Diablo 3 Officially Announced

[Whipporwill]

Without comment, I post this link: www.battle.net

[Tigranes]

No, but that doesn't mean they weren't. Seriously, it won't have dialogue, its story will be from Blizzard, NPCs will be meh, and its graphics will be poor-average. Is it me or does that sound strange that a game like this is coming from one of the biggest development houses in the world?

Basically its like; 'Well we don't have to put much effort into this, every Diablo fan will be drooling over this and would get it even if it looked like an Amstrad game, and the non fans that look at this and laugh don't matter because we have 9 mil people in Asia playing WoW'. Then we have five classes, if Obsidian had dared to release NWN2 with five classes.... I wouldn't want to think what those boards would of been like. Then no character customisation, that was fine when Diablo 2 was released but now? And Finally no Necromancer crying.gif

 

I always considered Blizzard to be very, very good at what they seek to produce: an immaculately polished, addictive and enjoyable gameplay experience with great multiplayer possibilities, based around a small number of core features, supported by a aural and visual direction that is cohesive and complementary. And Diablo 3 looks to deliver just that, once again. I see no problem with Blizzard doing that. Its goals were never anything like, say, Fallout's or even Torment's, which were respectively to bring a tabletop P&P experience into the world (and get some snark going while they're at it) and to deliver an essentially different and alternative fantasy universe with lots of choices and consequences, and a strong story. And while Blizzard's games will never give me something I get from those games, because Blizzard's own goals are very good and they produce an excellent experience, why complain? 9 million Asians aren't idiots, y'know. Koreans don't play Starcraft 10 years down the line because they're blissfully unaware of all newer games.

[Darque]

Quoted from memory:

The Askari gave us the rogues in the first Diablo and the amazons in Diablo 2...

I thought the rogues in D1 was supposed to be from the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye? I'm pretty sure that Kashya mentions Blood Raven as being a commander or something of the Rogues that went to Tristram.

 

Anyone that remembers anything from that?

 

Edit: Lorebooks? Thank you Boyarsky, that was another thing that was mostly missing from D2.

 

Yup, the Rogue was from the Sisterhood.

 

edit: looking at the video... I'm guessing this is the civilization that spawned both the rogues and amazons.

[Calax]

Did we see all the origonal three heroes in D2? We saw/killed ye olde warrior (he's diablo) I think a strong argument could be made that the origional rogue could be Blood raven. Who would the Sorc be?

[H]

Did we see all the origonal three heroes in D2? We saw/killed ye olde warrior (he's diablo) I think a strong argument could be made that the origional rogue could be Blood raven. Who would the Sorc be?

The Summoner.

[Darque]

Yup, you learn that from Caine and the old Wizard in Lut Gulain (sp?)

 

Makes you wonder which characters will become bosses in D3.

 

I'm guessing... Necromancer and Assassin.

[Musopticon?]

Amazon and Necromancer, because they suck!

 

asadfllaskjlkasf

[Moatilliatta]

Amazon and Necromancer, because they suck!

 

asadfllaskjlkasf

[Musopticon?]

In any case(they still suck, lol), it'd be quite jawsome to face a corrupted Spearazon in combat, not to mention a corrupted Necro, who are thought to be almost incorruptible. Excluding Nihlathlak, hehheh.

[Llyranor]

Just saw the gameplay footage. The new skills look nice.

 

CO-OP CO-OP CO-OP CO-OP CO-OP CO-OP CO-OP

[Monte Carlo]

^ I'm loving the dynamic environment - bashing down walls and stuff. I also liked the barbarian leaping into the middle of the bad guys with a grunt.

 

Kudos to the developers - it looks like D2 only better. Sorry, but I don't see the graphics as cartoony as Warcraft.

 

Am looking forward to hours on mindless hack'n'slash fun.

 

Cheers

MC

[Blarghagh]

Sorry, but I don't see the graphics as cartoony as Warcraft.

 

I keep hearing this, but I don't see it. At all. The dungeon levels look exactly like WarCraft III dungeon levels and the outside levels look exactly like the WarCraft III outside levels, except higher poly.

[Calax]

Sorry, but I don't see the graphics as cartoony as Warcraft.

 

I keep hearing this, but I don't see it. At all. The dungeon levels look exactly like WarCraft III dungeon levels and the outside levels look exactly like the WarCraft III outside levels, except higher poly.

I don't see the character models being as cartoony. They look a tad more realistic. Also I think the absence of the base from warcraft two makes things a little less toonish too.

[Tigranes]

They look a lot more realistic than pretty much anything Blizzard has done in 3D. I mean, that still means a bit cartoony, but it's not that bad. It looks Blizzard, but in the crypt it looks pretty grim.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Actually... it almost looks painted. Kidna like Diablo 2 2d environments, without the high contrast.

