Diablo 3 Paragon system will be implemented today

Though it was only announced mere hours ago, Blizzard has revealed that Diablo 3's new Paragon system will officially be going live in the game later today.

For those of you who missed the announcement yesterday, the Paragon system adds 100 extra levels of achievement onto the current 60 standard levels. They function a bit differently from current levels though. There will be no additional gear or content for Paragon levels, but characters will get stat boosts each time they level up.

Blizzard said the change became necessary because many players complained that due to the randomness of loot drops, they could actually end up losing money after spending time in the game at level 60. If a player received no significant drops it often meant they'd just be stuck with a hefty repair bill and nothing to show for it. The Paragon system at least guarantees that a player will be making progress toward the next level of Paragon.

Battle.net is currently down for scheduled maintenance, and it is expected that the update will go live once the service resumes at approximately 1pm PST.