Reign of the Warlock is on sale for 20% off

Until May 18 Reign of the Warlock is available for €19.99 (instead of €24.99) on battle.net. Should be similar in other regions.
It's the first time I see this on a sale. I already have it, but I thought I'd mention it anyway in case there are people who've been waiting for a deal.

Didnt take long for the sale, thats strange. Most likely because nobody is going to buy it after the nerfs coming in soon enough.

Semirotta wrote: 4 hours ago

Didnt take long for the sale, thats strange. Most likely because nobody is going to buy it after the nerfs coming in soon enough.

What you're saying doesn't make any sense, as usual. For anyone to give a crap about nerfs, they'd have to own the expansion in the first place. Besides, there's more to RotW than just a warlock and his OPedness.

Blizzard probably has exhausted initial sales potential - hardcore D2R players who were supposed to buy RotW for the full price, already did. Now Blizz is trying to fish for casuals, and/or haters that were saying that "price is too high", or, whatever - now that their FLAMING INTERNET RAGE has had time to cool down a bit, and maybe they'd be more open to opening their wallets.

Also, let's not forget that we're talking about 25 year old game/5 year old remaster. It's pretty unusual case of a product, and I'd say that normal market practices don't neccessarily apply here.

Orrrr, there's another, bigger cash grab coming sometime in the future...

sewcioj wrote: 3 hours ago

Semirotta wrote: 4 hours ago

Didnt take long for the sale, thats strange. Most likely because nobody is going to buy it after the nerfs coming in soon enough.

What you're saying doesn't make any sense, as usual. For anyone to give a crap about nerfs, they'd have to own the expansion in the first place. Besides, there's more to RotW than just a warlock and his OPedness.

Blizzard probably has exhausted initial sales potential - hardcore D2R players who were supposed to buy RotW for the full price, already did. Now Blizz is trying to fish for casuals, and/or haters that were saying that "price is too high", or, whatever - now that their FLAMING INTERNET RAGE has had time to cool down a bit, and maybe they'd be more open to opening their wallets.

Also, let's not forget that we're talking about 25 year old game/5 year old remaster. It's pretty unusual case of a product, and I'd say that normal market practices don't neccessarily apply here.

Orrrr, there's another, bigger cash grab coming sometime in the future...

This sale is not for people who already have tag rotw. Like you and Semirotta .

I think blizzard is trying to unify the version , they are try to make people move from LoD to rotw.
The game separation already make next A6 DLC very hard to release. If they continue act this way, it will become a very high tower, some people stay at 1F, most stay in 2F(Rotw) , some may go 3F (A6) , but in end if they release (A7) some may go in 4F(A7)

In the end , if people want play together, they will have to say which DLC you are in first...

Even if it is free, some people(lod) may still dont want move there(rotw). And this think may build into rotw if A6 release and some people already disappoint in rotw.


----
The other way around is also not work. LoD player does not want rotw thing merge into LoD. People think that world is destroy by dup and not well design things.

I think LoD player's answer is mostly 'no'.

If anything, I'd say that RotW will be fully incorporated into new expansion, and people who already bought RotW will be able to buy it cheaper.

LoD hardheads most likely will say no to anything new that comes - be it RotW or Act 6. On the other hand, if someone bought RotW and liked it at least a bit, he probably won't mind more new content as well. There's no point in further fragmentation of playerbase.

leox wrote: 3 hours ago

I think blizzard is trying to unify the version , they are try to make people move from LoD to rotw.
The game separation already make next A6 DLC very hard to release. If they continue act this way, it will become a very high tower, some people stay at 1F, most stay in 2F(Rotw) , some may go 3F (A6) , but in end if they release (A7) some may go in 4F(A7)

In the end , if people want play together, they will have to say which DLC you are in first...

Even if it is free, some people(lod) may still dont want move there(rotw). And this think may build into rotw if A6 release and some people already disappoint in rotw.

