Heavily concurrent design Challenge
Hello,
I'm having some kind of a design problem here, So I wondered whether the gurus here could give me answer.
Ok, so what I want to do is this. I need to be able to launch multiple asynchronous tasks (which are Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) (and are not implemented using java RPCs)). I also need to be able to get the results returned b y these tasks. So far so good, but here is a little more:
I also need to know when they end, in order to launch another asynchronous RPC, as soon as a particular one is finished (but not before, because I need its results).
And to complicate the matter, an RPC can be lauched by any class, and it's results must be retreivable by any Class (the former not necessarily beeing the same as the latter).
And one more constraint is that I do not want to use the Java Reflection API.
What I currently have is the following Design:
public class RPC implements Runnable{
private EndTask endTask = null;
public RPC(RPC.EndTask endTask){
this.endTask = endTask;
/** do something */
public void run(){
/** do something */
this.end();
public void end(){
if(endTask != null){
(new Thread(endTask)).start();
public static void Execute(EndTask endTask){
RPC rpc = new RPC(endTask);
(new Thread(rpc)).start();
public static abstract EndTask implements Runnable{
private Object[] results = null;
public setResult(Object[] result){
this.results = result;
public Object[] getResults(){
return this.results;
}So basically, launching an RPC looks like this:
RPC.execute(new RPC.EndTask(){
public void run(){
someThingToDo();
someThingThatNeedsTheResults(this);
});or in fire and forget mode
RPC.execute(null);I was wondering what you think about this, and also if anyone could think of a better design. I like this one, but it might be a little complicated.
I look forward to reading your replies.
Nicolas Piguet
Well Actually, I'd love to, but I don't think this is possible, let me explain why.
I am devellopping an Peer-2-Peer database system as a research project. Those RPC's I mention are just UDP Datagrams sent on the network, which recieve UDP replies. All replies are received on the same listening port. As there are many of those "RPC" running simultaneously, I can't make it synchronous (At best, it would mean that the other RPCs would have to wait, at worst, it would mean missing incomming Datagrams).
If you can think of a way to make it synchronous knowing this, I'd be glad to hear it.
Similar Messages
-
I would appreciate your feedback for this design challenge.
I have two tables: GROUP_TAB and ATTENDANCE_TAB. A GROUP_TAB has many ATTENDANCE_TAB records.
GROUP_TAB is the parent table, it consists of mbr_Key, mbr_name, and group_leader and the ATTENDANCE_TAB as the child table, consists of att_key, mbr_key,att_date, and attended(value are: Yes/No).
GROUP_TAB is populated once a year for each group. Each group has a leader. In designing the page for weekly meeting attendance for each group, I want to create a page that would display names of each member per group on the left side column of the page and display value for att_date and attended with a radiogroup for yes or No. on the right side. I want to also list these items by group. Every meeting date will have a new page all that the user will need to do is check Yes or No for each member on the Attended field. I have created a PL/SQL proc. to be executed by a button which a user will click. This proc will insert a new meeting date in the ATTENDANCE_TAB.att_date field behind the scene so that the user will not have to select date for each row. So what the user would do is just check Yes or NO in the attended field. And this action will update each row for each member in the ATTENDANCE_TAB table. Your help in how I can design this weekly attendance page in HTML DB will be greatly appreciated.Thanks Scott for your suggestion. I want to create a time reporting or attendance page. Can anyone give me a suggestion about how I can create it. The page I want to create would display the names of people in each group on the left hand column and display updatable column (a check box or radiogroup on the right side of each name). The attendance record would be taken once a week. I hope my question is a bit clearer.
-
Ok Here's a creative techno design challenge. I live in a three story house with two Mac laptops, three hard drives, two printers, a Trendnet wirelessG router, AirPort Express and Airport Extreme n. My office is on the second floor where the printer/scanner is now, the cable enters on the main floor beside the HD tv and a cabinet that can house a printer and hard drives. What is the optimum arrangement to have the freest access to the internet, hard drives & printers?