[Dark_Raven]

As long as they have the Necromancer and Sorceress classes everything will be fine in the world.

 

If not...

[tripleRRR]

I very much doubt we will see the necromancer. The witch doctor seems to have nudged him out of the spot.

 

Mixed feelings on the subject, on one hand I liked the necromancer, on the other I would rather see more new classes rather than all the old ones.

[Humodour]

Blizzard said they hadn't thought about it. They said there's still plenty of room for a necromancer.

 

TBH I think you'll see him return in the xpack.

 

BTW, for those interested, the game will run on both Mac OSX and Windows XP. Optional support for Vista and Direct X 10.

 

I laughed. Gotta love Blizzard. I bet nVidia and Microsoft are none too happy.

 

And I should also note that's good because it means it will probably work out of the box on WINE (Linux).

Edited July 1, 2008 by Krezack

[Magister Lajciak]

I think the graphics look great and fit the Diablo feel perfectly.

[LadyCrimson]

I finally managed to download the gameplay-vid so I could see it bigger/full screen. It looks even more awesome that way.

 

I don't really see an over-cartoonish aspect either. I mean, let's face it, the gimpy walking druid in D2, Duriel, some of the colors in a couple of the Acts, and the tattooed, kilt wearing barb wasn't exactly non-cartoonish. Can't speak for the strategy-game Warcraft aspect, but it doesn't remind me of WoW at all.

 

Different subject: I'm wondering what people think here about the possibility to re-spec your character in D3, ala WoW. That is, would you be for it or against it, and why. I wouldn't mind being able to respec, but it should be very difficult to do, either through a series of quests or rare items you have to collect etc...not gold-based as in WoW, which makes it way too easy. I doubt D3 would have a respec option, but I've seen some debate on the issue elsewhere and was curious what folk here would think.

[Moatilliatta]

I'm pretty sure that some D3 guy mentioned that he liked the idea of re-specing but didn't know if it would be in or how they would do it.

 

I'm personally very much against the idea as it removes the entire idea of the game. Also re-specing becomes mostly irrelevant if the game maintains a relatively strong status quo unlike MMos like WoW, D3 doesn't need it.

 

@LadyCrimson

Making re-specing depend on quests sorta removes the idea of re-specing itself as re-specing is about not spending time on building a new character. Same thing if it was a rare item.

 

Edit: Also, the only person in this thread who complained about cartoonish art was Starwars and even he didn't do it too much. The complaints center on D3 taking only or mostly the bright coloured parts of D2 without the dim or washed out parts. It is hard to tell yet so the discussion is sorta on hold. At least on my part.

Edited July 1, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Starwars]

Yeah, and even I feel cartoonish is stretching it a bit. Still, personally when I look at the screenies and gameplay, I don't feel it looks like much like Diablo. Even so, one should keep in mind that I haven't played the game in a long time. And the art people even said at the panel that they themselves had remembered Diablo quite differently than how it actually looked. Especially when it came to the colors.

 

This picture shows kinda what I'm talking about, though it is not exactly spot on (it's also not my manipulation).

 

 

I would prefer something more akin to the lower picture, but like I said. My memory might be skewed as well.

[LadyCrimson]

@LadyCrimson

Making re-specing depend on quests sorta removes the idea of re-specing itself as re-specing is about not spending time on building a new character. Same thing if it was a rare item.

I think it would depend on how it's done. Even in WoW, respeccing when the game first came out wasn't considered super-easy, since it cost gold that in the beginning, wasn't easy for everyone to spend every day so someone could run 2 different dungeons w/different specs every few hours. Course, by now everyone is overflowing w/gold, so that system of limitation is "broken".

 

If it was quest or item based, it could be made somewhat challenging or take some time, but not nearly as long as building up a new character. So players would still have to "work" a little for it while still being the easier option.

[LadyCrimson]

I would prefer something more akin to the lower picture, but like I said. My memory might be skewed as well.

In D2, I don't recall too many areas that were all that demonic/warmish/reddish/brownish in color...there was a lot of blues and greens and beige tones as well. Some areas had that sort of "diablo look" and some didn't. Even in Diablo1, the catacomb levels were predominantly blue, for instance. I think there was a general sense of there being a brownish undertone to many things such as stonework and walls and such, but I guess I didn't see it as consistent enough to be an actual theme.

 

I think, as Moat mentioned, it's hard to speak to atmosphere/environment w/out seeing the whole game.

Edited July 1, 2008 by LadyCrimson

[mkreku]

I once played a MUD where they let you reroll (same as re-spec) for half your experience points. It was a powerful deterrent but at least you didn't have to start all over if you made a mistake along the way. Only halfway from the start..