I wonder if it could be resolved like in WoW or D4, so we can play together, only with some features paywalled. Let's see how new features could work with such a merged version:

• new class(es) - playable only with expansion, but players without one can meet other expansion players' characters in game (this could even work as an advertisement of the expansion)
• Chronicle - available only with expansion; expansion players' rewards visible (as above). Alternatively, Chronicle could be available, so you can collect non-expansion items, but, obviously, you'll never be able to complete it without the expansion.
• loot filter - available only with expansion
• minor QoLs (like visible buff icons with timers) - available in the base game (no need to paywall them)
• stash - less tabs without expansion; no tabs for stackable materials.
  Gold merged into one shared pool (possibly with lower limit, proportional to less tabs).
• new uberquests - accessible only with expansion

... and here the easy part ends. We're left with some more tricky features:

• new act(s) - if there was only one difficulty level, it'd be easy, the new act would be available only with the expansion. But how to solve the need to complete all acts to progress to the next difficulty? Just make non-expansion characters progress to the new difficulty, skipping the new acts (with quests, rewards, NPCs and so on) entirely?
• items (fixed) - this is the most difficult part. Some items are "naturally" restricted to expansion characters like Grimoires, but they still can be dropped and traded. But what about items dedicated to expansion characters, but otherwise usable by other ones, like Horazon's Splendor (save for
  Horazon's Secrets)? Or new expansion items not dedicated to a specific class, like
  Sling? They could be made unequippable or even unpickable (to prevent trade) for non-expansion players, but it'd be frustrating to see a nice item dropped, but unable to use it.
• items (generated) - ... and even more difficult part. Magic items with Warlock skill charges affix, daggers with Warlock staffmods, ... To keep multiplayer, they couldn't make the item generation dependent on the player, unless individual loot was used (which is a massive and controversial change, and unlikely to happen). Probably the only way would be to make new items (both fixed and generated) available for players without the expansion, but it'd devalue the expansion. And, worse, likely incentivize the devs to make new items class-only or designed for the new classes rather than adding new content for all the classes, expansion or not.
• mechanics (like dropping LoD vs Latent Sunders; vendor changes) - these would need to be unified, i.e. made available even without expansion.

What do you think about merging the game modes?

Tempted to buy a copy on bnet so I can dual box and do socket quests for myself or have another screen open for trade rooms while I can farm on my main. $45aud is quite an ask for 2nd account though

Trang Oul wrote: 52 minutes ago

[..]
What do you think about merging the game modes?

The whole point of making RotW a separate thing was to preserve what remained of the purity of LoD.
Blizz has very much stated that D2:R would be true to the original, thanks to plenty of negative backlash with other remasters. Given, they've already backtracked on that with new items, TZs and all that jazz but throwing in a new class and such would've pushed it even further so I'm kinda glad they kept that split for the (by now only semi-)purists.

For any future content, that promise does not apply. RotW has no "how it used to be, back in the day". As such, any new content they may or may not still add could simply be included in the current RotW mode (pending an obvious paywall) and doesn't need to inherently hard-split players into even more different versions. Say there is an act 6 (which I remain not convinced there will be), there's an obvious and very simple solution of making that accessible via portal post-

Baal or wherever makes sense from a story perspective and to have that portal only work for those who paid for what would inevitably be another expansion to buy. You'd then have it seamlessly integrated in the RotW environment but can still "payroll-flag" so as to limit access to it to only those who paid for it, without having to split the playerbase further for anything else.

Given, between sunders, TZs and so on, LoD isn't LoD anymore anyways so RotW really didn't need a full split either anymore I guess but hey.
Ideally, Expansion/LoD would've been an actual true classic experience without any of those new additions, including the pre-RotW ones. And from day 1, anything new should've been a new "Resurrected" game mode/version that RotW could've then already been seamlessly merged into. That way, we'd have "actual classic", "actual LoD" and "the new stuff since resurrected". But obviously, it is too late for that now.

All that said, I'd take "D1 in D2:R" over "some random unrelated new-blizz A6" any day. Expand

Tristram, recreate the old zones there for what would effectively amount to a new act worth of content but with "true diablo" precedent. And since

Tristram itself is already portal-gated, the integration with RotW/split for players who may or may not access it is easy enough to put in. Those eligible for the new content would simply get a 2nd portal somewhere that they can access to get to the new and extended

Tristram. Not as a replacement (so they can still do oldschool trist runs) but as an addition. Or just a dialog option with

Deckard Cain to "tell us about the olden days" which then teleports you there.

