What’s the point of doing damage if there’s nothing to kill?

I’ve been around gaming for way too long and the best groups always have somebody in a role when we’re trying to push harder content. We saw this in Diablo 3 even when it wasn’t really intentional by the designers, players still just figured it out. So, while everyone was worried about all the juicy info that Rhykker got from the dev talk and the service land weekend, I honed in on the subtle drop that supports are going to be required for Diablo 4 endgame.

Let us start with limited deaths and Nightmare Dungeons. The Sacred Nightmare Dungeons will have a death limit of 12. And the Ancestral Nightmare Dungeons will have a death limit of four. Four deaths per run. That’s going to be rough. Who doesn’t die in Diablo 3? They are the guys who use zBarb builds.

What is zBarb? It is also called the support Barbarian and is one of the strongest supports in the game and the addition of Crowd Control Resistance. By the way, if you want to improve your Barbarian, then you have to prepare a lot of Diablo 4 Gold in advance. In the meantime, you can also build more powerful builds.

But here’s the thing and I’ve been playing Rhykker’s video since right after beta weekend because I saw how much damage some people can do and there’s just not enough mobs for everyone to be killing 100% of the time.

Also, from Rhykker’s video, we learned that monsters are going to hit really hard. So, if you don’t spec into defense or some kind of utility, you’re going to die. It is one of the reasons we have zero damage builds in Diablo 3. Speaking of DPS, you’re going to need a Barb to group things again. Here is a side note: I’m very happy about that because I love being a zBarb in Diablo 3.

Then, that’s kind of my next point. Some people just enjoy playing support roles. It’s what I like to do, and this is also a way for casual players or players that just don’t have time to provide their skills to join endgame content. This allows everyone to provide value and play with friends and enjoy the game.The difference is that Diablo 4 supports are going to do more than just buff the party. I’ve been calling them S-Builds (Support Builds).

Let’s get a little deeper into that. The support classes are going to have different roles. It’s really impossible to say which class will have which role because there’s going to be a lot of synergy to figure out with the endgame.

One of the main things is Crowd Control. We know monsters will get CC immune just like in Diablo 3. And just like in Diablo 3, we can’t have everyone trying to CC everything. We’ll end up with a ton of unstoppable monsters coming after us and running all over the place. Veiled Shot just dropped the video on this topic, but he just barely scratches a surface that will need support builds. If you are interested in it, you can check it out.

And then, we’ll have to complete objectives. There’s a lot of endgame to do in Diablo 4. Unless you’re on a mount, you move pretty slowly between objectives and running around maps. So, if an objective focused support role comes in, he can grab the idle. He can run back and put it on the pedestal or whatever you got to put it. That means that we’re just going to be doing boss fight after boss fight and if you want farming, that’s farming.

Also Read: Everything About Diablo 4 Co-op, Open World, PVP & Strongholds

This is going to be the most useful for leveling glyphs. If this works right, we can just form the bosses and clear dungeons a lot faster and while we’re trying to kill stuff, vulnerability is just too powerful not to take advantage of. But if a DPS has to spec into it, then they miss out on more damage. So, if a support class can cause almost constant vulnerability, then they’ll provide more value than trying to do damage. And with all that, the supports are also going to be there for typical reasons: buffing and debuffing monsters. Some can do this better than others. But that’s going to be something to look at once these rolls start to flush out a little better.

As far as the classes go, I love the Barbarian and it has a lot of options for support classes and for damage, there’s a lot of a lot to work with there. Rogue is also going to be probably something to look at. Necromancer has a lot of opportunities with Bone Prison, which I think causes vulnerability. The Sorceress does a lot of CC with her ice build, so that might be a great option for like taking out the world boss.

All in all, we’re going to see supports playing a huge role in the meta for Diablo 4.

Path of Exile is an action RPG that markets itself as being the best ARPG on the market in terms of character customizations. If you have ever played Diablo 3 and thought that it’s very simple or straight up just looking for a serious game to play for the next couple of years, then keep reading as today we will go over the top 10 things that you must know in detail before thinking about making Path of Exile the next big thing in your life.

1. Monetization

First, we got monetization. Most of you already know that you can basically boot up Path of Exile and start playing for free. But is Path of Exile really free to play any sense where you can continue playing without spending any money and compensate for that with your skills?

In your first 50 to 100 hours, you won’t feel the need to purchase anything. That’s until you realize that you are running out of space. Path of Exile gives you four generic Stash Tabs. This can hold pretty much anything. The problem is simple things like POE Currency are more than enough to eventually flood these Stash Tabs.

There are also maps and a bunch of other league specific currencies like Fossils, Catalysts and Scarabs and many others that you have to store. Of course, that’s aside from the rest of your items. In a few words, the game becomes unplayable at some point unless you purchase Stash Tabs.

The bare minimum amount of in-game currency that you have to spend in order to get essential Stash Tabs are: 75 points on a Currency Stash Tab, 150 points on a Map Stash Tab and another 150 points on one Premium Quad Stash Tab, which is required if you wish to participate in the item market.

All of that is going to cost you close to 40 US dollars, which is what I think is the bare minimum that you have to spend in order to keep playing for almost ever.

So, is Path of Exile really free to play? The short answer is no.

2. Complexity

The second point we want to talk about is complexity.

Path of Exile complexity is not actually as hard as people make it out to be. It’s just filled with so much information and details that you have to memorize. If you wish to play the game properly, just to put this into perspective. I spent over 10,000 hours playing this game. More than half of that time is spent on learning. Even today, I still get to learn something now and then.

Path of Exile is not difficult. It just needs lots of time to learn and it only becomes fun once you learn it. Unless you are seriously considering pouring multiple thousands of hours into this game, I don’t recommend playing it.

3. Grind

The third point that you must know in detail before playing Path of Exile is the grind.

Simply learning the game isn’t enough to make POE Currency. If you wish to play it properly, then you should know that: in order to keep up with seasonal players in competitive environments like League, then you have to play no less than 8 hours every day. Some people even play up to 15 hours a day on league launch.

The reason why this matters is that only those who reach endgame early are the ones who make the most amount of currency and those who make the most amount of currency controls the economy. It is basically like real life. It seems unfair, but that’s one of the things that makes Path of Exile the unique game it is and on top of this, it’s possible for you to spend an entire day playing without getting a single good drop.

Path of Exiel is a very RNG heavy game. If you hate feeling unrewarded for your time sometimes, then Path of Exile is simply not for you.

4. Difficulty

The fourth point we have is difficulty. Not to be confused with difficulty or complexity, it is one thing to understand the basics of a game and it’s a completely different thing to learn how to play it.

If you are literally coming from any other ARPG, then you need to know that Path of Exile weakest aspect is visual clarity. Both monsters and players deal with an extremely high amount of damage compared to their respective life poles. And what ends up happening as a result is that you either one shot everything or everything one shot you. You will be in an extremely chaotic atmosphere where you don’t realize what’s happening before it actually happens.

It is the least engaging combat style out of any other ARPG out there and journey Path of Exile biggest downside. It is for this specific reason why Path of Exile is considered difficult. No matter how cautious you are, you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you died and there is nothing you could have done to prevent that.

5. Endgame

For our fifth point, we are going to talk about the endgame.

Path of Exile’s endgame is where it is at. There are so many things you can do and so many endgame bosses to challenge for their loot. There are also so many league content for you to engage with, from many previous updates to enough content to keep you occupied and engaged for thousands of hours. You can go Delve, you can farm Legion, you can do Harvest, you can do Blighted Maps and more.

Best part of it is that every different league mechanic has its own target load to aim for. Basically, Path of Exile’s endgame allows you to specialize in whatever you want. The game even has its own separated passive tree that its sole purpose is to allow you to customize your endgame experience. No other game comes even remotely close to Path of Exile in that regard.

