5th and Final Class – Demon Hunter
October 23, 2010 by Zuggy · Leave a Comment
The 5th and final play class for Diablo 3 was announced earlier today at Blizzcon 2010, the Demon Hunter! Base on what footage is available the demon hunter will be a primarily ranged attacked with a combination of other melee and magic’esque type abilities. Here’s a few abilities we know so far.
- Fan of Knives – similar to a rogue’s fan of knives from WoW. Knives fly out in 360 degrees around the demon hunter.
- Molten Arrow – flaming arrow, deals extra fire damage, penetrates several targets. Leaves a flaming trail on the ground, presumably dealing damage to targets that stand in or near it.
- Grenade- throws several grenades spreading out in a short line, deals small AoE damage.
- Bola – fires an arrow with a timed explosive, after a few seconds the bomb goes off and it deals a mid-range AoE.
- Entangling Shot – roots the target in place
At this point it’s still early and we just don’t know what we don’t know, but what we can say is things are looking pretty amazing for the Diablo 3 class line up. If you haven’t checked it out already you’ll want to take a look at the Demon Hunter’s cinematic.
Blizzcon Diablo III Gameplay Panel
Diablo III Design Goals
Stay true to Diablo experience. Has the same feel of the existing games.
Moment to moment action should feel exciting and important.
Diablo is an Action RPG, and we want to expand the RPG experience.
New rune system for augmenting skills.
Spirit of Diablo
Make it replayable more than just randomness (items, maps, etc.)
Large scale boss battles.
Focus on cooperative play, making it easy for people to jmup in and out.
Replayability
Random Environments.
Random Monster Encounters.
Randomly Generated Items.
Higher Difficulty Levels (Nightmare, Hell, and more?)
New Feature: Random Adventures.
Epics Heroes
Large scale combat putting as many monsters on the screen as possible that you can pile into the dirt.
All classes will be incredibly powerful, unique, and approached in a new way.
Approachable
Easy to play (If you can click a mouse)
Easy to learn, but difficult to master.
Cooperative Play
Battle.NET – New version that should make it easier to play together.
It should be easier to hop in a game with your friends at any time.
Improved Controls
Less Spam, More Depth.
New Type of Monster (Not specified)
New Hotbar
Removed potions as primary health mechanic.
Replaced potions with a skill hotbar.
Better gameplay, less mouse clicking wrist pain.
New Health System
Goal is to remove things from D2 that made it too easy (potion spamming).
Very little downtime.
Monsters drop globes of health that you run over to restore health.
Health globes automatically heal nearby teammates.
Monsters – Force Players to Make Choices
Berserker – Aggressive Creature, Massive Charge up Attack, Vulnerable on a Miss.
Skeletal Shieldbearer – Slow and methodical but tough, Accompanies ranged units, Acts as a health wall for more threatening units, Shield can be destroyed or circumvented.
Better RPG
Improve story without losing the ability to hop into a game easily.
Remove the generic feeling from random dungeons.
Bring the world to life through events, better quests, and npc interactions.
New Adventure System
Solution to the fact that scripted events don’t work with random environments.
Smaller scale encounters that randomly occur.
Each play through can feel different as you won’t always get the same adventures.
Question and Answers
Q:Will there be a hardcore mode?
A: Yes, definitely.
Q: Will there be talent respecs?
A: Yeah, we definitely want to have talent respecs this time around. Details have not been worked out yet.
Q: How will the economy work in Diablo 3?
A: I think the D2 (SoJs) economy turned out the way it did because of the gold cap and how much gold the mods dropped. We want the gold you have to be meaningful. We want players to be able to use gold as a trade currency, but no details at the moment.
Q: What kind of PvP system will be in place?
A: Diablo II system didn’t work. They don’t have a solution yet but plan to come up with that satisfies both PvE and PvP focused players.
Q: Are you going to removed the complete immunity system?
A: Class builds are going to have much more variety so that immunity will no longer be a problem. This means immunity will most likely still be in the game to incentivize you to build a more diverse character.
Q: How will the scramble for loot work?
A: Loot is per person specific. If you can see it, only you can loot it. Something drops for everyone. Items can still be traded per characters. Loot dropped can be seen by everyone.
Q: Will we need to stack magic find and run bosses over and over to get loot?
A: Magic find will continue to exist. We want to make it so you can still get good loot without running the same boss over and over.