Trang Oul wrote: 52 minutes ago

leox wrote: 3 hours ago

I think blizzard is trying to unify the version , they are try to make people move from LoD to rotw.
The game separation already make next A6 DLC very hard to release. If they continue act this way, it will become a very high tower, some people stay at 1F, most stay in 2F(Rotw) , some may go 3F (A6) , but in end if they release (A7) some may go in 4F(A7)

In the end , if people want play together, they will have to say which DLC you are in first...

Even if it is free, some people(lod) may still dont want move there(rotw). And this think may build into rotw if A6 release and some people already disappoint in rotw.

I wonder if it could be resolved like in WoW or D4, so we can play together, only with some features paywalled. Let's see how new features could work with such a merged version:

• new class(es) - playable only with expansion, but players without one can meet other expansion players' characters in game (this could even work as an advertisement of the expansion)
• Chronicle - available only with expansion; expansion players' rewards visible (as above). Alternatively, Chronicle could be available, so you can collect non-expansion items, but, obviously, you'll never be able to complete it without the expansion.
• loot filter - available only with expansion
• minor QoLs (like visible buff icons with timers) - available in the base game (no need to paywall them)
• stash - less tabs without expansion; no tabs for stackable materials.
  Gold merged into one shared pool (possibly with lower limit, proportional to less tabs).
• new uberquests - accessible only with expansion

... and here the easy part ends. We're left with some more tricky features:

• new act(s) - if there was only one difficulty level, it'd be easy, the new act would be available only with the expansion. But how to solve the need to complete all acts to progress to the next difficulty? Just make non-expansion characters progress to the new difficulty, skipping the new acts (with quests, rewards, NPCs and so on) entirely?
• items (fixed) - this is the most difficult part. Some items are "naturally" restricted to expansion characters like Grimoires, but they still can be dropped and traded. But what about items dedicated to expansion characters, but otherwise usable by other ones, like Horazon's Splendor (save for
  Horazon's Secrets)? Or new expansion items not dedicated to a specific class, like
  Sling? They could be made unequippable or even unpickable (to prevent trade) for non-expansion players, but it'd be frustrating to see a nice item dropped, but unable to use it.
• items (generated) - ... and even more difficult part. Magic items with Warlock skill charges affix, daggers with Warlock staffmods, ... To keep multiplayer, they couldn't make the item generation dependent on the player, unless individual loot was used (which is a massive and controversial change, and unlikely to happen). Probably the only way would be to make new items (both fixed and generated) available for players without the expansion, but it'd devalue the expansion. And, worse, likely incentivize the devs to make new items class-only or designed for the new classes rather than adding new content for all the classes, expansion or not.
• mechanics (like dropping LoD vs Latent Sunders; vendor changes) - these would need to be unified, i.e. made available even without expansion.

What do you think about merging the game modes?

It can be possible to resolve the thing like you mention. It will be similar to D3 and D3 DLC necromancer.
However, blizzard's move is more like Hero of might and magic IV and its 2 bad DLC. Those 2 DLC is rate low. But compare to current rotw move, it is much better.

In the end story of that old game, some people play Homm IV. Some play DLC 1. Some play DLC 2.
I still remember I finish play DLC1 and think it is all. Few years later, I get DLC2 and I didnt even know what is difference compare to DLC1. (There is difference , more map, different story)

Current rotw...well, only new class....If you let a fresh new kid play this. Maybe he will say, oh , I dont even realize play a new DLC .

I believe blizzard will make things into many many different world if they continue to release new game which is fine.
We only need to play it like oh, I am D2R sc. You are D2R HC. He is rotw. My kid play new A6. My neighbor play single player. He has a friend play Rotw ladder HC.


-----Let's say
Blizzard release A6. Some people pay. Some people dont buy it.
Does blizzard do thing like rotw or make it like D3.
The people dont pay doesnt get A6 and cant pick up A6 equipment?(d3) Or just create a clean word to separate pay and not pay? (rotw)

This may be illusion because blizzard might not even think about release A6.