games should have this type of system.)
    JayWilson: Yes, it was difficult.
    Guest-847: What is the highest gem level that we can expect to drop?
    JayWilson: Tier 5 gems are the highest that drop.
    Guest-505: Beyond what we have already seen and the sets in Inferno, how many unique weapons and armor sets can we expect to see in D3? Will more be added? (outstanding job so far!)
    JasonBender: We have a ton of cool ideas that we would like to do. A bunch are in the works, but I can't yet say when they'll be ready for you. (The art team loves making these.)
    Guest-807: Will there be the option to change the strength of the monsters by pretending to have more players in a game? Like in D2?
    JayWilson: Not at release. With the challenge level of Inferno we did not see this as necessary.
    Guest-2444: Will Melee Wizards be Viable in **bleep** Mode?
    KevinMartens: For difficulty modes: certainly, the challenge will be harder in later difficulty modes. But really, this question points to a cool point of depth/awesomeness in our system. With the right gear and some practice, melee wizard will be viable--maybe barely but still. For Hardcore Mode: Again, with the right gear, maybe, but it is a risky thing to try. Let me know how you do
    Guest-906: are the angels wings from the CE, an emote thing? or is it like an item you can trigger on and off? also is there a cooldown on them?
    JasonBender: They're linked to a 1x1 item that goes in the inventory, but you can put them in your stash. You can click your wings to turn them on and off. There's no limit to how many times you can use them.
    JasonBender: (Also no cooldown on the wings.)
    Guest-128: Is there a separate appearance for the female barb when she goes berserker mode (the ability for 15 sec that you unlock at lvl 30)and how does she looks like can we not have a picture or something because we only see the male.
    JasonRegier: Yes, she looks different.
    Guest-523: Do bosses get more abilities through the difficulties to make them harder or do they just have scaling dmg and life? ie. in nightmare, he||, and inferno. Also, does Nephalem Valor only apply in Inferno?
    JayWilson: Not really. We have a couple cases, but they are mild enough that I'd say overall no. Bosses mainly scale in stats. And yes, Nephalem Valor is Inferno only.
    Guest-393: The new skill menu has been highly discussed by a large group of players awaiting Diablo III, and there has been much criticism (Despite it being an improvement over the early beta skill UI). Will there be further changes or did we see a finalized version of that system in the last patch of the beta?
    JayWilson: Other than polish-oriented improvements (of which I can't recall which made Beta and which didn't) the skill system is basically unchanged from the final one that appeared in Beta.
    Guest-347: Thank you for answering my first question. How far back does the behind the scenes in the CE cover? Does it cover any early D3 development or does it only cover the past couple years? Any word on when we can expect the web API for D3 or at least more information on it?
    JasonBender: The behind-the-scenes talks about all kinds of crazy stuff, so there should be some good history in there for you. Not sure about the API.
    Guest-446: Will certain areas in Diablo 3 have different treasure classes like they did in Diablo 2 for finding higher items or does it just come down to how far you have progressed into the game and is there a diminishing effect of the amount of mf your character can have eg. like a mf cap?
    JayWilson: I don't really know how to answer the treasure class one, lots of areas have different treasure classes but we try to make areas relatively equal depending on challenge and monster level. MF is not capped, though.
    Smeet: With Diablo 2, enemies in **bleep** difficulty almost all recieved an immunity to one type of damage. Does this trend continue into Diablo 3, or are the enemies / affixes made threatening in different ways?
    JayWilson: We do not use immunities as a monster affix. We focused more on powers that change up the monster's threat and challenge different classes in different ways.
    Guest-351: LOVE YOU GUYS & D3!!! Thanks for the Answer Also BTW how does sharing MF with a group work and is that group % amp'd up by "Nephalem Valor"
    JasonBender: MF is an average of the group's MF rating, so everyone either contributes combat power or boosts the group's MF. Valor covers the party.
    Guest-911: will I be able to have multiple keys on the same account IE: Collectors Edition and Standard? and are we able to use"Dual-Boxing" ?
    JasonRegier: No, you can have one license attached to the account. Dual boxing isn't supported... you'll need to have multiple battle.net accounts.
    Guest-561: How is Inferno difficulty being balanced as a sort of longterm endgame opportunity? Will characters struggle in inferno until they acquire really epic gear or is the aim for Inferno to always be very challenging even when characters are decked out? How does magic find gear play into the balance of being able to clear inferno (E.G. Being able to clear faster and safer vs wearing MF gear vs Nephalem Valor).
    KevinMartens: Inferno is balanced to never be trivial, even with the best gear. If some of you end up finding it trivial, we'll certainly be paying attention--good luck! Magic find gear vs. survivability gear works much like you think. You'll probably use MF gear when you are farming an area you know/think you can survive in and switch to survivability gear once you are trying to get further into a tough area.
    Guest-776: Send: Do you think that assigning a very specific/distinct personality to each character was a good call? A lot of people seem to be thrown away from wizard for example, just because of his not so cool attitude. Or the not-so-badass grandpa witchdoctor (character wise). Thanks
    JayWilson: Yes, we do think it was a good call. We think improving our game story by making the player characters active participants is worth the risk that a few players might get turned off by the choices for those characters. Without making this choice it weakens our story, and strong story is one of the most requested ways the community wanted us to improve Diablo.
    Guest-545: Is it an accurate assessment to say that expansions would follow the inferno progression and have a few levels but significant gear upgrades. Or will it be more like a level cap increase with inferno-like content at the end?
    JasonBender: We're concentrating on a smooth launch right now. Next up after that: PVP!
    Guest-401: Will there be a ladder and ladder-only items to keep Diablo 3 fresh for years to come? I know a lot of people still play Diablo 2, and were excited about the recent ladder reset.
    JayWilson: Not currently. We'd prefer to find better ways to accomplish this. If we can't come up with something better we'd consider a ladder in the future. It's not a problem that needs to be solved right away.
    DrowningRabbit: Speaking on Inferno mode, Blizzard has in the past made encounters like pre-patch C'Thun that were statistically impossible to finish. While that feat hasn't been repeated in World of Warcraft, is that a concern for Diablo 3's Inferno mode bosses?
    KevinMartens: There are not statistically impossible bosses/challenges, at least not by design. There are extremely difficult moments in Inferno but I do think that people, with practice and gear, will be able to finish it. Let the race to end of Inferno begin on May 15th, everyone!
    Guest-1326: Any plans for Lobby like Diablo 2?
    JasonBender: We support public chat channels, and we are always looking to improve the Battle.net service. It will evolve over time. (The trick is getting the chat gem working juuuuuuuuust right.) :-p
    JayWilson: BTW, I said earlier that Nephalem Valor is only available in Inferno. This is incorrect. It kicks in at level 60, regardless of your difficulty level.
    Guest-647: Hi Guys. Breathtaking work so far!, I wish you the best for the release!. My question would be how often can we expect to see new patches in terms game mechanics but also item stats in the span of perhaps one year?. Second question to Jay - will be rolling barb & monk combo for the first playthrough on hardcore, what would you say the chances are defeating **bleep**?
    JayWilson: We'll patch as the game needs it. Predicting a timeframe isn't something we'd do now. For your second question, need more information. How good are you? I'll just guess. I think you personally have a 37.4% chance to beat Hell.
    Guest-311: Can you implement a force Stop key (differing from force Stand Still), where pressing the key will stop all actions including movement and holding the key acts like force Stand Still? Finer movement controls will open up more mechanics!
    JasonBender: We always try to keep the controls streamlined where we can, but if there's a need for a new UI element we will surely consider it. No plans just yet on that particular item, though.
    Guest-625: Why are the Monk's heals not scaled by stats? The monk can never improve healing with gear. By contrast, the Barbarian's heals scale with damage or max HP.
    JayWilson: His heals scale with his level. They are powerful enough that we had concerns that if they scaled with gear they would be too good. Barb heals are personal, but Monk heals are group oriented, which is why they are handled differently.
    Guest-303: I Feel that a Dota style pvp map / pvp game mode would be perfect for Diablo..any plans in the works?
    JayWilson: That would be like making a whole new game inside our game. There are some parallels, but enough differences that I'd rather we focus on our core cooperative and PVE experiences.
    Guest-1639: How large is D3 compared to D2? Will it take as long or longer to clear the game (excluding inferno)?
    KevinMartens: Length of the game varies greatly depending on play-style and randomness. Play-style means completist poke around in every corner type people vs. rush the main objectives people--big difference. Randomness affects the length because you could be walking through an area and roll a 2 level dungeon (10-15 minutes of gameplay) or a 30 second ambush event. Depending on what rolls, that can really change your length. But regardless, length isn't the concern in a game so focused on replayability. Not that the game short so much as that is not what the design challenge is.
    Guest-785: Can you craft "inferno" level gear? if not what is the highest level gear you can craft?
    JasonBender: Yes, and it's awesome! It takes a lot of components to get to the best gear, though.
    Guest-846: Are you concerned that the current Skill UI along with the Skill tab for cycling through skills has perhaps been too categorized and requires a potential excessive amount of cycling through to find things? Example: with the Demon Hunter, why not just have three categories with Hatred Generators, Spenders, and Discipline skills instead of how things are split up now? Isn't that much easier to understand instead of the seeminly excessive categories at the moment?
    JasonRegier: We've found that categories in the current skill system UI is really helpful for newer players. And the "Elective Mode" option is there for advanced players to customize their builds to their heart's content.
    Guest-645: Some people say they will not be rolling a WD because it is a silly class, what do you say to them? Also, Soul Harvest seems too good at the moment....... 6 ..... more...... days ........
    JayWilson: I'd rather people be highly opinionated about our classes than not care. We made five classes just in case you don't like one of them.
    Guest-184: What's up with gems? Are they going to be socketable in more than just helms and weapons?
    JasonBender: Gems can be used in helms, weapons, and a variety of armor slots.
    Guest-538: In order to sell items on the real money auction house, do I have to have funds in my battle.net balance?
    JasonRegier: No, you can sell items without having any money in your account. There is no charge for posting items.
    Guest-340: Would you say that Diablo III's soundtrack is overall, Wagnerian in texture?
    KevinMartens: I'm not music history oriented enough to know the right pigeon-hole genre for our score. I think it is too varied to simply fit into one sub-genre.
    Guest-348: Do you have any comments on Athene vs Kripp for worlds first Inferno kill?
    JasonBender: I guess someone needs to take the other side of that bet, so Athene had better win. I like hot dogs. (The real question is: Who gets the world's first HARDCORE Inferno completion!)
    JayWilson: $20 and a coupon for a free hot dog on Kripp.
    Guest-520: Is it possible to place the dyes and wings from CE in the shared stash ? (so if i later upgrade my game to CE i could get the CE exclusives for my old heroes)
    JasonRegier: Yes.
    Guest-313: A new article on a fansite was just posted describing a way to use the WD to sacrafice zombies to do 25,000%+ weapon damage. How confident are you at this time that classes are balanced endgame?
    KevinMartens: There are billions of class and skill combinations--literally. They inherently cannot be balanced at time of ship due to lack of working time-machine technology and/or Groundhogs Day -style repeat testing days. We look forward to following all of you as you find incredibly awesome builds.
    Guest-844: Will Legendary/Set items have their own unique graphics independent of the "tier" sets or will they look the same?
    JasonBender: Legendary items and set always have unique art, stats, names and flavor text.