I would greatly appreciate suggestions on this.Unfortunately building materials can wreak havoc with any wireless signal and therefore it is extremely difficult to predict a configuration which will be guaranteed to work for you. Take a look at KB 58543, AirPort: Potential sources of interference.
Ignoring RF interference...
Either your AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS) or AirPort Express (AX) will need to be connected via Ethernet to the Trendnet router. Depending on how you want to run the Ethernet cable, it could be on a different floor than the Trendnet router.
The other Apple device can be placed on the other floor. The 2 Apple devices can be connected wirelessly using WDS.
If the printer/scanner uses a USB connection, it could be connected to either Apple device. Be aware that the scanning function will not be available if it is connected to the AX or AEBS via USB.
What do you mean by "...the freest access..."? -
Complex Infrastructure Design Challenges
Hi
I need some advice on a infrastructure design. I am hoping someone can help or point me in the right direction.
Requirements are as follows
- Sharepoint 2013 3-Tier Design
-> Front-End Cluster
-> App Tier
-> SQL Cluster
Aside from the requirements from a server perspective which provides it's own challenges there needs to be Single-Sign On, however multi-domain support will be challenging since there will be two AD Forests with no trust relationship being allowed.
I have the following challenges:
- One of the two domains there will be full control on the service accounts and the management environment, but using the servers on that domain as the initial domain will be very limiting in it's own sense. The other domain there will be limited or no control
- Single sign on nightmare is that these two domains have no trust relationship and never will. How could I manage that with the above point also holding true. I saw an article on ADFS that will be able to provide the transparent authentication level but
what would be required from access perspective to have ADFS tied in with the domain which there will be no control over
- The servers is currently joined on the domain with the limited control the possibility to intall cluster services, sql services and sharepoint services is a bit limited. This can be switched to the domain with the complete control but the Single sign on
nightmare will be the ultimate deciding factor
Help, advice or any resource documents with examples of such scenario's would be helpful
Can someone point me in the direction I need to be. I am happy to read up on any knowledge articles if there are anyStarting with ADFS, you will want to establish ADFS Federation. This means that the domain you have no control over also has an ADFS server. The only requirements for that implementation is opening TCP/443 to the ADFS server (or ADFS proxy) and it must be
a member of the domain (an ADFS proxy does not).
Alternatively, you could provide Active Directory accounts to all of the users for the other domain in the domain you do have control over, but this likely isn't desirable.
As for the servers, you won't be able to just disjoin them and join another domain. Instead, you're going to have to build a brand new implementation and copy content over (e.g. copy the databases from the first implementation to the second).
Trevor Seward
Follow or contact me at...
  
This post is my own opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion or view of Microsoft, its employees, or other MVPs. -
Hi,
I have a design issue for which I really like your help.
In a MPLS network there are twoPOP gateway routers (G1,G2) peering with various MPLS VPN Service providers via B2B vrf eBGP peering are in 4 different ASN's. They inturn all peer via VPNv4 eBGP with the Core ASN which comprises of 2 Nos VPNv4 RR's and every site in the ASN haveing 2 P/PE per site. Every P/PE is peering via VPNv4- iBGP with the VPNv4 RR's. The RR's are not in the forwarding path of the traffic.
Every site has 2 Nos CE routers and each CE router does a vrf based ebgp peering with the P/PE's.
The P/PE routers import 2Nos RT exported by the 2 Nos POP G/w routers and inturn selects the best path and pass it to the CE routers.
Now it is seen that the P/PE of all sites is selecting the best path adverstised by G1 instead of G2 based on the AS PATH length and the shortest path is being adverstised by G1. So till a situation arises that the G1 is down till that time the P/PE's are forwarding the outbound traffic from the CE to G1 even also when the IGP cost is adding up high and when there is a direct link failure from the P/PE site to G1 site.