6. Crafting

The sixth important point that you need to know is crafting. In Path of Exile, you build a strong character by purchasing items for it from other people with your currency.

Most of this currency will come by crafting your own items and sell them to these people for profit. Learning how to craft is detrimental to progressing in this game and I’m not going to lie crafting is like a vast ocean.

Now, I know that the landing speed of one person differs from another, but as for me, it took me over 2,000 hours to master crafting in this game. And I did take the game seriously. As for a more casual player, it’s going to take them even more. That being said, don’t let that discourage you from getting into crafting, as you don’t need to learn everything to get started.

7. Multiplayer

Our seventh point is multiplayer. I want you guys to know that aside from the ability to chat and trade with other players, Path of Exile isn’t really a multiplayer game.

Sure, you can invite people to a party and go kill a boss with them or something like that, but you almost never want to do that in 99% of content you go through in Path of Exile with some very few exceptions.

Party play is generally something that people avoid as it slows down their progress. Unless you are XP farming for level 100, odds are you will be playing solo simply because party play doesn’t actually reward you with anything that you can’t get by playing Solo.

In fact, recently, the game developers killed party play by heavily reducing the load that they generate with 3.19 patch. That’s the more reason for you to be playing Solo.

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8. The Developers

Speaking about the developers, it is the next thing that we are going to talk about.

GGG Dev Team, the creators of Path of Exile are well known for their vision, a vision that’s all about slowing down Path of Exile as much as possible. Now, I’m not talking about gameplay. I’m talking about character progression.

The dev team has been doing nothing but nerfing every possible avenue for players to attain power because they believe that the more you have to grind every day to get what you want, the longer you will be sticking around playing a league. This helps to improve player attention numbers at the cost of every individual player's experience. You are expected to play no less than 10 hours a day to experience everything that this game has to offer.

Basically, the developers want Path of Exile to become a second day job for you, one that doesn’t pay you anything. If you are a busy person with important things to do in real life, then unfortunately, you are not the target demographic for Path of Exile and its developers.

9. The Community

However, with that being said coming, we have the complete opposite of the dev team, which is the community. Allow me to say that despite the inconveniences that come alongside playing such a complicated game like Path of Exile, you get a bunch of people who are willing to sacrifice their time to help the community by making some useful tools to save time.

One good example is Craft of Exile, a website that shows you the possible odds of spawning every single modifier in the game on an item. It also allows you to simulate your next crafting project without having to waste currency on it inside the game.

You can also plan your next build with another useful tool called Path of Building, an application that tells you which passives to allocate in order to better boost your damage and survivability without having to go through trial and error inside the game and more.

10. Future Game Support

Now, for our final point, we are going to talk about future game support.

Path of Exile is an ever-growing game in terms of league mechanics. The gaming graphics even becomes noticeably better with each update.

In the future, GGG is planning on releasing Path of Exile 2. It is not a separate game, but a major expansion to an already growing Path of Exile. This is big because you can start playing Path of Exile now without having to worry about changing games anytime soon.

Path of Exile 2 is an ambition project to expand the main game. It will improve graphics and simplify some complicated game mechanics, like gym linking.

In short, it’s worth diving into Path of Exile now, but only if you are willing to take it seriously. This means having no real life commitments preferably for the next couple of years and yes, this does include marriage anyway.

Is Final Fantasy 14 is still worth playing in 2023? Why we’re still playing and loving it in 2023? Most of all, if it’s still worth to start your own adventure?

The first big positive of this game is something that is really hard to keep fresh because it totally leaves the traits of the MMO genre, but still is one of my biggest selling points for the game and that is the first time playing experience.

It’s really hard to take yourself back in time and remember all the good moments you’ve spent with things that are long gone. But if you do so for Final Fantasy, it had been the best moments of my game alive as a long time console player and single player game enjoyed. Even though back in 2014 where I came to Eorzea for the first time, it offered way more MMO aspects forced onto the player, but more to that later.

However, what really stands out in this game is not even compared to other MMORPGs on the market, but basically all single player games as well is how much this world makes sense to itself. And the developers created a universe that drags you in with every new character you meet or places you travel to. It is insanely immersive. And the laughter details references to the franchise or writing of the story’s plot are in a class of its own. Even starting into A Realm Reborn made perfect sense for me and I absolutely enjoyed the story with classical Final Fantasy elements, especially on the antagonist side.

Nonetheless, Heaven’s Ward, like for many players, was that expansion and moment in time where the game developed into an absolute masterpiece. Gameplay became complex, smooth, and much more entertaining and the story around each God and the Dragonsong War was just beautifully written.

While still having the ongoing light motif develop that leads to its conclusion in the recent and WarCraft expansion, so there had always been a lot of planning to make the whole world and story fit while still developing each expansion’s topic around it.

But even apart from all the story driven content, up to that point, there’s already so much to do in this game: so many outfits and weapons (which you can get by using FFXIV Gil) that are worth collecting, trials and raids to participate in and even the brand new crystalline conflict PVP mode is already available at that point. Crafting, Gathering, house building, Gold Saucer...... It’s crazy how much content this game is offering that even a player like Asmongold was totally stuck in Heaven’s Ward as there is so much content to tackle already.

Just when I was recently playing a good variation of single player games over the past weeks, I realized how good Final Fantasy 14 is where a good old classic, like Grandia, outplayed the other new games by longshot. Even Kingdom Hearts 3 that I absolutely love for many elements didn’t come anywhere close to the shining times of old Final Fantasies. And not talking about Strangers of Paradise, that was cool but felt super repetitive and boring after a while.

On the other hand, we had the Resident Evil 4 Remake. This game was great, not from the epic story or plot, but just how well it is crafted into a very atmospheric horror show. That was the play to have fun with the absolute basics of managing your resources, hitting enemies sharply and constantly making Leon look like the badass character he is. And while the whole engine at battle system has been pushed to the next gen standards, the mechanics of the game are absolutely 2005. To be completely honest, I think this is the best remake that’s available right now.

This is where Final Fantasy 14 comes into play again. This game is not trying to reinvent the wheel, but create the whole vehicle around it. The combat system is a classical World of WarCraft Rebrand with added strategical elements and the typical Japanese rotation system. But how all this is implemented and introduced in the game is absolutely classic.

I still hope for an earlier access to job skills and the way how the game could be more fun at lower levels. But overall, I have way more fun playing these old-functioning battle mechanics than warping my main character from spot to spot to dodge my enemy attacks or start any assault. Think about why Elden Ring was so popular? It took all the good battle made mechanics and updated them by mixing in some open world elements.

The gameplay of games like Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics, while they seem dated from a visual perspective, they’re way more fun than modern strategy games that put in real-time decisions and stuff like that.

The one exception that I thoroughly enjoyed and would rate as my personal Game of the Year for 2022 is A Plague Tale: Requiem. Here, the producers and developers of the game took the horror genre to another level and while it doesn’t feature the grotesque horror of Resident Evil, the gameplay mechanics were simply amazing. The first game in which I enjoyed the stealth parts because they made sense. And while for me personally, the story was the big selling point for the game, gameplay felt rewarding and absolutely satisfying.

Related: Final Fantasy 14: Some Players Can Get Stormblood Expansion For Free

That’s how games should be designed when the players feel rewarded for their actions and get even more when walking the extra mile. So, this leads us back to Heaven’s Ward, right? Because walking the extra mile leads you into three more expansions that develop the main plot further with the heartbreaking and genius climax in Shadowbringers and perfectly crafted conclusion in Endwalker to become one if not the best stories that any game ever created.

