In an interview for MTV, Jay Wilson said that Diablo 3 “will round out the story arc set up by the previous two games.”
“We also tried to focus a little more on bringing characters back, and not just from ‘Diablo II’ but from ‘Diablo I,’” he said. “We feel like a lot of the focus is on ‘Diablo II’ but ‘Diablo I’ started it all and has a lot of really good stuff on the gameplay side and on the character side. So people can expect to see characters from ‘Diablo I,’ more characters from ‘Diablo II,’ and characters from some of the books. We’re definitely going to bring a few of them in.”
The quote that really matters for me, however, is this one:
And while “Diablo III” ends the trilogy, fans needn’t worry — it’s not the final curtain for “Diablo.” “We’re not saying this is the end of the ‘Diablo’ universe, but we are trying to bring this storyline to a close,” Wilson said. “It’s not just ‘Diablo III’ — we’ve got plans beyond.”
Now, that’s finally an admission that no one at Blizzard is crazy enough to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Who knows… maybe we’ll see a Diablo movie soon?
This news just came in from Gamasutra. Brian Morrisroe, art director on Diablo 3, is leaving Blizzard.
In light of the whole argument about the new COLOR in Diablo 3 screenshots, you’d expect someone to lose their job. Not so this time, Brian is leaving on his own accord. What’s more, Blizzard said that Brian’s art direction is nothing short of amazing!
Part of Morrisroe’s legacy will likely be the somewhat controversial art design for Diablo III, which fans lambasted vocally in online petitions for what they thought was a lapse in its predecessor’s traditionally bleak, Gothic look.
“This change won’t impact the game,” continued the statement. “We’re really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring onboard will work with the other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward.”
If you ask me, that’s like making a pink Harley Davidson and then say it’s just like we always wanted.
In an attempt to steer Blizzard into a darker world for Diablo 3, gamers have done some Photoshoping on Diablo 3 screenshots. The new screenshots are darker, the colors are less saturated.
I must say I’m impressed with the result (see below). Not Blizzard though. Jay Wilson, designer for Diablo 3 speaks out:
Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it’s also not very doable for us.
Let me know what you think. I understand these shadows can be tough to do in a 3D engine but let’s not forget Diablo 3 is supposed to be gothic horror, not cartoon-like fantasy like WoW!
Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational 2008 starts in half an hour in Paris. If you can check the intro image – there’s a dark shape that is more and more visible.
UPDATE: Diablo 3 is OFFICIAL! Live news from the event:
12:15 — Announcement…..!! Guy playing Diablo music on an acoustic guitar…
12:18 — Footage of large scale battles, comets streaking across the sky, demons, Diablo 3 officially announced.
12:20 — Jay Wilson, lead designer on Diablo 3 coming out. He’s going to demo the game.
12:20 — It’s apparently still an action RPG. Same interface — red
health and blue orbs. Skill bar at bottom. 3/4 overhead perspective.
Character with 2 axes hacking at demons in what appears to be a foggy
cathedral. Has a jumping attack where he smashes the two axes into the
ground.
12:21 — The axe guy is the barbarian class. Says improvements have
been made, like the hotbar for skills. Using the mouse wheel and tab
key you can quickly switch between skills. Whoing inventory. Appears to
still have slot limits. Using enchanted axes with frost and lighting
,which stuns and freezes opponents.
12:25 — Each piece of gear is custom designed for each class. Barbarian puts on demonic sort of garb with giant devil horns. Barbarian can hop across gaps on the map. Barbarian dislodged a rock wall and dropped it on zombies, killing them. Demoing moving whirlwind attack.
12:33 — Witch doctor can cast out locus swarm, which spreads between targets and deals damage. Can summon mongrel things that he can cast locust swarm on, which buffs their damage. Outdoor environment now. Quite pretty in that vibrant, slightly cartoonish Blizzard graphical style. Like with StarCraft 2 and it’s similarities to the original, Diablo 3 looks and sounds, at least at a glance, quite similar to previous games. Witch doctor also has a mass fear type of ability.
12:36 — Multiplayer will work over battle.net. Heads into a final fight against some gigantic moving trees. Final boss here, called siegebreaker assault beast, is absolutely gigantic, maybe around six or seven times taller than the player characters.
12:37 — Demo ends. The crowd roars…
Update: Diablo 3 release date has been tentatively set to follow the launch of Starcraft 2 and Battle.net 2.0 some time in early 2009.
Blizzard has opened poured a flood of screenshots and other media from Diablo 3! A few dozen screenshots have been released thus far and here’s the ones that I found most interesting. Be sure to check the official Diablo 3 announcement too.
The Barbarian hacking through skeletons. Note the duel-wield.
The Witch Doctor and his mass-effect spells. I guess he’s the new Sorceress!
This is a close-up of the armor. Note the level of details. It looks proper 3D.
It’s the Witch Doctor again. Note the depth of the level. It looks pre-rendered but it’s certainly beautiful.
Enter the Boss! It looks five times bigger than the character!
This is the demo gameplay that was given during the Diablo 3 announcement in Paris. The video is a bit short but … anything short of the game itself, seem short to me!
You can download the high-quality gameplay footage here. Check out the Diablo 3 screenshots too.
Town portals and corpse runs are two of the things that made Diablo and Diablo 2 quite unique. Now, they’re being “revisited” by the game design team.
Town portals will be removed in Diablo 3. Instead players will be using waypoints for quick transportation. I.e. if you’re close to a waypoint, you can go back to town.
Dying will similarly be based on the waypoints system. When you die, you don’t go back to town with all your equipment lying in some dungeon. You simply get teleported to the closest waypoint with minimal health (10%?). It’s your choice if you want to go back to town or you want to gulp a potion and continue hacking.
Here’s the “official” Blizz post at the Battle.net forums:
We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don’t want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you’re always going back to pretty much whenever you like. The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.
On that same note we also don’t want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.
So, with these things in mind we’ve found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each “floor” of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you’re dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It’s obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It’s just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.
Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we’re currently using and it’s working really well so far.
Battle.net hasn’t been upgraded much since it first came out. Blizzard have promised a new and improved version of Battle.net (2.0) that will coincide with the introduction of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.
Below is the confirmed feature list (source: DIII):
* Excellent Ping
* Channels and Chat in-game
* Ladders and Rankings, secured against cheating.
* Extended stats, with possibility to see who D/C etc
* AMM-type Matchmaking
* Avatars, Images and Icons to represent yourself
* Diablo III Hardcore mode
* Friends/Ignore Lists with advanced management
* Clan Support
* Automated Tournaments
In addition, there’s plenty of rumors regarding an Achievements system, Accountability (to track cheaters and those who use hacks) and Voice Over IP in-game chat.