It therefore makes sense that if the direct physical link form a P/PE site to the site G1 is located goes down ,the P/PE's then should choose G2 via another path even when G1 is available.
Does these sort of requirements ever come in SP environments from customers ? if so what are the solutions ..
Thanks in advance
KasHi kas,
This type of requirement come to providers and there are few options which provider can implement.
1- Play with local preference along with import map in vrf if requirement is customer specific. I mean if one customer want that G1 should be primary exit point and other customer want G2 as primary exit than he can use import map (which is similar to route-map )
ip vrf ABCD
rd XX
import map ABCD
route-target export XX
route-target import YY
route-map ABCD permit 20
set local-preference >100
2- Or you can play with As-path prepending option if you want to skip selection based on local preference.
it is in provider interest to provide you solution. as there are options of affecting traffic by using communities.
Please provide diagram and some config for complete solution.
Regards
Mahesh -
I have a wrapper class that reads values from the java Preferences API. This class is sitting on a server and will therefore receive possibly multiple requests simultaneously. The preferences API is thread safe but i am wondering if my wrapper class is? I am not writing anything, just reading. Here is the class:
<code>
import java.util.*;
import java.util.prefs.*;
public class Configuration {
private static Preferences sysPrefs = null;
// load a preference node
public static void load() {
sysPrefs = Preferences.systemRoot().node("cantos/cmt");
private static void checkInit() {
if (sysPrefs == null)
load();
// returns all the keys for a node
public static String[] getKeys() {
checkInit();
String[] keys = new String[0];
try {
keys = sysPrefs.keys();
catch (BackingStoreException e) {
System.out.println("Cannot return getKeys() method in ConfigBean. " + e);
return keys;
public static boolean hasEntries() {
return (getKeys()).length > 0;
public static String getParam(String pKey) {
checkInit();
return sysPrefs.get(pKey, "");
public static int getIntParam(String pKey) {
checkInit();
return sysPrefs.getInt(pKey, -1);
public static long getLongParam(String pKey) {
checkInit();
return sysPrefs.getLong(pKey, -1);
public static boolean getBolParam(String pKey) {
checkInit();
return sysPrefs.getBoolean(pKey, false);
// sorts keys alphabetically
private synchronized static String[] sort(String[] pKeys) {
String[] keys = pKeys;
if (keys != null)
Arrays.sort(keys, String.CASE_INSENSITIVE_ORDER);
return keys;
</code>
I would then retrieve values using Configuration.getParam(something);Well,
The only issue I can see at first is your checkInit() method.
It can be called concurrently and will let your class in an unstable state.
You should change it to
private static void checkInit() {
if (sysPrefs == null) {
synchronized (Configuration.class) {
if (sysPrefs == null) {
load();
}The second thing is that I don't see any reason to define the sort() method as synchronized. It does not arm, but does no good at all. Since it does not modify any attribute of the class, you don't need to synchronize it. Even if it is used, which is not the case. -
I have a situation similar to the following code where m_array and m_link must be guaranteed to be synchronized. Init will get called by different threads so what is the best way to avoid the deadlock?
public class Foo
private final ReentrantLock m_lock = new ReentrantLock();
private final ArrayList<Integer> m_array = new ArrayList<Integer>();
private final LinkedList<Integer> m_list = new LinkedList<Integer>();
private final int m_id = 1;
public void init( final Statement statement, final Foo foo )
m_lock.lock();
try
foo.m_lock();
try
m_array.add( foo.m_id );
m_list.add( foo.m_id );
foo.m_array.add( m_id );
foo.m_list.add( m_id );
finally
foo.m_lock.unlock();
finally
m_lock.unlock();
Edited by: 806320 on Jan 27, 2011 6:18 AM806320 wrote:
@YoungWinston -As I mentioned, m_array and m_list must be guaranteed to be in sync. Regardless, Synchronize would not help in anyway with this example, the deadlock occurs no matter which lock mechanism you use.What about this?
public class ListManager<T>
private final List<List<T>> lists;
public ListManager(List<T>... lists) {
this.lists = new ArrayList<List<T>>(lists.length);
for(List<T> list : lists) {
this.lists.add(list);
public synchronized boolean add(T value) {
for (List<T> list : this.lists) {
list.add(value);
return true;
... other update methods implemented similarly.
