![]() You’ll be able to use them on any character of the right class on your account. They will be mostly specific to individual character classes (whereas cosmetics exclusive to the Season Pass might look similar across all classes). It will be possible to closely inspect how all items look on your own character before you buy. ![]() It will be possible to accelerate your progress through the Season Pass by focusing on the Season Journey, a series of achievement-style objectives that will be familiar to Diablo 3 players.Īs for the cosmetics sold in the shop, these will be ways to modify the appearance of your character that have no in-game stats or any other impact on gameplay. Some will be exclusive to the season and reflect its theme. ![]() And, since they are exclusively awarded by free tiers, they will be awarded to all players equally.Īll other Season Pass rewards, free or paid, will be cosmetic. But gameplay boosts will be locked to character level, so there will be no way to shortcut getting to them. This is worth hammering home, because it will be possible to speed your progress through a Season Pass by buying the next tier, in the now-traditional fashion. “We want to be clear that players can’t unlock Season Boosts more quickly through purchases - there is no way to unlock more boosts, or boosts at a faster pace, by spending money,” said Clark. These are defined as “things which make the journey of leveling up a fresh seasonal character more streamlined” - for example, a boost that accelerates the rate at which XP is earned. Perhaps most surprising is that the free tier of the Season Pass will offer gameplay boosts. Nevertheless, Diablo 4’s shop and Season Pass represent significant departures for a mainline Diablo, and the community will likely be alert for any detail of their operation that sounds off. An example of the kind of cosmetic armor sets that will be for sale in Diablo 4’s shop Image: Blizzard Entertainment It will not have occurred to Blizzard that it could get away with the same in a $60 PC and console release aimed at hardcore fans. Diablo Immortal is an exception that was developed with different markets in mind: mobile platforms, and Asian countries, where players’ expectations are different. A similar controversy over the real-money auction house included in Diablo 3 at launch taught Blizzard that its players would not accept any monetization of Diablo’s prized item game in a premium, mainline release. Blizzard is clearly keen to try to avoid Diablo 4 being tarred with the same brush.īut, while the language of this blog is likely a response to Diablo Immortal’s reception, it’s unlikely that the same is true of the game’s monetization design. The mobile game, co-developed with NetEase and released earlier this year, is well made but has attracted consternation for the exploitative and deceptive depths of its monetization, which effectively paywalls drop rates for the game’s most powerful items, and makes the cost of maxing out a character prohibitive. This deliberate messaging is surely a result of the controversy that has engulfed Diablo Immortal. Selling anything affecting gameplay is explicitly and repeatedly ruled out by Clark. Season passes will have a free tier and a paid tier, but again, the paid tier will only award cosmetic items, or premium currency which can be used to buy further cosmetic items from the shop. There will also be a battle pass-style Season Pass, which refreshes alongside the in-game seasons. The in-game shop will sell only one thing: cosmetic enhancements for your character. In extremely careful and definitive language from director of product Kegan Clark, the blog lays out how Diablo 4 will be monetized (beyond the sale of future expansion packs). In a new developer blog, Blizzard has gone to great pains to reiterate something it had already said: Diablo 4’s monetization will not include any way to buy power or gameplay advantages.
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