    Guest-876: Is the best gear in the game ("potentially," stats-wise) limited to dropping in Inferno difficulty, or are the differences between Inferno gear and end-game **bleep** gear mostly cosmetic or drop-chance related?
    JayWilson: The top three tiers of items, which are the best, only drop in Inferno.
    Guest-708: What class are each of you going to play at release? Softcore or hardcore?
    JasonRegier: Witchdoctor for me too. Hardcore!
    JasonBender: Witch Doctor. Also I'm looking forward to crying over my first hardcore character. And my second. And my third.
    KevinMartens: No pornography references, please! (Monk, softcore)
    Guest-869: Are there any non-set Legendaries that will only drop in Inferno Act III and IV?
    JasonBender: Yes. Legendary items are dropped based on the level of the monster or chest, so we have several at the max level that can only be found in the end of Inferno.
    Guest-720: Dueling: Will you ever consider patching in dueling “in-game” without having to lose the current play session and hit the arenas? The purpose is for fun things like settling disputes amongst friends, battling for items, or just killing time waiting for a friend to come back. It cannot be used for griefing due to mutually acceptance of the duel (and could even take a knee like in WoW so as there is no death).
    JayWilson: I'm not opposed to this, but it's not a trivial amount of work, and is not a priority for us right now. We want to focus on our team-based arena mode right now.
    Guest-547: Will there be any bosses that are only in certain difficulty modes?
    JasonBender: Bosses appear in each difficulty, but there are a handful of unique monsters that only appear in certain difficulties. Also there are a number of rare/champion affixes that don't show up until you reach later difficulties.
    JayWilson: Hold on, getting Wyatt for all your complex Witch Doctor questions.
    Guest-483: How does the treasure goblin scale, in regards to HP, in the higher difficulties? Will they always take a couple of hits to bring down?
    KevinMartens: Treasure Goblins are harder to kill at higher difficulties. I never miss one in normal but often fail to kill one in time in higher difficulties, usually because I'm too paranoid about being **bleep**ed by elite monsters to chase him aggressively.
    Guest-536: Will there be any more 'randomization pockets' (such as the Hanging Tree and the Corpse Pile) in the areas we played in the beta for us to discover?
    KevinMartens: I suspect that the beta players have discovered most, if not all, of the randomization pockets in the beta areas, but there is much more D3 to come. Also, there are rumors of secret things being secretly secreted somewhere secret.
    Guest-25: Will the mobs or bosses have diminishing returns/immunity on stun/slow/fear abilities? Or stunlocking them in inferno with 4 barbarians its totally possible?
    JayWilson: Elite mobs (bosses, champions, rares) are affected to a lesser degree by control skills, and are immune to a select few. We do not have a system for diminishing returns, as we want CC to be useful even against bosses.
    Guest-1803: Does the explosive beast rune for zombie charger work with the final gift rune for zombie dogs? ie zombie dogs from zombie charger dropping health globes? Thanks.
    KevinMartens: No, it does not.
    Guest-104: Are there any plans to ever had "hotkeys" in the game so we can quickly switch between different spells like in D2 with the F-keys?
    JasonRegier: The hotbar at the bottom of the screen gives you easy access to your current skills, and you can change the keybindings for it if you don't like the defaults.
    Guest-1064: How will the Monk and Witch Doctor passive skills that avoid death work in Hardcore mode?
    JayWilson: They will allow you to avoid death! Congratulations, hardcore player, you have outsmarted mortality!
    Guest-367: Do i need to read the quest dialog to fully understand the diablo lore ? or i can simply watch the cinematics and understand what is going on ?
    JasonBender: There are several ways to enhance your enjoyment of the story. The cinematics are meant to keep the story clear, but the more you read, the better it should be. (Even the item and skill flavor text adds to the lore.)
    JayWilson: Correction: we drop gems up to tier 8.
    Guest-376: can we follow treasure goblin through portal to a special dungon?
    JasonBender: One wonders where they go!
    Guest-1540: I heard a rumor around a month ago that players can recieve an extra reward if they don't switch their build for an entire Act, is this true?
    JasonBender: Not exactly true. It's good to explore builds. Nephalem Valor goes away if you respec, but that isn't based on the act.
    Guest-713: how will mf work in groups. say if 2 people have mf and 2 are just dps. will it take the groups mf number as a hole or just 1 person for their drops only?
    KevinMartens: Magic find is averaged across the party. If you have two MF people with 100% and two DPS people with 0%, then each person has 50% for their drops. Loot is, of course, per player.
    Guest-503: Is "rushing" a character possible? Or are there some kind of restrictions that keep a player from getting to Nightmare/**bleep**/Inferno in a significantly shorter time period than usual.
    JayWilson: A higher level character can help you jump past content within a difficulty, but you get greatly diminished XP, so you really need to go through legitimately. We have hard level requirements for difficulty levels, though, so no shortcuts there.
    Guest-661: I know you don't plan to support Diablo 3 to be a eSport - If the commnunity wants it to become a eSport(without the implied balance), would you support it with replays/spectator mode and more ? 
    JayWilson: No. We don't want Diablo 3 to become an E-sport. It's OK to have PVP just for fun. Our focus is on our PVE game, and we want it to stay there.
    Guest-302: What was it like being able to take a game I'm sure you all loved, and being able to expand the story, and create amazing things I bet the original creators would never even have thought of?
    JasonBender: It was a privilege. Personally, I feel incredibly lucky to be involved with Diablo, one of my favorite game worlds of all time. It was never hard to come up with cool ideas, just tough to pick the best to make the coolest game possible! 
    Guest-2203: Many people are trying to get world first 60 and think it is doable in as little as 20 hours. Can you give us any insight on this?
    JayWilson: World's first what?
    Guest-1729: How do you guys feel about the Barbarian in Inferno (being a melee class and all), especially regarding (the need for?) Shields?
    KevinMartens: Survivability is certainly something that you need to gear for in Inferno. Shield is the easiest vs. most obvious choice but certainly you can gear for a higher DPS with a different selection of gear and skills. It is still a fine balance between your play style, your DPS, your survivability stats, etc. None of those things can be out of balance for the way you play in order to survive at Inferno.
    Guest-1736: So, you guys are always talking about how diffcult Inferno will be. What about the others? Does this mean nightmare and **bleep** will also be too easy for us just like normal mode? Thats a serious concern for me...
    JasonBender: Different players find different things challenging. (This also depends on your gear.) Finishing Inferno in Hardcore mode will not be easy!
    Guest-2357: Is stun duration reduced in **bleep**/inferno or is the same as in normal?
    KevinMartens: It has been reduced.
    Guest-586: Will you share game statistics with the community? For example: ### different Monk builds have defeated <insert boss name>? or other misc data?
    JasonBender: We like sharing cool stats, but no specifics yet on what they will be. 
    JayWilson: To the person who asked if we might add or remove skills: we'll do whatever we think is right to balance the game and make the classes feel well rounded and effective. In other words...maybe.
    Kyle-BBY: Great chat everyone! Thank you for joining us fans and Diablo III Dev team!
    KevinMartens: Thank you, everyone, for attending
    JasonBender: Thank you so much! Great questions!
    JasonRegier: Thanks everyone! See you online!
    JayWilson: Thanks everyone! May 15th! WOOOOO!!!!!!

    Thanks to everyone who joined us on for the Diablo III Developer Chat today!  We had a great turnout and some even greater questions.  For those of you who weren’t able to make it, here is a transcript of the chat to tide you over until May 15th. 
    Pre-order Diablo III now!
    Developers:
    Jay Wilson, Game Director
    Jason Bender, Senior System Designer
    Jason Regier, Lead Software Engineer
    Kevin Martens, Lead Content Designer
    Transcript for Chat: 'Diablo III Developer Chat', Tue May 08 16:00:00 CDT 2012
    Kyle-BBY: Welcome to the Diablo III Developer Chat new arrivals! We'll be getting started in a few more minutes. Get your questions ready!
    Guest-74: When the option is selected to list things in the auction house for a real dollar value selling price, does that money go to the seller or Blizzard?
    JayWilson: We charge a $1 dollar service fee, or 15% for commodities. The remainder of the sale price goes to the seller.
    Guest-20: With some information out (may or maynot be correct) about how hard monsters hit in Inferno, will WD pets still be viable?
    JayWilson: Yes, pets scale pretty well in inferno. You do have to refresh them, but they are useful for tanking mobs.
    Guest-228: What was the hardest thing you had to cut from the game due to time/prodcution constraints?
    JasonRegier: For me, it was PvP. I had a ton of fun playing it against folks at BlizzCon, but it just wasn't ready for prime time yet.
    Guest-106: Will there be anyway to share the wings I get in the Collector's Edition with friends?
    JasonBender: Those are just for you, but you can apply them to as many of your characters as you like.
    Guest-26: Has anyone from the internal testing found a legendary item yet? Also, when are the stats for the legendaries going to be released?
    JasonRegier: I got one during testing, and when it dropped, I jumped up and cheered. It was awesome!
    Guest-25: Can you explain us about the bossfights? Will they be like Diablo 2 where the bosses had a fixed number of abilities and they just used them, or it will be more like WoW where the bosses have phases with different abilities and the scenery/positioning its crucial in the fight.
    JayWilson: Depends on the boss. Some have a set number of abilities, some have phases. Most are a little more complex than Diablo II.
    Guest-157: I will like to start of by saying the game is looking amazing so far, and I'm new to Diablo. Can you use the WASD keys for movement or just the left click on the mouse?
    JasonRegier: Basic control in Diablo 3 is very simple. Just click to move, and click on monsters to attack them.
    JayWilson: We don't support WASD for movement. We don't think it feels good as a movement scheme from an isometric view.
    tomt610: Will you make inferno difficulty easier if people will start telling you that you made it too hard and they cannot beat it, even that it is beatable at this point? Cause I remember in 90s games required skill to beat them and it would be nice to have at least one that kind of game at this point, without life regenerating itself etc.
    JasonBender: Inferno isn't for everyone. We would like to keep it as challenging as possible. Also, don't forget Hardcore mode. That's retro-hard!
    Guest-70: How many times was the codebase rewritten over the years or was reuse pretty standard?
    KevinMartens: We've spent a lot of time and energy getting the servers to be as prepared as possible. The big stress test during the beta was very helpful (thanks for all who participated). We'll have a big support team standing by at launch.
    Guest-251: What was your inspiration for the Wizard?
    JayWilson: We were inspired by old school pen and paper RPG's. We wanted a magic user who could control time, disentegrate, cast illusions, etc.
    Guest-36: Do you have plans to implement the Necromancer or druid at any point in the future?
    JayWilson: Any future classes we do are shrouded in mystery (insert scary ghost sounds).
    Guest-283: what are the plans for launch day, are the servers prepared for the work load that is coming?
    KevinMartens: We've spent a lot of time and energy getting the servers to be as prepared as possible. The big stress test during the beta was very helpful (thanks for all who participated). We'll have a big support team standing by at launch.
    Guest-728: when you want to play with a friend who is much lower level than you, are you stuck playing the furthest ACT or DIFFICULTY they have achieved?
    JasonBender: They can jump in to your game at a higher level (up to the highest difficulty they've achieved), even though they might miss story points. If the lower level player creates the game you will be limited to their story progress. You're not limited by ACT, but you are limited by DIFFICULTY.
    Guest-253: What was the funniest / most awesome bug you discovered during the development of Diablo 3?