But it still does offer all the MMO aspects especially if you reach end game but also everything the game had in stock before that because Square Enix are insanely good at keeping old content alive and due to thinking of former content, you can always go back in time with your high-level character to relive the moments that other players felt when they played the game two expansions ago, except for some balancing changes, maybe.

I mean for example, if you don’t care about the recent Mandeville Relic weapons, you can just leave Eureka a visit, gather up some friends and try to venture as far as you can into the riddles and mysteries of that very special aisle or you could join the Bozjan Southern Front for further development of the war against galimov and how the whole all scheming and planning took place besides the big events of Shadowbringers or Endwalker.

There’s just so much content that this game is offering and only the veteran players and those that played it patch after patch will run into content draft. If you’re a new player or haven’t explored all these old forms of content, this game is a freaking must play in my opinion, especially if you like any of the main series Final Fantasies that are on par with a quality of 14 or even beaten by it. I mean, you can even treat it like a single player game with each patch more and more because Square Enix is constantly adding party support to dungeons and trials so that you’re not dependent on other players to join your efforts and story progression.

This is my opinion. Here’s my subjective take on the best and worst parts of Diablo 2, Diablo 3 and Diablo 4.

Best Part Of Diablo 2

Starting with the best thing about Diablo 2, I just love the itemization in this game. Unique Items can be really powerful and so can rare items. Even certain magic or blue items have the ability to be best in the slot, the wide range of low to high-level set.

Items have bonuses that in niche cases can be really strong or I might craft myself a pair of orange gloves to get a crushing blow and then you even have gray items with open sockets.

It’s even worth picking up wide items as I can potentially turn them gray for a Runeworld base and a Helm. It’s not just a Helm. There’s like a hundred different Helm types that have different requirements and potential bonuses.

My point is pretty much all items have the potential to be useful in Diablo 2 and don’t get me started on Runewords. And D2R items can roll with plus skills on them from other classes, so my Assassin can all of a sudden use the Sorceress teleport because I found his staff with plus teleport charges.

Or I can use the Druid’s Spirits summoned via this ring, so my Paladin gets more life. I mean that’s just really outstanding in my opinion and makes building and designing your character really satisfying both through the skill tree and stats that you carefully choose, but especially through the itemization.

Best Part Of Diablo 3

On to the best thing about Diablo 3, I love how fun clicking buttons and killing Demons is in Diablo 3 like there’s a casual, like Arcadey feel to this game, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The satisfying spells along with the simplicity and accessibility make this an amazing couch Co-op like console experience, perhaps with your kids or your girlfriend who’s new to gaming or even on PC with your online friends pushing the limits of the game.

I also love how Diablo 3 has come so far since its release pretty messy with a lot of systems that didn’t work at all back then. But I feel like they’ve really cleaned it up and really doubled down on its strengths.

Now, it’s got this fun farming simulator vibe to it where I can just jump in and feel like I’m an overpowered God and at certain times of the month, I enjoy that.

Best Part Of Diablo 4

What I think is the best thing about Diablo 4 after playing the beta is the freshness, a new Diablo game, a new story, new end game, the community hype. It’s intriguing and really sparks my curiosity and hunger to play the game.

Building up my character in Diablo 4 is like a new problem to solve and you’re not to crack, so to speak. Therefore, in the early game, you need to prepare enough Diablo 4 Gold to improve your character.

Read More: What You Need To Know About Diablo IV End Game Modes?

The foundation of the gameplay feels incredible to me, like just killing the first wolf at level one. I already had fun and I love that feeling of exploring a new game that I’m passionate about.

Now, I’ve only played the beta, so I’m expecting to have a lot more thoughts on this once the game is out.

Worst Part Of Diablo 2

Onto the worst things about these games, Diablo 2 absolutely lacks of in-game content. Like after playing this game for thousands of hours, there’s not much left to do. Besides, doing it all over again and it can get a little repetitive.

Even now with Diablo II: Resurrected, I’m a little disappointed with how minor changes they’re making to this game, like adding a few new boring items per season just isn’t enough to make me want to play it. I’d really love to see them be more brave and make more bold changes to really shake this game out.

Other than that, the depth and the complexity of this game isn’t that obvious and can be hard for new players to appreciate. I’ve found that my friends who tried for the first time often find the gameplay slow and unengaging coming from other more fast-paced modern titles, which is understandable since the game is 23 years old (release time of Diablo 2: June 28, 2000).

To me, it’s only once you know a lot of the ins and outs of Diablo 2 that it becomes the awesome and fun game that it is and even when you think about everything, there’s still more to discover. But a lot of people never get there. So, I’d say it’s almost too complicated and non-user friendly.

Worst Part About Diablo 3

The worst part of Diablo 3 I’d have to say is just the scaling of everything. I mean, what are these numbers? What’s going on on my screen? And sometimes it just makes me sick.

I’d much more appreciate and savor the whole experience if it was stripped down a bit. The minor change I want is like Diablo 2, where your items rather than give you ten thousand percent extra damage, you get a slight increase to your cash rate and your teleporting feels much better.

I personally prefer that system of slightly tweaking and fine-tuning different aspects of my character.

Worst Part Of Diablo 4

Finally, the worst thing about Diablo 4 I have to mention is the exact same thing as Diablo 3.

The scaling, especially the item affixes just stacking percentage bonus damage: 10% to crowd controlled mobs and 12% overpower damage.

Just this one aspect of the game feels a little chaotic to me and doesn’t feel as satisfying as a system like Diablo 2 where my Sorcerer steals two and a half thousand damage just from being the level she is. And with full gear, the damage doubles.

In summary, I have a love hate relationship with all three of these games for different reasons. Do you agree with my pros and cons of each Diablo game?

If you’ve been following the classic scene, you’ve definitely noticed that private servers are making a big comeback as the major way to play the game and it’s really easy to see why. 

What Are Private Servers?

People love classic fresh and Blizzard’s been way too slow rolling out Season of Mastery 2. But if you’re an official Server Andy Detected, you may not realize what these servers are doing and why they’re so popular. 

I’ve been researching as much as I can and I’ve been talking to friends who love these servers, so I can tell you the five reasons why private servers are the future classic at least unless Blizzard gets their act together. 

Private Servers Are Better At Classic Plus

*First up, private servers are just doing the plus experience better. If you’ve been looking for the Classic Plus experience with new Zones quests and Dungeons. Servers like Turtle WoW are just doing it better and faster than Blizzard.

My personal favorite Classic Plus system might just be the glyph (Glyph of War) system. That system enables distinct challenges, like the hardcore mode where your character actually gets deleted if you die and we might see that we get some small tweaks here and there on classic servers, we’ll never get Classic Plus the level of Turtle WoW.

*Private server developers have so much more freedom to innovate and actually do what people want and that’s one thing private servers are just doing so much better right now - Innovation.

Innovation In WoW Classic

Isn’t it weird that every made major private server aims to improve and innovate to make the classic experience better? Getting a really simple feature like cross realm battlegrounds took nearly four years from Blizzard and while the popular Cataclysm server Whiteman already offers new features like cross-faction gameplay, Solo Arena Queue and even a PVP Spectator Mode.

And Turtle WoW offers new dungeons that perfectly fit into the leveling experience and that’s on top of the new zones, professions, titles and even music. The simple features like dual spec are no-brainers for Turtle WoW while Blizzard might think about adding them in some sex and this complete lack of short-term innovation is really going to hurt Blizzard long term. Think about how much more interesting Classic Cataclysm would be if Blizzard was committed to innovation as much as they were back in 2004.

Players Are Calling The shots

*But that leads to my third point with private servers. Actually, players are making all the decisions. 