}You'd probably want to make sure that the supplied lists are empty, and if you want to be sure that they can't be updated outside the class you'll also have to clone them; but I suspect that's how I'd go about it.
Unless I'm missing something from your original post, I think it does the trick.
With anyone using JDK 1.5+ is there ever a reason to use Synchronize?Absolutely. In fact, I think I'd have to look pretty hard for situations in which I wouldn't use it.
Winston -
Skills Needed to Design either: Quake, Quake II, Q3A, Unreal, oUnreal 2003
I'm wondering, what kinds of skills do you need to design first person shooter games like those? For any of you who have designed them, would you need to be very familiar with linear algebra/abstract math/matrix theory type things? How advanced would you need to be in physics? Would you have to be a genius to design those kinds of games, or could you just do it with hard work and a little bit of help from the API? What are your thoughts.
To design the games or to actually write them?
You probably need lots of playing experience and some creativity, as well as knowledge of the limits on your 3D engine in order to design a good game on paper.
To actually write one, you'd probably need:
- 2D, 3D and sound editors, as well as code to load those files
- A system for representing the world and the various objects (enemies, powerups, misc. objects) within it, and a level editor to create these worlds easily; probably you'll also need a simple trigger-based scripting system for scripted missions where things happen after the player completes a goal
- Knowledge of general 3D graphics theory: the rendering pipeline, transformation matrices, multitexturing, various types of light sources, vertex shaders (?), special effects (fog, shadows, water waves, transparent bitmaps for fire/rain/explosions, etc)
- A good enough representation of physical objects that you can prevent them from going through each other (this is harder if they are arbitrary 3D meshes), and calculate their new velocity and position each frame based on gravity, friction, and interactions with other objects (probably using conservation of momentum or kinetic energy)
- An AI system for enemies: probably a finite state machine which can give them various goals/missions, and pathfinding and weapon targetting routines
- Miscellaneous user interface features: a minimap/radar, a way of selecting weapons, a main menu and level selector/loader, code to serialize/deserialize the game state for saving a game, code for networking (probably using UDP).
A good book on creating games would probably contain most of the things you'd need. I've seen many of these. Check Amazon or your local book store maybe.
I don't think a simple first person shooter with most of the main features of Quake or Unreal would be hard to make. However those designers had two things that made the games successful and would be very hard for a single person to do alone:
1) Time. Lots of it to add details, fix bugs, create artwork/sound, design challenging levels, and even write and document all the basic routines and object libraries that make up the game.
2) Heavy optimization. Those games look good because almost everything is optimized to go the fastest it can, so there can be more polygons, larger textures, more special effects, more objects and particles, larger levels, and so on. A game with the same gameplay/strategy features as Quake or Unreal but with 3-4 times lower polygon count, blurrier textures, many of the particle effects gone, and smaller levels would be a lot less successful. -
How to make a page blind accessible
Hey Y'all, I run a website for a die-cast toy car
manufacturer (
Liberty Promotions - View
it here ), The way the page is designed primarily uses images,
of the cars, and of the descriptions (we do this so we can control
the font, for Pirates 2, we use a pirate font found online, so the
"look" is the same) and pretty much everything else. Yes I know its
a lot of images, its heavy on the download time, and its a pain to
edit. But my boss likes it that way, and so thats the way, at least
for now, that it is going to stay. We havent had many complaints
about it till now, and this one threw me for a loop:
One of our clients won a contest we are running to submit
possible suggestions to be made into our die-cast cars, this
client's suggestion was taken as this times winner and we are
starting to produce the cars. On the site when someone wins we
display a photo, and a synopsis about them and there collection.
