Diablo 3

[Turhan Bey]

Considering the chances are fair (i.e. significant but still less than 50%, at least in my opinion) for a late-2011 release, likely Christmas season, I think it's about time to start up a proper thread.

Of all the games that have been released over the last 3 years of my EVE Online career, different people with different tastes in games have been pulled away for various amounts of time. But I've never really been distracted by anything else, at least not for long. The most notable were probably WoW: Cataclysm for a couple of weeks (because my friends were still there) and Metal Gear Solid 4 for another couple of weeks.

Diablo 3 will probably be the game that changes that. I say that from experience; Diablo 2 consumed a ridiculous amount of my free time back in the day. So I anticipate D3 doing exactly the same unless Blizzard just somehow really screws it up badly. But from my brief hands-on back during BlizzCon 2008, I have high hopes that will not be the case. (Technically, many brief hands-on; I kept getting back in line when my time was up, hehe.) It was a full 3 years ago, but even then what little bit existed was already impressive.

I has a sadface, though, due to the absence of the Amazon class in D3. Few experiences in my gaming life compared to D2 when I finally got myself a Windforce Bow and unleashed that sucker upon the armies of Hell.

[Xian Cavin-Guang]

Make sure you have the Diablo games in your Beta sign up queue at Battle.net.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/diabl ... g-q3-2011/

Edit: Also, I anticipate that BF3 will pull me away for a while and then D3 will certainly make my presence in New Eden scarce.

[Turhan Bey]

Hah, thanks for the reminder, and why I decided to make this post now. The Diablo 3 public beta was recently announced to take place in "Q3 2011" which, in marketing terms, actually means sometime in July through September. So if any of you make it in, then definitely let us know!

Assuming that they don't go full non-disclosure, of course. But historically Blizzard go full ND during alpha, and then open it up for both closed and public beta.

[Caristan Leyna]

Isee what you did there Turhan. Guided Arrow + Pierce were awesome while it lasted, but it got old eventually

[Trigalisk]

A must-have

D2 also consumed ridiculous amounts of my time... but that was >10 years ago, I stopped playing before LoD came out due to battle.net lag (big problem back then) having killed off all my HC chars. There've been so many Diablo wannabes since then that I've almost lost hope they can come up with something that captures the spirit of D2 even accounting for the Blizzard bonus...

I'll probably still get it like I got TQ, Torchlight and all the others...

[Turhan Bey]

I think that I can sum up what I like about Blizzard design with the words "compelling endgame". As much as I liked other hack-n-slash dungeon crawlers, they just don't have this. I probably spent at least 30 hrs just getting through the original Diablo 2 storyline, but then I easily spent several hundred more hours replaying and farming for those rare uniques and high-end runes. It was pure farming to be sure, but somehow D2 managed to make that farming actually fun.

I can't find any good reason to farm Torchlight, despite it being a game that I praise highly. Heck, I can't even find an excuse to finish the game. The lack of interesting storyline can't even draw me to reach the endgame.

EDIT: The one thing that D2 did very wrong is the deletion of Battle.net accounts for inactivity. If I still had my decked-out characters, then I would have come back to the game repeatedly over the last decade just to have fun with them again.

I think that I can sum up what I like about Blizzard design with the words "compelling endgame".

Let's hope for it, after all SCII is exactly the same as SCI too so I guess D3 could be D2 with nicer graphics...

[Turhan Bey]

I think that I can sum up what I like about Blizzard design with the words "compelling endgame".

Let's hope for it, after all SCII is exactly the same as SCI too so I guess D3 could be D2 with nicer graphics...

Haha yes, I would use that term only for Diablo 2, and perhaps for World of Warcraft but only in short spurts. (WoW raiding is compelling, but far too schedule restrictive. It's awesome... for those who can turn WoW into a part-time job.) StarCraft 2, I also really like it but at the core it is SC1 with some different units and an enhanced engine. Which, in some says, is a very good thing.

From what I've seen back in 2008, and what I've read since then, the new classes will be unique enough that they won't seem like a rehash, except at the most basic level. (There will still be classes focused on melee, range, pets, etc. of course.) Mechanics improvements such as (gasp) re-assignable Skill Points are definitely going to be a welcome change. Actual use for gold was also promised, but we'll see. And so on.

But in the end, it's the endgame that will make or break it. Give us a reason to farm for a Windforce + Leviathan combo, and then make them powerful enough to be worth the scores of hours farming, but not so ridiculous that the game gets boring and we never die... I'm not that impressed with most of Blizzard's design team (or more accurately, design decisions) for other games, but Blizzard North really did impress me with Diablo 2. After BN's dissolution in 2005, hopefully the new team has the same talent and vision.

