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Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Expansion Announced at BlizzCon 2023

GFreeman

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On November 3, Diablo general manager Rod Ferguson and production directors Tiffany Wat and Chris Wilson took the stage at BlizzCon's opening ceremony to recap the plethora of quality-of-life updates released for Diablo IV since Season of Blood began on October 17, and to provide a glimpse at the fiendish adventures coming to Diablo IV. For our first Expansion, you'll be taken somewhere more sinister than ever before—a place where hatred's influence continues to strangle Sanctuary into submission…

Vessel of Hatred continues the grim tale that began in Diablo IV, as you learn the fate of the prime evil Mephisto and his demonic plans for Sanctuary. To do that, you'll be visiting a region new to Diablo IV, known by the locals as Nahantu. With this continuation of the campaign's story comes new ways to play, new evils to vanquish, and a brand-new Class never before seen in the Diablo universe. Vessel of Hatred releases late next year, and we can't wait to share more about it with you next summer.



In the less-distant future, the third Season of Diablo IV will usher in a whole new type of weekly challenge Dungeon called The Gauntlet, where wanderers can compete for their Class ranking against anyone in the world. At the end of each week, the combatants with the highest rank will have their name cemented in the Seasonal Hall of the Ancients for all of time.

Ever wonder what the holidays are like in Sanctuary? Well, now you can find out in our first seasonal event, Midwinter Blight, beginning on December 12 and lasting for three weeks. Trudge through the snow-laden, winter terror-land of Fractured Peaks, and be sure to keep your eyes peeled for a mysterious, red-cloaked terror!

Now that we've given you a glimpse of some of what's to come in the future, let's come back to the present. Starting next week, we'll introduce 5 Unique, class-specific Rings that will let you tap into powers from Season of the Malignant.

Then on December 5, an Enchanting preview feature for the Occultist will come to Diablo IV. This will allow you to see what affixes are possible, before spending your hard-earned gold. It's another way to give you even more control over developing just the right build for whatever Hell throws your way. Also starting on December 5 is Abattoir of Zir, a highly replayable six-week end-game event experience designed for players who have reached Level 100, slain Uber Duriel, and mastered all the other challenges Season of Blood has to offer. Those who survive will attain a Paragon Glyph constructed from Lord Zir's very own blood. But beware—the Abattoir of Zir starts at a soul-crushing difficulty and only gets harder.

All of this is made possible by the support of our players, and most importantly, your feedback. Thanks to feedback, we've added an endgame boss ladder for receiving Unique and Uber Unique items at a higher rate, made the ascent to Level 100 40% faster than it was in Season of the Malignant, reworked Item Power to be more rewarding, and released a ton quality-of-life updates through our patches.


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Space Lynx

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new class never before seen eh? I am intrigued, looking forward to that reveal next year. hopefully its creative and fun
 
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Coming late 2024? A year to launch an expansion and a new class? Really?

Hope the game isn't dead by then.
 
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new class never before seen eh? I am intrigued, looking forward to that reveal next year. hopefully its creative and fun

Never seen before my ass, maybe never seen before as playable in a diablo game. I'll eat my hat if it isn't Mesoamerican themed whatever.
 
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Coming late 2024? A year to launch an expansion and a new class? Really?

Hope the game isn't dead by then.
Already it is....
 

Space Lynx

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Already it is....

yeah, I did the free weekend they offered last week, honestly I didn't even reach max level, got kind of bored pretty fast this time. i still will buy it when it hits the 10 dollar bin, but not until then. meh
 
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yeah, I did the free weekend they offered last week, honestly I didn't even reach max level, got kind of bored pretty fast this time. i still will buy it when it hits the 10 dollar bin, but not until then. meh
I havent played it in months. Then back when they had that D4 event in Korea or whatever and NO ONE showed up for it, thats when i knew the game was officially dead.
 
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Never seen before my ass, maybe never seen before as playable in a diablo game. I'll eat my hat if it isn't Mesoamerican themed whatever.
A dual M4-wielding berserk? They sunk so low that at this point it wouldn't surprise me.
 