If you’re looking to maximize profit, it’s really easy to lose sight of what’s good for the players. Unfortunately, private servers have really exposed how out of balance things have gotten. Things like the massively imbalanced servers leading to the paid faction transfers and, of course, there’s been the massive rising popularity of GDKP.

Even though I do run a few and I personally suspect they left the about wrath racial, just so they could sell a few race transfers. But on the other hand, you can easily find private servers like Maelstrom where GDKP is banned. Racial can be swapped in an NPC and the idea of a Pay to Win cash shop is absolutely laughable.

*Really, just imagine how fun classic could be if you could implement Turtle Wow’s Turtle mode. It all comes down to the fact that these new private servers have developers like Turtle WoW Shang, a long-time fan of Hardcore WoW and a classic WoW addict.

I played hardcore for three months straight in Season of Mastery and all I got was an icon. But since the developers of Turtle WoW love hardcore, they implemented a title, a tablet and a mount for hitting 60. And having long time WoW fans like Shang as your administrators helps a whole lot with the sense of community.

Related: WoW: What Blizzard Should Do To Make Season of Mastery 2 A Successful Launch?

*I see somewhere along the way Blizzard forgot how passionate GMs’ excellent support is and events can make the in-game experience so much more special.

If you read the pitches from recent and upcoming private servers, there’re no coincidences community. It’s all about how there are real humans that will assist you with your issues within 24 hours. If you make a mistake getting the wrong item, they’ll help you. If you’re hosting a big server event, GMs will actually help you to spawn mobs and objects in the game and turtle wow even offers custom Guild Housing if your Guild’s been active for at least three months.

Blizzard has left some massive holes where private servers are taking over. The private server community has happily gone ahead with new expansions and even new game modes. And servers like Turtle WoW thriving with the Classic Plus model peaking at over 4,700 players. Within the next few years, if you want to play Classic Plus, you’ll have to play it on a private server and that’s why unless something changes, private servers are the future of Classic WoW. Though the short-term future of Classic WoW is Season of Mastery 2.

I’m playing on the Turtle WoW, a vanilla + private server and having a blast leveling up my Shaman Raid Tank, which is a thing on Turtle WoW and the servers has been crazy now, with a server population hitting hundreds of thousands of players online on weekends.

While leveling, I’ve been thinking a lot about what would the ideal Classic Era timeline would even look like? What and when should Blizzard release - things like official hardcore servers, classic + or vanilla + servers, classic cataclysm? And more importantly, what do we as a community even want to see? Because now’s the time to let Blizzard know what we want from them. So, today I thought we can talk about what the timeline for Classic Era and WoW could end up being in the next few years.

Classic Era has been exploding the last few months, we have Classic Era Hardcore getting super popular, there’s even Hardcore PVE Races now, like real Competitions with actual prize pools, we have Classic Era servers growing month after month, WotLK Classic is well... It’s currently in between major patches, then there’s classic vanilla + servers like Turtle WoW and Duskhaven reaching all-time high populations.

Recently, there’s been rumors that Blizzard is releasing dedicated Hardcore Servers for Classic Era, and we just don’t know what form these servers are going to take, what the rule set is going to be, how integrated the achievements are going to be, is the server rule set going to be more like the original solo hardcore challenge we are all familiar with, or will Blizzard go for a more fun, group oriented hardcore experience like Turtle WoW.

Will there be titles, mounts for any rewards? Will the hardcore experience last past 60? These are all questions that need to be answered and quickly. I think Blizzard needs to release these hardcore servers as soon as possible, as the demand for them is only continuing to grow,

And it’s these hardcore challenges that are probably the main reason why we have seen a revitalization of the classic era servers. It’s not the only reason, of course. Vanilla has always held a special place in my heart just like a lot of people, and I think there will always be a population of players willing to play on classic era servers, but let’s be honest, if Blizzard released FRESH Classic Era Servers, that progressed from vanilla, to TBC to WotLK Classic all over again, 10,000s of people would dive into Classic Era again.

And I could see Blizzard doing just this at the end of WotLK Classic. Which brings us to what Blizzard should do after WotLK Classic ends. For me, it’s a no brainier that Blizzard is going to add classic cataclysm. But, it is a big decision point. I don’t think WotLK is that popular in terms of numbers, there just isn’t that much to do, it’s essentially an ICC waiting room. So, it’s possible Blizzard might just think the hype is over and move into a Classic, TBC, WotLK Classic maintenance mode.

But from a business perspective I think cataclysms success is already baked in, most of the Classic WoW player base is already expecting the classic experience to last until mists of pandaria and will happily sub just to enjoy the PVP alone as the two expansions are largely regarded as some of the best Arena ever, as well as some of the hardest most challenging classic PVE, at least in cata with some of the introductory raids being well… impossible for most guilds.

I know this would split the classic player base, but I think Blizzard should release a classic era fresh, that progresses all the way to WotLK Classic and beyond, and release Classic Cataclysm at the end of WOTLK. It’s unfortunate, but only from the perspective that fewer people might be playing in Cataclysm, so who cares, people will play classic era, they will play cata, they will pay, retail season of mastery, and hardcore, and private servers, let’s be honest, it’s all a bit of a mess for Blizzard right now.

So, just release it all and let the players decide where they want to play. After Cataclysm and a potential Mysts of pandaria, Blizzard needs to seriously consider a classic + server. The success or private servers like Turtle WoW, and Duskhaven has shown that the demand for classic + is very real and it’s doesn’t take a while a lot of effort to add basic things like new quests, items, zones. Duskhaven is being developed by literally ONE person and has dozens of awesome changes. Blizzard just needs to hand over development to a group of passionate creative people, that can make some changes and keep Classic WoW fresh.

Blizzard could even release the initial changes in a Season of Mastery style server to test and see the reaction of the player base. If they don’t release something like Classic +, Classic Era will eventually fade into irreverence and worse, go down in history as being one of the biggest wastes of an excellent opportunity in history.

In short, blizzard should first release a dedicated hardcore server as soon as possible, and with the end of Classic WOTLK, release classic cataclysm while offering FRESH Classic Era Servers, later develop classic +, even if it ends up being in a season of mastery style server.

I fully expect something like this to unfold over the next 4 years. It’s a very exciting time to be a World of WarCraft player, never before has the player base been so divided because there has never been so much different content, but that’s a good thing, Blizzard should embrace this fact, and not be afraid to release even more.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp on Smart Devices is of course still going strong 5 years on… But something pretty big is affecting the gaming industry right now in Austria, and if the history of Animal Crossing is anything to go by, Pocket Camp could be in trouble, and could potentially be Banned or Removed from the App Stores altogether, at least in parts of Europe…

Now, something pretty significant has just happened in Austria surrounding Sony and FIFA… Don’t worry, this will completely loop back round to Animal Crossing, I promise, just bear with me. In the last couple of weeks, in a case against Sony, regarding FIFA, courts have decided that Loot Boxes, in one form or another, violate the Gambling Laws in Austria.

This is essentially because in certain instances, players are of course paying (such as spending money to get more FUT 23 Coins) for random drops and not necessarily knowing the outcome, or what they’re actually purchasing. Specifically, I believe where certain rewards hold a monetary value, and therefore almost certainly fall under the gambling umbrella.

Anyway, the court ruled in favour of FIFA players, and to cut a long story short, have ordered Sony, the Platform, rather than EA, the publishers of FIFA, to pay out these claims, and pay back Loot Box charges to the Players. It’s a pretty complex issue, so if you want to learn more about that specific case, definitely google it.

Now, despite this specific case affecting FIFA and PlayStation, it’s likely going to have an impact on Loot Boxes and gaming in general, as it’s set a new precedent in Austria, surrounding this type of monetisation.

