Some more Diablo III news In a post on the World of Warcraft forums, a Blizzard representative has clarified the developer's stance on player-killing, griefing, and PvP for the recently announced Diablo III. The Blizzard rep, posting under the name Bashiok, said: "We're - in general - not big fans of griefing for any game. It's really only "fun" for one person, and that definition of fun isn't generally something we're going to want to encourage. It's far more positive to encourage and support meaningful and skillful options and systems within a game, than a mechanic for people to instantly turn against one another for no meaningful gameplay reasons." So it seems that player-killing will be out, but what about co-op and player-vs-player gameplay? "We have a large focus on cooperative play for Diablo III, and the mechanics and design decisions related to multiplayer are likely going to be based on supporting and encouraging it as much as possible, and not breaking it down. That doesn't mean that PvP won't have its own focus, but those are details and features we aren't yet discussing." Looks like Blizzard will be putting a World of Warcraft-esque PvE server ruleset into play, which allows for PvP, but only if both players agree to the fight. Will we miss griefing? Sometimes. Do we prefer a game without griefing? Yes. Source:
I'm happy about that decision, while I do enjoy fighting other players, from a D2 perspective it felt way outta place.
Blizzard on Diablo 3 Gameplay Trailer's Art Design: “What we also tried to do is create very clean textures so that you can really focus. It’s a stylized feel and in that sense, it’s very sort of a Blizzard philosophy. It’s just really pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals so that everyone is excited about how everything looks. We think that ‘Diablo III’ is going to be better in so many different ways. We’re just building and improving upon the the first and second ‘Diablo’ games.” *Also* Keith Lee: “One of the things that we considered when we were working on the visuals for ‘Diablo III’ is the fact that color is your friend. We feel that color actually helps to create a lot of highlights in the game so that there is contrast. A great analogy is like in ‘Lord of the Rings’ — not everything is dark. It allows you to see what a creepy dungeon can be like but if everything is dark it doesn’t allow you to have a lot of contrast.” He continued: “‘Diablo I’ and ‘Diablo II’ are darker, and I think that the one of the main reasons why is the fact that in ‘Diablo I,’ you’re basically in a dungeon the whole time. And in contrast to ‘Diablo III,’ you’ll be exploring outdoors, you’ll be in dungeons, you’ll be experiencing so many different areas. We want to bring as much variety as we can when you’re playing the game so that you’re excited to check out new environments. We don’t want everything to look the same and that’s really what we’re trying to aim for.
Keeping the Info flowing for XoO ----------------------------------- Gamespot Rob Pardo Interview He descries the game as being developed after B-North left (About 3 years) and the game is "Pretty far along" The other classes are "Mostly playable back in the office" "Multiplayer is up and coming, but it's really now just generating content" ----------------------------------- More player speculation of the corruption of Tyreal Hi all, even when D2 was still a fresh game (after re-installing it AGAIN I think it still is), rumours were that Tyrael had some hidden agenda. Now my idea is: Tyrael is the end boss in D3 as a fallen angel and I want as much proof as we can find. Please number them so we can refer to them. Here we go: 1. Tyrael is on the front of D3 pictures everywhere, as were the end bosses Daiblo in D1 and D2, and Baal in LOD. 2. The logo, 3 vertical slices, are coloured from white in the top (Tyrael in heaven) to red in the bottom (Tyrael fallen from heaven to hell). ----------------------------------- Player Speculated Release Date Watching one of the interviews the guy said "other characters playable at the office" and "first Act pretty much done". What was left was "adding content". I'm not a developer but if they are adding in the quests and coding ... Possibly not tooooooooo long. Surely getting the characters and their animations done is the hardest part? I thought xmas 09 at first but then I reconsidered. If there's a problem with Bnet when it goes live - and I expect teething problems - then the holidays would be totally the wrong time for release. You'd want an 'all hands on deck' situation. Maybe summertime [of 09]?
I think that if they add more colour it will make the game better looking, I don't like having to guess what that shadow over there is, I miss things that I might have needed that way. It would be nice to see this in summer of 09, but then you'd think that they would try to get Starcraft out earlier which would put Starcraft at Winter of 08 which would be awesome.
There was an entire internet petition (because those always get things done) to cancel Diablo 3 after some people saw the trailer. Their reasoning was that it looked too colorful, not keeping with the dark gothic theme of D1 and D2. Hence I'm assuming all the discussion about the art design... color is your friend.
