The latest Diablo 3 patch adds more gameplay elements in preparation for Reaper of Souls

The people at Blizzard have been hard at work on a new patch for Diablo 3 in preparation for the upcoming Reaper of Souls, which will release on March 25, 2014.

Patch 2.0.1 will include updates such as:

• Cursed chest events
• Clans & communities
• Class, crafting, item, paragon and difficulty updates

Cursed chest events will be introduced as a new random event system in Diablo 3. Cursed chests will spawn on the solo player campaigns and adventure modes which will be available in Reaper of Souls. These random events offer a variety of challenges such as timed events, monster wave spawns, and also have the potential to bring bosses out into the open. Beating a cursed chest event rewards you with gold, experience, and epic loot.

The addition of clans and communities will introduce a new social environment for Diablo 3 players. You can now create or join 120-member clans that you can communicate and quest with. Communities, on the other hand, are a more public venue that allows you to interact with a wider range of people outside your clan.

The other updates included in the patch will provide a wider variety to veteran players while making the game more accessible to newbies. Crafting has been streamlined to ease the crafting procedure while the game’s item updates will make it easier for players to forge equipment.

The Paragon system is also getting an overhaul to give players more “diversity and character customization past [the] level cap”, the biggest of which is how the Paragon level will now be shared across all account characters in the same mode. This means hardcore characters will retain a separate Paragon level from normal characters. You can also endlessly earn Paragon levels since the cap has been removed, and lastly, you will earn skill points to invest in your core, offense, defense and utility stats instead of getting primary stat points and magic items and gold.

As of this post, there have been no updates yet on what “significant revisions” the classes will be getting. We’ll be watching out for them as Blizzard’s announcements come in.

Do note that these updates are not final and may change as the testing is being done. You can check out the complete and detailed list of updates on this link.