[Turhan Bey]

Alright, enough soapboxing. Time for some facts and discussion, so let's start off with the basics: Classes. As of BlizzCon 2010, all 5 have been properly announced.

Barbarian - Basically the same as in D2, but with some new skills. Heavy armor slice and smash.
Demon Hunter - Ranged weapon specialist with anti-demon abilities of some sort, with traps and gadgets.
Monk - Martial arts with holy abilities. Seems to be an armorless Paladin of sorts? But probably not accurate to be compared with D2 classes.
Witch Doctor - Uses voodoo magic and summons pets. Seems similar to the Necromancer, but again may be better to not compare with D2.
Wizard - Spellcaster, basically the D2 Sorcerer but with new (e.g. Slow Time) skills.

Depending upon exactly what is meant by "ranged specialist", I may be starting off as a Demon Hunter this time around.

[Drakkar Donnovan]

Sweet. I updated my preference for the beta testing. Thanks!

[Warg Matar]

I'm going to try out the witchdoc

Kinda sad the necromancer is gone, I liked it in d2, but only really tried one when I was about to stop playing. Having read the 4 stories in the Diablo Archive I sort of got renewed respect for it, though I actually only started reading a couple weeks ago...

Also thinking the good old grind formula is entertaining for some reason and also thinking they will hit a win button when brining back the random dungeon thing from d1 (at least that I read a while before they will do), so no game is exactly the same.

[Turhan Bey]

Skills

Before anything there is, of course, the disclaimer. The game hasn't been released yet, and so this info may change. In fact, it has changed greatly over the last couple of years while Diablo 3 has been in development. Okay, 'nuf legalspeak.

As of BlizzCon 2010, skills are in seven tiers and are unlocked only by level. No more other pre-requisites, and no more synergies. Some people still refer to it as the "Skill Tree", probably out of habit and because (back in 2008) it started off as a proper tree, so don't get confused. The tree format was officially nix'd in late 2009. This screenshot is the latest I could find, from May 2011:



The colored circles to the right are Runestones, which I'll cover in detail later for those of you who don't know how they're used.

The latest word is: At each tier, you will have a choice of skills to select. The tiers themselves unlock at specific levels so, for example, you may need to be Level 6 to access the Tier 3 skills. Once accessible, you may select a skill from that tier, and then spend Skill Points to make it more powerful. In the screenshot, you can see this player spent 3 points in Magic Missile, 5 in Frost Nova, etc.

Another big change was the announcement that there will be no "passive skills". All skills are active abilities. A new, separate "Traits" system was added for the passive effects.

EDIT: Oops, forgot the biggest (or at least most anticipated) change of all. Skills may be re-spec'd. No further details have been given yet except that they will be "easy" and "cheap". We can probably assume that they won't be entirely free.

[Turhan Bey]

Traits

Not much has been detailed of Traits yet. They were only just announced at BlizzCon 2010 (around October?) in the development presentation. The slide that was presented:



What we know so far is that all passive effects were removed from the Skills List and placed here. Points will be given to the character as he levels up. It's currently unknown how many points per how many levels, but the latest word seems to be 1 point every other level. You can then apply these points to your traits to increase their effectiveness (the Rank value and 3 stars in the screenshot).

Blizzard's goal here was major customization. Traits aren't a simple port of the old passive skills that give, say, 1-3% bonus to hit or damage per skill point used. These suckers reportedly give bonuses along the lines of 20% per point. As stated during BlizzCon 2010:

We wanted more customization, and we wanted customization that really spoke to the idea that, "I'm going to roleplay my character and focus in one area." Skills are really awesome, but when players think of who they are as a character, they don't tend to think of, "I like to Whirlwind." They’ll use Whirlwind with their Barbarian, but it’s not how they define themselves. They think, "I'm a Barbarian who's exceptionally strong or exceptionally tough!" And that's what traits are. They affect the core attributes of your character to let you customize and expand them.

For the Barbarian we can focus on Inner Rage, which really defines who he is. For the Wizard we can focus on something more magical in nature. So it's a great opportunity to tell the player more about their character.

[Irdalth Delrar]

Witch Doctor and Demon Hunter seem my style of play. I'll probably start on those, and then give Monk/Barb a go. Wizard seems a lot of fun, but Wizard's will be common IMO.