Diablo 3!

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
http://pc.ign.com/articles/900/900777p1.html
"A lot of people, I think, would say that's a hallmark of the Diablo series, the potion system. We looked at it and said, 'No, that just makes the game worse,'" said Wilson. "It doesn't make it play like a better action game, it just kind of gives the player infinite health. It's actually a fairly poor recovery mechanic because it forces the designers to design monsters that have to deal with a player that has infinite health. The only thing you can do is have monsters that can overcome that health and essentially one-shot you. That's not a very interesting monster. It's actually a horrible monster. But that's the only option. The design shoehorned the designers into that kind of monster design. So we focused on a health system that actually forces the player to think tactically to recover health from monsters and to put them in some situations where they are low on health but have to walk into an enemy encounter anyway. That makes for a much more challenging encounter but it also makes for a situation where we can design the monsters to be a lot more interesting. We actually can lower damage on monsters. We want monsters to do less damage because we want them to wear you down over time and do things that are challenging in different ways."
Some damned good points made here. Still, I think I'll miss potions :judo:
 

Walter

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Staff member
Well, BlizzCon 2008 is this weekend, and everyone is expecting another Diablo III announcement - hopefully some new class info. Im still pulling for a Dark Knight-type character personally. I'll update the thread if/when anything cool is announced.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
"New" class: The Wizard

[quote author=IGN
http://pc.ign.com/articles/918/918725p1.html]Morhaime did show off a new video that highlighted the classes' ability. In it, a female wizard saunters confidently into a dark and gloomy dungeon. As the undead begin to surround her, she unleashes a fury of magical attacks that strike them down.

Her magic attacks ranged from lightning spells, freeze spells, some type of bubble shield, the ability to call down bolts from the sky, flame strikes, and more. She's going to be a veritable whirlwind of magical destruction, judging by the video.[/quote]
Nice and generic so far. From the vague and cheesy description, sounds like she/he will function much like the Sorceror in D2.

Movie: http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/21998
 
I like www.diablo3.com's description of it. It seems to be the teenage rebel sorcerer class. I like the description of reality/time bending powers... I don't know how far they're going to take that though (hopefully in the direction of Uldyssian from the Sin War Trilogy books, but I doubt it).

Now we just have to push our way through the generic archery class they come up with before we get to the cooler, unique classes.
 

Walter

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El Gaucho Rojo said:
Now we just have to push our way through the generic archery class they come up with before we get to the cooler, unique classes.
Im sure it'll be a... RANGER! OR better yet, they could call it a STRIDER! :ganishka:

PS: I hate ranged melee classes. :puck:
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Wizards are a bit different this time around, here is some info.


http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/10/10/diablo-3-class-panel-notes/


The first presenter was Wyatt Cheng, who walked through the concept and implementation of the Wizard class. The Wizard is meant to be the blaster class. As Cheng said, there's always going to be the people who want to play the glass cannon, and the Wizard is for them. It is most definitely the heir to the Sorceress from Diablo 2. However, they still wanted to give it it's own individual flair.

For inspiration, they actually went to Pen and Paper roleplaying, and the idea of high magic. As Cheng describes it, this is magic that manipulates the very laws of the universe, warping time and space and physics. Because of this, they shied away from creating spells for the Wizard that imply druid or life magic, or even necromancy.

As far as the backstory and personality of the Wizard (or at the female version they showed), this is an ambitious woman, smart and powerful. She's the type who throws off the curve in college, aces tests without studying, and eventually drops out to make millions on an Internet startup.

With the background out of the way, Cheng went on to describe some of the skills that the Wizard will wield.

In keeping with the old school PnP tone of the class, their basic spell will be Magic Missile. While they considered using a good old fashioned firebolt, they decided that they didn't want to pigeonhole the Wizard into an elementalist role.Later upgrades to this missile may include multiple missiles fired at once, or a spread of missiles, or even homing missiles.

The next spell showcased, Electrocute, is part of the Weather Control tree. Many old Sorceress skills will make a comeback in the Wizard class, and Electrocute is one of them, being a new version of the old classic Chain Lightning. However, the designers did want to kick the spell up a notch. So expect it to act a bit different. From the demo video, it looked a bit flashier for sure, at the least.