Q: Will there be special achievements by your name to show you have beaten the game on hell mode?
A: Yes, we will do something.
Q: Will all classes have as much environmental interaction as the wizard?
A: I think the answer is yes. Every class is different, but the wizard does feel a bit more destruction. Later on all classes start getting something for interacting with the environment.
Q: How many players for coop?
A: We are finding that 4 is about the perfect number to prevent the gameplay from becoming too chaotic. Still up in the air though.
Q: Is there going to be a ranger or something?
A: Wirt and the Cow King are the other two classes.
Q: Any way to customize the appearance of your character?
A: We tried hair changes, skin tone, etc. You can’t really tell because the character is so small. We don’t really have an incentive to keep those systems in. We want to create more permutations in the looks as we aren’t really happy with the level of customization in the game.
Q: Diablo I felt more fragile than Diablo II. What will Diablo III feel like?
A: We see Diablo III as a blend of both games as there are things from both that we like. We changed several things such as the health system to help give the “I’m trapped in a dungeon with a lot of monsters around” feeling.
Q: How will Diablo III multiplayer differ from single player?
A: We’re not focusing on persistence as a primary goal. It makes the drop in and out coop play harder to achieve. We do want to make the world feel like it is transitioning. There will be big milestone events where the world changes.
Q: Is there a crafting system similar to the Horadric Cube?
A: I’m not going to say yes or no. We are exploring an item creation mechanic. The Horadric Cube was actually kind of annoying of a mechanic. We want to make a mechanic that is better. More space in the inventory and ways to upgrade it.
Q: How do we make sure players diversify what stats they use?
A: I don’t think it is possible to make sure every class wants every stats. We want to make sure every stat is useful across all classes.
Q: Are there still super rare items?
A: Yes. Randomly generated items are still at the core of the game.
Q: Will security be ramped up?
A: We will have much better security.
Q: Will there be raid encounters?
A: Goes against what we want. Maybe we could see end game content, but we won’t have WoW style raiding where character classes have roles. Raid system really doesn’t fit the Diablo style of having all dps classes.
Q: Will there be an auction house?
A: Auction houses are cool, but might make items too accessible. We do want a trading system that is appropriate for Diablo.
Q: Will Battle.NET remain free?
A: We don’t have a strong desire to make Battle.NET be a subscription service. We do plan to monetize it somehow. It shouldn’t feel like a bad thing to the players.
Q: Will items become soulbound?
A: No there will not be a bind system. We want players to be able to trade items freely. There might be quest items that bind, but we really don’t want to.
Q: Are there ways to do damage once you run out of mana?
A: We want the game to be fast paced so that you don’t sit around with no mana a lot. We want to have skill based ways to actively get mana back. If you have to step back for mana it is for a couple of seconds, not minutes.
Q: Will there be synergy between spells or combos?
A: We want to make sure no one spell dominates. We want to have a mix between buffs and actives. Example: Witch doctor summons creatures and he can cast plague on them.
3rd Diablo 3 Class Announced, Wizard
October 10, 2008 by Zuggy · Leave a Comment
It’s officially, wizard will be one of the five playabe class for Diablo 3. The official announcement came earlier today at Blizzard’s annual convention, Blizzcon. The wizard joins the likes of the Barbarian and the Witch Doctor, the remaining two classes have yet to be announced.
What’s the Diablo 3 Wizard like?
“A wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, the wizard can hurl environment-shattering lightning bolts, channel explosive arcane energies, and create pockets of space outside the normal temporal flow…” Generally speaking, your standard mage archetype present in all RPGs since day one.
Diablo 3 Wizard Game Play Video
Other Diablo 3 Classes
Diablo 3 Preview
July 5, 2008 by Zuggy · 2 Comments
So, if you hadn’t already heard, Diablo 3 is in the works, and by the looks of the most recent screenshots and videos things are moving pretty quickly. While we already known a great deal about the game, the biggest question…and most opened ended is still out there, what type of game is diablo 3 going to be like?
For starters, Diablo 3 is NOT an MMO. The game is being developed very similar in play style to the original Diablo 2. While it will have much more polishing, details, and complexity in character development, the simplicity of the game will still allow any type of player (casual or hardcore to enjoy it).