Diablo III - Update - Sunday, July 6th -------------------------------------------- Console Diablo "theoretically possible" Speaking to Eurogamer for our Diablo III preview, Blizzard's vice president of game design Rob Pardo has admitted that a console version of Diablo is "theoretically posssible". Blizzard told fans at last weekend's Worldwide Invitational event that it was working on Diablo III for PC and Mac exclusively, and had no plans for a console game at the moment. The decision was said to be motivated simply by PC being the most appropriate platform for the game. However, asked if Blizzard could make a Diablo game for consoles, Pardo said, "I think it's theoretically possible. It would have some control changes that I think you'd have to make... But it's probably, of our major franchises, the one that's most console friendly, for sure." Pardo - formerly lead designer on World of Warcraft, now occupying a design role with oversight of all Blizzard's titles - quickly focused on the practical and design problems of a console version. "You'd need to think about a lot of the point-and-click spells, like point to area-of-effect, or things like line-damage in this direction," Pardo said. "Target selection is something you're going to lose on console, you're really going to be able to do targeting direction, but not specific targeting." However, asked if this would mean a ground-up redesign, he disagreed. "Oh, I don't think it would be a redesigned game," he says firmly. "Out of StarCraft, Warcraft or WOW, Diablo would be the easiest game to translate. But it would still take a bit of work." EuroGamer -------------------------------------------- The Man Behind Diablo III Talks Plot, Lore and Battle.Net By: Lesley Smith Diablo III is so in right now. After the unsurprising announcement about Blizzard Entertainment’s latest game, we pinned down man of the moment, lead designer Jay Wilson, down for a chat about the latest installment in the Diablo franchise. Kotaku: So, Jay, what can you tell us about the storyline of Diablo III? Jay Wilson: In the previous two games, Diablo and his two brothers, Mephisto and Baal, were the three Prime Evils of a world called Sanctuary. Where we start off in Diablo III, it’s twenty years later (after Diablo II: Lord of Destruction) and the brothers are gone, they’ve been vanquished. Essentially everyone was kind of geared for Hell to actually invade. At the end of Lord of Destruction, the Worldstone was destroyed, it left a giant crater and everyone was expecting the hordes to come pouring out of it and nothing happened. So, Deckard Cain is one of our main characters from the first two games, he’s spent the last two decades trying to find out where the last two Evils are, what they’re doing and why the invasion didn’t happen. A lot of the rest of the story focuses on Tyrael, the Angel of Justice, and what’s happened to him since that event as he was actually the angel who destroyed the world. Kotaku: From a lore point of view, the mythology of Diablo seems just as complex as it is for Warcraft or Starcraft, do you think this is important? Jay Wilson: Yes, absolutely, it’s one of our main focuses of the game. What was funny was that when I gave you the synopsis of the game, it feels so simple! We love the story. Kotaku: You said earlier that you’d been working on the game for what, four years? Do you think that taking longer over a game improves the final product significantly? Jay Wilson: Four …. or five, somewhere in that area. I think taking as long as a game needs to take guarantees that it’s a good game. It’s hard to say whether it improves the end product but sometimes it’s necessary. Blizzard only releases great games so if it’s not great we just don’t release it. One of the things I would want to say, especially to our most patient fans – the ones that have been hoping for Diablo III - is that I hope they see it’s a testament of our love for the franchise that we wouldn’t release it before it’s good and ready. We’ve really spent this time trying to make a sequel that was worthy of them. Kotaku: In the demo you showed during the Opening Ceremony, you gave us a glimpse at the Witch Doctor class which seems to use several spells similar to those found in World of Warcraft. Do you worry that some fans will think you’re just copying aspects of WoW? Jay Wilson: No. Do I think people will say that? Yes, I think they will. One of the things I like to remind people is that it’s okay to steal from ourselves. A good idea is a good idea and a good skill is a good skill and so when we look across all our games we borrow from each other all of the time. But the really key and important thing is do we play like World of Warcraft? No! We don’t play anything like it, Diablo has a different feel to it and that’s fine. If we look at the history of Blizzard games, at Warcraft I and II, the spell Blizzard appeared, it also appeared in WoW and Diablo II. I almost think it’s more like a signature but as long as a game has enough original stuff that it stands on its own and plays like its own game, that’s what matters. Kotaku: In that case do you think that this might work in your favour, that WoW players, for example might be persuaded to try Diablo III? Jay Wilson: Yeah, actually, I do think that. I think players like things that they are familiar with and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them