    JasonBender: Funniest bug? We accidentally had an event that summoned 5 treasure goblins at one time. It was great seeing people scramble to chase them as they ran in different directions. Serious chaos!
    KevinMartens: Perhaps a little less funny than awesome but I had an skeleton summoner with a bug with no limit on the number of skeletons and I went to a meeting, came back an the monitor was entirely filled with skeletons. I killed them all with a leap attack
    Guest-56: Besides PvP, do you have any plans on adding additional content to Diablo?
    JayWilson: To Guest-56 Nothing solid at this point.
    Guest-25: Will the game have support for clans/guilds at release? if not, is something its being considered to be added in the future? I remember in Diablo 2 we had to create new characters to add the clan's tag.
    JayWilson: No plans at this time.
    Guest-23: I have had troubles with the FPS in the beta with my pretty decent upper class notebook, especially when bigger waves of monsters where on the screen? Has the FPS been optimized for notebook users for release since beta?
    JasonRegier: It's hard to say without knowing more about your particular configuration. We work really closely with our hardware compatibility department to make sure that lots of people have a great experience with D3, and we're always looking to make performance better.
    Guest-236: If i am higher level then my freinds and want to play with them, will there be any kind of handicap? for example will they get less exp
    JasonBender: There is an XP penalty for killing monsters too high/low in level relative to your character. It scales based on your level, so at lower levels you can fight a broader range of creatures. This is good because player levels tend to be farther apart earlier in the game.
    Guest-389: In the beta I had a hard time determining how much damage a spell did. I later learned that if I held ctrl and moused over a spell it gave me a percentage. Has any changes been made to make actually spell damage info more accessible?
    JayWilson: You can set more advanced tooltips to permanently display so you don't need to hold down CTRL. I do feel these could be more accurate in displaying the exact damage you're doing, and we may improve it in the future.
    Guest-261: Due to the amount of time it must take to produce the cinematics, how does that influence/affect a more iterative game design process?
    KevinMartens: The cinematics team is very, very good at working with us to identify the moments of a cinematic that are most prone to change and leaving those to the last possible moment. There is seldom an issue that we can't change with a line change or a simple new shot. The process and time limits have not been much of a problem at all.
    Guest-278: I know that Diablo3 is a click-to-move type game, but for sufferers of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, it can be very painful to click that much. Is controller support available in the future, if not, can players use applications such as Xpadder for use with controllers on the computer?
    JasonBender: Right-click drive mode allows you to automatically attack while moving when you hold the right mouse button down instead of clicking. Several of us use this to reduce clicks. (You can imagine how many times we've clicked in the process of making the game!) 
    Guest-217: Are the end of the act bosses still going to be the enemies with the highest drop rates for the most sought after gear resulting in "Baal Runs" being the best way to gear up, or will you encourage players to scour the map looking for rarespawns and giving them a higher drop rate instead
    JayWilson: We have a new system called "Nephalem Valor" that encourages you to kill randomly placed rares and champions. When you do, you get a stacking buff that increases your gold and magic find, and increases the drops on bosses. This makes it most beneficial to play through random content, then go fight bosses.
    Guest-224: Say for example that I am playing a high level character, but I want to play with my friend who only has a low level character. Will me joining his game ruin the experience for him because I could just blast through the content and make it too easy for him?
    JayWilson: You could blast him through the content, but his XP will be greatly diminished to the point that it's not very beneficial for your low level friend...unless he likes spoilers. But that's what Youtube is for.
    Guest-302: In regards to internal testing, did any of you try out a completely ridiculous build and manage to make it work in a later difficulty?
    KevinMartens: We spend a lot of time trying out "wacky" builds like melee Wizards or pet-less Witch Doctors and it is a fun, often challenging way to play. We often find ourselves changing a skill or two when we get stuck on a particular elite monster and sequence. Or more likely, we get tempted into to trying a completely different build when we get some particularly awesome piece of equipment. Melee wizard example above is a good one--I was playing recently with a typical mix of ranged spells and found a big bad-**bleep** sword that had such great stats, I changed my build to a melee wizard just to try out the sword.
    Guest-352: How much does the difficulty and greater item quality drop change when your buddy enters the world to play with you?
    JayWilson: Depends on the difficulty level you are playing in. I can't remember 'exact' numbers, though. It hovers around doubling monster health per player, but there are other variables as well.
    Guest-65: What happeneds after i beat inferno mode? P.S I LOVE YOU GUYS AWESOME JOB WITH THE GAME!
    JasonRegier: I'm pretty sure Jay comes to your house and gives you a big hug.
    Guest-249: Hey guys, what are the best moments you have from development time?
    JasonBender: Blizzcon was super-motivating. Also it's fun when we have hours long discussions about crazy design ideas, then see the exact same arguments happen on the forums.
    JasonRegier: For me, one of the best moments was seeing hundreds of people playing the game for the first time at BlizzCon. The response was fantastic! I can't wait for the public to finally play the full game.
    Guest-347: Bashiok stated that the display of BattleTags in games was a bug. Today Lylirra said that it wasn't. So is this a bug or not? If not then what exactly is the point of character names at all?
    JayWilson: It's not a bug, it is supposed to be displayed in game. We felt showing the Battle Tag was an essential element to identifying your friends and didn't want players displayed with different names in different situations. The purpose of character names is to help the player identify their characters in the case they have multiple of the same class and for extended presence.
    Guest-632: In diablo 2 as you got further into NM and **bleep** the areas became much bigger. Will the same happen with the later difficulties of Diablo 3? I remember Durance of Hate level 3 normal vs **bleep** and having a huge area difference.
    KevinMartens: The areas do not get bigger in later difficulties and it hasn't impacted the fun at all. Bigger does not equal better in level design, in the vast majority of cases. We've concentrated much more on the second-to-second challenge and item rewards for higher difficulty playthroughs.
    Guest-509: Can you keep teleporting if you are under 1 second, using the wormhole rune on the wizard?
    JayWilson: You can teleport as many times as the animation will allow in the time before the cooldown is triggered.
    Guest-351: My question is..... So if inferno has its own gear tiers Act1 - Act4 will all the normal thru **bleep** gear end up being trash or will some items end up being good way past their level unique items?? Thanks in advance .
    JasonBender: You'll need to gear up for a while prior to Inferno, so He|| gear will still be valuable for a while. Inferno ramps harshly, though, so you'll need to farm early inferno to handle late inferno. There is a point where gear becomes useless, but a perfectly rolled rare or legendary item can last a long time if it has the affixes you need. Don't forget crafting components, too. Old items can be used to crafter better ones.
    Guest-519: is there a way to switch weapons quickly on the run? (As we did with Diablo 2 by pressing "W") ?
    JayWilson: No. In polling players this seemed to primarily be used to hot swap to high magic find weapons right before a boss died, which didn't seem like great gameplay to encourage.
    Guest-552: Is there any customization to the character when making a character at the start screen? Also is there any customization later in the the game?
    JayWilson: You can also use dyes to customize gear, and even hide pieces of gear that have good stats that you don't like the look of.
    JasonRegier: At the starting screen, no. But within the game, there's a huge number of combinations of items and skills to choose from. Those choices really make your character unique.
    Guest-367: Was anyone in the internal test team able to beat the fourth difficulty of the game ? If not what is the reason for that ?
    KevinMartens: No one has beaten Inferno.
    Guest-415: Will third party programs that collect data about how much loot/gold is dropped where and when be allowed to use?
    JasonRegier: Using 3rd party programs like those is against the terms of use.
    Talen: Many Beta Testers have conserns about the text size of the user interface being either to small, or to large.Do you have any plans at this time to introduce scaling o accessability options for the User Interface and Item Stat Text ?
    JayWilson: Not at this time. Every feature has development cost. If there is demand for something like this we'll weigh it against other features we could add to the game. We did, however, increase font size late in the Beta.
    Guest-366: For the Witch Doctor, with Zombie Handler and Circle of Life passives, are you able to go well beyond having 4 summoned dogs on the field at once or is there some sort of cap?
    JasonBender:  4 is the max for dogs. You can get up to your max nyumber of dogs with a variety of skills (beyond just summoning them), which is good if they're dying a lot in higher difficulties, but that doesn't break the cap.
    Guest-335: Developers: Which act is your favorite to play through?
    JasonBender: I like Act 3. Because... er... *SPOILERS*!
    KevinMartens: Interesting question as that actually changes for me based on the difficulty. I like Act 3 on normal just because of certain battle sequences (no spoilers!!!) but like Act 2 on Nightmare because the bump in difficulty there is a fun challenge for me.
    JayWilson: Don't ask me to pick my favorite child.
    Guest-248: So I read that we can make a new characters in other regions other than our own, will we be able to copy a character over to that region or will we have to start a new one to play with our overseas friends?
    JasonRegier: You will have to start a new one.
    Guest-617: Did you find it difficult to convince others (Co-Wokers - Players) that a stat system wasn't very fun and just a math game? And also, was it easy to convince others that a skill system that was developed around experimentation would be more fun than a Diablo 2 system of constantly re-rolling? (I love the skill system lets me try whatever I want to try - I feel rewarded for experimenting. I feel more games should have this type of system.)
    JayWilson: Yes, it was difficult.
    Guest-847: What is the highest gem level that we can expect to drop?
    JayWilson: Tier 5 gems are the highest that drop.
    Guest-505: Beyond what we have already seen and the sets in Inferno, how many unique weapons and armor sets can we expect to see in D3? Will more be added? (outstanding job so far!)
    JasonBender: We have a ton of cool ideas that we would like to do. A bunch are in the works, but I can't yet say when they'll be ready for you. (The art team loves making these.)
    Guest-807: Will there be the option to change the strength of the monsters by pretending to have more players in a game? Like in D2?
    JayWilson: Not at release. With the challenge level of Inferno we did not see this as necessary.
    Guest-2444: Will Melee Wizards be Viable in **bleep** Mode?
    KevinMartens: For difficulty modes: certainly, the challenge will be harder in later difficulty modes. But really, this question points to a cool point of depth/awesomeness in our system. With the right gear and some practice, melee wizard will be viable--maybe barely but still. For Hardcore Mode: Again, with the right gear, maybe, but it is a risky thing to try. Let me know how you do
    Guest-906: are the angels wings from the CE, an emote thing? or is it like an item you can trigger on and off? also is there a cooldown on them?
    JasonBender: They're linked to a 1x1 item that goes in the inventory, but you can put them in your stash. You can click your wings to turn them on and off. There's no limit to how many times you can use them.
    JasonBender: (Also no cooldown on the wings.)
    Guest-128: Is there a separate appearance for the female barb when she goes berserker mode (the ability for 15 sec that you unlock at lvl 30)and how does she looks like can we not have a picture or something because we only see the male.
    JasonRegier: Yes, she looks different.
    Guest-523: Do bosses get more abilities through the difficulties to make them harder or do they just have scaling dmg and life? ie. in nightmare, he||, and inferno. Also, does Nephalem Valor only apply in Inferno?
    JayWilson: Not really. We have a couple cases, but they are mild enough that I'd say overall no. Bosses mainly scale in stats. And yes, Nephalem Valor is Inferno only.
    Guest-393: The new skill menu has been highly discussed by a large group of players awaiting Diablo III, and there has been much criticism (Despite it being an improvement over the early beta skill UI). Will there be further changes or did we see a finalized version of that system in the last patch of the beta?