The next showcased skill, Slow Time, is part of the reality control tree. While Books and Movies often showcase time manipulation, it's not something that shows up in games much, which is why the team decided to use it. At first, they planned to make it a gamewide time slowdown, but decided it would be too frustrating in multiplayer mode. Thus, Wizards will get a dome of slowed time around themselves. In the demo videos, we saw this bubble used to catch and return a barrage of spells fired by the enemy.

The next spell, Disintegrate, was described as the ultimate face melting skill, and introduces a new mechanic. When you use Disintegrate, you will begin to emit a jet of searing red heat for as long as you hold down the mouse button. By sweeping the mouse around, you'll change the direction of the beam. The longer the beam holds on a specific enemy, the more damage it will do to that enemy.

The idea actually originated with the Barbarian class, where the idea was that the player would hold down their mouse key to charge up a massive swing. However, they ran into some trouble, since the charge required standing in one place. This made it useless against ranged attackers, and meant the Barbarian might be left behind by his teammates, or find that they'd killed his target while he was charging it up.

By changing it to a continuous damage ranged attack on a Wizard, they found that it would remove most of the cons of the Barbarian version of the idea, while keeping the fun and uniqueness of the core idea itself.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Well it's a classic nuker, but it looks fun nevertheless. It's my favorite out of the classes shown so far.
 

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
I'd say the backstory is a little too cliche, but what isn't these days? The abilities are pretty exciting at least, and I'm all for a more pen and paper feel. I'm also very interested in what other abilities are going to find their way into the reality control tree... Just the name reality control tree lets my imagination run wild. The soceress was my favorite class in D2, so while I wholly expected another caster, I'm very excited none-the-less.
 

Walter

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The quick, dirty explosion in the video at 2:31 is endlessly entertaining. Watch those bodies fly away from it, and the huge fountain of blood that shoots upwards in the middle. Awesome stuff.
 

einherjar

The Glorious Dead
El Gaucho Rojo said:
Now we just have to push our way through the generic archery class they come up with before we get to the cooler, unique classes.

I'm not so sure... I mean, yeah, I can't picture Diablo 3 without some kind of archer, but I doubt it'll be "generic." And if you look at D2... You have Barb (Fighter), Sorceress (Caster), Necro (Caster/Summon), Pal (Fighter/Caster), 'Zon (Fighter/Archer)... Then in the expansion Druid (Figher/Caster/Summon) and Assassin (Fighter/Traps) Most of the classes (3/5, 5/7) are hybrids in theory.

In D3 we have Barb (Fighter), Wizard (Caster), Witch Doc (Caster/Summon)... I'll go out on a limb and say we're going to see a "Hunter" class who uses traps to delay his enemies while he picks them off from afar... (Archer/Traps) ... And then probably an "Anti-Paladin," who uses curses to weaken his foes before wading in and finishing them off (Fighter/Caster)... As for expansion classes, I could see a Ninja (Fighter/Archer/Traps)... and maybe the Druid makes a return... Unless they have shapeshifting on another class. In all honesty, I'm surprised the Barbarian is back. Happy, but surprised.

Walter said:
PS: I hate ranged melee classes. :puck:

Speaking of, any word on whether the new Barb has a worthless thrown weapon progression in his skill tree?

El Gaucho Rojo said:
I absolutely love space/time powers so I'm cautiously optimistic to see how she ends up. If all of her reality-bending spells end up like Slow Time, I'm going to love her.

You just know the Wizard will have some sort of "teleport" skill in that tree...
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
einherjar said:
(Caster/Summon) (Fighter/Archer) (Fighter/Traps) [...] Most of the classes (3/5, 5/7) are hybrids in theory.

Uhh, that's not what I'd call hybrid classes. Fighter / Caster, that's hybrid.
 

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
einherjar said:
Well, it was obnoxious in PvP... I'm more of a melee guy myself... :guts:

I hadn't seen it, but it makes sense...

A Sorceress was toast in PvP and PvE without it.