saying: “Oh, this class is like the warrior in WoW. Cool, I wanna play that!” Especially if it’s going to get them into the game. I think we gain as much as we could lose, people love to see something familiar and the reaction to Whirlwind was a great example. Kotaku: You only joined Blizzard recently, does your passion for Diablo stretch back further than that? Jay Wilson: Yes, I am a Blizzard fan. My first Blizzard game was Rock N’ Roll Racing so yeah. Warcraft I, II, StarCraft - I’m a huge StarCraft fan, Diablo I and II; Diablo used to be spoken of in hushed tones in my house because I was so excited and I pretty much played Diablo II since the day it came out. It’s one of those games that’s great to go back to. Kotaku: Why do you think Diablo has captured so much attention? Jay Wilson: I think you could pick out a lot of things: the setting’s darker and people like that, especially now. I actually think Diablo II wins on the fun scale. All of the Diablo games, they’re fun to play and that’s important. You could take the most flawed game in the world and as long as it’s fun it’s okay. Diablo II’s super easy to play, you could teach your grandmother to play it in five seconds. Kotaku: With the popularity of WoW and other online games, Battle.net seems to have nearly disappeared into the background. Do you think Diablo III will breathe new life into the service? Jay Wilson: I can’t really talk about Battle.net but I will say, Battle.net will not be a background. I’ll be huge, the next version will be absolutely Blizzard’s focus. Everyone is going to be thrilled when they see the kind of stuff we have planned! It feeds into our overall focus of providing a really great service for our players. Kotaku -------------------------------------------- ‘Diablo’ Fans: Do You Prefer Witch Doctor or Necromancer? One thing that fans of the “Diablo” franchise love is the various character classes they can choose from to play (and re-play) the game. At the Blizzard event in Paris over the weekend, the company announced “Diablo III” along with a brand-new character class, the Witch Doctor. The Witch Doctor uses ancient tribal magic with the ability to summon minions and use curses, like scaring enemies away and building a wall of zombies for protection. All of these abilities are very similar to those of the beloved Necromancer class featured in “Diablo II.” Aside from the melee warrior class the Barbarian (also in “Diablo II”) no other classes have been announced at this time. I asked lead producer Keith Lee one of our readers’ burning questions: Is the Witch Doctor the new Necromancer? He said: “We have five distinct character classes… Ultimately, for ‘Diablo III,’ we want to focus on great replayability, an awesome epic storyline and five really cool heroes that you’d be excited to play. And I think that one of the things that might be hard is the fact that we might have to give up a few character classes that people loved in ‘Diablo I’ and Diablo ‘II.’ But we’re at the point right now that we are still considering the balance of the game and trying to see what other three characters we want to work on. Those will be revealed in due time.” What other three classes would you like to see? What do you think about the Witch Doctor possibly replacing the Necromancer? If you played “Diablo II,” does it really matter to you? MTV Multiplayer -------------------------------------------- Watch ‘Diablo III’ Producer Discuss The New Game http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/07/02/diablo-iii-producer-video/ At the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris, lead producer Keith Lee ran down the story and gameplay details on “Diablo III” so far, including some information about the different classes they’ll include (or possibly exclude) and the new art style. Note that he talks about increased randomization in terms of the environments, quests and encounters. Do you think those features will offer the element of surprise that people seemed to credit to “Diablo II”’s darker settings? (Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.) MTV Multiplayer
Diablo III - Update - Sunday, July 6th - Continued -------------------------------------------- Top 10: Diablo 3 questions Blizzard needs to answer By: Wesley Yin-Poole PDog Note - No new information here, but a really good article that gives you something to think about with Diablo III. Over the weekend Blizzard confirmed one of the worst kept secrets in gaming - Diablo 3 is in development. Five days after the event and the internet is still ablaze with excitement. Diablo is back. PC Gaming is back. While Blizzard's announcement came with a mass of information, including a mammoth gameplay video and a fact sheet, there are still plenty of unanswered questions just begging to be, well, answered. We trotted down to the pub, opened a tab and didn't leave till we had our Top 10: Diablo 3 questions Blizzard needs to answer etched in our table. Let the good times roll. 10. What the hell happened after the end of Diablo 2? Blizzard has done a wonderful job of getting information out at the same time as announcing Diablo 3. Here it is straight from the horse's mouth: "It has been twenty years since the events of Diablo II. Of those who faced the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction in the battle over the fate of Sanctuary, there are few still living who can bear to remember the horrors that the Prime Evils wrought upon the world. And of those who did not witness the terrible events firsthand, most believe the stories to be little more than myth. But something evil is stirring once again in Tristram, and it may already have claimed its first victim: Deckard Cain." That's great and all, but there are befuddling story questions that have us stroking our beards feverishly. Following the destruction of the Worldstone at the end of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, why wasn't there a swarm of the demons? Where are Diablo's brothers, Mephisto and Baal? What happened to Diablo? Gaaaah! 