    JayWilson: Other than polish-oriented improvements (of which I can't recall which made Beta and which didn't) the skill system is basically unchanged from the final one that appeared in Beta.
    Guest-347: Thank you for answering my first question. How far back does the behind the scenes in the CE cover? Does it cover any early D3 development or does it only cover the past couple years? Any word on when we can expect the web API for D3 or at least more information on it?
    JasonBender: The behind-the-scenes talks about all kinds of crazy stuff, so there should be some good history in there for you. Not sure about the API.
    Guest-446: Will certain areas in Diablo 3 have different treasure classes like they did in Diablo 2 for finding higher items or does it just come down to how far you have progressed into the game and is there a diminishing effect of the amount of mf your character can have eg. like a mf cap?
    JayWilson: I don't really know how to answer the treasure class one, lots of areas have different treasure classes but we try to make areas relatively equal depending on challenge and monster level. MF is not capped, though.
    Smeet: With Diablo 2, enemies in **bleep** difficulty almost all recieved an immunity to one type of damage. Does this trend continue into Diablo 3, or are the enemies / affixes made threatening in different ways?
    JayWilson: We do not use immunities as a monster affix. We focused more on powers that change up the monster's threat and challenge different classes in different ways.
    Guest-351: LOVE YOU GUYS & D3!!! Thanks for the Answer Also BTW how does sharing MF with a group work and is that group % amp'd up by "Nephalem Valor"
    JasonBender: MF is an average of the group's MF rating, so everyone either contributes combat power or boosts the group's MF. Valor covers the party.
    Guest-911: will I be able to have multiple keys on the same account IE: Collectors Edition and Standard? and are we able to use"Dual-Boxing" ?
    JasonRegier: No, you can have one license attached to the account. Dual boxing isn't supported... you'll need to have multiple battle.net accounts.
    Guest-561: How is Inferno difficulty being balanced as a sort of longterm endgame opportunity? Will characters struggle in inferno until they acquire really epic gear or is the aim for Inferno to always be very challenging even when characters are decked out? How does magic find gear play into the balance of being able to clear inferno (E.G. Being able to clear faster and safer vs wearing MF gear vs Nephalem Valor).
    KevinMartens: Inferno is balanced to never be trivial, even with the best gear. If some of you end up finding it trivial, we'll certainly be paying attention--good luck! Magic find gear vs. survivability gear works much like you think. You'll probably use MF gear when you are farming an area you know/think you can survive in and switch to survivability gear once you are trying to get further into a tough area.
    Guest-776: Send: Do you think that assigning a very specific/distinct personality to each character was a good call? A lot of people seem to be thrown away from wizard for example, just because of his not so cool attitude. Or the not-so-badass grandpa witchdoctor (character wise). Thanks
    JayWilson: Yes, we do think it was a good call. We think improving our game story by making the player characters active participants is worth the risk that a few players might get turned off by the choices for those characters. Without making this choice it weakens our story, and strong story is one of the most requested ways the community wanted us to improve Diablo.
    Guest-545: Is it an accurate assessment to say that expansions would follow the inferno progression and have a few levels but significant gear upgrades. Or will it be more like a level cap increase with inferno-like content at the end?
    JasonBender: We're concentrating on a smooth launch right now. Next up after that: PVP!
    Guest-401: Will there be a ladder and ladder-only items to keep Diablo 3 fresh for years to come? I know a lot of people still play Diablo 2, and were excited about the recent ladder reset.
    JayWilson: Not currently. We'd prefer to find better ways to accomplish this. If we can't come up with something better we'd consider a ladder in the future. It's not a problem that needs to be solved right away.
    DrowningRabbit: Speaking on Inferno mode, Blizzard has in the past made encounters like pre-patch C'Thun that were statistically impossible to finish. While that feat hasn't been repeated in World of Warcraft, is that a concern for Diablo 3's Inferno mode bosses?
    KevinMartens: There are not statistically impossible bosses/challenges, at least not by design. There are extremely difficult moments in Inferno but I do think that people, with practice and gear, will be able to finish it. Let the race to end of Inferno begin on May 15th, everyone!
    Guest-1326: Any plans for Lobby like Diablo 2?
    JasonBender: We support public chat channels, and we are always looking to improve the Battle.net service. It will evolve over time. (The trick is getting the chat gem working juuuuuuuuust right.) :-p
    JayWilson: BTW, I said earlier that Nephalem Valor is only available in Inferno. This is incorrect. It kicks in at level 60, regardless of your difficulty level.
    Guest-647: Hi Guys. Breathtaking work so far!, I wish you the best for the release!. My question would be how often can we expect to see new patches in terms game mechanics but also item stats in the span of perhaps one year?. Second question to Jay - will be rolling barb & monk combo for the first playthrough on hardcore, what would you say the chances are defeating **bleep**?
    JayWilson: We'll patch as the game needs it. Predicting a timeframe isn't something we'd do now. For your second question, need more information. How good are you? I'll just guess. I think you personally have a 37.4% chance to beat Hell.
    Guest-311: Can you implement a force Stop key (differing from force Stand Still), where pressing the key will stop all actions including movement and holding the key acts like force Stand Still? Finer movement controls will open up more mechanics!
    JasonBender: We always try to keep the controls streamlined where we can, but if there's a need for a new UI element we will surely consider it. No plans just yet on that particular item, though.
    Guest-625: Why are the Monk's heals not scaled by stats? The monk can never improve healing with gear. By contrast, the Barbarian's heals scale with damage or max HP.
    JayWilson: His heals scale with his level. They are powerful enough that we had concerns that if they scaled with gear they would be too good. Barb heals are personal, but Monk heals are group oriented, which is why they are handled differently.
    Guest-303: I Feel that a Dota style pvp map / pvp game mode would be perfect for Diablo..any plans in the works?
    JayWilson: That would be like making a whole new game inside our game. There are some parallels, but enough differences that I'd rather we focus on our core cooperative and PVE experiences.
    Guest-1639: How large is D3 compared to D2? Will it take as long or longer to clear the game (excluding inferno)?
    KevinMartens: Length of the game varies greatly depending on play-style and randomness. Play-style means completist poke around in every corner type people vs. rush the main objectives people--big difference. Randomness affects the length because you could be walking through an area and roll a 2 level dungeon (10-15 minutes of gameplay) or a 30 second ambush event. Depending on what rolls, that can really change your length. But regardless, length isn't the concern in a game so focused on replayability. Not that the game short so much as that is not what the design challenge is.
    Guest-785: Can you craft "inferno" level gear? if not what is the highest level gear you can craft?
    JasonBender: Yes, and it's awesome! It takes a lot of components to get to the best gear, though.
    Guest-846: Are you concerned that the current Skill UI along with the Skill tab for cycling through skills has perhaps been too categorized and requires a potential excessive amount of cycling through to find things? Example: with the Demon Hunter, why not just have three categories with Hatred Generators, Spenders, and Discipline skills instead of how things are split up now? Isn't that much easier to understand instead of the seeminly excessive categories at the moment?
    JasonRegier: We've found that categories in the current skill system UI is really helpful for newer players. And the "Elective Mode" option is there for advanced players to customize their builds to their heart's content.
    Guest-645: Some people say they will not be rolling a WD because it is a silly class, what do you say to them? Also, Soul Harvest seems too good at the moment....... 6 ..... more...... days ........
    JayWilson: I'd rather people be highly opinionated about our classes than not care. We made five classes just in case you don't like one of them.
    Guest-184: What's up with gems? Are they going to be socketable in more than just helms and weapons?
    JasonBender: Gems can be used in helms, weapons, and a variety of armor slots.
    Guest-538: In order to sell items on the real money auction house, do I have to have funds in my battle.net balance?
    JasonRegier: No, you can sell items without having any money in your account. There is no charge for posting items.
    Guest-340: Would you say that Diablo III's soundtrack is overall, Wagnerian in texture?
    KevinMartens: I'm not music history oriented enough to know the right pigeon-hole genre for our score. I think it is too varied to simply fit into one sub-genre.
    Guest-348: Do you have any comments on Athene vs Kripp for worlds first Inferno kill?
    JasonBender: I guess someone needs to take the other side of that bet, so Athene had better win. I like hot dogs. (The real question is: Who gets the world's first HARDCORE Inferno completion!)
    JayWilson: $20 and a coupon for a free hot dog on Kripp.
    Guest-520: Is it possible to place the dyes and wings from CE in the shared stash ? (so if i later upgrade my game to CE i could get the CE exclusives for my old heroes)
    JasonRegier: Yes.
    Guest-313: A new article on a fansite was just posted describing a way to use the WD to sacrafice zombies to do 25,000%+ weapon damage. How confident are you at this time that classes are balanced endgame?
    KevinMartens: There are billions of class and skill combinations--literally. They inherently cannot be balanced at time of ship due to lack of working time-machine technology and/or Groundhogs Day -style repeat testing days. We look forward to following all of you as you find incredibly awesome builds.
    Guest-844: Will Legendary/Set items have their own unique graphics independent of the "tier" sets or will they look the same?
    JasonBender: Legendary items and set always have unique art, stats, names and flavor text.
    Guest-876: Is the best gear in the game ("potentially," stats-wise) limited to dropping in Inferno difficulty, or are the differences between Inferno gear and end-game **bleep** gear mostly cosmetic or drop-chance related?
    JayWilson: The top three tiers of items, which are the best, only drop in Inferno.
    Guest-708: What class are each of you going to play at release? Softcore or hardcore?
    JasonRegier: Witchdoctor for me too. Hardcore!
    JasonBender: Witch Doctor. Also I'm looking forward to crying over my first hardcore character. And my second. And my third.
    KevinMartens: No pornography references, please! (Monk, softcore)
    Guest-869: Are there any non-set Legendaries that will only drop in Inferno Act III and IV?
    JasonBender: Yes. Legendary items are dropped based on the level of the monster or chest, so we have several at the max level that can only be found in the end of Inferno.
    Guest-720: Dueling: Will you ever consider patching in dueling “in-game” without having to lose the current play session and hit the arenas? The purpose is for fun things like settling disputes amongst friends, battling for items, or just killing time waiting for a friend to come back. It cannot be used for griefing due to mutually acceptance of the duel (and could even take a knee like in WoW so as there is no death).
    JayWilson: I'm not opposed to this, but it's not a trivial amount of work, and is not a priority for us right now. We want to focus on our team-based arena mode right now.
    Guest-547: Will there be any bosses that are only in certain difficulty modes?
    JasonBender: Bosses appear in each difficulty, but there are a handful of unique monsters that only appear in certain difficulties. Also there are a number of rare/champion affixes that don't show up until you reach later difficulties.
    JayWilson: Hold on, getting Wyatt for all your complex Witch Doctor questions.
    Guest-483: How does the treasure goblin scale, in regards to HP, in the higher difficulties? Will they always take a couple of hits to bring down?
    KevinMartens: Treasure Goblins are harder to kill at higher difficulties. I never miss one in normal but often fail to kill one in time in higher difficulties, usually because I'm too paranoid about being **bleep**ed by elite monsters to chase him aggressively.
    Guest-536: Will there be any more 'randomization pockets' (such as the Hanging Tree and the Corpse Pile) in the areas we played in the beta for us to discover?
    KevinMartens: I suspect that the beta players have discovered most, if not all, of the randomization pockets in the beta areas, but there is much more D3 to come. Also, there are rumors of secret things being secretly secreted somewhere secret.