While talking to this guy telling him what I needed, he infomed me
that his is blind., but still collects our products, (very much a
"seeing is believing" type of product") I was flabergasted, and
then he said he had a comment, that (go figure) our site being very
much image based does not translate well onto his page reader
(windows- eyes), So I talked to him a little more and decided that
especially for the car he "visualized" I would make an effort to
make it very Windows-Eyes friendly, so that he could get the full
description of the buses, the schedule, etc... using his reader,
and not have to call in someone else to read it for him. Of course
I would like to start building this into all my future pages, just
to make it easier for him and for anyone else in the same
situation. But, I dont know where to start. Can anyone give me some
good suggestions on how to do this? Can I use a <div
class"visibility: hidden;"> to hide the same text that is on the
graphics (i.e.- Take the text from the description in PS and
Copy/Paste into DW) and then have it be hidden from all Visual
readers, or should I do something different? Please help, I know I
would appreciate it, and so would he!
ThanksThierry | www.TJKDesign.com wrote:
> Osgood wrote:
>
>>Thierry | www.TJKDesign.com wrote:
>
>
>>>The OP asked about making his web site accessible
to
>>>*screen-readers*, not to "everybody".
>>>For a screen-reader user, the size of text
graphic is *irrelevant*.
>
>
>>So why is it that many accessible sites lack text
imagery, perhaps
>>less than those that are not claiming to be
accessible. I would
>>assume that if you can't see very well and use a
screen reader it
>>doesnt matter how many text images you use so long as
you have some
>>alt text explaining what it is.
>
>
> Graphic text is more an issue for what you call
"regular" people than for
> Assistive Technology (AT) users.
> Not all people who can't read small text need to use AT
> My eyesight is not too bad but not too good either. I
use browsers with
> their default settings, if I ran into a site on which
text is too small for
> my liking, I don't reach for glasses, I just leave that
site.
I'm not suggesting using body text as graphics. Most
'decorative'
graphics that contain text are of sufficient size that anyone
with what
you call 'regular' eyesight will be able to read the text. If
they don't
fall into the 'regular' bracket then most likely they need a
screen reader.
People leave the site for many reasons...one being typically
uninspiring.
>>>I found many of the sites you call "awfully
boring accessible
>>>sites" not really "attractive" at first, but it
turns out that they
>>>are the ones today I visit the most. I don't see
that "awful boring
>>>look" you're talking about anymore, I just see
what's for me
>>>*valuable content* delivered without distracting
visual effects and
>>>stuff.
>>
>>What's good for one isn't always necessarily good for
another, thank
>>goodness ;)
>
>
> You're bringing everything back to "design" but web
design is not the same
> as "web design".
> Go to Dallas in September:
>
http://www.webjamsession.com/sessions/why_good_content_must_suck/
How is saying that everyone has different opinions on what
they like and
dislike bringing everything back to design? You just fail to
see
anything other than from your own point of view which makes
you a bit
typecast, in my opinion
>>>So, bottom line is to know if these authors are
design-challenged or
>>>in fact pretty smart since they "designed" web
sites that make
>>>people keep coming back ;)
>>
>>No one knows anything for sure and those that assume
they do are just
>>fooling themselves, no-one else ;)
>
>
> I believe log files can be trusted ;)
You only have access to your own log files not every other
persons site
logs. Again YOU think you know everything based on your own
experience.
People have different experiences but only yours seems to be
correct.
>>>If you visit sites that talk about accessibility
you can't really
>>>expect to see Flash animations and "super cool
designs", but that's
>>>because of the audience of these web sites not
because of
>>>Accessibility "features".
>>
>>Developeres with good intentions go to these sites to
see what 'true'
>>accessibility is all about. They see mostly sterile
looking sites and
>>think again. If these accessible information sites
did something to
>>improve their visual appeal that would be a
help....but I guess thats
>>unlikely because as you say they actually don't care
about
>>presentation.