9. How many players will Diablo 3 support in multiplayer? We know that the game can support about eight players in multiplayer (although it plays better with around five), but we have no idea what the maximum number Blizzard will settle on. There's not much more to say on this one. Here's hoping Blizzard makes an announcement soon. 8. What World of Warcraft gameplay features will be used in Diablo 3? For many, Diablo 3 looks too much like World of Warcraft. But will the influence stop there? What gameplay features that we know and love from Blizzard's mega MMO will find their way into Diablo 3? Do we even want any? How about professions? In Diablo 2 you could socket items, but there were no professions as we know them from WoW. Might jewel crafting make it into Diablo 3? Or how about weapon crafting? Please, though, no flower picking. 7. How the hell am I going to pay for this? You might think, what they hell kind of question is this? Allow us to explain. Diablo 3 is a single-player and multiplayer game for the PC with distinct MMO elements. While Diablo 2 and its expansion Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction doesn't require a monthly fee, could Blizzard employ such a business model for Diablo 3? The PC gaming landscape has certainly changed in recent years, with subscription fees proving increasingly popular for games with online functions. Even if Blizzard doesn't make gamers pay regularly for playing Diablo 3 online, might a micro transaction model be put in place? Could we be charged for entering certain areas or equipping in-game items? The sooner we know the better. 6. Will Blizzard budge over Diablo 3's controversial new art style? If you haven't seen it already, just take a look at this. It's an online petition with, at the time of writing, 22293 signatories. What's their problem? Diablo 3's new artistic direction. From the petition: "What we want: A darker, gothic, cryptic and creepier environment. A more realistic artistic direction, more independent from the Warcraft universe art direction. Darker dungeons without a blue/green environment, Diablo dungeons are dark and shadowy. Slightly less colourful and less vivid outside scenarios, they are too heavily influenced by the World of Warcraft ones. And most importantly: An independent and renewed artistic direction, not a recycled art direction taken from the Warcraft world, Diablo never was meant to be as cartoon'ish as Warcraft, they shall have independent and distinct styles, this isnt happening in Diablo 3, at first sight it looks like a remake of World of Warcraft, graphically and artistically speaking." Ouch. Question now is, will Blizzard, a company that can seemingly do no wrong, take any notice? Is the game too far into development for the art style to change? Questions, questions, questions... 5. How will the player versus player combat work? This just in - Diablo 3 will feature PVP combat. Here's the quote: "We have a large focus on cooperative play for Diablo III, and the mechanics and design decisions related to multiplayer are likely going to be based on supporting and encouraging it as much as possible, and not breaking it down. That doesn't mean that PvP won't have its own focus, but those are details and features we aren't yet discussing." So, we know it's in, but we don't know how it's going to work. And how will Blizzard prevent team killing? Should it prevent it? Thoughts? 4. Will Diablo 3 come to the consoles? First we heard that it definitely wasn't coming out on consoles. But now the situation seems slightly different. In an interview with the Guardian Blizzard COO Paul Sams said he didn't know whether the game would be coming to the consoles, saying the decision would primarily be down to the game's controls. As a hack and slash action game Diablo 3 would be much easier to make work with a console pad than, say, Starcraft 2 or World of Warcraft. And the financial lure of millions of guaranteed sales will prove hard to resist, especially among Activision's top brass. This is a hugely important question that is sure to hang over the head of the game's development for some time. And if a console version is in the works, will there be cross platform play? The mind boggles. 3. Will I have to upgrade my PC to play Diablo 3? Ah system specs, one of the first questions any discerning PC gamer wants to know the answer to when a game is announced. Online, the feeling is that Diablo 3 won't be a game that pushes PC hardware. This is a feeling based on the mammoth gameplay video released to coincide with the game's announcement, which showed a brighter, more cartooney Diablo. Indeed, if World of Warcraft, the phenomenal success of which many put down to the fact that it works on such a wide range of PCs, is any indication of the path Blizzard will take here, the developer may follow suit with Diablo 3. One of the most interesting questions that still needs to be answered about the game is what line Blizzard will take here. Will it take the hardcore route, or will it take the softcore route? Answers on a post card please. 