    Guest-25: Will the mobs or bosses have diminishing returns/immunity on stun/slow/fear abilities? Or stunlocking them in inferno with 4 barbarians its totally possible?
    JayWilson: Elite mobs (bosses, champions, rares) are affected to a lesser degree by control skills, and are immune to a select few. We do not have a system for diminishing returns, as we want CC to be useful even against bosses.
    Guest-1803: Does the explosive beast rune for zombie charger work with the final gift rune for zombie dogs? ie zombie dogs from zombie charger dropping health globes? Thanks.
    KevinMartens: No, it does not.
    Guest-104: Are there any plans to ever had "hotkeys" in the game so we can quickly switch between different spells like in D2 with the F-keys?
    JasonRegier: The hotbar at the bottom of the screen gives you easy access to your current skills, and you can change the keybindings for it if you don't like the defaults.
    Guest-1064: How will the Monk and Witch Doctor passive skills that avoid death work in Hardcore mode?
    JayWilson: They will allow you to avoid death! Congratulations, hardcore player, you have outsmarted mortality!
    Guest-367: Do i need to read the quest dialog to fully understand the diablo lore ? or i can simply watch the cinematics and understand what is going on ?
    JasonBender: There are several ways to enhance your enjoyment of the story. The cinematics are meant to keep the story clear, but the more you read, the better it should be. (Even the item and skill flavor text adds to the lore.)
    JayWilson: Correction: we drop gems up to tier 8.
    Guest-376: can we follow treasure goblin through portal to a special dungon?
    JasonBender: One wonders where they go!
    Guest-1540: I heard a rumor around a month ago that players can recieve an extra reward if they don't switch their build for an entire Act, is this true?
    JasonBender: Not exactly true. It's good to explore builds. Nephalem Valor goes away if you respec, but that isn't based on the act.
    Guest-713: how will mf work in groups. say if 2 people have mf and 2 are just dps. will it take the groups mf number as a hole or just 1 person for their drops only?
    KevinMartens: Magic find is averaged across the party. If you have two MF people with 100% and two DPS people with 0%, then each person has 50% for their drops. Loot is, of course, per player.
    Guest-503: Is "rushing" a character possible? Or are there some kind of restrictions that keep a player from getting to Nightmare/**bleep**/Inferno in a significantly shorter time period than usual.
    JayWilson: A higher level character can help you jump past content within a difficulty, but you get greatly diminished XP, so you really need to go through legitimately. We have hard level requirements for difficulty levels, though, so no shortcuts there.
    Guest-661: I know you don't plan to support Diablo 3 to be a eSport - If the commnunity wants it to become a eSport(without the implied balance), would you support it with replays/spectator mode and more ? 
    JayWilson: No. We don't want Diablo 3 to become an E-sport. It's OK to have PVP just for fun. Our focus is on our PVE game, and we want it to stay there.
    Guest-302: What was it like being able to take a game I'm sure you all loved, and being able to expand the story, and create amazing things I bet the original creators would never even have thought of?
    JasonBender: It was a privilege. Personally, I feel incredibly lucky to be involved with Diablo, one of my favorite game worlds of all time. It was never hard to come up with cool ideas, just tough to pick the best to make the coolest game possible! 
    Guest-2203: Many people are trying to get world first 60 and think it is doable in as little as 20 hours. Can you give us any insight on this?
    JayWilson: World's first what?
    Guest-1729: How do you guys feel about the Barbarian in Inferno (being a melee class and all), especially regarding (the need for?) Shields?
    KevinMartens: Survivability is certainly something that you need to gear for in Inferno. Shield is the easiest vs. most obvious choice but certainly you can gear for a higher DPS with a different selection of gear and skills. It is still a fine balance between your play style, your DPS, your survivability stats, etc. None of those things can be out of balance for the way you play in order to survive at Inferno.
    Guest-1736: So, you guys are always talking about how diffcult Inferno will be. What about the others? Does this mean nightmare and **bleep** will also be too easy for us just like normal mode? Thats a serious concern for me...
    JasonBender: Different players find different things challenging. (This also depends on your gear.) Finishing Inferno in Hardcore mode will not be easy!
    Guest-2357: Is stun duration reduced in **bleep**/inferno or is the same as in normal?
    KevinMartens: It has been reduced.
    Guest-586: Will you share game statistics with the community? For example: ### different Monk builds have defeated <insert boss name>? or other misc data?
    JasonBender: We like sharing cool stats, but no specifics yet on what they will be. 
    JayWilson: To the person who asked if we might add or remove skills: we'll do whatever we think is right to balance the game and make the classes feel well rounded and effective. In other words...maybe.
    Kyle-BBY: Great chat everyone! Thank you for joining us fans and Diablo III Dev team!
    KevinMartens: Thank you, everyone, for attending
    JasonBender: Thank you so much! Great questions!
    JasonRegier: Thanks everyone! See you online!
    JayWilson: Thanks everyone! May 15th! WOOOOO!!!!!!

  • StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Live Chat Session - Transcript

    Transcript for "StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Developer Chat", Thurs July 15 2010 (Part I)
    Aaron-GS: Good evening and welcome to our StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty developer chat!
    Aaron-GS: Chris Sigaty from Blizzard Entertainment is currently online with us and he's here to answer your questions about the game! Dustin Browder will be joining us shortly.
    ChrisSi: Hello everyone!
    Aaron-GS: This chat is queued and moderated, so please allow the developers some time to review and respond to your questions.
    Aaron-GS: Please also refrain from asking complex, multi-part questions to be fair to other participants.
    Aaron-GS: The queue is now open, so ask away!
    sillyup20: Regarding future balance changes, will you guys continue to patch SC2 after release to ensure balance of all 3 races?
    ChrisSi: Yes, it's definitely important to us to ensure that the game remains balanced after launch. We will make patches as needed to address balance issues after launch
    Guest-16: For the Campaign experience, will there be variation for future play throughs?
    ChrisSi: Yes, one of the things we're really excited about with the campaign of Wings of Liberty is that players can make choices as to which missions to do next, what technologies they want to upgrade their army with, and so on. We think there's a lot of replayability in this huge campaign (29 missions) and players will get a ton of play time just with the campaign and some replayability
    Guest-46: What is the devs' relationship with the Battle.net 2.0 team?
    ChrisSi: We work very closely and we're in constant contact with the Battle.net team. The launch of StarCraft II and Battle.net is very much a team effort at Blizzard.
    Guest-81: Will Kerrigan have a large role in Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty?
    Lamonte: How many 1v1 multiplayer maps will be available for launch? And how will user created maps get put into the 1v1 map pool?
    ChrisSi: yes she definitely plays a large role in the story. but how exactly that plays out, you'll have to play to see
    DustinB: I think it's about 10 maps in the 1v1 queue. As we see great community maps we will take them internally, fix them up to match our map making standards (if necessary) and add them to the pool.
    Guest-19: Will you be doing an overhaul of some of the SC2 sounds, in particular, the siege tank and the hydra death and the marine death sound? Many of the fans are concerned that the audio side of Starcraft 2 will not be up-to-date and on-par with the graphics, animations and multiplayer experience
    Aaron-GS: The queue has been temporarily closed to allow Chris and Dustin some time to answer questions that have already been submitted.
    Aaron-GS: Thank you for your patience.
    DustinB: The sounds you hear in the beta are largely final. We will continue to update sounds in patches and of course in our two expansion products, Heart of the Swarm and Wings of Liberty.
    Guest-73: Will you please stop nerfing Protoss? Much love from Aiur.
    DustinB: The Protoss are now only slightly ahead of the other two races according to our numbers. But I think the nerfs for the Protoss are done for now. However the community continues to learn and we will buff and nerf as needed.=)
    pureWasted: Do you have any plans to make units such as Reapers and Zerglings more viable in the late game?
    DustinB: We continue to watch the balance in the game. Zerglings and Reapers do have some uses in the late game in some match ups, and we are waiting to see if they have more use once the community learns more about the game or if they fall off user build orders all together. We will not be doing any more patches in beta and we will be waiting at least several weeks after launch before we do any additional balance patch work (unless we see something really broken). In many ways the balance is in the hands of the community now for a while. We will see what kinds of strategies people come up with, what they learn to do with what they have and we will make decisions only after we learn a lot more about how the game plays with ALL of our fans playing.=)
    Guest-64: Could you go into more detail on the Zerg campaign for Heart of the Swarm? What new features can we expect?
    Guest-82: Hello, do you plan any new changes with the mothership? Alot of people feel that it's price is not worth it. Also, how about the ultralisk? I think the ultralisk should be able to at least walk over the zerglings. Thoughts?
    DustinB: We are not going to any changes on the Mothership in the near future. Internal debate rages about this unit, I have been told by several people both inside and outside of blizzard that the unit is far too powerful. The Ultralisk needs a lot more testing before we know how good he is or is not in his current state. I have heard complaints both ways on this unit, that he is way too powerful (mostly against Protoss) and way too weak (mostly against Terrans). But we shall have to wait and see.
    Guest-93: Will there be any significant changes between phase 2 beta and the launched version?
    DustinB: We are not going to make major changes to game balance bewteen beta and launch. We will be fixing bugs and improving game perfomance and stability.
    Guest-29: With certain maps being biased to certain races, are you planning on remaking the maps or just releasing other maps to play ladder matches that are balanced?
    DustinB: There are always going to be maps that favor one race over another. We try to strike a good balance between these maps. If there is a map that is VERY unbalanced we will pull it from the match making pool (like Incineration Zone in Beta 1). If a map needs small fixes to make it better we will make those, though in most cases I think we would just put new maps into the mix.
    Guest-89: QXC wants to know if you have plans to tweak Reapers and Battlecruisers so that we see them more in competitive play
    DustinB: We do not have plans on Reapers or Battlecruisers at the moment. That may change after the game goes live and as the community gets more time with the game. I think Battlecruisers are fundamentally vulnerable in PvT and TvT (Void Rays and Vikings) though they could be tweaked to have use in TvZ.
    Guest-104: Dustin, is this really you?! http://beta-us.battle.net/sc2/en/media/artwork#/po​rtrait_goliath_mercenary ^^
    Guest-80: With respect to Battle.Net, will there be automated tournaments a la Warcraft 3 and if so will they have rewards such as portraits or decals?
    ChrisSi: that is a mysterious resemblance, Guest 104!
    DustinB: We do have plans for automated tournaments, but they are a little ways off. Look for these in the future. We are pretty geeked up about getting to put them in (and play them ourselves). =)
    Guest-85: What classic/new units will we play with in the campaign that didnt make the cut in the Multiplayer game? Eg; firebat, medic, what others?
    DustinB: I don't know that I remember the full list. Here is what comes to mind.=) Medic, Firebat, Vulture, Wraith, Science Vessel, Goliath.
    Guest-70: regarding balance changes, how are you basing your balance changes? do you look at the diamond league statistics in a certain region, base them off tournament play, or what? do you guys at blizzard follow the competative tournament scene and base some balance changes of tham?
    Guest-88: Do you plan to add any new units in future expansions that would be available to use online/multilayer?
    DustinB: We look at stats on all regions and all leagues. We emphasize the importance of balance in the Diamond League as well as pulling stats from our top 1% of players. These are the numbers that need to be as close to 50/50 as we can get them. We do try to make sure that Bronze players don't get much worse than 55/45 in any matchup. In addition we look at tournament play and study those games to see what we can learn about how people are playing the game now as well as how they may play it in the future. David Kim and Matt Cooper (our balance designers) spend pretty much their entire day playing games and watching others play games.=)
    Guest-122: Cross realm play.. Why did you not include it? There has virtually been no lag.
