A plethora of changes coming to Diablo III

BlizzCon's Diablo III panel let loose a bunch of changes coming to the game. There's a great deal of updates and some I'm really looking forward to. Details on changes are nicely summed up at Diablo Hub.

A new zone called the Runes of Sesheron will be available in adventuring complete with new monsters such as the Yeti and Naja Beetles. Monsters won't be the only thing that you'll have to guard against as new traps will be in there as well.

Along with the new monsters comes a new boss called the Rat King. This monster lets forth rats from his back when he's hit and he'll eat your corpse when you die. Sounds similar to Greed, boss of the Goblin realm where she has treasure goblins leap from her back at times.

A new level of drops will force me to re-farm all my awesome gear. Ancients are a subset of legendaries in which they'll have an increase range in stats. So, you think your Furnace is good? How about a Furnace with even more main stat values.

Before you could only earn blood shards from rifts and some bounties. Now, there will be a new treasure goblin that can drop blood shards. Two other new goblins will drop gems and mats as well as plans. I rather like the new additions in goblins as it adds some variety on what these little buggers can drop.

Changes are even coming in the layout of towns. I always hated Act 1's town layout as some of the artisans were too far away. Hence I always teleported to Act II's town at the start of the game. Well, Blizzard's fixing that so hopefully no matter what town you're in, you'll have easy access to all artisans without having to walk far.

Of course, changes are coming in greater rifts as well and one change I'm most looking forward to is that you'll be able to resurrect at your corpse rather than at a checkpoint. Each time you die, there will be an increase in the resurrection timer, but at least you won't have to walk all the way to where you died in some of the longer levels, which made for a frustrating experience.

Season 2 is also detailed with new season only legendaries and goals. I'm not much of a season player, but I've heard from some folks who have that the list of additions and changes is a little underwhelming. No date was given for the new season to start nor the end of Season 1.

Overall, some great stuff coming to players of Diablo III. Can't wait to have these get deployed and drawing me back into the game again.,