This isn’t the Diablo III you were playing yesterday

As if Diablo III wasn’t already unrecognizable from the state of its release, Blizzard has given it another dramatic update, paving the way for next month’s Reaper of Souls add-on. The latest patch doesn’t just rework every character, which is sort of what you expect in patches for action RPGs. It even reworks the basic character stats, which are the building blocks for your character builds. In addition, it has completely overhauled the economy. New uses for gold, a phased out auction house, a new currency, hooks for the upcoming new adventure mode, a new role for crafting, gems reworked and expanded, and new ways to adjust the difficulty to level up faster and get better loot. The oddest thing is that I’m now picking up every single thing that gets dropped, even if the text is white. And in about an hour or so of playing, I’ve found three legendary items, which is as many as I’ve found in my entire time with the game before the patch. Suddenly, Diablo III on the PC looks suspiciously like a game with a meaningful economy.

Read the highlights here and the full notes here.