    DustinB: That's something we want to get to in the future. There are some technical and business challenges for us. We do offer our players different ways to buy and play StarCraft 2 in different areas of the world and we need to work out cross realm play so it is fair to all of our fans around the world.
    sillyup20: Will future expansions of SC2 lead to new units in the Mutliplayer?
    DustinB: Yes.=) We will add more units. How we will deal with the games growing complexity is the really interesting challenge that we don't yet have the great answer for. We don't want to have 15+ units per race in the game, so we need to think of something clever that will allow us to add new strategies to the game without making the game too complicated.
    Denthar: are the stats on the units in the campaign going to have the same stats as those in muliplayer?
    DustinB: Mostly yes, but there are some exceptions. We do have some of the units that start weaker in the campaign and get stronger as you buy upgrades for them or gain additional abilities through researching alien organisms and artefacts. In general though there are so many new and crazy units in the campaign that you will find it a very different experience from multiplayer combat.
    Guest-151: Are there any features where you won't need a persistent internet connection such as editors or campaign?
    Guest-41: Do you feel there is room for new units to come (or come back) in the future ?
    ChrisSi: There is an offline mode where you can play the campaign, skirmish against AI or challenge mode w/o needing to be connected to Battle.net (Guest 151)
    DustinB: Yes, we will be dealing with the issue of new units in the expansions. I doubt we will add new units or bring back old units in patches, but anything is possible.
    Guest-166: Can we expect significant changes for each "episode" gameplay wise? (I.E. radical new unit functions, gametypes or innovative maps?)
    DustinB: We are going to do more in the expansions to add new strategies for the fans. I don't know what those will be yet.=)
    Lamonte: You said your map making standards, what are blizzards map making standards?
    DustinB: It is a long and complicated list. In many cases it comes down to simple bugs. In user made maps there are often many small mistakes like areas of the map where units can get easily stuck or trapped, or mistakes in mineral and gas placement, that sort of thing. Generally when we put a map into the matchmaking pool we clean up a few of these bugs before publishing it to Battle.Net
    Guest-124: Can we expect new Blizzard maps as well as user-submitted (turned official) maps? If you could ballpark it, how long should we expect new features & additions from Blizzard for SC2?
    DustinB: yes, we will add user made maps. I expect we will be adding features and custom maps in many of our patches between expansions and obviously we will be adding lots of stuff in the expansions themselves.
    Guest-70: as you may know, there are no 1 supply units in the zerg race at the moment and the zerg is lacking their "swarm" aspect. what are you guys looking into to bring the "swarm" back to the zerg?
    DustinB: Well the Zerglings are .5 supply.=) I know many of our Zerg players were annoyed that we made Roaches 2 supply. We just couldn't justify a 1 supply Roach when we took a look at his stats and we watched and played a ton of Beta games. It was not balanced. We really think the "swarm" aspect of the Zerg comes not from the supply cost of some of their units but from the vast amount of resources they often have at their disposal because they find it so easy to expand. In addition with Spawn Larva the Zerg can easily save up a large amount of production, allowing Zerg forces to attack with a large army, lose that army and then rebuild it very quickly and attack again with a similar force. It feels very "swarmy."
    Guest-172: Can you give us any info about Blizzards plan for E-Sports in the west?
    Guest-190: Will there be a snow tileset in the campaign?
    DustinB: No. We will be doing snow in the future. Sorry. =(
    Scytone: What is your take on EMP? Do you feel it is to strong? are there any plans to change it?
    ChrisSi: esports is very important to us at Blizzard and especially for SC2.We do plan on releasing a patch in the months after launch to address the needs of pro tournaments and eSports, so as we get closer to that we'll have more news to share about our plans for eSports overall (Guest 172)
    DustinB: EMP is necessary for Terrans right to defend against Protoss. I also think it might have more use that we are currently seeing against Zerg (but I could be wrong about that). We have nerfed its radius in the past and we can do so again if necessary. We don't believe (currently) that it is a problem.
    Guest-48: Concerning the ladder promotions system, what further clarity can you provide to us on exactly how this works? I've heard that it works based on some sort of interval system, if so, what sort of intervals? I think many people feel left in the dark on how this works and might like a 'progress bar' for promotions or something similar.
    DustinB: The Battle.Net team has been hard at work on this system throughout Beta-1 and Beta-2. It does currently check every so often to see that you are in the right league. I don't know what the current times are that it checks. I know they are talking about doing some updates to those checks so that they happen more often.
    Guest-215: WIth the new expansions, will current units change in any way?
    DustinB: Current units will change if we think of ways to make them more fun and they will change if we need to alter the balance to deal with anything new we add to those expansions.
    Guest-93: Send: Some phase 2 patches took away some of the social features on battle net. Such as being able to join a friends game simply by right clicking and 'joining game'. Or being ablbe to see other peoples friends through your current friends. Making it easier to connect with friends is really important. Do you plan on brining back these features along with others (chat channels?)
    Guest-81: Are you happy with the Ultralisk? Do you see it as a end game unit that the zerg can use effectively? Compared to the other races end-game units, does the big bug need another buff? Or do they neeed a super bug that's bigger?
    DustinB: I have only had a few great Ultralisk experiences myself. I have seen some truly amazing Ultralisk games and I have seen some total disasters. We are going to "wait and see" on him and see how he does in the coming weeks before we do anything else to him. Remember that in many cases the players find lots of clever ways to use units that don't seem at all obvious to us inside the studio.
    ChrisSi: We're goign to be watching closely how players use the social functionality in Battle.net and continue to refine the system and make it easier and more intuitive to do things like invite players to games and so on. As for chat channels, there'll be a post-launch patch that will include the ability to have private chat channels. Battle.net is very much a living service so you can expect that we'll constantly be making feature additions and improvements to meet the needs of players (Guest 93)
    Guest-149: Do you anticipate further tweaking terran mech or the build time of barracks and gateways?
    DustinB: If necessary. We don't have any plans today.
    Guest-177: Do you plan to rotate the map pool for the ladder, if so will user made maps have a chance to be put in the ladder map pool?
    DustinB: Yes.=) This is a popular question. We will add user maps as we become aware of them.
    Guest-200: There are rumors that there is a LAN enabled professional edition available for professional tournaments to reduce latency... Is this true and will it be available for pro-teams to practice?
    Guest-197: Will there be anymore Zerg soundscape changes before retail? – Wankey
    DustinB: I don't believe there are any changes planned before we go live. Sorry. =(
    Guest-102: Are there still plans to implement an invite only "pro" leauge above the diamond league after launch?
    DustinB: Yes. I don't have all the details, but we do plan on having a "Pro League" that works a little differently from our regular leagues.
    ChrisSi: any rumors you've heard about a "pro edition" are just rumors. We've made no official announcements about that. We will address the needs of pro tournaments and eSports in a patch in the months after the release of SC2. (Guest 200)
    AVBenedetto: Zerg player here. I will gladly trade Roaches for Lurkers in multiplayer, any chance of seeing Lurkers before the expansions?
    DustinB: Not likely, though anything is possible. It's not a Roach trade though. It's a Roach+Baneling trade. When we were testing the game with Lurkers we found that their splash and Baneling splash overlapped quite a bit. For sometime the Lurker was Tier 3 as a result (and siege range) but in that position he was easily spotted by detection (since it is so common in Tier 3) and he wasn't really a "Lurker." Also remember that without Dark Swarm, Lurkers don't have quite the same level of use that they did in SC1.
    Guest-136: Do you believe that StarCraft 2 will be able to reach a similar eSports scene success in the US and/or Europe as Brood War has had in South Korea, including multiple multimillion dollar teams and games broadcasted live on tv daily?
    DustinB: No idea. I hope so.=) It certainly is a fun game to watch (as I'm sure most of you know). What nations and communities will embrace it is largely up to our players and fans. We didn't create esports, our fans did that. =)
    spychi: how many new units have been done for campaign only?
    DustinB: I'm not sure on the exact number. I believe it's about a dozen?
    Guest-153: With updated Terms of Use for new Bnet, it was mentioned you needed Blizzard permission for any type of Esports activity. This of course makes sense, but when I personally contacted support to get the needed paper complete through email or fax. I was told they had no information on this and was given Blizzards Corp. mailing address. Can you save people who are doing Esports Livestream / Ustream showmatches the trouble and let us know how to contact to get this permission Please?
    Guest-275: Will there ever be a toggle function for Unit life bars?? Or a way to make Unit life bars smaller??
    DustinB: There is a toggle for unit life bars. We don't have a way to make them smaller. That sounds like a good suggestion.
    ChrisSi: If you're interested in setting up a tournament and getting appropriate licensing for SC2, contact [email protected]
    Aaron|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
     Private Message

    Transcript for "StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Developer Chat", Thurs July 15 2010 (Part III)
    Guest-393: Do you have plans to change the custom game list? I ask this because sometimes I search for a game I like, but its not that popular. Therefore its on the bottom of the list and no one joins the game.
    ChrisSi: I can't speak to that issue specifically but if there is a major problem there we will address it in due time. As you know we are committed to patching even older games like SC and Diablo when necessary. At the moment a lot of attention is focused on this launch, so pelase be patient =) (Guest 334)
    DustinB: Again, this is an area that we will be working on in the coming months.=)
    Guest-340: Would it be plausible to see a "StarCraft HD" in the next five years? We'd all love to see the original game "digitally remastered" along the same lines as timeless movies like "Gone with the Wind", "Cassablanca" or the "Wizard of Oz". We don't enjoy them' films on ol' projector reels these days, no sir! -- We've got VCR's now! *spits*.
    DustinB: That would be pretty cool. Currently we have no plans for such a project. =(
    Guest-281: Recently, StarCraft Legacy wrote a really great article regarding the community's concerns with the new Battle.net and we know that Battle.net is going to evolve - but what is the reason for some of the stuff the community thinks was so basic not being included in release? What's the best way to give you guys feedback? We the hardcore, are a highly underused resource!
    DustinB: Oh, we are hearing you guys, don't worry about that.=) We are going to keep working on it as fast as we can. Stuff that isn't in there is stuff we just didn't get to. Keep sending your feedback though, and we'll try to address it as fast as we can.
    Guest-294: Will there be seasonal SC2 ladder resets, similar to WC3 and WoW arena?
    DustinB: That's the plan. Though I don't know yet when the first season is going to end.
    Guest-400: Do you plan on including good and balanced fan made maps (if made) in some of the future ladder map pools?
    DustinB: Yes. =) Also, I answered this one like ten times already.=)
    DustinB: To Guest-156 That's the plan. I don't know exaxtly what new sorting methods will be used in the future, but it's an area we can work on.
    Guest-337: Is Terrible Terrible Damage going to be a cheat code?
    DustinB: Wait and see.=)
    Guest-73: What is your favourite unit and race, and who would win in a 1v1 match between you two (directed to both)?
    DustinB: As the Game Director I don't have the luxury of having a favorite. I play Random unless I am testing something specific. Chris Sigaty doesn't get quite the play time I do. I would totally pwn that noob.
    ChrisSi: oh I think Dustin would have an advantage over me.
    Guest-156: Do you have any information for us on the custom game selection menu? Will new ways to sort through games be made available Soon^TM? The popularity system has its drawbacks.
