Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls Getting New Social Features

Blizzard today announced that two new social features are on the way in Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls.

"With Clans and Communities, we're providing players with easy and practical tools for finding and communicating with like-minded individuals who share a passion for demon slaying, loot hunting, experience farming, as well as other interests," says community representative Vaneras in a blog post on Battle.net.

Clans are essentially MMO-style guilds; they enable players who share similar in-game interests to form tight-knit groups. They currently have a planned member limit of 120 players, and a player can only be a member of one clan at any given time.

Communities, meanwhile, are a more casual social feature, allowing players to come together for any reason, whether that's playing the same class, living in the same geographical area, or frequenting the same sites. (IGN community, anyone?) Communities have a "nearly unlimited" member cap, and unlike clans, a player can be part of multiple communities at once.

Both clans and communities will grant access to dedicated News, Roster, and Settings tabs, as well as a dedicated chat channel.

Clans and Communities are currently available on the public test realm and in the Reaper of Souls closed beta; the rest of us will have to wait for the expansion's release date of March 25.

Reaper of Souls, Diablo's "dark and terrifying new chapter," was first revealed mid-last year. It will feature a sandbox-style Adventure Mode. It will not have an option for offline play, presumably because that would make it awkward to implement the new social features.

Katie Williams is a freelance writer and games journalist. You can follow her on IGN. She also tweets at @desensitisation and hopes that one day, a bird will tweet back.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com