[games] Fun - April 1st Blizzard announce

[Bruno Raoult <br@xxxxxxxxxx>]

    Patch v1.10 will be out very soon!  We've taken note of player
comments and requests, and are making a few minor game adjustments that
should be popular with players.

    Hell difficulty is too easy.  All monsters will have 10x their
current hit points, and do 10x their current damage, as well as having
at least 3 immunities each.  We feel this will require more balanced
characters and party play.

    The Secret Cow Level was never meant to be played repeatedly, it's
not balanced for that.  To even things out, the red portal will now
always open directly on top of the Cow King, who will always now spawn
with Holy Freeze and Extra Fast.  We're also making all Hell Bovine
Physical and Lightning Immune, as well as 95% resistant to Fire, Cold,
and Magic, and making it so they can no longer drop magical, rare, set,
or unique items.

    "Item runs", where players kill the same monster(s) over and over
again are heavily exploited.  To make the game play more equal, we've
made a few monster changes.  Once you've killed Mephisto for the first
time on each difficulty level, there are a few small changes. The
Durance 2 waypoint will not be active, and you must now kill the three
High Council members on Durance 3 before Mephisto will appear.  All
three of them will now also be Physical Immune, as well as Multi Shot,
Lightning Enchanted, and have Decrepify.  Mephisto himself will also
have Fanaticism, Might, Amplify Damage, Extra Fast, and Extra Strong, to
make the fight fairer.  Pindleskin is now Stone Skin with Fanaticism, as
well as Lightning, Fire, Cold, and Magic Immune, and has been given the
same Corpse Explosion ability as Nihlathak.  His minions have also been
replaced with Physical Immune Minotaurs.

    Many players have complained that there are too many super powerful
items, so to address that problem we've removed all Elite Set and Unique
items, as well all Runewords, and the "Cruel" prefix.  Any existing
items with those properties must be disposed of immediately, and two
days after v1.10 goes live any characters with such illegal items will
be deleted.

    In order to address some lag issues, we need to reduce the number of
characters saved on the Realms.  Since no one really needs more than a
dozen characters, it will no longer be possible to log onto more than 2
accounts with the same CD-Key.  In addition 2 characters will be deleted
from every account, at random, to help with overcrowding.  We'll also be
deleting any characters that aren't played regularly, and any accounts
that aren't logged on daily.

    Play testing has revealed that certain player skills are too
powerful, so we'll be removing the following skills from the game.

    Assassin: Death Sentry and Claw Mastery.
    Amazon: Guided Arrow, Multishot, Lightning Fury, Valkyrie
    Barbarian: Whirlwind, Battle Orders, and Berserk.
    Druid: Fury and Rabies.
    Necromancer: No changes required.
    Paladin: Vengeance, Fanaticism, and Holy Bolt.
    Sorceress: Nova, Firewall, Hydra, Frozen Orb, and all Masteries.

    We hope you're all as enthusiastic as we are about these new game
balances and Battle.net changes, and look forward to seeing you on
Battle.net!

    Oh, I almost forgot! Starting in one week we'll require a $20 a
month fee to play on Battle.net.  Credit card only.

    Thanks!

    Max Schaefer
    Blizzard North VP

-- 
GPG Key: 653514E5 (http://www.raoult.com/gpg)
--
Comme disait Blaise, si ça fait pas de bien, ça peut pas faire de mal.

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