Anyway, I’m sure you know where I’m going with this, but Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, which is still played by millions all around the world, including a Loot Box mechanic very similar to this. If you head to the Market Place in Pocket Camp, you can, of course, spend Leaf Tickets, which is Pocket Camp’s Premium Currency on a Fortune Cookie, that once opened awards a random ACNH Items.

In many instances, players can even spend real-life money to obtain these Fortune Cookies. Now whether or not, new laws come in (because of the Sony Case) to prevent this type of monetisation surrounding Loot Boxes and alleged gambling violations, it’s likely to become a bigger issue in Austria and surrounding regions and create a bit of a grey area for games like Pocket Camp.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo are already looking into this further… With this in mind, there’s every possibility that Pocket Camp, or any game that includes Gacha Mechanics or Loot Boxes like Fortune Cookies, could be banned in European Regions. And even if they don’t, Nintendo could decide they don’t want to risk it, and pull the game down anyway and remove it from App Stores…

Now, I know what you’re thinking, this is all speculation, I’m jumping to conclusions, and leaping to the worst-case scenario… Now whilst I am speculating here, we have seen this exact situation occur in the past in Belgium in 2019, again in Europe, when Nintendo literally removed both Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes from the App Stores in that region.

This happened when Belgium introduced anti-gambling laws, creating a grey area for Loot Boxes in video games, and then led to new laws being passed that banned Loot Boxes altogether in video games. Interestingly enough, Belgium’s governing bodies at the time, also ordered the likes of FIFA to removed Loot Boxes from their games in the Region… which I believe they did, with the understanding that if they didn’t they’d face millions in fines and even prison time.

However, even now, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp cannot be downloaded or played legitimately in Belgium and some neighbouring counties. And rather than removing the Fortune Cookies when this happened in 2019, Nintendo removed the entire game.

So, with new headlines surrounding Loot Boxes in Austria, with all eyes on Loot Boxes in a new region, and the likely hood of new laws coming in, it’s possible it’s only a matter of time until history literally repeats itself 4 years later, in another European country, and Pocket Camp is removed. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario.

There’s every chance Nintendo would simply remove Fortune Cookies this time around, rather than the whole game, especially now the game includes even more Monetisation models, but who knows, maybe this particular issues starts and ends on PlayStation, and Pocket Camp continues to thrive.

In this article, I want to talk about the current state of Official Hardcore Servers in WoW Classic. Before I get started, I must stress that I am personally very supportive of Blizzard developing them.

Besides, I will also explain to you why this is not a priority for Blizzard, nor will it ever probably be a priority, and there is a slight chance we never get Official Hardcore Servers, no matter how much we really want them to happen, and that will be explained in this article. 

What Classic Hardcore Is?

Before we start though, I just want to do a quick recap on what Classic Hardcore is, as there is a chance someone has no idea what the term “hardcore” even refers to

Basically, Classic Hardcore is a No-Death leveling challenge in Classic WoW that is taking part mostly in the Classic Era Servers, with thousands of active players every single day. The goal of the challenge is to make it to level 60 without dying, and if you die and want to keep playing in the challenge, you have to start over from level 1 again. By the way, if you want to solve this problem, maybe you can use WOTLK Classic Gold to equip yourself.

When we talk about Official Hardcore Servers, this refers to Blizzard embracing the Classic Hardcore Gameplay & Community and supporting the movement by adding official Hardcore-type of servers, where if you die you can’t resurrect or you have to delete your character, basically permanent one-life servers. 

Pros Of Having Official Hardcore Servers

So, now that we are all caught up to speed, let me highlight some of the positive aspects of having Official Hardcore Servers. Before I introduce, some people might consider me being negative or just overall pessimistic, but it’s really me looking at the idea of Classic Hardcore Servers with an objective point of view and realizing that Blizzard is a business after all. 

Here are positive aspects of having Official Hardcore Servers:

#1

There’s an obvious demand for them. I did some player scans recently, showing exactly how many people were online at the same time on the Classic Era Hardcore Server for Europe, and there’s literally between 2 and 3 thousand people playing at the same time on a regular Monday evening. 

#2

Having Official Blizzard-Supported Hardcore Servers would make it way more appealing to everyone. First, you would have way fewer grievers, like playing on the current Classic Era Servers, there’ are a lot of grievers, because they can level to level 60 and just grieve anyone else playing Hardcore, without playing Hardcore themselves. 

If we’re on an official hardcore server, grieving will be a lot more risky and a lot more difficult, because first of all the grievers have to level themselves up in a hardcore environment, and then if they decide to grief, they actually have more risk involved because they are playing hardcore themselves. 

Less grieving equals to more fun gameplay and more appealing to quite literally everyone. Right now, playing on Classic Era, you have to deal with some people playing Hardcore, and some people not playing Hardcore, and it’s actually quite messy. 

For example, if you as a non-hardcore player want to do a somewhat difficult quest or kill a named mob, and you try to group up with a hardcore player do the same thing, that hardcore player is literally not allowed to group up with you, which might cause you to get annoyed at the hardcore player because you’re killing the same mobs and could have helped each other, and if you don’t know he’s doing the hardcore challenge, he looks like a complete jackass, so it’s quite messy.

Related: WoW: What Blizzard Should Do To Make Season of Mastery 2 A Successful Launch?

#3

It makes it a lot more convenient & easy to try out. Right now, in order to play Hardcore, you first need to find out which serves the hardcore community is playing on, then you need to download a Hardcore addon. But if we had official hardcore servers, you eliminate having to find out which server to play because they’re already public, and we wouldn’t need the hardcore addon. 

And by the way, the Hardcore Addon has over 200,000 installs, so once again there’s obviously a demand for this.

Why Blizzard Haven’t Implemented Official Hardcore Servers?

Now, let’s think about the idea of Official Hardcore Servers from an objective point of view, and think about why Blizzard hasn’t implemented them yet, if there is such an obvious demand? Actually, it’s all about money. 

Blizzard is a company, they like making money. When they came out with Classic WoW, they tried to keep it as similar to Vanilla WoW as possible, which they said was a “love letter to their community”. 

But I will bet you right now: They always had the intention of coming out with the level 58 boost and the TBC Deluxe Editions for TBC Classic. Classic WoW was just them earning your trust, for then to profit from that trust later on, they 100% thought that through before even beginning to work on Classic WoW. 

My Opinion

So, let’s continue to Hardcore Servers. Here’s how I see it: 

Everyone that is currently playing Classic Hardcore, is playing on Classic Era. 99% of people that know what Classic Hardcore is, are currently playing on Classic Era. In essence, what this means is that 99% of people that would play on Official Hardcore Servers are already playing the game and are already giving Blizzard their monthly subscription revenue. 

Blizzard needs a financial incentive to make Official Hardcore Servers, and to be honest, I simply don’t think it is quite there yet. For the people that know about Classic Hardcore, it’s a fantastic idea, but then again, most of us are already paying & playing on Classic Era, why would Blizzard spend their time & resources on implementing new types of servers for us, when it’s obvious that we are still playing and having fun on the Classic Era Servers? 

In the long run, sure, it could bring more people back to Classic WoW by offering something new & fresh, and it has been successful for some other games in the past, but is the financial incentive really there right now? 

I really do think, and I’m not motivating anyone to do this, but I think in order to get Official Hardcore Servers anytime soon, we would quite literally have to organize a gamer strike or an era boycott to actually give Blizzard a financial incentive for these Hardcore Servers, because that way we are sending the message: “If you want our money, give us what we want”, while right now, we are giving them the money either way and begging them to pet us on the head and say “good boy”. 