2. When will the damn thing come out? Wouldn't you like to know? Well so would we. Blizzard's famous mantra 'It'll be ready when it's ready' will inevitably apply to Diablo 3, which we love of course. But it would be nice to know what year the game will be coming out. We know the game will use some upgraded features of Battle.net that will be introduced for the release of hotly anticipated RTS Starcraft 2, so, applying basic logic, we can assume Diablo 3 won't be coming out until after Starcraft 2. And, since Starcraft 2 hasn't even got a release date yet, we shouldn't expect to get our sweaty palms on the third Diablo game any time soon. At the earliest we would say Christmas 2009. It has, after all, been in development for four or five years. Fingers crossed Blizzard doesn't keep us hanging too long! 1. What classes does Blizzard have up its sleeve? Only two classes have been revealed so far - the Witch Doctor and the Barbarian. We know there will be a total of five classes in Diablo 3 (as in Diablo 2) when it ships, which leaves a total of three classes yet to be confirmed. Since classes are one of the most important things in any role playing game, what Blizzard has up its sleeve here makes this unanswered question extremely important. Archer and Sorcerer are safe bets. Paladin was always a favourite. Simon, our video producer and one of the stars of The VideoGamer Show, would love to see the Assassin return. We're slightly disappointed by the news that only five classes will be included in Diablo 3, given that Diablo 2's expansion, Lord of Destruction, brought the total to seven. Does Blizzard have a completely new, unseen class up its sleeve? We demand to have this question answered! Videogamer -------------------------------------------- Blizzard Resurrects Diablo, Release Date Announced Thought your old friend Diablo, the "Lord of Terror" was dead? Think again. Just when gamers figured it was actually possible to kill Blizzard Entertainment's most fiendish devil, the company has announced it will be releasing a new version of the hyper-popular action-Role Playing Game (RPG) in September, 2009. It's been seven years since the last time gamers embarked upon that most terrifying quest of vanquishing Diablo and his brothers. Not since the June, 2001 release of the Diablo II expansion set "Lord of Destruction" has anyone heard word on the series. Many gamers, this one included, had assumed Blizzard would give up on the franchise after killing off its three main villains. However, in this world of Grand Theft Auto IVs and Halo 3s, sequels to proven franchises mean big money for developers and publishers alike. So, what can we expect? Teaser and gameplay trailers have only hinted at the storyline, but gameplay appears very similar to that established over a decade ago with the release of the original Diablo. Gamers will be again following their characters (the original five classes are available, and as of now Blizzard has also revealed the "Witch Doctor") from a 3/4 top-down angle through deep jungles and, of course, many, many dungeons. It's fairly obvious that Blizzard knows its old formula will sell -- thus far, gameplay emulates Diablo II, right down to the sound of Deckard Cain's voice. (Source: blizzard.com) Improvements are evident, however. The graphics have, obviously, been given a generous facelift. Gameplay trailers reveal that the interface has been improved to make casting spells even easier. In addition, Blizzard execs reveal that they're pursuing a "God of War" feel in hopes of emphasizing the "action" part of action-RPG. It will be interesting to see whether or not this throws off the balance of a game that nicely pandered to both spell-casting and hack-and-slash fans of the series. (Source: 1up.com) As was the case in the last major release of a Diablo game, the announcement of Diablo III comes light years ahead of its ultimate (and surely very tentative) launch date. Info Packets -------------------------------------------- Diablo 3 Gameplay 6/29/08 PDog Note - This is a short but sweet extra-footage of the Which Doctor not seen in the original Gameplay Video. http://www.wegame.com/watch/Diablo_3_Gameplay_6_29_08/ -------------------------------------------- Diablo 3 - Interview with Keith Lee Gamespot interviews Keith Lee, lead producer of Diablo 3. Keith talks about their choices for the in-game camera, the new interface, the enemies and monsters, the new classes and abilities. He points out their reasoning for the Barbarian and With Doctor. http://www.wegame.com/watch/Diablo_3_Interview_with_Keith_Lee/