I'm sure they found it obnoxious when you pounded them with your axe, but it's just a staple of the class.
 
einherjar said:
I'm not so sure... I mean, yeah, I can't picture Diablo 3 without some kind of archer, but I doubt it'll be "generic." And if you look at D2... You have Barb (Fighter), Sorceress (Caster), Necro (Caster/Summon), Pal (Fighter/Caster), 'Zon (Fighter/Archer)... Then in the expansion Druid (Figher/Caster/Summon) and Assassin (Fighter/Traps) Most of the classes (3/5, 5/7) are hybrids in theory

The only classes in D2 that I'd consider hybrids are Paladin, Druid (barely), and the Assassin. The Barbarian is your generic melee fighter, the sorceress is your generic magic user, the Amazon is a generic archer, and the Necro is another generic magic user.

I don't understand why you believe the Amazon is a fighter/archer. What is an archer? It's someone who uses ranged, physical damage, right? Three of the four weapons the Amazon can spec are just that (bows, crossbows, and javelins) with the only melee weapon being the spear. Because she can spec a spear and melee her way through the game, does that make her a fighter hybrid? I don't think so. My reasons for that are A) what archer in the history of fantasy games can't use at least some melee weapons? and B) to me, a hybrid sacrifices great damage in one type of damage dealing area to branch out into another area. For example, a fighter/caster hybrid can't do as much melee damage as a pure fighter and can't do as much magic damage as a pure caster, but can be decent in both areas. If the Amazon were truly a hybrid, she wouldn't be able to dish out the ranged damage that she can and does. Instead, the Amazon is the archery class in D2 (and would probably even tear apart the Rogue from D1).

You do have a point though. Diablo does make the lines between what is a generic class and a unique class blur. For example, in Diablo 1 there were three classes: Sorcerer, Warrior, and Rogue. Obviously each one is a generic version of their respective fields (magic user, melee, and ranged physical damage), but in Diablo 1, you can do anything with any class. The only difference between them is that the Warrior would be a little better at melee than the other classes, the Sorcerer would be a little better at magic than the other classes, and the Rogue would be a little better at archery than the other classes. The only reason for that is their respective stat caps are slightly higher than the other two classes for their field of damage (str, dex, or energy). Does that mean each class is really a hybrid because they can do anything in the game? I don't think so, but it definitely makes for some good conversations.
 

Walter

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Staff member
HawaiianStallion said:
Anyone hear that Blizz will charge for BNet this time round?
Are you asking have we heard a rumor like that, or are you saying it's official?

Anyway, if paying $5 a month would keep the servers better monitored, less laggy and full of assholes, then I'd be up for that.
 
A

avidwriter

Guest
From what I can piece together B.net basics with be free. You can play Diablo 3 online for free etc. However they will be offering more additional benefits -who knows what at this time- for a price.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/11/blizzards-wilson-some-battle-net-features-to-be-monetized/

Speaking at yesterday's Diablo III Gameplay panel, Blizzard's Jay Wilson was asked one of the questions that's been hiding in the back of all of our brains, "Is Battle.Net going to remain free?"

His response probably wasn't what you'd want to hear. "We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features," said Wilson. "We kind of have to." He went on to say that they do recognize that everyone loves having it as a free service, and that they don't have a strong desire to make a subscription-based game.

What does that mean for our beloved free online gaming service? We're hoping to find out when we talk to Blizzard bigwig Rob Pardo later this afternoon.
 

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
This is poor news to me. Is every multiplayer game I buy in the future going to charge me for the service? I guess a lot of multiplayer games don't run on the company's own servers... but I'm not made of money (especially not right now) and even if they only charge $5 a month or something, over the span of two years thats still $120 + the original price of the game. Especially coming from Blizzard, when I think of companies that are strapped for cash they do not come to mind. Monthly fees are also why I had to stop playing WoW.

At the end of the day, it's still Diablo 3 and I'm going to buy it. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Now that I got that rant out of the way, it's time to wait for some official news before I overract some more!
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
I think WoW could easily pay for Blizzard's entire operation. They can make upwards of $100 M a month with their user base, Id say about $30 M on a bad month. That being said, Im all for paying to support quality server maintenance. However, I honestly think WoW's is too expensive. $5 should be more than enough.
 
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