hrmm.....trying the open beta. As somoene who never played Diablo 1 or 2 after you run through the game whats after that? Will they keep releasing content like WOW?
No. Well, sort of.
If you are going to play Diablo just for the scenematics and story, most likely your ride is over once you've killed last boss and watched last scene etc.Who this game works for best after end game are the folks who are interested in treasure hunting, gambling, being a merchant, or interested in tweaking character's performance for sake of further treasure hunting or dueling.
In a sense it is kind of like a standard mmo such as WoW, but on a much smaller scale. You get all the thrill of farming bosses for loot, but without the hassle and wait time of a large scale MMO. So if you are someone whom is interested in such a formula as WoW, but have alot less time or ADHD, then this could work for you.
You can solo end game content when you are skilled and equipped enough, though the rewards generally are better in larger parties. Following the traditional formula of the Diablo series, it works as such:
- Once you have completed the game (Normal), you can then go to a higher difficulty (Nightmare) after which completing you go to the 'end game' difficulty (Hell). As the difficulty level increases and subsequently make the mobs and bosses harder to kill, so to do the rewards increase in value.
- Bosses and mobs have a certain % to drop items from a loot list. Adjusting game difficulty nightmare/hell etc. can change that loot table entirely to drop different stuff. Obviously the higher the game difficulty will give loot tables for higher player level gear, though you can still often find use from lower level difficulty items as has been the case with D2.
- You have access to the full loot table of bosses and mobs if you are solo play, though the % chance drop for all items will be much lower in solo. The more people in game, the higher % chance of better items to be dropped. Note that adding additional people makes the mobs and bosses stronger to reflect the increase of player power.
Now, what draws prior mentioned gaming types to continue to play is the fact that when they have aquired X item they seek, X item comes with random properties or in the least a set of properties within a variable range. So the quest may continue for the item again in search of the penultimate 'perfect' variables.
Citing D2 as example, In addition to your standard item farming i.e. epic/rare/unique, theres other things to look for such as runes and gems which you can use to create properties on a blank open socket piece of equipment you have. Collecting certain runes and assembling them in specific orders can create a runeword which will give a set of defined properties. Some the D2 staff let us know, and some we had to figure out and some are yet unknown. Just as well there are other things about D2 that are in the game in regards to items, and none of the general public has been able to figure out thus far, so there is a mystic appeal to such things.
As for additional content post release, you can expect further adjustments to classes and skills, additional items added to the game for folks to go after, and 6-12 months down the road an expansion to add classes, dungeons and storyline content.
For D2 there were a few extensive additional content patches (not storyline additions), though these can be counted on one hand with 2 fingers missing. I suspect there could be more attention given with D3, given that Blizzard has become a more powerful beast since D2's time.
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