Diablo III - Update - Sunday, July 6th - Continued -------------------------------------------- UPDATED: Diablo III to use new Havok physics engine By: Ben Hardwidge Blizzard’s forthcoming Hellish RPG to use latest physics technology, including destructible environments, and it's rumoured to support DirectX 10.1 too After the runaway success of World of Warcraft, many people thought that Blizzard’s devilish Diablo series of games had been pushed to the side, especially as the series hasn’t seen a release since the Diablo II expansion pack, Lord of Destruction, in 2001. However, Blizzard has answered the pleas of Diablo fans on Saturday, when it finally announced that is indeed working on Diablo III. Not only that, but that game will also support Havok physics. Using a brand new graphics engine, Blizzard claims that Diablo III ‘can display characters and hordes of monsters in lush, fully 3D environments.’ As well as this, the developer promises that the game’s ‘powerful special-effects systems and Havok-powered physics allow the player to lay waste to the Hells' minions in spectacular ways.’ According to Blizzard, the new game engine ‘not only simulates advanced animation sequences and sound effects, but also uses a custom physics engine that allows for realistic object dynamics and cloth simulation.’ Based on Havok, the new physics engine is a bit of a blow for Nvidia which is currently pushing its recently acquired PhysX technology from Ageia. Meanwhile, Havok is now owned by Intel, although the company is now working with AMD towards getting the technology working on both AMD’s CPUs and GPUs. We don’t know if Havok in Diablo III will be GPU-accelerated, and it’s more likely that it will be CPU-accelerated, given that Havok support on both Intel and AMD’s CPUs will make for much more widespread support. This is important if you want to have advanced physics features such as destructible environments that actually affect the game, and this is precisely what Blizzard has planned for Diablo III. ‘The game's physics-enhanced environments will be interactive and destructible,’ says the developer, ‘offering traps and obstacles that create added danger for players and monsters alike.’ The Diablo series have traditionally run on a wide range of graphics APIs in order to ensure widespread hardware support, and Diablo II even supported 3dfx’s proprietary GLide API, which was well past its use-by-date in 2000. However, Blizzard isn’t planning to alienate a load of potential players with its choice of API, and the game will also support DirectX 9 on Windows XP. In an interview on IGN, the Blizzard team said that ‘The team wants the game to be able to run on as broad a range of systems as possible. The game will not require DX10 to run.’ That said, there are a lot of rumours on the Web about the game supporting DirectX 10.1, as well as DirectX 9, adding extra graphical features for owners of supporting GPUs such as ATI's Radeon HD 3000 and 4000 series. UPDATE: Blizzard has now confirmed to Custom PC that it's currently not releasing any specific details about the APIs supported by Diablo III. The only explicit information regarding tech specs can be found in the Diablo III FAQ. Anything else, says the developer, 'should be treated as part of an on-going speculative process.' Custom PC -------------------------------------------- Blizzard interview - Diablo 3 console version a possibility PDog Note - This is linked in the post above this. Just thought I'd open it up here anyway Paul Sams is COO of Blizzard Entertainment, the developers of World of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft. I sat down with him at this weekend's World Wide Invitational Event in Paris and talked Diablo 3, the WoW movie and why he thinks the PC gaming market is doing just fine. Diablo 3 then, why now? Because the team wanted to make it. They had come up with enough new things to differentiate it from the past. Whenever we make a new game we aim to make it genre defining and to take it to the next level and differentiate it from the past. I like to say we are genre definers. We look at what the team have done and what others have done and try and find out what works and what doesn't. Then we try and fix that. But the most important thing is that the team wanted to make Diablo 3. We only hire gamers and we let them decide what they want to make. If they are going to put three or four years of their life into a project we want them to have a passion for it. If we asked them to do a rodeo clown game they would probably not be excited. But if we ask them to create what they want to play there is a real commitment there. Any plans to bring Diablo 3 to console? I don't know yet. A lot of it depends on whether we think the gameplay experience will be the same on console, especially regarding the controls. Also I'd like to keep our audience together. One question mark I have is whether the console owners would allow PC players to play against console gamers. I think the answer gets a lot easier if the console owners say yes. But at the moment they do like to have closed systems. But you know, I think what it really it comes down to is the game itself. We want to deliver what is the best experience possible so the controls and everything else have to be perfect. When you are developing for multiple platforms you sometimes have to compromise. We aren't willing to compromise. We have relationships with all the console manufacturers. I know they would love to have us on their platforms, ideally on their own and not their competitor! But it's all about the game experience. Will the Activision deal have any impact on whether Blizzard takes their games to the consoles? Only in the sense that as a combined