Diving even deeper into the financial incentive hole, I can’t help but think: What would Official Hardcore Servers actually look like: Judging by how Classic WoW went, it started off great, really authentic & vanilla-like, at least in most ways, and then when the expansion came out, they capitalized by introducing boosts & deluxe editions. What if a potential Official Hardcore Server follows the same trend? 

They give us exactly what to ask for, in the beginning, but then they start adding random things to milk us for every penny we have, first we would get cosmetics which people would be somewhat okay with, then we would get mounts which again people would be somewhat okay with, but then imagine if they went the extra mile and offered Paid Resurrections? 

For Official Hardcore Servers, I want to say “Death = Delete”. But if you pay $50, you can resurrect your character and keep playing! Or maybe they would make like a Chronoboon Displacer item that costs $50 and allows you to travel 1 minute back in time. So if your character is ever about to die, you can use that item. Or, maybe they would introduce a Light of Elune type of item into the cash-shop, allowing anyone to bubble-hearth, essentially. 

This is just me speculating on how many ways Blizzard could potentially screw up these servers, but I really wanted to highlight the financial incentive aspect of this conversation, as it’s something that isn’t being talked about enough. As players, we care about having fun while playing the game. As a company, Blizzard cares about making money. When you want something to happen, you have to consider both these things.

In this article, we're going to be discussing which class is right for you in the upcoming open beta this March. If you're excited to get your hands on Diablo 4 and you want to know somethings about each class some things maybe you don't know then watch on to find out.

Diablo IV's beta will feature all five classes namely the Barbarian, Sorceress, Rogue, Druid and Necromancer. Each of them focuses on distinct damage type, specific playstyle stats and attributes as well as unique class mechanics, all of which we'll discuss in this guide.

Barbarian Class

The Barbarian class issuitable for players, who wish to deal massive destruction melee range while being able to seamlessly switch from one weapon type to the next. They're much more physical damage oriented than any other class in Diablo 4 and are pretty straightforward when it comes to dishing out offensive and defensive moves.

Due to their unique class mechanic, which is known as the arsenal system, Barbarians can equip and swap about four weapons at a time, allowing for better customization. These include the main hand, off hand, bludgeoning and slashing weapons. Doing so allows you to freely assign specific equipment to certain skills based on your needs.

For instance, bash, which lets you stun and heavily damage targets is well suited using a bludgeoning weapon. But if you wish to raise this ability's stun duration even more then you should opt to switch to a two-handed bludgeoning weapon instead. It's also worth noting that upon the skills activation, you'll instantly equip the best weapon in your loadout. By the way, if you don't have enough Diablo 4 Gold to equip yourself , you can click this link to have a look.

Furthermore, every weapon the Barbarian uses has a corresponding expertise stat thereby leveling up their ranks accordingly. For example, if you wish to boost your Critical Strike chance, then wielding a one-handed ax will come in handy. Because of this, it's highly recommended to collect and prepare a wide variety of melee weapons in order to take advantage of this class's build diversity and itemization progression.

In terms of stats, you'll mainly want to invest in Strength, Amplify Damage, Willpower for improved Fury generation and Dexterity to increase the chances of Landing Critical Hits.

Sorceress Class

The Sorceress is your typical high-risk high reward type of class because although they are very fragile, they deal excellent Elemental Damage by casting fire, cold and lightning spells.

Fire spell synergize well with the burning status effect when click damage overtime, but beyond this, they aren't able to control the battlefield as effectively in the early game.

The same couldn't be said for cold spells where crowd control abilities shine the most. What you have here is a variety of skills that will either chill or completely freeze your enemies making it exceptionally potent against bosses. Not only will you slow them down but you can potentially freeze them in place when enough Stacks are accumulated.

Finally, you have lightning spells that are well balanced in terms of dealing a decent amount of damage and controlling encounters to your advantage. Some abilities that are attacked as crackling energy leave behind a ball of energy that either inflicts damage against enemies or replenishes your own Mana.

When it comes to stats, you'll want to allocate points into intelligence to boost the damage of your spells dexterity to raise mana recovery and lastly willpower to improve your critical chance.

The Sorceress's unique class mechanic called the enchantment system changes how a skill works. In total, there are several active abilities slotted together with dedicated enchantment slots. Should you decide to place a skill in an enchantment slot? It can no longer be activated and will instead transform into a secondary passive bonus. For instance, you're able to trigger meteor to blast multiple targets with heavyfire damage while momentarily setting the ground on fire.

Rogue Class

The Rogue is a stealthy assassin, who's adept at moving swiftly, so they can choose to reposition themselves to gain the upper hand in combat or retreat when things get too precarious.

Unlike Barbarians, they can quickly switch between melee and ranged weapons, such as dagger's swords and foes making them extremely versatile. Although at the start bows don't deal as much damage, they will allow you to stay at a safer distance with respect to your foes thereby lowering the chances off requently getting hit. You can think of Diablo 4's Rogue as a combination of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3's Amazon and Demon Hunter respectively.

Your primary stats for this class include dexterity to amplify skill damage and improve dodge ability, strength to enhance your energy regeneration rate and intelligence to improve your critical chance and overall assistance.

The Rogue's unique mechanic is known as talent specializations, which are divided into combo points intersight and preparation, each with its own questline.

Remember though that there is no confirmation yet, if you can activate all three specializations simultaneously or if they can only be used one at a time. Additionally, preparation hasn't been tested since it becomes available upon reaching level 30 and the max level for the beta is level 25.

Combo points are accumulated by activating basic Rogue skills. You'll then be able to consume these points with core skills to trigger additional effects. Meanwhile, intersight allows you to fill up a gauge by attacking marked enemies. Doing so will allow you to make use of unlimited energy for a brief period of time and has proven to be effective against bosses.

The Rogue's versatility doesn't end here however since they can also imbue other attacks with specific effects, such as Poison, Shadow and Coal. These are usually applied to core skills and abilities that deal damage against multiple enemies, such as Rapid Fire.

Druid Class

The next class we're going to take a look at is the Druid, who has the Uncanny ability to change their physical form from a human to that of a werebear or wearable.

Compared to Druids and Diablo 2 Druids can now instantly transform when using their beast themed skills prior to executing the corresponding actions.

Do note that your new form will only last for a short duration until you execute another move. Moreover, this class is also an adept wielder of magic except that they specialize in casting Earth and Storm Spells to disable enemies while slaying the forces of evil. For instance, you're able to execute crushing below to damage a target by a certain percentage of their total light.

Unlike Diablo 2, Druids have companions that do not need to be summoned but are automatically called out to attack on their behalf. However, they do have respective attack companion skills to deal damage on certain targets.

In terms of stats, not much is currently known for this class as well as the Necromancer. Initial information suggests that the Druid's unique class mechanic is tied to requiring special loot, which should be offered to spirit animals.

Doing so will grant different passive bonuses based on the spirit's type. It hasn't been revealed how many types are available, but each of them will grant up to six offensive and defensive passive effects.

Necromancer Class

Final class in Diablo 4 is the Necromancer, who is a renowned Summoner often resurrecting corpses to fight with him in battle.

Like Barbarians and Rogues, a wide variety of weapons are available to them, such as swords, daggers, wands and more importantly sides, which only they can wield.

Diablo 4's Necromancer will remind veterans of the Necromancer in Diablo 3 because of the essence resource to activate potent skills.

Another useful resource is corpses, which are created from the remains of Fallen enemies or other spell effects. In fact you can even make use of the fan favorite corpse explosion.

Necromancers have four distinct played styles, namely Bone, Darkness, Blood and the Army. Bone skills primarily focus on dealing physical damage while consuming the Essence resource. One of the most notable spells is Bone Prison, which ensnares multiple enemies that can be used in conjunction with offensive based skills.