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The franchise is pretty much dead in my opinion. I bought D3 back then because I thought D1 and 2 are pretty fun. Turns out that D3 is boring and at the same time frustrating. To me, the Seasons just spoils the game because the objective is to get you to try a different build as they will nerf some setups and super boost some. So you just keep restarting the game over and over and over again. The moment you stopped and come back some time later, your character is likely as strong as a beancurd. The always online requirement don't help because when I am free to play, they choose to do a server maintenence. So looking at the trajectory of D4, this is likely the same with some cosmetic changes.
 
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The franchise is pretty much dead in my opinion. I bought D3 back then because I thought D1 and 2 are pretty fun. Turns out that D3 is boring and at the same time frustrating. To me, the Seasons just spoils the game because the objective is to get you to try a different build as they will nerf some setups and super boost some. So you just keep restarting the game over and over and over again. The moment you stopped and come back some time later, your character is likely as strong as a beancurd. The always online requirement don't help because when I am free to play, they choose to do a server maintenence. So looking at the trajectory of D4, this is likely the same with some cosmetic changes.
WoW Treadmill mechanics killed Diablo. Greed killed Diablo. Always online killed Diablo.

And the irony is, while always online was killing diablo, GGG was showing the world how an ARPG can be a thriving online community with Path of Exile - a game that has everything Diablo lost - while Crate showed the world with Grim Dawn what Diablo 2 would look like in current times, expanding on every aspect of the ARPG with single-player oriented goodness.

1699092708867.jpeg
+ absence of Witch Doctor in D4 = You get a Shaman of some sort, that is in fact a Witch Doctor.

Yawnfest. Inb4 a bunch of copied skillsets from Grim Dawn's Shaman... ;)
 
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Ignoring the upcoming DLC, I think we're only 2 or 3 more seasons away from the game being in the state it should have launched in, i.e. not a paid beta.

The more I read about both the additions/changes to the game and the changes at Blizzard, the more I feel like Blizzard effectively forgot how to make a Diablo game by firing, or driving away all of the staff responsible for doing anything good with the franchise. Now we have a bunch of inexperienced, non-gaming newbies trying to recreate Diablo and they're learning as they go - slowly, but surely correcting their mistakes through community feedback (and outrage) and of course fixing all the broken shit that should never have been there at launch. If they were passionate Diablo fans, or experienced ARPG gamers, then they'd actually have a clue and wouldn't have made so many unbelievable and ridiculous mistakes as they did with the initial launch and season 1.

I'm going to resist the temptation to jump back into D4 for S2 and S3 - It's simply not a good enough, or finished enough game to be worth my time when I have plenty of better, more polished, more balanced, higher-quality games on my waiting list. Perhaps S4 will be enough of a jump - I continue to watch D4 content creators on YT and twitch to get the lowdown on changes, fixes, reblanaces, and patches and despite my better judgement and enough anti-consumer behaviour from Blizzard to make anyone justifiably boycott them for life, I am optimistic, even hopeful, that D4 will eventually be a worthy successor to previous games in the series (and no, Immortal is not a Diablo game, it's a Chinese P2W mobile game made by the Chinese for the Chinese F2P market on Activision's dime).
 
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Coming late 2024? A year to launch an expansion and a new class? Really?

Yes, really, expansion packs typically are released after a year of the base game. D2 expansion was released one year after D2 was released. Warcraft 3 TFT was released one year after the Warcraft 3 ROC was released. Yuri's revenge was released one year after RA2 was released.
 
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Yes, really, expansion packs typically are released after a year of the base game. D2 expansion was released one year after D2 was released. Warcraft 3 TFT was released one year after the Warcraft 3 ROC was released. Yuri's revenge was released one year after RA2 was released.
...and much sooner than D3's first expansion.
I'm not sure why this point was even raised. The overwhelming majority of games don't get expansions for at least a year.
 
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What a charming name. Yuk.

Yep. Would have been a lot better if it was Hatred. Diablo IV:Hatred is much more intriguing than Diablo IV:Vessel of Hatred which just sounds corny/cheesy.
 
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