    DustinB: That's the plan. I don't know exactly what new sorting methods will be used in the future, but it's an area we can work on.
    Guest-389: How exactly does the current Galaxy Editor differ from the version at launch?
    DustinB: We have made some UI improvements as well as stability improvements. More importantly you will have access to all the art in the campaign.=)
    Guest-298: In multiplayer games, are there any plan to implement a counter that would show the supply and resources of your allies? This is something that the community has been asking for a while. It would be extremely useful when one of your ally leave. I remember reading an interview with Dustin that said that the team thought that such a counter would be used to flame your allies but have you considered the possibility of letting players chose if they want to show the counter or not (kinda like you can...
    DustinB: It's certainly something we can talk about for a future patch. I do think there is going to be flaming no matter what we do, so maybe we can find a nice spot to put this info in the UI.
    Guest-70: The Force Field spell seems to be an extremely strong spell and in the recent patch, they have been buffed by decreasing the amount of Force Fields needed to trap or block a unit. It is even possible to trap Roaches in between 2 Force Fields. What is the reasoning for this change?
    Disease: Will the game ship with multiple languages on one DVD or at least with an option to switch the language?
    DustinB: Yeah, that buff happened because we fixed a bug where Zerglings on creep could actually "run past" a line of Zealots that were blocking a choke point. We have a new fix that will come out in our first patch that will make Force Fields work like they did before AND zerglings will still not be able to run past Zealots. In other words, we didn't do it on purpose, it just happened when we fixed something else. Sorry. =(
    Guest-284: Can we set difficulty of campaign? Or is there normal mode and then after we finish it we unlock other difficulties like Hard in WC3 if I remember correctly?
    DustinB: You can change your difficulty on a per mission basis. So if you start on Casual and it seems to easy you can start the next mission on Normal or Hard. You can play any difficulty at any time without having to beat the campaign.
    Guest-282: Will there be a way at release to customize your key binds, or at least move the F keys to a more convenient position?
    DustinB: Yes, you can do some key rebinding.
    Guest-346: I want to say a BIG "thank you" to you guys and everyone at Blizzard for making these games that millions and I want to play! And for a light-hearted question; What are we more likely to see first, the third expansion to Starcraft 2, or Diablo 3? =)
    ChrisSi: Disease -- you should buy the language version and region that you want to play in. The ability to switch language and which language you want to switch to is going to vary from region to region.
    Guest-419: Resend: Will you be conducting more chats like this one anytime soon, as it seems that direct, public communications between the devs and the community is sparse (reading our posts on the forums/fansites doesn't count, I'm referring to a two-way dialogue)
    DustinB: Thanks dude.=) As far as the race between us and D3 goes who knows? If you are a fan of our games you know how we opperate. It will be done when it's done. Not the best answer for our fans, but the right answer for the games.
    ChrisSi: Guest 419 - we do conduct Twitter chats with fans from time to time. Recommend you add yourself to the official StarCraft facebook and/or twitter accounts so you can be informed when the next one happens. Thanks!
    Guest-29: What is the most popular race being played in the beta?
    Guest-366: With regard to the Oceanic / Asia region, coming from the Philippines I am still contemplating which version to buy (right now I have better ping to LA servers). Has there been any update regarding the traceroutes on the forums, which version would Australian / Philippine players buy to experience better multiplayer experience (read: less lag). Thanks.
    DustinB: Terran. That may be because they are the default race, or because they are the most "understandable" race (they look human) or it may be because people think they are the most powerful. Not sure why.=)
    Guest-82: I really miss "20 minute No Rush" titles on custom games, with this new battle.net you can't do that, is there anyway we can impliment that? Also, any news on clan chat and general chat?
    DustinB: yeah, I hear you on the "no rush" games. I don't have a solve for you in the current UI. No news on Clan or General chat, but it is on the list of big important things we have to do, that is for sure.
    Guest-314: There appears to be a significant input delay when using keyboard commands in custom maps that is (probably) unrelated to latency that has remained since Warcraft 3. Trying to play games on battle.net using arrow keys to move for example, is impossible. Is your team aware of this issue and are there plans to fix it?
    ChrisSi: Guest 366 -- we are always trying to work with local ISPs to improve routing to Battle.net servers. I'd strongly encourage you to play in the SEA region as our goal is to build up strong regional communities of players. By putting down servers in the region, we are committing to providing the best play experience for you there.
    DustinB: We are very aware. Last I heard they were working on it but it was a hard problem. I don't know if a fix is incoming or possible. We shall have to wait and see what the engineers come up with.
    Guest-211: Have you watched any SC2 beta tournaments? If so, who is your favorite player?
    DustinB: I have watched many. I don't know if it would be right for me to say my favorite.=) I like players who have good manners, play creatively and try new stuff a lot.
    Guest-470: Dustin, when i first read about the new AI, which Sc2 would introduce, I thought you would be more inventive. I would love to recommend your AI-team some readings on planning AI... I see that you already read up on steering behavior for the zerglings (which results in poor movements by ultralists, but that's another story). (Master in AI @ university of Copenhagen, Denmark)
    DustinB: Sorry if you don't like our AI. I think it's pretty challenging and does a really good job of being aggresive and keeping you on your toes. Try Insane if you have mastered Very Hard.=)
    Guest-397: Is there going to be a single-player demo like there was for the original shortly before or after release?
    DustinB: We are working on something, but it is still a little bit in the future to know exactly when we will have it ready.
    Guest-258: Will there be a way to view replays with my friends within battle.net? Currently the only way (that I know) to view them concurrently is to send him the file, and we both click start at the same time =\. Its sort of a hassle.
    DustinB: One day yes, not for launch.=( It is a good feature and we are going to try to get it as soon as we can.
    Guest-364: It seems to be that in terran vs anything. terran is called the favored match up in polls and in major tournaments. even pro players changing to terran because of the imbalance. does blizzard feel there is an imbalance?
    DustinB: I haven't seen numbers that prove this to me yet. I have also had players tell me that Protoss are the most imbalanced. Polls we don't really respond to, we don't know who is in them or if they are accurate. If we start to see a large number of terran players dominating the high end tournaments we will certainly do something. Currently I don't feel there is an imbalance, but as always we are open to new data.
    Guest-173: Considering the limitation of 1 account per purchase of SCII, it makes it very difficult for players to play their 'off' races competitively without losing their rank for their 'best' race. If having multiple accounts is not possible because of spam, and repeatedly playing against bronze-level to feel 'pro', etc, etc, Could it be possible to implement 4 different placement match sets of 5 for each individual race? (P T Z and Random?) So we can play all of them and improve our entire SC play, sti...
    Guest-194: how come the US didnt get an open beta? I cant wait 11 more days =(
    DustinB: Yeah. I know exactly how you feel. I don't know what the fix is yet for this issue. We'll try to think of a good fix that makes everyone happy.
    Guest-347: You mentioned, in relation to the balance of TvZ, that although you feel Siege tanks might be too powerful vs. Zerg generally, the "stats" don't back that up because the win rate is close to 50/50. Taken to the extreme, isn't it possible that, say, Baneling busts are OP vs Terran early and Siege tanks are OP vz Zerg in the mid-to-late game? Therefore Zerg would win 50% of the time on Baneling busts, and Terran would win the other 50% of games that make it to the mid-game. Obviously this is an ex...
    ChrisSi: Guest 194 -- Hang in there! Sorry you didn't make it into beta but it won't be long before you can play. Hope to see you soon on Battle.net!
    Guest-53: You said the campaign will be available offline and that campaign progress is kept serverside. Will users be able to earn Achievements while playing offline? Are game saves going to be saved locally or on the server?
    DustinB: Yes, that is possible. But we don't just use the stats. When we are playing, we find that experienced Zerg players are doing well in both tournaments and in high end play. And our testers and balance guys are crushing with zerg. As far as ZvT is concerned we are waiting for more data. I feel like there is a problem but we haven't seen the proof yet. We need to know what to do before we make a fix. So we are going to keep watching it.
    Guest-86: 1 ghost emp could possibly whipe out VERY MANY archons , and of all of their life but a puny 10 hitpoints, also with giving up psistorm do you even see archons as a useful unit , PvT anyways ? *P.S. how longs the Q+A gonna last ?*
    DustinB: EMP does not do 100% damage to shields. Archons have some shields remaining when they get hit.
    ChrisSi: Guest 53: If you're not connected to Battle.net you can't earn achievements. And obviously if you want to access cloud file storage to save your campaign progress you'll need to be connected online to do that as well.
    Guest-363: Are there any plans to standardize the in game time with the actual game speed we play on? IE give us correct APM for the fastest setting and in game time regaurding unit build times, and other references to time that arent on the speed that is played on.
    DustinB: Yeah, this is an issue we have to address. I'm not sure what fix we decided for this off the top of my head. Sorry.=(
    Guest-454: What do you guys plan on doing about the exceeding number of smurf accounts currently occupying the Bronze league, I messed up my placement matches and now it seems like theres no way out. :[
    DustinB: We will promote you out of Bronze if you win games. It takes 30+ games in the current version of the system. Also, I highly suggest to players in Beta-2 to NOT intentionally throw their first 5 games. I now some players who have done this and then been frustrated that they can't just win their way out quickly. The system is conservative right now (though we are talking about some changes) and it will only promote you after it is pretty sure it knows where you belong.
    Guest-73: It seems that the new and improved AI heavily favours ranged units and in mid to late game, melee units become weak against them. Do you feel that this is the case and tweaking needs to be done?
    DustinB: that is not feedback that I have heard. But we can certainly look at it.
    Guest-283: Any plans to get group replay watching out in the near future? The community would love this and it would be great for team players. What about things like drawing across the replay screen, etc?
    Guest-473: Is StarCraft 2 going to be pay to play on Latin America?. Game voices are on Latin Spanish like WoW?
    DustinB: Not in the near future, but as soon as we can. That would be a ton of fun.
    Guest-340: Relic's RTS 'Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor' allows you to swap out specific units in a melee game, allowing for some greater variety in a matchup. Could we see this feature in future expansions? If not the complexity of mix & match armies, perhaps simply custom unit artwork (earned through tournaments or other promotional elements)?
    DustinB: It's a cool idea. If it makes sense we could do something like that. The most important thing for StarCraft is always going to be the game balance. That will help determine what we are and are not willing to do in the expansions.
    Guest-303: Do you feel the ladder placement system is successful? I went 4-1 in my placement matches and was placed in silver. Also, will the magic number of placement matches still be 5 after release?
    ChrisSi: Our players in Latin America still ahve the option of purchasing an unlimited play client directly from us. We do have the ADDITIONAL option (for players who want it) to buy a lower-cost box that has limited play time. You can then buy additional play time if you like. So it's up to you which way you want to go. And yes the game will be fully voiced and localized in Latin American Spanish (not Castellano).
    DustinB: We have found that 5 matches is enough to place most players somewhat close to their correct league. If we want to be more precise we have to wait until almost 35 matches to know for sure where you belong (and that's too long). So we are going to keep it at 5 and then promote as necessary. The current system is a little bit conservative with promotions. We are looking at possibly making it a little bit more aggresive with promotions for launch. But that may or may not happen depending on the work involved.
    Guest-199: Do we have to expect to servers to be laggy on the first day of release or are you guys REALLY ready for launch?