company if we decide to go cross platform then Activision's strength and knowledge in that market will give us a better chance of succeeding. But just because we are merging with Activision doesn't mean you will start seeing Blizzard console games. You will if it is the right case for the game but that ultimately depends on the game we are making at the time. Next year for Diablo 3 then? (Laughs)It will be ready when it's ready. If you take a wider look at the games industry it's clear that there is a real move towards casual gaming. But Blizzard is very much a core gamers company. Worried? I disagree that Blizzard makes games for core gamers only. With the design and development culture we've always had - easy to learn hard to master - we've crossed that bridge. All our games have the content that the core folks want. But all our games are gradually graded and welcoming. The ramping is so gradual. There are so many people I have spoken to who say to me they have never played anything like WoW before and absolutely love it. They don't fit in the core 18-35 category. We've blown traditional audience notions out of the window. We have loads of women playing, lots of older folk. Yes there is a growing demand for more causal gaming but we see that as an opportunity to reach out further. So how do you take WoW to the next level? We are still doing really well with WoW. I really think there is a huge growth in the game and not just from broadening out into new markets like Russia. We expect a huge influx when Lich King launches and not just from people returning but also from new players who see the advertising and store activity round the release. Also if you look at the data some of the MMO's that came before us are having their most successful time in years 5,6 or 7. I still feel there is a lot left. We have countless ideas for future expansions. I speak to the developers and they think Lich King is better than the first expansion, Burning Crusade. And they think that it's better than the original game. You may think developers would get jaded after working on a product for so long. But when they are saying that Lich King is so exciting and the best they have worked on then that is just music to my ears. I'm really excited. Piracy and console-only development of some big franchises, is the PC market in trouble? I think the PC is incredibly healthy. It's all about making great games. If you make great games I genuinely believe people will want to play. We've heard all the doom and gloom about the PC for years. The analysts are wrong. Go back and read the reports from three or four years ago and see how much they get wrong. We are never chasers of technology and we make our games with a low barrier to entry. Our games run fine on older PCs which makes us much more competitive then those companies that make their game accessible only to owners of very high-end PCs. It's a focus of ours to make the specs as low as possible. This makes us figure out how to make the best with less. We work intelligently to make things happen on lower specced machines. How's the movie going? We're in the second or third draft at the moment. We're interviewing directors and have added two of the producers of the Dark Knight as well. They are onboard. I'm so excited about that. The directors we have spoken to have put forward their ideas and we're making progress. We're as confident as ever in Legendary Pictures as they did a great job on the Dark Knight. Will we make 2009? Time is tight and things would have to go really right for that to happen. I wouldn't rule 2009 out but like our games we only want to release when are happy. I don't think it's too far away though. Guardian -------------------------------------------- Six reasons Diablo III gives us a geek-gasm SCREENS AND VIDS: Blizzard's legendary RPG threequel is now official. Here's why we really can't wait for it to arrive On the Diablo III announcement, you're probably in one of two camps. You're either a long time Diablo fan who's vomiting with excitement, or you're someone who has bypassed the whole phenomenon and are now sitting there wondering what in the hell all of the geeks are making a fuss about. But whichever side you stand on, you really should be looking forward to Diablo III. Hardcore series fan or doubting newbie, there looks to be something to appeal to all in Blizzard's new iteration of the franchise. Here are our favourite reasons to love it so far. #1 - Diablo is an RPG with much bigger balls than the norm As beset as we are by the wishywashy conventions of Japanese RPGs these days, it’s easy to forget that there’s another, often much more satisfying way to do things. RPGs don’t have to be about mopey androgynous bores pontificating over their woes and engaging in protracted, balletic combat via a distancing menu-driven interface. It’s just as much fun to get knee deep in the guts and livers and start destroying anything that gets too close until you’re surrounded by naught but a fine red mist. And this, friends, is where Diablo comes in. And aside from the hack-slash-kill-profit focus of the Diablo gameplay, the setting is far less polite than you’d expect from any JARP. No quietly tense political machinations between bland, faceless kingdoms or slow-burning threats from generi-empires here. Diablo is about the titular big bastard demon tearing the world