>
>
> Design and presentation are two very different beast on
the web.
Thats complete rubbish....design and presentation are
interlinked.
> I'd say they do not care for design, but they do care
for presentation;
> that's why I mentionned in a previous post the first
heading being almost
> below the fold ;)
> I just read one of the most interesting article I've
read about the title
> attribute, I'd say there was almost no "design" at all
attached to it but I
> wouldn't want it styled differently.
That's because you cannot distinguish between general
information sites
and sites which need to sell. Once you do that we can hold a
sensible
debate.
You don't usually have to buy general information you do have
to buy
products.
>>Its hard to push for accessibility when it 'appears'
you are limited
>>in what elements you can use or ideally should'nt use
according to the
>>sites which address accessibility. In my opinion they
do nothing to
>>help the cause of accessibility. If their sites could
be presented
>>better visually....I guess they can't because some
are so basic and
>>those that are not I don't know what level of
accessibility they
>>adhere too.
>
>
> Once again, it is the choice of the authors of these
sites (or their lack of
> design skills may be), but not the results of following
Accessibility
> guidelines.
That's not helping to push accessibility though is
it.......I'm trying
to help accessibility along a bit here ;)
>>I was sifting though some of the sites at GAWDS a few
weeks ago. Some
>>are really quite nice, some are not very inspiring.
Some don't work in
>>some browsers as well as they could and should
do.........go figure.
>>It appears that anything goes. Its great to talk
about this and that
>>but when it comes down to it those that talk the talk
sometime fail to
>>deliver and then make poor excuses for not delivering
when challenged.
>
>
> I don't know where you want to go with this.
> GAWDS's "site of the month" is not like
www.accessites.org awards.
> There is nothing "formal" in the process we go through
when rating these
> sites.
If that is true, which I doubt its meaningless and once again
confuses
accessibilty issues.
>>>What is not my "personal cup of tea" for example
are "cool sites"
>>>with images and things in header/banner that
place the first heading
>>>almost below the fold ;)
>
>
>>We all have likes and dislikes.
>
>
> I think there are things outside of this "we all have
likes and dislikes", I
> believe there are common issues in web design that are
known to be "bad
> things/ideas to implement" there are no aesthetic or
design considerations
> there because *best practice* goes beyond that.
I'll say again what you consider to be 'best practices' other
people may
not.
>>>I used the web to get information; for me as a
user, "visual
>>>experience" comes *second*.
>>
>>Ideally I would like a combination of both but if a
site looks
>>distinctly uninteresting and I don't 'really' need
the information
>>that desperately I usually go on to one that is
presented a little
>>more excitingly.
>
>
> I agree that the best is to have a good balance of both,
but again I don't
> think this is an issue with Accessibility per se. It is
most of the time
> because of the author (lack of design skills) or because
of the client (no
> budget for accessibility).
Its something we don't really know and as such is difficult
to debate.
>>I've said before you have to take a number of issues
into
>>consideration at the outset before you committ to
anything. I don't
>>approach jobs with a sterotypical mindset. In my
opinion projects
>>need to be approached differently and with different
sets of values.
>
>
> Who said otherwise?
> Actually, if you put Accessibility into the picture, you
do need to think a
> bit out of the box since it makes the project more
challenging ;)
One needs to take everything into consideration and make the
right
decision. Of course whether one makes the correct decision is
very
personal to what they believe is important and not so
important. -
Template for users without Adobe
I have a fairly complicated design challenge I'm trying to work out. I work as the inhouse designer for a small dental office and they present "before" and "after" photos to their patients with braces. I've been asked to create a fun background image to frame the photos that can then be saved as a template that the general office staff can use to drop the photos into themselves. The problem I'm facing is that the general office staff doesn't have any layout or photo editing software.