Next is Darkness that makes use of dealing damage over time making it the ideal choice for those, who intend to torture foes who dare to fight them.

Next is Blood, which allows the Necromancer to become a bloodthirsty vampire to restore their own life. One notable spell is Blood Surge, which not only absorbs the HP of enemies but also gains their strength an explosion will soon follow to deal additional damage.

And last but not least is the Army, which lets you bring skeletons back to life as well as constructed Golems. The necromancer's unique class mechanic is the Book of the Dead. This lets them further customize their Undead armies, such as Skeleton Warriors, Skeleton Mages and Golems.

For instance, Skeleton Warriors can become Skirmishers, who deal greater damage, but at the expense of maintaining a lower health pool or Defenders, who inflict lesser damage but are expert tanks.

What's more is that you can choose to sacrifice a specific minion to gain a permanent buff to further improve your build.

Why don’t you get sent to Azkaban in Hogwarts Legacy for using the Unforgivable Curses? That’s the whole point of them calling them unforgivable. You go straight to Azkaban one-stop trip. Also, why can’t you go to Azkaban at all unless you’re playing as a Hufflepuff?

It seems strange the developers would make these kinds of decisions, seeing as though they go so against the in-universe lore. We saw that all throughout the Harry Potter series, anytime, an unforgivable curse is used. It’s a direct trip to Azkaban, so why isn’t that the case in Hogwarts Legacy?

There is only one mission in the game which allows you to go to Azkaban and to go there you need to be playing as a Hufflepuff, which is a kind of funny seeing as though Hufflepuff are the least violent and most pushover house. It’s almost like a reward for playing as a Hufflepuff. It’s like you get the trip to Azkaban and no one else does.

But even when you get to go to Azkaban, there’s not really that much to do. You get to walk around a little to see some creepy people and some cells experience, such as a Patronus Spell, which you don’t even get to cast since casting a Patronus Spell is another thing you can’t do in Hogwarts Legacy.

As said by Professor Moody at the time in the Goblet of Fire, those three curses: Avada Kedavra, Imperio and Crucio are known as the unforgivable curses. Using any of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. These three dark arts curses were classified as unforgivable in the year 1717.

Now, Hogwarts Legacy takes place in the 1890s, meaning that by this point these curses are classified as unforgivable when you have already been using them and learning them or even you were supposed to be sent straight to Azkaban over in Hogwarts Legacy.

You can even use these spells in front of your professors, in front of your teachers, in front of your fellow peers, and there will be no consequence. Nothing will happen. You’ll cast a spell and everyone goes about their merry day.

Honestly, I don’t think this is an enormous problem from a gameplay perspective. But when it comes to an in-universe lore perspective, it completely screws everything up. The fact is that there is no consequence at all. You can basically learn the dark arts in Hogwarts Legacy at little to no cost. This completely goes against the lore of the dark arts and the entire purpose of Azkaban.

Now, I’m surprised that using these spells in the game has no consequence at all. There could be some GTA style wanted level where the Dementors potentially come after you. The more curses you use, they join the fight and you have to use a Patronus to fan them off.

I feel like the developers of Hogwarts Legacy are leaving this open to future DLC ideas. They’ve clearly built Azkaban as part of the story. It exists in some form in the game. You can go there even though it’s kind of brief and you don’t get to see much of the prison. But I feel like they’re leaving this open as an option for future DLC to go there as other houses to experience the prison first hand and to not have to replay the game as a Hufflepuff.

I think it’s likely that down the track they could also introduce the Patronus Spell just as the Quidditch field is still in the game. Even though there’s no Quidditch, that could be out of down the track as well. The same goes to the Great Lake, a giant open area in the game where there’s not really that much to do apart from flyover and swim. It’s possible in future they’re going to add DLC, which allows you to dive down and explore, potentially using Gilly Weed to breathe. Then, there’s also the chance.

The developers just ran out of time and resources. That’s why you can’t cast a Patronus. That’s why you can’t actually fight Dementors. That’s why there’s no Quidditch. That’s why there’s no explosion of the Great Lake. Because the game is already too big and there’s already way too much to do as fun as it is using the unforgivable curses. I know for some players this is immersion breaking. Being able to use these on other characters right in front of your professors just seems dumb.

Even if Hogwarts Legacy gets DLC, there’s likely never going to be any consequence for using these spells as that would change the way the game is built. But that said, I think we could make our way to Azkaban at some point, just like we’ll hopefully. Also, we could play Quidditch at some point.

Torchlight Infinite is an amazing action RPG heavily inspired by Path of Exile. And one thing I noticed is that many players won’t even try it because they assume that since you can also play it on your phone, it will have an aggressive monetization and be absolutely Pay-to-Win. For that matter, I’m here today to expose the facts about Torchlight Infinite’s monetization and share my opinion.

You can reach your own verdict in Torchlight Infinite. We have two types of premium currency, the Jagged Primocryst and the Primocryst.

Jagged Primocryst

Let’s talk about the Jagged Primocryst since you can receive them for free.

Here’s a list of what you can purchase with Jagged Primocryst. First, we have the Revival Token. You can use it to not lose experience when you die.

Following, we have the Elixir of Oblivion. It works as an Orb Of Regret. You use it to respec your Talent Tree even though you can purchase them here. I don’t recommend using a Jagged Primocryst on this because you drop many of them while playing and you can reset your passive skill tree as much as you want totally for free until Level 80.

Another thing you can purchase is expansions for your inventory and stash. With Jagged Primocryst, you’ll also be able to summon Pact Spirits. But I’ll talk more about that later.

Every play you get many Jagged Primocryst while playing. You receive them on the Free Season Pass reaching Achievements as a compensation for every maintenance and getting the free package once a day in the shop.

However, you can get some more Jagged Primocryst if you pay for the Premium Season Pass or purchase the ticket to receive 60 Jagged Primocryst a day for 30 days.

Primocryst

Now, moving on to the other Premium Currencies, the Primocryst. This one you can only get by paying real money.

Primocryst can be used to purchase cosmetic items and expansions for your Auction House and early access to new Hero Traits.

Another thing you can purchase with real money is the Premium Season Pass. As any season pass, this one grants many rewards for completing question and earning points. Among those rewards, we have Revival Tokens, Elixir of Oblivion, Jagged Primocryst, cosmetic items and early access to the new character, Erika.

It’s good to remind that every player has access to the Free Season Pass that grants all those rewards mentioned before, except for the cosmetic items in Erika.

My Opinion

In order to express my opinion on the matter, I’m going to use a scale based on my experience with many games. This scale goes from 0 to 10, when 0 is not Pay-to-Win at all and 10 is absolutely Pay-to-Win.

As an example of 0, we have the game Dota 2, where you can put as much money as you want and you won’t have any advantage at all. As an example of 10, we have Diablo Immortal that we all know that is aggressively Pay-to-Win. Using this scale, I would place Path of Exile as 1 because even though money won’t grant you power, any player that wants to take POE seriously must purchase at least a few Stash Tabs. Torchlight Infinite, however, I would place as a 2, because of Pack Spirits.

Now, it’s time to talk about them. Torchlight Infinite has a feature called Pact System. On the Pact Tree, we can find basic nodes. Those are attack defense and magic find nodes. You can use Pact Spirits to change those nodes. This way, you can mold the tree your way. For instance, you can transform your defense nodes into attack nodes using an offensive spirit.

The thing is, you’ll be able to summon many Pact Spirits for free or even purchase more using the Jagged Primocryst you also get for free. However, if you purchase a premium season pass or the ticket that grants the daily Jagged Primocryst or even the limited package that comes with 5 Summons.