to pieces simply because he is a big bastard demon. Men, women and children alike have already been murdered en masse, many by the hero of the first game after he became possessed by Diablo in the sequel, and things only show signs of getting grimmer and more violent from this point on. #2 - The current gen upgrade has been very kind to Diablo Just like Starcraft II, the new Diablo has received an astonishingly appealing visual overhaul. Looking at the screens and watching the videos, it’s impossible to not be won over by its deft blend of the cartoon and the gritty. Character designs and animations burst – often literally – with personality. Every living thing onscreen is instantly recognisable through the way it looks, behaves and moves, and some subtle but mightily effective lighting effects bathe everything with a sense of solidity that makes killing the shit out of things look almost dangerously satisfying. No small feat for a combat-focused RPG using stacks of tiny monsters. #3 - The Witch Doctor looks badass We’ve only seen two of Diablo III’s five character classes so far; an upgraded version of the Barbarian and the brand new Witch Doctor. And with no disrespect to Skullcrush McBigsword, we can’t get our hands on the latter of those two soon enough. Abilities like healing magic, offensive magic, monster summons and telepathic control sound cooler than an Arctic milkshake from the very off, but once you get a feel for how well balanced and complimenting of each other the Doc’s skills really are, you’ll start to appreciate just how carefully Blizzard has thought about all of this. His fireball attack has a massive blast radius but a slow initiation time, so why not use a Confuse spell to make the enemy hordes attack each other, and then throw flame into the preoccupied melee at your leisure? Too many monsters and too little time to safely summon a beastie? Then use the Horrify skill to briefly scare them off and buy yourself some time. And not only can he throw an organically spreading plague of locusts into the fight in order to strip the flesh off a small army, he can also - and we can’t emphasise this last one strongly enough - summon a wall of zombies to block off and devour enemies in an environmental bottleneck. A wall made of zombies, people. A zombie wall! #4 - You can smash up monsters using the environment Why environmental interaction isn’t done more often in RPGs, we simply do not understand. It’s always seemed at odds with the genre’s philosophy of immersive, living game-worlds that the physicality of everything bar monsters usually seems completely oblivious to your presence. Not so in Diablo III. Environmental damage will apparently play a big part as you use your character’s attacks to shatter and manipulate the world to your advantage in battle. You can smash the crap out of scenery to clear a path to your prey, and we’ve already seen a Barbarian tear down a wall to flatten a bunch of zombies. More of this sort of thing please! #5 - It looks like a damnably friendly game The new game has been streamlined to make it friendlier than ever, so much so that it can be played just using a mouse. There’s now a new hot bar at the bottom of the screen for easy access to special abilities, and mouse-driven moves can be juggled quickly with a simple tap of the tab key or flick of the mouse wheel. And most interestingly, to give Diablo’s speedy brutality an extra boost, Blizzard have also dropped in an instant health recovery pick-up, as seen in any action game since the dawn of time. It’s dropped by dead monsters in the traditional way and kicks in as soon as you touch it, meaning that character maintenance won’t be the pace-killer that DMC and Ninja Gaiden fans might fear. In fact such is the speed and accessibility of the carnage contained contained within Diablo III that watching the Barbarian in action at times feels like watching a hitherto unannounced God Of War game for the PC. #6 - Multiplayer carnage As countless co-op games of Gears on Xbox Live have taught us, kicking arses is fun, but kicking arses with a friend is fun squared. Although it will naturally have a full single-player campaign, Diablo III, like its predecessor, is being designed with a heavy online multiplayer focus, and from what we've seen of the game so far it should be a riot. Consider how effectively balanced the Witch Doctor’s attacks already sound. Now spread that sort of inventive gore-mongering over five completely different, player-controlled characters working together to slay everything in sight. Yum. Yum is all we have to say. GamesRadar -------------------------------------------- Thats it. I'm done. Hope you enjoyed the reading material and I'll continue to be searching and scanning.
I can just say wow at all that info and I laughed at how much stuff the Witch Doctor was destroying in that video, there were tables and chairs flying all over the play. With only 5 classes it doesn't seem like there is going to be a necromancer.
You prob. know this, or you even might have said it already, but i had diablo 1 for playstation and it worked fine on a non analog controller, so i really dont see how with the controllers these days(like 50 buttons lol and analog sticks) you cant make it work.
Keep in mind how basic Diablo 1 was compared to that of D2 and what will be D3. I just don't see how it can work today.