The wait for Diablo 3 may have just gotten a little shorter with a small announcement by Blizzard that two features have been removed from the game’s beta: the Scrolls of Companion and Scrolls of Reforging.
At present, the Scroll of Reforging transmutes all properties of a single magic item into an entirely new set of properties. Effectively, it randomly generates a new weapon based on a preexisting one.
The Scroll of Companion summons a friendly creature that picks up gold as it moves. It only lasts temporarily and explodes after a few minutes. It’s really disappointing if you were looking forward to have a cute animal follow you around throughout the whole game.
Blizzard made the decision to remove both scrolls because they felt like little more than throwaway features.
In both cases these are features we felt were underdeveloped and just not quite good enough for the game in their current state. The companion pets felt like they were mandatory to maximize play efficiency and some of the pets were too cutesy for the gritty, dark world of Sanctuary. Neither of those are issues we felt like we could solve without a lot of additional work, and we’re trying to close in on a solid release date for the game, not move further away. When weighing these systems against releasing the game, we decided to cut these scrolls and stay on track for the game’s release.
Additionally, Blizzard says that companion pets will make a return at some point in the future—post-release—in a much cooler form.
We think we can make companion pets into a much cooler system (both mechanically and visually), and evolve the reforging scrolls into a more meaningful system at some point in the future. For the time being, they will not be in the initial release of the game.