Diablo 3 will not have a monthly free. With the announcement of the game, Blizzard also revealed that the game will be on Blizzard’s legendary network, battle.net. This means the game will be entirely free to play, simply plug and play till your heart’s content.
And now, a few rapid fire comments on what we already know.
- There will be 5 Diablo 3 Character Classes, 2 of which have already been announced, Witch Doctor and Barbarian.
- Diabo 3 will retain it’s old random environments and map generation.
- Players will be able to choose their classes gender, unlike Diablo 2 which forced a gender upon a class.
- Old friends and foes alike will make an appearance in the game, Deckard Cain has already been announced.
- While the new world is called “Sanctuary”, players will still venture back to old world locations like Tristam.
- The game is structured in such a way that you could level up solo, or with a group of friends.
and the big one…when will diablo 3 be released?
Officially, Blizzard is saying nothing, but in my personal opinion (and the backing of multiple insider sources), the game should release sometime between Q2 and Q3 of 2009.
Diablo 3 Beta
July 4, 2008 by Zuggy · 76 Comments
While the Diablo 3 beta has yet to be officially announced a good friend of mine who works for the Blizzard entertainment has informed me that the first phases of beta should begin sometime quarter 4 of 2008, or at the very latest, the first of 2009.
This type of launch date for the beta is very reassuring, as it further reinforces the estimated diablo 3 release date of summer / fall of 2009. As in all Blizzard games the beta will go through a variety of phases. First, the family and friends of Blizzard beta (cross fingers that I get one!), second closed beta…now this is where timing on your part will be crucial if you’d like to get in.
Closed beta accounts will be given by invitation only. How do you get this closed beta invitation? Once blizzard finally announces the closed beta sign ups you may only have a week, or two at max to get your name and information sent to blizzard. In these applications make sure you extol your vast gaming experience, the fact that you are a player and do not represent any type of media organization (if you’re associated with another company or media outlet Blizzard will immediately deny your app).
As always make sure to stop back by on occasion, as soon as official announcements are made on beta sign ups I’ll have the full story on how to get yourself one.
Diablo 3 Release Date
July 1, 2008 by Zuggy · 209 Comments
While no official release date has been announced yet for Diablo 3, there has been much speculation to a potential “ball park” figure on the launch date for the much anticipated title. Needless to say, it’s going to be a big year with as many releases as blizzard has planned for the near future.
A recent leak from Blizzard’s parent company, Vivendi revealed that the newest World of Warcraft expansion is due sometime in the fall of 2008. In addition, Starcraft II is also due out around Christmas.
So what does this tell us? Well, if anything it reveals a pattern of release timing. After the first announcement of each of these respective games their release dates were scheduled between 8 and 12 months later. I believe this same scenario should hold true for Diabo III.
This would put the game’s release date between March and July of 2009. A release date during this time fame allows Blizzard’s other title releases to soak up all the economic benefit to further bolster the companies revenues for the 2008 fiscal year. With no current releases or expansions scheduled for the 2009 year, it would be a pretty bleak stock outlook for the company to not release a game before Q2, or at the very latest Q3 of 2009.
Of course, all of this is just purely speculation, but with any luck we’ll here of a leaked release date in the coming weeks and months as the rapid development of this much anticipated title continues.
Diablo 3 Announced
June 30, 2008 by Zuggy · 2 Comments
After months of speculation and intrigue all the rumors were finally put to a rest. It’s official, Diablo 3 is on the way! Blizzard entertainment revealed it’s newest project June 26th, 2008, and while many of the videos and screenshots look live ready don’t expect D3 to be released any time soon.
Old school Diablo fans will be happy to hear that this newest iteration of the series will not be an MMORPG. Instead, the old arcade style RPG will remain intact, providing fast action, awesome graphics, and a playability that will allow players of all time capacities to enjoy the game.
So the more important questions…
What’s New In Diablo 3?
Well, for starters there will be five classes in the game. Two of which have already been reveled, the Barbarian and the Witch Doctor. While classes that appeared in Diablo I and II may be included in the five, the team designing these classes is completely re-doing the class.
In addition, players will be able to customize their class like never before. New specialization of talents, skills, and other aspects will allow for truly unique characters.
When will Diablo 3 release?
So far the only word from Blizzard is…
It’s too early to estimate Diablo III’s release date.
However, based on previous Blizzard game release experience, I’d estimate a release date of 8-12 months.
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