Has anyone faced a problem like this before, or have any ideas on how to solve it? They first presented this problem to me on Friday and I only had a few hours to put something together, so I just created a PDF of the background image for them to print. When the patient came in for his "after" photo (which was after I had left for the day), they resized the photo in Word, printed it along with his "before" photo and then cut and pasted the two photos onto the printed background by hand. I've wondered if I could save the background template as a Word document, but I don't think the staff could also use Word to crop and place the photos within the larger design. The only other idea that comes to mind is some kind of dummy-proof Web template, similar to what Mac provides for iPhoto albums, but I'm afraid such a project would not only be beyond my current skill set but also beyond the time and money the client would be willing to commit.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Jessei was looking for a real identity like you to ask that is that really true that what they show in picture or advertisement drawing print media is the true experience or just making fake images in adobe just to make an impression for thier client? Hope to here from you soon
-
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!!!!!! -
Hi all,
im currently doing some research on jasper. Im totally new to this and wish if somebody can give some tips on how to start off..Below are some of my questions..
1. After compile and create the report design using iReport, does it means when we've got our XML response from server ,we just feed in the fields accordingly to the .jasper file we've created earlier on OR we have to concurrently design,and compile report and send XML request to server...
2. Can provide me with some ideas of how to generate jasper report in JSP where the whole process is inclusive of passing XML request to server..retrieving data..formatting..passing result set to XML response ...may i know when is the process of generating jasper start off in between of this?
Please advise, im really blurred at the moment...
Thx a million...
chEers,
cyunntanProbably it�s better to ask it at JasperReports Forums:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=36382 -
Is this possible in Web Dynpro Java?
Hi,
Please check if this can be done in Web Dynpro Java...
public class TestFunction {
boolean bool =false;
boolean Test1()
bool= true;
return bool;
void takeBool(boolean b){
b=this.bool;
System.out.println("The value of bool "+bool);
public static void main(String[] args) {
TestFunction tf = new TestFunction();
boolean c=tf.Test1();
tf.takeBool(c);
Regards
Kaushik Banerjee
Edited by: Kaushik Banerjee on Sep 1, 2010 8:00 PMFurther to what Faraz has said, Web Dynpro can be seen as an implementation of the Framework pattern.
Essentially you write normal Java code with access to various Java objects exposed/generated by the Web Dynpro Framework inside "hook" functions.
The Web Dynpro framework then calls your functions at various stages when the page renders and when actions are triggered.
For a high level understanding of this, not specific to Web Dynpro, research the concept of OO Frameworks pattersn.
for example [Article explaining frameworks|http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/CACM-frameworks.html]
Here is an excerpt from the above article which highlights the major points
The primary benefits of OO application frameworks stem from the modularity, reusability, extensibility, and inversion of control they provide to developers, as described below:
Modularity -- Frameworks enhance modularity by encapsulating volatile implementation details behind stable interfaces. Framework modularity helps improve software quality by localizing the impact of design and implementation changes. This localization reduces the effort required to understand and maintain existing software.
Reusability -- The stable interfaces provided by frameworks enhance reusability by defining generic components that can be reapplied to create new applications. Framework reusability leverages the domain knowledge and prior effort of experienced developers in order to avoid re-creating and re-validating common solutions to recurring application requirements and software design challenges. Reuse of framework components can yield substantial improvements in programmer productivity, as well as enhance the quality, performance, reliability and interoperability of software.
Extensibility -- A framework enhances extensibility by providing explicit hook methods that allow applications to extend its stable interfaces. Hook methods systematically decouple the stable interfaces and behaviors of an application domain from the variations required by instantiations of an application in a particular context. Framework extensibility is essential to ensure timely customization of new application services and features. -
Automated build server for Arch? (like the sourceforge build system)
Has someone considered some kind of automated build system for Arch?
Something that would work like this:
- It'd have every library and dependency possible installed.
- It'd intelligently read the makefiles produced to see what libraries they used and compare them against a lookup table to see what Arch dependencies they then required. Failing that, it could use ldd and a second lookup table that matched libraries to packages.
