Even if you're not planning to peer inside Malthael mysteriously masked face-hole with Diablo III's Reaper of Souls expansion , the fallen angel's appearance will still have an effect on the base game. Much like World of Warcraft expansions, Reaper of Souls will be pre-empted by a huge "2.0" patch that will overhaul Diablo III in preparation for new items, abilities and areas.
Lead content designer Kevin Martens ran us through the free features of patch 2.0. "You're going to get all the loot, you're going to get all the new item types, you're going to get all the new legendary affixes, you're going to get our new gem type - which is the diamond - and you're going to get all the changes to the rules, the smart drop system, the targeted drop system, probably you'll get loot runs - we haven't figured that one out yet - probably you'll get paragon, etc, etc."
Martens explains the division as being between systemic changes to the game's rules and new content for the player to discover. "All the content is Reaper of Souls, like the act five stuff and the new higher level items, from sixty to seventy - so that level cap increase, which includes the new abilities, the new runes and the new passives for existing classes."
The new loot system is a particularly significant addition. Blizzard told us that it's a way to bring players away from the Auction House , and back to splatting monsters.