You get more spirits, making it easier for them to level up. High level Spirits grant some bonuses to the nodes on your Pack Tree, thus making your character slightly stronger.

With all of that in mind, I wouldn’t characterize Torchlight Infinite as Pay to Win because spending lots of money would make you roughly stronger than other players since the Packed System is only one between many other Trees and ways to scale your damage on your character.

If you decide to spend some money on the game, I recommend you get in the Premium Season Pass. It has a great price for what it’s worth and grants you early access to the new character.

A new league started just a month ago, and it’s an amazing time to join now that you know all about the Torchlight Infinite monetization.

Thinking about subscribing to ESO+, but you're not sure whether it's worth it? Well, you've come to the right place! With the recent ESO+ free trial coming to a close a week ago, I thought it might be helpful to provide a breakdown of all the benefits and drawbacks of the service, as well as some examples of when it might not be needed.

Now, if you're not familiar with ESO+, it's a subscription service offered on top of the basic price of the game. The subscription provides several perks that, if I'm being honest, I don't think I could live without at this point in my ESO career. With that said, I can see how some players wouldn't get enough use out of the features of the service to justify the cost.

Drawbacks Of Subscription

And that leads me into what I want to discuss first—the drawbacks of subscription, of which there is really only one—the cost. ESO+ is going to run you $14.99 per month, or $139.99 if you choose to pay annually. While some might not bat an eye at these prices, I know people who are on a tight budget and would have to cut something else out to afford the service. If you're in that boat, I hope my explanation of the benefits and use cases helps you make an informed decision about whether to pay.

Benefits Of Subscription

Next, I'll go over each of the benefits. There are several features of ESO+, but they come in varying degrees of relevance for the everyday player. The benefit that is probably the most valuable for most players is full access to all DLC packages. This doesn't include the most recent chapter, but all prior chapters and DLCs are included. The current chapter of my screen is High Isle, so that means that everything before High Isle is included with the subscription.

You could essentially buy a copy of the base game and, through ESO+, get access to everything up through Blackwood and its associated DLCs. You even get access to the most recent DLC, Firesong. We're talking about Imperial City, Wrothgar, Vvardenfell, Summerset, Murkmire, Northern and Southern Elsweyr, Western Skyrim, the Reach, Blackwood, the Deadlands, Galen, and everything in between. These storylines equate to hundreds and potentially even thousands of hours of playtime.

Additionally, you get access to all the sets introduced through the previous chapters and DLCs, which is a huge benefit. That means fantastic sets like Pillar of Nirn, Drake's Rush, False God's Devotion, Spell Power Cure, Elemental Catalyst, and the list goes on. While you can absolutely do just about anything in the base game without these sets, the added damage and survivability you'll get from some of these DLC sets can really make things a lot easier when you get to harder content.

Next up on the list of benefits, and one of those perks I couldn't live without in ESO, is the craft bag. The concept of the craft bag is pretty straightforward. It's a separate storage area outside of your regular inventory that holds all of your crafting materials.

Mats go directly into the craft bag when you gather them, and the bag's storage is infinite. The craft bag doesn't just store materials related to the crafting skill lines, it also holds all of your bait, furnishing materials, style materials, and trait items. Materials are accessible any time you need them, and you don't have to withdraw mats from the bag when crafting, as they automatically get used as you make items. You can also easily retrieve materials from the bag if you ever want to donate some mats to a friend or sell them in a trader.

If you like purchasing items from the crown store, you're in luck, as the ESO+ subscription also includes an allotment of crowns. You get 1650 per month if you pay the monthly pricing, or 19,800 per year if you pay annually. You also get periodic deals on various items in the crown store, as well as a free statuette or painting from time to time. If you're keeping score, you can buy 21,000 crowns for about $150.00, so the crown allotment you get with the subscription is worth the annual cost of ESO+ if you would end up buying the crowns, anyway.

One thing to note is that the annual allotment is deposited into your account all at once, so you'll need to have a bit of self-discipline if you want to have a few crowns leftover for anything you might be interested in later in your annual cycle. Next up on the list are the various increased storage perks that come with the subscription. You get double furnishing and collectible space in your player homes, double bank space, and double the currency cap for transmute crystals. I consider inventory management to be the bane of my existence, so these are a few more of the ESO+ benefits I personally cannot live without.

The penultimate perk of ESO+ is increased progression speed. Ten percent boosts to ESO Gold, XP, crafting inspiration, and research timer speeds don't seem like much, but they really make a difference. For example, your last traits on each piece of gear will take three days less to complete with ESO+ active.

And finally, the last benefit on the list, and the least useful from my perspective, is costume dying. I typically choose to dress my characters with styles from various motifs, so I get little use out of this feature myself, but I'm sure other players really love customizing the costumes they collect. It just goes to show that everything is a matter of perspective.

Why You Might Not Need ESO+?

Now that I've gone through all the benefits the subscription has to offer, I'll discuss some reasons you might not need ESO+. Maybe you're a brand new player and you're still trying to learn the ins and outs of ESO. The game can be a little overwhelming when you're just getting started, so you might not need access to all the DLC content while you get acclimated to ESO's core mechanics.

Also, if you've purchased a newer version of ESO, such as the High Isle chapter, for example, you'll get access to all previous chapters and the base game, anyway. That'll give you plenty to do even without DLC access. To this you might say, “but Trav, what if I want to learn to craft? Won't it be impossible without the craft bag?"

And to that, I say absolutely not! It will take a significant amount of additional effort, but you can be a successful crafter without the craft bag. Non-ESO+ crafters will typically max out their bank slots and inventory capacity, at least on their main character, then create several alternate characters on which they'll store all of their excess or less-used crafting materials. I've seen some players create a spreadsheet to keep track of which character has what materials.

Then, when the free trial of ESO+ comes along, which happens about every six months, you can offload all your mats into the craft bag for easy use after your trial is over. You can't put things into the bag after your subscription ends, but you can take items out and/or use the items as you wish. For non-crafting items, you'll definitely need to find ways to add storage to make up for the double bank capacity of ESO+. To achieve this goal, you have several options.

As mentioned earlier, a quick way to increase your storage is to max out your bank slots. You can buy bank upgrades with ESO Gold at any banker. Each upgrade is 10 slots, and the cost goes up every time you purchase. Maximizing your bank slots is quite expensive, with the total cost of all upgrades coming in at a whopping 769,200 ESO Gold. I'd recommend purchasing the slots gradually instead of all at once, as your storage needs will probably increase gradually as well. At the end of your bank upgrading journey, you'll have 240 slots to enable that inevitable hoarding habit that we all experience at some point in ESO.

Keep in mind that bank space is account-wide, so all of your characters will share those 240 slots. Increasing your character's inventory or bag space is another great way to add storage, especially if you can do so on several alternate characters. Similarly to bank slots, you can increase your bag space by 10 spaces per upgrade at increasingly expensive rates. The maximum 140 slots you can get to through a pack merchant will run you a total cost of 180,600 ESO Gold, but you can increase your space even further through mount training with the stablemaster.

The additional 60 slots from the stablemaster will only cost 15,000 gold, but it'll take you at least 50 days to get all the upgrades, even if you train your mount capacity every 20 hours on the dot. You can have up to 8 characters without purchasing additional character slots through the crown store, and up to 18 if you choose to buy those additional slots. Even with just the base 8 characters, once you get to the maximum of 200 carrying capacity on each, you'll have access to 1,600 inventory slots!

See Also: How To Prepare For Arcanist Class Release In ESO?

If that's still not enough for you, your last option, other than subscribing to ESO+ or buying additional character slots, is getting all the various coffers you can put in your player home. You can gain these coffers through completing master writs or by purchasing them in the crown store. To purchase all available storage coffers and have 330 storage.