- It'd attempt to figure out the target binary to run (again, from the makefiles produced), and then run it. If it worked, it'd be marked as usable. If it didn't work, it'd be marked as needing fixing.
All of these points can fail, especially in the parsing of the makefiles; in each case, this would be noted by the system and user action could be taken.
In operation, it wouldn't take away from users managing their own packages. It'd just provide a secure environment to build packages in, and attempt to automate some of the process. In the best cases, the system would theoretically be capable enough to download a package's sourcecode, ./configure it, make it, make a package out of it, get the package verified as usable, then update the repo with it.
Note the verification step in the previous paragraph: I would never want this to be an automated system. Sure, it sound amazing on paper, and might even work for a little while, but sooner or later something would come crashing down and since repo management is quite a trust-based issue, everyone would freak out and they wouldn't want the build server anymore.
-dav7
Last edited by dav7 (2008-10-17 18:41:22)Who would have access to upload to such a build server? If it's the general public, then this is a security nightmare, as well as a growth curve nightmare. The monetary investment for a project like this would need to come from somewhere.
And yeah, something like this has been considered, and a working proof-of-concept has been sitting around for years. http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=pacbuild.git;a=summary . What this kind of project really needs is someone with some distributed computing smarts and dedication (and time) to get it off the ground in a form that will survive past a proof-of-concept barebones implementation.
One of the largest design challenges would be dependency resolution for batch upgrades. For instance, let's say we update libfoobar, which is depended upon by foo, bar, baz, and batman, the system needs to know that libfoobar needs to be built and installed in order to compile the rest of them against it. -
Best way to dynaically create and call seq or steps
I am trying to create an R&D system which allows for the testing of units over temperature and voltage conditions. I would like the operator to have the ability to randomly select a group test steps from a menu, and select whether to run the groups of tests over any number of temperature and voltage conditions. Each test is a unique VI with a unique connector pane and inputs for the course of the test sequence. Test step inputs are identical from one temp and voltage condition to the next.
The test list fans out such that a test sequence would perform the group of tests N times the number of Temps and M times the number of voltages. I envision creating testsequence from an array?
I need to understand the best way to perform this operation. I've looked in the forums and don't see anything that directly addresses this design challenge. I have explored creating sequences and skipping tests as necessary but this is cumbersome. I am open to creating a LabView GUI to create the sequence or if there is an easy way in TestStand?
Thanks in advance for the help,
BCEBCE,
There are many different ways in which you could implement your test system. Fortunately, TestStand provides more than enough functionality so you could implement it in different ways. One of the possibilities you mentioned in your post was to use LabVIEW to generate the TestSequence. Although this is a good idea, and one that I have seen other customers use, it does have its drawbacks. In order to create your Sequence you will have to save each Step's information in one of two ways. You could save it in a file which you would parse through using your VI, or hard code the information into the VI's algorithm. In both of these cases we will need some kind of file containing the Sequence information, be it a text file or a VI.
Wouldn't it be easier to save all the Step information from your Sequence file in a Sequence file itself? This begs the question, would it be necessary to create a Sequence at all? Why couldn't we use a Sequence that contains all the possible steps and just disable the execution of some of them based on user input? In your post you say that you find it cumbersome to skip certain steps. In my opinion it is much more cumbersome to create a Sequence every time we want to run a test.
Therefore, I believe the best way to implement your system would be to have the first Step of your Sequence pop up a dialog box where users could select which types of tests they want to run. (You might even want to add this to the Serial Number window inside the PreUUT callback). Based on the users' input we would update an array of local boolean variables which determines what tests or test categories should be run. Each Step in the Sequence would contain a precondition that would read the value from this array and determine if the Step would be executed or not.
Just my two cents. What does the rest of the community think? There is more than one way to skin a cat and TestStand provides more than enough silverware. ;-)
Regards,
Santiago D
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