    DustinB: I hope we are ready. We have certainly put in the work to BE ready. I THINK we are ready. OK, now you are making me nervous with this question.
    Guest-397: A year or two back, I believe it was mentioned that we could mix and match tilesets (say, you could use the dirt or grass from Agria or Bel'Shir, but could also include terrain from a tileset such as Korhal or Shakuras). From what I've heard, this was not possible in the Beta. Is this one of the UI improvements you mentioned? If not, why was it removed?
    Guest-167: How is the sp campaign replayability wise? Are there incentives for doing the missions/campaign again aside from collecting achievements? Maybe branching mission paths or choices in the campaign that affect how the rest of the campaign will play out?
    DustinB: I don't think this feature was removed. But I haven't used the editor in some time. If it's out it may be a mistake.
    Guest-446: Forgive me if this has already been addressed, but will there be a SINGLE top league? I love having multiple Bronze->Platinum, but we NEED to know who is the best. Either Diamond or a new bracket above diamond should exist as single top 100 league. Please?
    DustinB: Eventually we are planning on a "Pro League" that will include the best players only.
    Guest-419: Why are the patch notes always incomplete? Why not disclose all the changes up front? Also, will you host any tournaments at BlizzCon with well known commentators in the community DJing?
    DustinB: Because we are making patches too quickly and we screwed up and forgot to put some stuff in. Sorry. =(
    AVBenedetto: Can Void Rays lose their charge when they change targets like they did ages ago? Pretty please with spidermines on top?
    ChrisSi: Guest 167: There will be some different mission branches throughout the campaign that tell the sidestories of certain characters like Tosh or Dr. Hanson. There will also be a couple opportunities there for your choices to affect the fate of certain sidestories. Between the branching mission paths and the ability to customize your army through single-player only units and tech and mercenaries, we think there's a good amount of replayability built-in to the game.
    DustinB: I think Void Rays are doing pretty well in the balance of the game right now. No plans for such a change (which is a pretty big nerf).
    Guest-132: You mentioned that larger/"pro" maps are for pro players and tournaments. Does that mean we won't be seeing any more maps the size of Lost Temple in the 1v1 ladder map pool?
    Guest-449: Are you planning on having the servers live for midnight launches in the US?
    DustinB: No, Lost Temple will be in that pool. Desert Oasis is in there too (and is pretty big). Some of the pro maps from Broodwar could almost be 3v3 maps. And they are often very technical maps with all kinds of height differences and complex layouts. They are AWESOME for pro play, but can be a little intimidating for many.
    Guest-280: What are your plans for the 1st expansion in terms of campaign and how will it be different to the hyperion stuff and how missions work in SC2 WOL
    ChrisSi: Guest 449: Yes, if you go and buy your box at midnight in the US, we're planning on the servers being ready for you to install and play when you bring that box home
    Aaron|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
     Private Message

  • World of warcraft/Diablo 3 frame rate drop to about 25% of normal frame rate and I have to reset SMC to get it back to original. But this happens once every 2-5 days. Is this normal!?

    I purchased a 15 inc retina mac book pro in Sep 2012 and everything has been perfect except when I started to play world of warcraft and Diablo 3. After I first installed the games, their frame rates were so bad and the games were un-playable (<10fps). So I spent quite a bit of time searching on the internet and eventually found a solution which is to reset the SMC of the machine. I did this and everything was fantastic, frame rates go up to 30-60 fps on the same settings. However I then realise that I have to reset SMC every few days as the framerate become bad again and again. The frame rate doesn't drop gradually. It is sudden - yesterday the games were fine, today when I turn on the computer they become unplayable.
    Any help is appreciated - I tried to contact apple by going through the solution process they have on the website but it just asks me to take the computer to the apple store but I don't have time to do so. It will be great if there is a phone number I can call.
    Cheers

    Hello Sinaxwe,
    This is not a fix but a work around.
    gfxCardStatus by Cody Krieger: http://gfx.io
    set graphics to discrete only
    Play your games.

  • How to reset safari 8

    How can I reset safari 8 on os x yosemite. I have redirect problem on my browser. I want to search things from toolbar using google but it redirects me to a different search engine. I checked all extensions there is no one there that seems wrong. please help me.

    In OS X 10.10, with the new update to Safari, you can't simply reset Safari like before. Now you have to actually go in and manually disengage anything plugged in to safari.
    This means entering the Library folders for both the system and user accounts affected by the Trovi/Conduit/Search protect redirect malwares.
    First up is closing Safari down. Quit it, or Force Quit it using the Command/Option/Esc shortcut. Next up is to navigate to Finder and remove traces of the pest in your user files.
    While some antivirus programs are great for this, avoid MacKeeper like the plague, it basically will do the same thing. Do not ever use it.
    I should warn you, deleting files in this part may affect your computer adversely. When in doubt, TIME MACHINE BACKUP!!!!
    Mouse up to the "Go" top menu selection, and hold down the Option/Alt key. Magically, the Library folder will appear, which you'll need to click on, and go in to. The file path should be something along the lines of /Users/YOURNAME/Library. Inside this are a few folders that you'll need to pop in and check out. Application Support is one of them, this will house anything dealing with preference files or misc files for programs or apps, including in some cases, search redirect add ons. Find the name of your assailant, be it Trovi, Conduit, or the plethora of others out there that hijack your browser (take note of the website it launches when you go to your homepage, check Safari's system preferences to double check prior to this dive into your system files).
    Once you've located files associated with the program, Command/Delete them, or just delete them however you normally would. Securely empty the trash to ensure that even if they're in use, they will be deleted.
    Next folder on the list is back in the Library, so head backwards in the File path and scroll down to Internet Plug-ins. Inside this folder is anything Safari uses, either intentionally or not. Clear anything in there that doesn't look right, this Folder is normally empty by default anyways.
    Next folder for inspection is back in the Library folder, named Safari. This is the real bread and butter here, and where you'll find .plist files galore. You should open and clear Extensions folder, LastSession.plist, as well as the Local Storage folder. Do not delete folders in this enclosing Safari folder, only files.
    Empty the trash securely again. Next up is to check the system Library folder for any lingering pest files. The filepath for this folder is simply inside the main drive, Library will be on the same hierarchy as Users, System, Applications, and so on. Open the Library folder, open Application Support folder, and again, check for anything suspicious. Anything inside this folder is a series of preference files for applications used by users/the system. Hopefully there should be nothing in this folder to delete, but on occasion you'll see Trovi or other folders in there.
    The next folder to check, back up the ladder in to Library, is the Internet Plug-ins folder. This will contain files for you to delete, likely as .plugin files.
    The final folder to check is back in the Library, called Preferences. This is where hunting and pecking will be a time consuming affair. You will likely have roughly 100+ files inside this folder, each of them is a com.whatever.whatever.plist file. These are pretty important files. Among these plist files will very likely be a trovi or conduit plist with a com.trovi.whatever.plist file name. Delete that little file, securely empty your trash.
    The final process to finish this all up will be to set your homepage in Safari back to what it used to be. Open it up (WITH YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION OFF), go to your Safari preferences, input your homepage, then save that and close Safari. Restart the Mac, then turn on your Wifi/ethernet connection, and open Safari. It should be hijack-free.

  • Can't Get Up The Ladder! (help)

    I seem to have hit a wall in setting up a very basic
    ladder/voting system. It appears to be working properly (a single
    choice can indeed be moved along and voted for and reach the final
    spot) BUT the variables are being reset on each page reload so that
    the past results don't stay in place. I am passing the variables in
    the URL during a page reload.
    The ladder test page can be viewed here:
    http://www.inktank.com/ladder/ladder.cfm
    (session management is set to "yes" in tha application.cfm page)
    And the page code can be seen here:
    quote:
    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01
    Transitional//EN">
    <html>
    <head>
    <title>Ladder Test</title>
    </head>
    <body>
    <cfparam name="entry1" default="1">
    <cfparam name="entry2" default="2">
    <cfparam name="entry3" default="3">
    <cfparam name="entry4" default="4">
    <cfparam name="entry5" default="5">
    <cfparam name="entry6" default="6">
    <cfparam name="entry7" default="7">
    <cfparam name="entry8" default="8">
    <cfif not isdefined("SESSION.pick")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick = structNew()>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.stepnum = 1>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice1 = "X">
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice2 = "X">
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice3 = "X">
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice4 = "X">
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice5 = "X">
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice6 = "X">
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice7 = "X">
    </cfif>
    <cfif isdefined("URL.choice1")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice1 = #URL.choice1#>
    <cfelseif isdefined("URL.choice2")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice2 = #URL.choice2#>
    <cfelseif isdefined("URL.choice3")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice3 = #URL.choice3#>
    <cfelseif isdefined("URL.choice4")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice4 = #URL.choice4#>
    <cfelseif isdefined("URL.choice5")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice5 = #URL.choice5#>
    <cfelseif isdefined("URL.choice6")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice6 = #URL.choice6#>
    <cfelseif isdefined("URL.choice7")>
    <cfset SESSION.pick.choice7 = #URL.choice7#>
    </cfif>
    <cfoutput>
    <table>
    <tr>
    <td></td><td></td><td></td>
    <td>
    #SESSION.pick.choice7#
    </td>
    <td></td><td></td><td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td><a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice1=#entry1#">#entry1#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td><td></td><td>|</td><td></td><td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice3=#entry5#">#entry5#</a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice5=#SESSION.pick.choice1#">#SESSION.pick.choice1#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td><td>|</td><td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice6=#SESSION.pick.choice3#">#SESSION.pick.choice3#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td><a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice1=#entry2#">#entry2#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td><td></td><td>|</td><td></td><td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice3=#entry6#">#entry6#</a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice7=#SESSION.pick.choice5#">#SESSION.pick.choice5#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice7=#SESSION.pick.choice6#">#SESSION.pick.choice6#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td>
    <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td><a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice2=#entry3#">#entry3#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice4=#entry7#">#entry7#</a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice5=#SESSION.pick.choice2#">#SESSION.pick.choice2#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td><td></td><td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice6=#SESSION.pick.choice4#">#SESSION.pick.choice4#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td><a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice2=#entry4#">#entry4#</a>
    -</td>
    <td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td>
    <td>- <a
    href="ladder.cfm?choice4=#entry8#">#entry8#</a></td>
    </tr>
    </table>
    </cfoutput>
    </body>
    </html>
    So even though it is able to keep the session variable in
    place enough to move it though the voting process, why do all the
    other non slected (but previously chosen) entries revert back to
    the default "X"?
    I've used session befor eon forms, moving from page to page,
    but this is my first time trying to set them with links and then
    reloading the page.
    HELP!
    Thanks.
    Barry Smith

    InkTank1 wrote:
    > This is all that is in the application.cfm file:
    >
    >
    quote:
    > <cfset this.name="ladderTest">
    > <cfset this.sessionmanagement="Yes">
    >
    Is this in an application.*CFM* file or an application.*CFC*
    file? If
    this is in a CFC file all is good. If in a CFM file then this
    is the
    wrong form of the code and you need to use something like TSB
    suggested.
    If you wanted to add his timeout suggestion to the CFC form
    of the
    application file, just add something like:
    <cfset this.sessionTimeOut = CreateTimeSpan(0, 0, 30,
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  • Why does my mac book pro 2012 15" w/ retina display run slow during a video game and then an SMC reset seems to fix it temporarily?

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